Justification Misunderstood

All right, I'm going to read today from Galatians 2.11 down through the rest of the chapter, depending on which glasses I want to read from, if any. Okay, but when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was to be blind. In other words, I'm in your face, Peter, about these issues.

For before this, a certain came from James. He did eat with the Gentiles. But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were with the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled themselves likewise, and insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimilation.

But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, if thou being a Jew lives after the manner of Gentiles and not as do the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do?

We who are Jews by nature and not sinners or from sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are also found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin, God forbid?

For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

Here we focus so much on verse 20, but 21 is really an incredible verse. If much of the world thinks they're saved by their works, then Christ's crucifixion is meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. They do with that verse. They just ignore it. The resurrection is everything, isn't it? It's everything for the believer. All right, let's proceed here. Hopefully the handout did get sent this week. All right, so Paul's directing to Peter again and trying to distinguish for him Jews by nature and not sinners from the Gentiles. So he goes on to say that to be justified by the way the Greek term means to be made righteous. and that to be justified is to be made righteous.

Good old 2 Corinthians 5.21, I won't quote it again for you, but he made him to be sent for us. We might be made righteouses of God in him. Faith in Jesus Christ, believed in Christ Jesus, justified by faith in Christ. What else can we say about justification?

It's all Christ-centric, isn't it? And not by the works of the law, anomus. Remember last week we kind of in review decided that this isn't the Mosaic law system, although it could be included, but it's any law system. So we'll come back to that today a little bit more in detail about any law system and what that might look like.

All right, Galatians 2.17, but if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are also found sinners, Is Christ therefore a minister of sin? And the scripture goes on to say, no. So question for the class, how should we interpret if here? Is it if meaning yes or no, meaning third class conditional, or could be either one, or is it since assumed to be true of first class conditional? How should we interpret that?

Is it subjunctive? Could be? Maybe not? Maybe is? Or is it to be expected? Don't all answer at once now. I've answered since. Since? Is that what you said? Yes. Would everyone agree with that? It's a fact. Yes, thank you, Bob. So Bob has nailed it down, Margaret. You are absolutely correct. Yeah, it's the only way to be justified, isn't it? Right. It's not what if. This is the path. It's not a maybe. This is the path to justification.

Since we're justified by Christ, we are also found as scissors, which is true, is it not? And keep in mind, I think a lot of mainline Christianity thinks that somehow the sin nature improves over time. But I don't know about you, I know for sure that the more I grow in God's great grace, the uglier the sin nature seems to become. So, but this is obviously a, the title that Roger's given us, Justification Misunderstood, is really an issue that gets brought up all the time, and we'll return to that as we see these verses, you know, mature over the next verse or two going forward.

Okay, so I didn't save my animation, so I was, you know, kind of recklessly trying to get it sort of here. So bear with me here. I didn't save, must not have saved it this morning when I did this. So we are also found, Eris Passive is sinners. So, you know, we are found as sinners. There's nothing we can do about that, right? We are declared to be sinners. We're born sinners. Yeah, like it or not, everybody. And doesn't the sins apply equally well here? Since we've been called sinners. It's not maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. It's not a yes or a no, plus or minus. It's the fact that we were declared that.

So the Christian Jews, now believers, saw this principle to be made equal to sinners from the Gentiles. So they had a mature A mature view of this, I think, they should have had a mature view of this, that now that we've become saved and justified by faith in Christ, justified in Christ, ultimately now we see that we were in fact sinners just like the Gentiles were, right? But keep in mind, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Is that a question that would be coming up from those who were saved? Or do you think that was coming from the outside someplace? Well, there's the question. From whence or whom did this abdominal thought arise? We touched on this a little bit last week.

Well, it's the Judaizers. who indicated that Christ called Jews to abandon the law and therefore they were in sin because they abandoned the law, which was of God, holy and righteous, was the Mosaic law. Of course, they didn't interpret this as any law system. I think the Judaizers looked at the Mosaic law as their backbone for their faith, did they not?

So here, if in fact, you in fact ultimately are disobeying God's laws given to Moses, you're in fact sinning. So therefore, is Christ the license to sin because you're now going against God's statute, his holy statute? What are your thoughts about that? Is that a reasonable interpretation here?

Romans 2.14, for when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature to do the things of law, these, although not having the law, are law to themselves. So that expands the fact of Nomos in explaining that in terms of it's just not the Mosaic law everybody, it's any kind of law system. But the Judaizers were totally focused on God's laws given to Moses and written down in the 613 statutes that are part of the Jewish law.

Any thoughts, comments about this? God says certainly not, or God forbid, or may it never happen. We're all sinners sent by grace, not works, but all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Whether in fact you're trying to keep the Mosaic law, or in fact you have a law system unto yourselves. All right. Again, animation lacking in Yeah, where are the bouncy words? Well, anyway, we'll just leave that there. So the question to the class then is how does this theology apply to our Christian walk today? And I kind of asked that initial question. Doesn't that, Trevor, get any better? No. I mean, isn't that kind of the flaw of many believers that you know who are in covenant churches or mainline churches that for some reason I have more to do to make God know that I'm getting better. It's not what we believe here at Holly Hills, nor is it what scripture says.

Say, Bob. Yes, Bob. No matter how handsome I am. And you all know that. My sin nature is just as corrupt as ever. That's what I was saying earlier. I think it's the light of the Lord Jesus Christ gets brighter. Our sin nature gets uglier for what it really is. Well, as we also mature, It's the little things that didn't bother us before, they bother us now. We see them in the way God sees them, and it's just, it's all just detestable. Our perception changes. Yeah. All right, so a major flaw, I think, of the church today is the fact that they in some way think that the sin nature is going to be ultimately get rustier as we grow in grace and truth. It actually gets brighter for what it really is. Yes.

Don't you think that sometimes the churches tend to put that out, even to the unbeliever, that they should clean up their act and, you know, and understand why they're so bad that they ought to get good or something before they, In our study, I think it asked this last Tuesday, we dealt with this idea of repentance before salvation, right? No, we're called to believe. The repentance follows the belief system. So we have to be careful about that.

I think many evangelistic ministries call you to repent and then come to the Lord. No. Doesn't it depend a lot on your definition of repentance? If your definition of repentance is to be sorry and want to do better, That's a bad definition. If your definition is to change your mind, then that's part of salvation.

Well, how about changing your heart, right? Well, your heart and your mind, that's the same thing. Well, at times it doesn't seem to be. Well, in a sense, circumcision of the mind or circumcision of the heart, circumcision of the flesh, in my opinion, it's kind of almost circumcision of the mind. Well, the scripture uses both words, so you have to kind of accept both. All right, Romans 7, 9 to 11, Paul states it very clearly.

I was alive once without the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, making occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. Now, that doesn't mean that God's law is not holy and righteous. It just means that the purpose of the law was what? To revive sin. Yeah, to reveal sin, right? To reveal sin.

Okay, Romans 6, 1 and 2, what shall we then say? By the way, here's a criticism that comes up, I think, for the theology that we share and we can express and often try to deal with our brothers and sisters in the Lord to try to clarify interpretation. But, you know, if you believe that, you know, you're made righteous and ultimately your sin nature is not getting better, then when you sin, ultimately, don't you want to sin because you're ultimately forgiven for everything you're doing? And I know, I mean, Paul says it clearly after the justification messages in Romans 5, what shall we then say?

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, certainly not, may it never happen. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? That's the simple answer to that, God forbid. Now the neat thing is when we fall short, which we often do, we confess that and get back in fellowship, we don't lose that positional truth of being made righteous.

God sees ultimately Sue and Sue and Warren and all of us as righteous. Isn't that great? Doesn't that lift you up? Doesn't that make your life more joyful? To think you're seen as righteous, even though we fall short at times and the sin nature declares itself.

What a beautiful truth, all right. And Philippians 39 says, and be found in him not having mine own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. What's this, what's Paul talking about here? Not having my own righteousness, which is by the law. How do we become righteous by the law?

Just think out loud. We don't. But self-gratification. Don't you take credit for the things you're doing that are good things and nice things that are bangalore? Yeah, but those are overt things. You've got your mental attitude sins that you're not dealing with. That they're not dealing with either. So just looking at the overt side.

Yeah, this falls in that whole basket of wood, hay and stubble, doesn't it? The things that we think we're doing good, we take credit for, we're thinking that we're self-righteous. No, but not having mine own righteousness, which is from the law. That's where the law really behaves, doesn't it? When we think we are following the law.

You know, you mentioned Woodhey and Stubble talking about the judgment seat of Christ. We're not comparing the good stuff and the bad stuff. We're comparing the good stuff we do in the spirit and the good stuff we do in the flesh. Yes, and what about the judgment seat of Christ? By the way, I don't like to think about it as a judgment seat. It's actually the rewarding experience, right? Rewarding seat of Christ.

And Hal thought this so well. You know, when we go before the throne of grace, I mean, Ultimately, the Lord is going to look at us as righteous and reward us for those things that brought glory to Him. Yeah, I had this pictorial I liked. He had the believer kind of standing next to him with his arm around him, and he's rewarding him, saying, he's like interfacing them, talking to them.

That's the Judgment City of Christ. It's a reward ceremony, and the Lord's there actually You know, interacting with it, which is kind of amazing, but at the white, the great white NASA, that's a whole different agenda there, right? Unbelievable. That's a whole different ballgame.

So for the believer, we go absent from the body present with the Lord and that presence with the Lord is one of being. ultimately in His presence being glorified bodies and getting rewarded for the things that brought glory to Him. And that's not things we take and make a list of. Gee, I think today I brought glory to the Lord here. You got two glories and one negative, right?

All right, good. On to verse 18. For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. So what is Paul building again, and what has he destroyed? I thought the same thing as you did, yeah. All right, let's see what someone smarter than me for sure says. Again, pardon the animation here.

So he says, build is from oikedomio, which is a connection with a law and means to render or declare valid. Destroy is from catalog. which applied to the law means to deprive a force or to abrogate. Paul is really referring to Peter's action of declaring the Levitical legislation regarding the eating of food null and void by his eating with the Gentiles, and then declaring it valid by his act of withdrawing from that fellowship. But he tactfully puts himself into the picture and supposes a theoretical case. You get that? Can I read that again? So Bill means to render or declare valid in terms of legal principles and destroying it and supplying the law to make sure that whatever you're doing is not given any credit.

So he's referring to, remember, Paul is speaking to Peter here. He's not speaking to the church. He will speak to the church once we get out of Galatians 2. But until we get to Galatians 3, where it addresses the entire body of believers in Galatians, you're giving this example of Peter. Why, Peter, do you, you're saved and you're interacting with the Gentiles, but then when this issue of food comes up, you go revert back to your old ways and actually abrogate the truth of who you are in Christ Jesus. And in a sense, how might we think about that applies to our daily lives? Think about that on your own. So I make myself a transgressor, that's paribates, to be compared with hamartolos. So those Greek terms, the one for transgressor is one who disregards the ethical spirit of the law. And hamartolos is one who disregards the letter of the law.

So which is Paul referring to here, do you think? Is this the ethical spirit of the law or is it the letter of the law? Think about what he's accusing Peter of doing. Look, you say you're a believer, you meet with the Gentiles, you interact with them, but then when this issue of food comes up, you go back over here into the Jewish camp and get back under the law of the Lord. Well, Paul is no longer concerned with the letter of the law, but it's ethics.

And if you look at Merriam-Webster or any other diction, I just picked Merriam-Webster here, what are ethics? Moral principles that govern a person's, sorry, behavior or the conducting of an activity. Let's go back. Ethics, moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conduct of an activity. So that's the ethics.

Legally, Peter's not under the law anymore. And although he's reverting to being under the law, it's the application. He's now a free man in Christ Jesus. He's not under the law. really disobeying the ethical nature of the Christian life as a Jew. He's still behaving like a Jew and the law has no bearing as to whether he eats the food or not.

I remember Bob and Margaret and others who were in the book of Acts, David and Patty may have been part of this, Remember all the issues with Peter and Paul in terms of the foods that were covered in the book of Acts? This was a major issue with Peter in terms of what foods he could and couldn't eat. And the Lord came down and told him, eat it, eat that food, it's fine, you're not under the law system any longer.

All right, Galatians 2, 11 and 12 takes us back here. Now, when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed. For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew himself and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. It's kind of pleasing the crowd, isn't it, is effectively what he was doing. So even though legally, he's not under the law anymore, but he's ethically obeying it as if he were.

So, all right. A colleague, Paul is pointing to an inconsistency. If he abandons the law as a means of justification and then returns to it in the living of the Christian life, he is inconsistent. However, this is precisely what Peter is doing. Well, and that's the problem we have today, right? We have people that want to live the Christian life by the rules, that they're saved by faith, by grace through faith, but then they want to live the law by the rules.

Well, look at this. Do we exhibit any such inconsistencies in our own Christian lives? I'm going to leave that right there for a second, and I want a couple of people to think of ways this may be happening today. I've got one to share, but maybe somebody can think about this a little. Do we have inconsistencies about being saved by grace, being positioned and seen as righteous, but yet in our day-to-day behavior, we reflect a legal system?

Alcohol would be one. Well, alcohol supply, and I was hoping our elders would cover that a little bit, the stumbling blocks and things like that, but they didn't. You know, alcohol can go both ways. If you drink a little bit in front of the believer, you could be stumbling them, but then the stumbling could be reversed, too, that ultimately, you know, so.

Well, you know, it used to be dancing and making anything and all that. I mean, if you really go back a few years, there's a whole litany of things that could be makeup, wearing makeup, music, music. I mean, it's just all kinds of things going with those who do.

OK, I'm not going with girls. I just want to know what you're talking to. There's a girl right there. You know, Roger said it used to be all these things. Maybe it is to many of us, but to a lot of believers, it's still there. Yeah. And it's maybe different things, too.

Like when I first married Bob and I would go pick up the kids at the Baptist school, and I had on shorts, you know, to pick them up. I see anyone with a girl who did. And I was, I was, I thought that would let me into the church. She wasn't my wife yet, I don't think. Oh, you was. I had to tell them who I was there to pick up, because they wouldn't let me go into the building. Then you had, like, my fire by the door, so loud up, and the radio in the car, right? But that was before he was saved. Bob Dylan is now saved. He's got a CVN called Saved. Anyway.

Yeah, so there are lots of, many of these inconsistencies are kind of subtle in a way. But here's one that I think is really pretty common. You have Christian schools that have the Ten Commandments up on the wall. How are you doing with those Ten Commandments? Not very well. The law to young kids growing up is really...

We did that in public school. Yeah. Well... It was on our husks. Those were back when we were youngsters, yeah. In the South, it was, that was part of our, yeah, right on the, in the auditorium. So anyway, there's lots of ways we could kind of reflect these inconsistencies.

But you know, isn't it good that God hasn't given us a menu about how to live the Christian life except to live it by faith of what he's revealed? I mean, it's wonderful, isn't it? And we meet here because we have that grace to have a lot of freedom. You know, Christ said, when I'm gonna make you free, I'll make you free indeed. And what's that freedom that Christ talked about in the gospel account? It's a freedom to live free of the penalty of sin and to live a life free of sin by grace and by faith. Neat. Okay, good.

Quotient 219, I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. So this is the anecdote, if you will. I through the law died to the law. How did we die to the law? by co-crucifixion with Christ. Boy, that's good. That's Holly Hill's Bible 101. Again, the law system here is any law system. And when Paul says that he's died to a thing, he means that he ceased to have any relation to it so that it has no further claim on him or controls him. It's a law as conceived in the body of legalistic statutes that he's died to.

He uses the personal pronoun ego, which indicates that he is speaking of his own personal experience. Thus, he finally abandoned it as a means of justification and accepted salvation in Christ. Now, keep in mind what we says here is he abandoned it as a means of justification. So, we're kind of separated now from this worldly, you know, self-centered view. And, yeah, we return to it sometimes.

But, you know, this whole life in Christ that we live is lived 24-7. I mean, you know, there's not a right thing or wrong thing unless it just violates God's principles of righteousness. So, you know, whether you like baseball, you don't like baseball. If you like soccer, you don't like. I mean, the point is, is that we live the Christian life 24-7. Romans 6, 3, or do you know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death, right?

So, again, we're gonna be dealing with that next week. And what was the purpose of nomos or any law system? Well, we said this already, it was a tutor or schoolmaster to become justified by Christ. The law is simply there to convict. Yes, Caroline. I think for some people, depending maybe on how their personality works, it's easier to follow a list of flaws. Yeah, I did. Mark the model. Absolutely. You know, in some ways it's, again, I think depending on like how your personality is, it might be, you know, for some people it's easier to, you know, live by faith and, but that is harder for some people because you can't knock that off the list. You know, that's, and so, so I mean, I can, I can see that, but it is also easier to I'm a really good person because I did this, this, this.

For sure. I followed all the... That's all I... Yes. Like the guy on the airplane. But that's the world system, isn't it? Following a list and meeting certain requirements. Those people will work. Most of us have worked in our lives. You had a job responsibility, right? They're pretty self-righteous, too, when they think. Look at what I've done. I've done all of the... Every day I do this. But you know, Satan or the flesh or the world system will often say, maybe I'm not doing enough for God, still to us today. And when you fall into that trap, then you're working for self-gratification, you're not working to his glory.

The life that we live, Andrew's gonna cover next week, but that life is a Christ-centric and only life that brings glory to God. I might live to God, how might we live to God? Well, We now turn to Andrew, I just mentioned him, in Galatians 2, 20 and 21 next week. But until then, Romans 6, 4.

Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism unto death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in newness of life. Romans 7, 4 through 6, Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law, no most any type of law system, from the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead. that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter." You know, it's interesting, but that section of Romans 7 preceded that and how Paul had continually fallen back under the law and his growth was really hindered by going back under the legal system he had once served and now had left.

So I'm going to close with just one straightforward verse out of Romans Christ, and this is written to the Jewish believers. Christ is a culmination of the law, so there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. Romans 10 forward. What didn't we cover today that we should more detail or?

Say, Bob, for those of us who, like she said, thinks it's easier to follow a bunch of rules, if we think it's easier to follow a bunch of rules, we have no idea what the grace of God is. Right, that's good. Well, as Mike throws this off, grace is the most difficult term to describe to the believer, too, in addition to the unbeliever, right? What is grace? You know, if you're being graceful, To me, by doing something for me, my first indication is, okay, what can I do for you? And that is not grace.

It was funny, the event we had on July 4th at our home, Courtney, I asked him to pick up some ice on the way, by the way, picked up three times more than we needed. That's my fault, I told him, because you never want to run out of ice when you're having a gathering. And I pulled out a $20 bill and gave it to him.

He said, no. I said, yeah, please take this. Echo, I've told you before, you understand what a gift is? And he said, just say thank you. Well, the power of the spirit said thank you. But Bob, just what you said, he did something for us, and I wanted to pay him for it, but he said, no, don't pay me. This is a gift. Haven't you learned how to receive a gift? Just say thank you. Important section of scripture, and we often, Now, I'm going to just preface what Andrew's likely going to do a great job on next week, and I will be in San Francisco next Sunday morning, unfortunately.

But, you know, we always re-quote Galatians 2.20 because it's really kind of the backbone verse this church represents.

But I think verse 21, which we commented on earlier, is so really important. if we are saved by the law, that Christ's death was in vain. There is just no reason. Yeah, that is so profound. And Margaret likes that verse almost as much as I do. Because people focus so much on everything else, but that one verse, just as far as I'm concerned, says it all for the whole Bible. All right, well, I'm hopeful that today's section in Galatians was helpful to me, and hopefully helpful to others. So, Jim, a question, and then I want you to close with a prayer, please. There's another side of the coin to that.

If Jesus didn't die for every single sin, then none of his death didn't cover any sin. You know, he either died for all or he didn't die for anything. That's right. We're not going to put him back on the cross again. So he's going to be sorrowful for all the falling short to do, but he's done it once. We get him back at fellowship and we move on by faith. He paid for sin once for all.

And for all. And for all. He paid for everyone. Everyone. Yeah. Okay, would you close this impression? Father, thank you for the You know, it's so hard to understand grace, but we thank you for it. We ask that you guide us and lead us to live in it and not be encumbered by any kind of law system. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.