Address—Tim Ruga
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Can we start the meeting by singing #254?
#254 reading from the last verse, Jesus died and we died with him.
Buried in his grave we lay one with him in resurrection now in him in heaven's bright day #254.
Death and judgment.
All.
Our beginnings.
Nsnoise.
It's tremendous truth expressed in that hymn.
And we get a hold of it. It'll help a lot in the subject I have in my heart today.
Let's start with prayer.
Amen. Let's turn for a verse in Romans Chapter 7.
Romans 7 and verse 12.
It says.
Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
Now I want to say a few words this afternoon about the law.
And Christ.
And when I do this, I'm going to be saying some things that are against the way the law has been used. And I want to make the point at the beginning of the meeting that I'm not speaking against the law itself.
This verse is clear.
The commandment 10 commandments. The law.
It's holy, it's just and good, and we don't speak against that. It came from God.
Now I wanna stop right here.
I can easily imagine myself as I was not that long ago, a young person sitting in a room like this and hearing someone get off and say I'm going to talk about the law and then Christ. And I could imagine my eyes glazing over and saying, OK, well I hope I get something out of this meeting.
It's possible, especially if you're a young person like I was at that time, that that the thought that just went through your mind.
And if so, I just wanted to ask you to consider a few things right at the beginning of the meeting here.
The law is a very vast subject. Much of the New Testament deals with it in one form or another.
And this afternoon I am not going to give a treatise on the law, but instead I want to speak about six things, the first five being the Law and the six going on to Christ.
And so these are the six things. I'll just go through them briefly and then we'll start with them.
Consider what they are before you turn off, please.
And the first is that Gentiles are not now and never were under the law.
You say what? How does that have relevance to me today? Because for this reason, if you and I understand that and we see it from the word of God, we won't struggle with a whole lot of the rest of what we're going to be talking about in the meeting today.
So that's the first point #2.
It is often said the law is their schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.
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That's in Galatians chapter 3 quote out of my Bible.
And the gospel is often preached that way, and that's fine. It's good to do that. And yet we are told by many that the law is given with the purpose of being our schoolmaster so that it can bring us to Christ. And so we must preach the law in the gospel. And that isn't true. In fact, that's not even what that verse means. So I want to look at that number two. Number three.
The law is not the greatest light to show.
What sin is?
The law is not. It's often spoken of as if it is, but it isn't.
So we wanna look at that as well.
There are those who get up and preach the gospel in meetings like these. Someone will tonight. And I have often heard the gospel preached in the gospel, and the law never mentioned once. Were they wrong to do that? I don't believe so. There's a greater light that is always preached in meetings like these. Hey #4 I want to speak a little bit about the imputed righteousness of Christ.
Have you ever heard that term?
You won't hear it very often in the Assembly, but it's often spoken about and I'll tell you right now, it has something to do with the law.
#5.
As Christians, we are not under the law in any way.
So why is that important?
Well, I had a young man tell me in all seriousness in in Malawi, a very earnest young believer. He said this.
It was a question he was asking if.
We don't have the law to tell us how we should please God in house. Would we know?
He was absolutely convinced that the law was a measure by which we please God today and that we're under it so that we will know how to do that.
And there was a survey taken not long ago.
Uh, quite a large number of people professing to be Christians. As to this question, are we as Christians under the law?
And 88% of them said yes, 3% said they didn't know, 9% said no.
So it's a relevant question.
Because one of the things I would like coming from this meeting.
Is not only that these things can be a help to us in our own life. We can come to know the word of God a little bit better, I hope, if we're new to any part of this.
But I would encourage, especially the young people to go out and talk to other believers.
Go out and get involved with other people that don't necessarily agree and think exactly the same way you do in the assembly.
And talk to them about their faith.
You're going to find that the vast majority of them believe that in some way or another we're under the law. And so these things are very relevant, important for us to understand, not only for our own life, but so that the Lord may use us to help others.
And point number six about the Lord is simply what is the Christian's will of life? Now, if you've been in meetings like these very often, you've heard the answer over and over again. Christ is the rule of the Christian's life.
And so now you go out and you talk to somebody about what it is that we're under as our rule of life as Christians, and they say it's the law. And you say no, it's Christ. And they say, where is that in the Bible? What do you tell them?
And that could be hard.
We just heard some of the best verses in the last meeting. I don't know if you caught them.
But it's good to have some of that right in your mind and know where you're coming from. So I want to talk about those five things, and we don't have a lot of time. We'll have to go, I should say, those six things. We'll have to go through them quickly. The first one, let's go over to Deuteronomy chapter 4, that the Gentiles are not now and never were under the law.
Deuteronomy.
Chapter 4.
Verse 8.
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Says, in what nation is there so great that has statutes and judgments, so righteous is all the law, which I said before you this day, Moses speaking to the children of Israel and talking about the law. And if you read through these chapters, you'll see it goes right through what the law is and what God had done for his people. But the law, he says, is something that God had given to them.
And the other nations?
Had other statutes and other judgments that they didn't have these. God gave the law to his own people.
And it's important that we understand that. Now let's go to Romans chapter 2. I'm only going to mention a few of the many verses.
Romans, chapter 2.
And.
Verse 12 Says, For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.
Verse 14 For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are law unto themselves. And so this speaks about the Gentiles which don't have a law, and it speaks about others who do have a law. We just saw from Deuteronomy chapter 4 that it was the Jews that had the law. And here we reversed. It plainly tells us that Gentiles do not have the law. Let's go to chapter 3.
Romans 3.
Verse 19.
Now we know that what things however the law says, it says to them that are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. This verse is plainly telling us that there are some under the law. You may say, well that means everybody, but no. If you go back through the prior 3 chapters, you see very clearly that the Spirit of God through the apostle Paul is taking up So you just think proofs first the Gentiles, the heathen, and then he's taking up the moralists and then he goes on to.
The Jews and the Jews are those that were under the law, and so the law speaks to those that are under the law.
Like I said, if we get that, clearly it'll help a lot. And you can go to many other places and find this, such as Acts chapter 15, where the apostles say, why should we take these ones and put them under that yoke that we know our fathers were ever able to bear and someone out from among them, and we're telling others that they had to keep the law.
And it says there in the next chapter that these were those who went and perverted.
The truth.
So as Gentiles.
I assume most of us in this room are gentiles. We were never under the law.
Go to 1St Corinthians Chapter 9. The same thing Paul speaks about those who are under the law and those who weren't under the law.
And he says for himself, who is a Jew?
As Christians, we're not under the law either, but I'm starting here because I want to go on to the next point, which is that the law is not our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. There are those who go and preach and say that is the only way we should preach. If any of you heard of Ray Comfort.
Health best kept secret. Kirk Cameron. Have you heard of that name? I'm sure a lot of the young people.
And these ones go out and preach the gospel and thank God for it. And a lot have gotten saved hearing what they've preached.
We should pray for men like that.
But one of the problems is that these ones go out and say that the only way we should preach the gospel is that we should preach It is that which will bring people to I. I should say we should preach. The law is that which will bring people to Christ. And they use this first. Let's go over to that Galatians chapter 3.
Galatians 3, verse 24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.
That we might be justified by faith. And so he's speaking about this schoolmaster. It teaches us what we are. And when we come to see what we are, it drives us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if you're going to go preach the gospel that way, that's fine.
In First Timothy chapter one, it tells us that the law has a legitimate purpose, and that is for those who are wicked and lawless and disobedient. And so it's perfectly right to take the law and use it in the gospel in this way. But to go and say that this is the only way we are to preach the law is wrong. These verses actually aren't saying that at all. They're saying something completely different.
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Now those men would tell you they speak after, uh, John Wesley saying that when you preach the gospel, you preach 90% law and 10% grace.
I hope by the end of the meeting today we'll see that that's not right. And those ones who have stood up in meetings like these and proclaimed the gospel and not even brought in the law one time, we're not wrong for doing that.
What are these verses saying?
You know, we often talk about dispensational truth.
And it's important. We need to get a hold of it and understand what it is. And if we go all the way back to the beginning of the history of man in the Garden, we find that.
God gave man a commandment. There's fruit in this tree, don't eat it. And before long, if I believe man disobey, God took that fruit, ate it, became a Sinner. And as Romans chapter 5 tells us, then wherefore is by one that sins so.
Death passed upon all men. This is in death by sin. And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. And so following Adam, we have all become sinners. We inherited that sin nature.
And God always knew what was in man, she says of the Lord Jesus and John two. There was no question there. But man did not know what was in man. And so God took up man on the basis of man's responsibility in the Old Testament. And this is what we call dispensational truth. And God tested man following the fall. Man had a conscience. He knew it was right and wrong.
It didn't require the law to tell him that. Her brother Bruce is springing that out in the verses from Romans 5 this morning.
Up until the law sin within the world, man knew.
And so in the law.
We find something else out. Brother Bruce is saying it. Some of the other brothers are mentioning here that the law shows what God demands and when somebody goes past a known command and then becomes a transgression. But even without that, we know what's right and wrong. And so sin exists without the law. That's why we have that verse. Sin is lawlessness. It isn't transgression of the law.
But after?
God, I should say, after man had fallen, God tested him. And that test comes out perhaps very clearly after the flood, when?
God gave Noah government and so.
Man at that point began again on the earth.
And God gave Noah this command that if anybody sheds man's blood, that financial is blood be shed. And the evil heart of man was sent to be restrained. Man then went on from that point having the knowledge of God, having a conscience, having government, and what happened before long complete failure. And the moral history of that is recorded in Romans chapter one, where we see first of all that man was not thankful and then before long he gives up the knowledge of God.
Gives up God, and by the end of that chapter we have God giving up man.
And so God does not give up on man. He says, fine, I'll make a higher test. And he goes, and he takes one man, himself, an idolater, from out of the midst of all of that, and brings him into special relationship with himself, and takes up his children and brings them into covenant and gives them the law.
The history of that is described maybe most distinctly in Isaiah chapter 5, the 1St 4 verses where it speaks about a song of a vineyard, and it says that in that vineyard God did everything he could. He built a wall around it and put a tower in it. He dug it up, did everything to make it good.
And in the end, he says, when I looked for it to bring forth fruit.
Her grapes had brought forth wild grapes. There was nothing there for God.
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So much so.
That later on God sent his son.
Then it says in John chapter one, He came unto his own, and his own received him not, but instead what did they do? They took him and put him on the cross, and so in the history.
Of man, there's nothing but failure, but that's where the law comes in, because the law is what God gave to man in this special relationship with himself, so that he might know exactly what God expected of him. And it did no good at all because man completely failed under that.
And so the Lord Jesus said those verses that we looked at this morning. Now have they both seen and rejected both my Father and me. Now they have no excuse, no cloak for their sin.
The test is over. Man is corrupt and there's nothing more that can be done for him. John chapter 12, The Lord Jesus is now is the judgment of this world. It's not a future day. It was then the world was judged then. Man in the flesh was judged then and set aside. It's over.
And the law was part of the greatest test that God gave to men.
Here in Galatians chapter 3.
It says in verse 23 before faith came, we are kept under the law.
Which shut up unto the faith which had afterward been revealed.
And so that was the Jewish people. When he says we here, he's talking about we Jews. That wasn't the gentiles.
And he says we were shut up, we were kept separate from the nations around us and we were kept there for that one who was coming, the one who should afterwards or it's the faith which should have to be revealed, but it shows that that's the Lord Jesus. Verse 24 wherefore the law was our schoolmaster. Darby has tutor or a strict governess, someone who is watching over the child.
The law was our schoolmaster should be up until Christ, not to bring us to Christ. It's not the idea, but in point of time, until Christ came, the law was there serving that function of keeping Israel separate from the nation.
He says that we might be justified by faith.
That's why the Lord Jesus came.
He says in verse 25 after that faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster that's we we choose. It's over the Lord Jesus Christ has come. We're no longer under that Apostle Paul would say of himself, he says I'm not under the law. First Corinthians Chapter 9 not as though I'm lawless, he says, but I'm legitimately now subject to Christ.
He's in a new position, a new relationship, and so are we.
And so he says.
Verse 26 and I want you to notice the change in pronoun for ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ up to that point it was we we our we. Now he says yeah, the Galatians were Jew and Gentile and they had been changed now brought into this new position as what children of God, how by faith in Jesus Christ and so.
We wanna be careful about what we say the law is for. We can use it in the gospel.
It's a good thing to do.
But to say that's how the law has to be used is absolutely wrong. And I want to go then on to my Third Point, to say that the law is not the greatest light.
For exposing sin, let's go to John chapter one.
John, Chapter one.
1St 4.
Speaking of the Lord, Jesus says in him was life, and the life was the light of man, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
There was a man sent from God. His name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light.
That all men through him might believe.
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He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness in that light. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
Like I said, we have people who come up and preach the gospel.
And often times they won't even preach the law. Why? Because they'll go right on to a greater life. And the law is good because it can be used. It shows us the mind of God with regard to sin. It shows us much about that. And the gospel preacher can use that with all liberty. But ultimately, what do we do? We go on to a light that is greater, and that light is Christ.
There is nothing.
And I should say no one, whoever came into this world who exposed things for what they were and what they are as the Lord Jesus Christ did and as the light, it wasn't just for sin. He came and he showed us all of the positive things too. He showed out perfectly all that God was and is. He showed the Father. But when it came to sin, the Lord Jesus Christ also is the light of the world. Put it John three. We know these verses well.
But perhaps just for reminder.
John three and verse 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light. Bless. His siege should be reproved. And so here it is, the Lord Jesus, the light of the world, shining out the darkness, not comprehending it, understanding it in any way, and not appreciating it either.
And the Lord Jesus is that one that we preach as being all that God is.
Being all that is right, and being that which is the ultimate of conviction of sin and the Sinner.
And ultimately.
It isn't the conviction of how bad we are.
But the question is what we ourselves will do with Christ.
And that is what the Holy Spirit is doing in the world to convict men.
You ever thought about that?
Part of why these men speak this way is because they look at that the gospel, they even preach and they say, well, people go out and speak easy believeth, and you just come and you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and fine, everything's settled for time and eternity and then you can just go and do whatever you want. And so they say very few conversions are real. Something's wrong. And they said we know what's wrong. People aren't preaching the law.
But they're wrong.
And they're wrong to say that.
What's wrong is people don't believe in Christ. They don't truly believe in Christ. They don't come to Him and see themselves as sinners in the light of all that he is.
And so they don't actually get saved and they don't actually go on.
As believers, because perhaps they have never come in true repentance to that One who himself is the light of the world.
I just said the Holy Spirit convicts. Let's look at that John chapter 16.
Lord Jesus is speaking about the Holy Spirit here. He says the Comforter and verse 7.
And you go back to Chapter 14, you see that that's.
The comforter verse.
Chapter 14 and verse.
26 is the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, and so we know that who is being spoken up here. And the Lord Jesus says in verse 8, when he has come, he will reprove or convict the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment.
How does the Holy Spirit convict the world of sin?
Verse nine of sin.
Because what does it say?
They don't listen to the law no of sin because they don't believe on me.
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They don't believe on me.
That's the great test in the world.
I think it was John Newton who said what? Thank you of Christ as a test to try both your state and your scheme. You cannot be right in the rest unless you have right thoughts of Him. And so that question is put out before the world.
Pilot said. What should we do?
With Jesus, who is called Christ.
Good question.
What are we gonna do with that one who's called Christ? And that is the question.
And every single one who is in heaven is going to be there because they believed on him. And every single one in hell will be there because they didn't believe on him.
And so Christ is the one that we preach in the gospel, and he is sufficient.
Whatever else the Holy Spirit may lead the Gospel preacher to use in the conviction of men and their sins.
Well, I just want to say a few other things too. If you go through and you look and see how the Lord Jesus Christ preached in the Gospels, he does take up the law, but he uses it to answer the law and those who came with the law. And the same with the apostles. When you go and you look in in the book of Acts and you find when they speak to the Jews, they bring up the law and they answer questions of the law.
But generally speaking, you don't find the gospel preached that way. And when the apostle Paul preaches the gospel saying Acts chapter 14 or Acts chapter 17 other places chapter 13, you'll find he's not even talking the law at all, except maybe to say that you can't be justified by the law of Moses.
H He's speaking to men and their sins, and he's speaking to them about Christ. He's preaching the death, the blood, the resurrection of Christ, and men are coming to the Lord Jesus Christ because they're convicted by the Spirit of God as to that. And so that's my Third Point. The 4th point, I want to go on to this thought of the imputed righteousness of Christ. And again I say, have you heard that term?
I heard it many years ago and I've heard it many times since. And when I was younger, when I used to hear it, I would think, oh, that's a little different from how I usually hear of the righteousness of God, but I just accepted it that way. You know, it's talking about what I always heard about in the assembly from Romans chapter 3 and chapter 4 about the righteousness of God being counted to those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
As it says in, for example, Romans 4 and verse 5. Now to him that believeth not, I'm sorry, To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
OK, that's God justifying ungodly persons, counting them righteous by faith in Jesus Christ. But is that what is meant by this term? The imputed righteousness of Christ?
No, it's not.
That's not what you're talking about. It's good if that's what you think and you hear it, but that's not what people talk about. And I just want to explain that for a few minutes because if you go out and talk to other Christians, it may not be long before you get involved in some of these very discussions that I'm trying to bring up here this afternoon. Let's go to Romans chapter.
5.
Verse 19.
I must say this is a major battleground.
With those who are in the the Reformed tradition or Reformed part of Christianity.
Not all of them believe some of these things that I'm saying, but I would say great majority do men like John Piper preach it continuously today, written books on it. And this is one of the main verses that they use. Romans chapter 5 and verse 19. It says for us by one man's disobedience many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one, so many be made righteous and so they say.
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We're talking about one man's disobedience. We can all agree what that is. That's Adam and what he did in the fall in the garden. But.
When we talk about one man's obedience, many being made righteous, what do we mean? And they say that is speaking about the life of the Lord Jesus Christ all the way up until his death.
Now why do they speak that way?
I'll explain it in a minute, but hopefully right away in your mind centering verses to say no, it's the death of our Lord Jesus Christ that has to do with my justification, and it's the death of the Lord Jesus Christ that has to do with me being made righteous before God.
Let's go to First Peter chapter 2.
One of those verses.
Verse 24 Whose own self there are sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness. By whose stripes you were healed.
He bore our sins in his own body on the tree.
Now you go and look and you see.
Umm, in his own body on the tree. There's a little footnote in most of our Bibles.
And if you go read that in the margin says to the tree and many of them will say you bore our sins up to the tree.
They say that our life, the Lord Jesus life was vicarious for us and this is another verse that shows us, but it isn't. That is not the meaning of this verse and that is not what the original Greek says here. There are many other verses that show the same thing. I'm just pointing out these two verses, Romans 5 and here in first Peter 2 so that you know some of the main ones that are used.
By one offering he's perfect forever. Them that are that are sanctified. Hebrews chapter 10 tells us it's one offering himself offered on the cross. And that obedience, while it may speak about the obedience in his life, is specifically talking about his obedience unto death as we have in Philippians chapter 2. And so there was a need that someone should come into the world, and God asked who would go for us and the Lord Jesus.
And hopefully have it in Isaiah chapter 6 saying I will go. You see it in Hebrews chapter 10. And so the Lord Jesus came into the world. He says the body is now prepared, nay lo, I come to do thy will, O God. And he was obedient to giving up everything.
And that obedience is the obedience primarily being spoken of in Romans chapter 5, and it is that.
On which our righteousness is based. Now why do they speak this way? Because if you look at the law, you see that the law has two parts of it. There's a part of the law that says.
If you disobey.
You will die, you're cursed. And then there's another part that says if you obey, you will live.
And so they say both parts of that law have to be met. And now that we have broken it, the only way we can live in relationship with God under covenant, which is important to them, is that we have to come and have both parts of the law fulfilled on our behalf. And since we've already failed, we can never do it. And so the Lord Jesus Christ has to be the one who did it for us.
And because he did it perfectly in his life, that is imputed to us. How does that work?
Well, the Lord Jesus died on the cross.
And because he died, he bore the penalty of our sins, He bore the curse, and that took up the side of the law that had to do with the curse. Well and good. And so they preach atonement in the cross. Thank God for that.
But they say that doesn't do anything about getting us to heaven because in order to have eternal life and go to heaven in order to live.
You have to have kept the law.
No.
Hopefully you understand. The law didn't say that either, did it? The law says nothing about eternal life. It doesn't say anything about going to heaven. It says you do this and you live. And so anybody who kept the law perfectly back in those days would still be alive today and anybody who does it today.
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Who's under it?
Will live on on earth, but this all gets changed to mean something to do with eternal life and it doesn't.
What they say it's important that part of the law has to be met for eternal life. And so this is how it works. The Lord Jesus in his life as a man on earth perfectly kept the law fulfilling all of its demands and.
Now, when we believe in him, God takes his righteousness and puts it on us. That's what they mean by the imputed righteousness of Christ. They're talking.
About the law so that we now live before God is those who have kept the law perfectly in our life.
Which sounds very good. There's consistency of thought in it.
But it's not true. The Bible doesn't say anything like that. Instead, the Bible talks in the way that we sang together to Him and to Him in the beginning of our meeting.
The law has its claims for men who are alive on earth, but what about the Christian? What is our position?
We are not people who are alive on Earth.
So that sounds strange. Aren't I living? Am I not on Earth? Yes, I'm living and I'm here on Earth. But.
Before God, we're not.
When you trusted in Jesus Christ, the word of God says we were crucified together with him. This is all taken up in Romans chapter 6. The next one after we were just reading and we were buried with him by baptism unto death. So that life is crazy. Price was raised up from the dead. Even so, we also should walk in newness of life.
And so when we believe in Jesus Christ.
We die out of this old position that we're in. We're no longer under Adam.
And that one whose sin that we inherited, our sin nature from God has condemned all of that and said that those who are in the flesh had to die. Everything that the law said that he had to die, God says fine, yes indeed.
Those who are born in the flesh have to die, and so when you believe in Jesus Christ, you die with Christ.
Your old standing is completely gone. It's over, and instead you're raised up with him in a new position altogether.
Which forsake of time, I can't put it any more briefly than what we have in Galatians 2 and verse 20. I am crucified with Christ, and nevertheless I live. And yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And so our position is entirely different. We're brought now out of that old position.
By death into a new one where the law doesn't even speak. And now we are alive before God in the Lord Jesus Christ and no longer have anything to do with that old life. Well, there's many other things we could say about this point, but let's go on to the next point. The Christian is not under the law in any way. And let's go to Romans chapter 6.
And I just wanna.
Thesis simply.
Romans 6 and just verses.
Well, just just read verse 14.
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but under grace. Next verse repeats that we're not under the law.
We're done with the law. We're not under it at all.
This is important because there are those who say, fine, we know we're not justified by the law, but a long discussion with the 7th Day Adventist teacher one time about that.
And she says, I understand I'm not under the law for justification, but when it comes to living a holy life before God, I perfectly well, I am under the law. They say we don't come to we come to Mount Calvary for justification, but for sanctification, for a holy life. We come to Mount Sinai.
00:45:09
And that's wrong. We come to Calvary, We come to Christ not only for our justification before God, but for our sanctification before him as well. Let's go on to Romans chapter 10.
See another verse in this regard.
Romans 10 verse four. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.
The law is over.
Christ is the end of it. He's not the point of it, not the object of it. People like to say that, no.
He put an end to it entirely. That's what we saw in Galatians chapter 3. When it comes to righteousness, whether it's for justification or whether it's for living a life, a holy life before God, Christ is the end of it.
And now we live in an entirely new position, an entirely new way before God. Let's go to Romans Chapter 7. Continue. Consider one last thing in this regard.
You get into an argument about the law.
Don't spend too long at it. People who take up with the law are very convinced in their position.
But here are some good verses.
That lay it all out that as clearly as you can. Romans 7 verses one through 4. We'll just read them. No you're not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law. How does the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?
For the woman which hath and husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as 11. But if the husband be dead, she is loose from the law of her husband. So then if while her husband let us, she'd be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that if she is no longer so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Now notice this first. Well, wherefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead.
Stop there for now, we're dead to the law and it's by the body of Christ.
We no longer live under that.
They say, well, how do you know how to please God? How can you bring forth fruit for God? We're gonna look at that more in a minute, but first we need to see that it's actually by being dead to the law if we were under it to begin with.
The rest of the verse that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Apostle Paul saying to those who know the law, those who are under it, we've become dead to it for the purpose of bringing forth fruit to God.
You can't go on in law keeping.
And bring forth fruit to God. This is what this person's saying.
You're going about it the wrong way.
Brings about the wrong thought, the wrong object, the wrong desires in a person. I'm not saying there can be no fruit at all in it. There is, and thank God for it. But God has changed our position so that we might bring forth fruit to Him. He didn't leave us in the law to bring forth that fruit. And it's His position of death again, no longer living in that system of things, but now alive in a new place.
Altogether beyond that.
A place where we are in Christ, a place where sin can't even touch. A place that doesn't have to answer by Christ having His righteousness imputed to us because why? We have his life now we are put in Him. We're in a new creation where sin has nothing to do with it. And one day very soon, when we get home to heaven, we're going to leave this flash, just old nature behind us, and there'll be nothing there except that which is in all of the perfection of Christ Himself.
No need to have the righteousness of Christ life imputed to us.
Now I just want to illustrate something quickly. Our time is very short and say how does this really work and I use this illustration.
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Sorry if you've heard it before, but I can't think of a clearer one. It's like as if you had a pig and you took this pig and you told the pig, say, OK, I'm gonna clean you up, make you nice and clean here and there's some mud over there. Now I'm just gonna give you 1 Commandment. Don't go in the mud. And so you put the pig down. The pig's all happy now he's clean. And he says I just have one thing.
To focus on don't go in the mud, he said. I'm gonna do that. I'm not gonna go into the mud.
I'm gonna stay away from that mud and I'm not gonna go into that mud. The mud. Oh, yes, the mud. The mud. And off the pig goes right, right into the mud because he can't get it off his mind. And that's how the law is. It can't help us. There's nothing that we can do.
To avoid what the law tells us it's all we are is under the law.
We only are attracted by those things. And so the Scripture tells us many things about this. The law taking occasion by the commandments flew me. Sin becomes exceeding sinful. That's what it does. It's the ministry of condemnation. It says in Second Corinthians chapter 3. And so it doesn't help. But now let's take another example. We still have the mud, but now we're gonna take a sheep, and this sheep is nice and clean.
We take this sheep and we put them here and we tell the sheep don't go in the mud.
Now what is the sheep too?
OK, I don't wanna go there anyway.
Alright, doesn't think about the mud. There's no problem. Why? Because the sheep has a higher law working in himself.
We're out of time. We can go over that in Romans chapter eight, first four verses, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is what works inside of us as believers. It's a higher law. It doesn't want that. And so when you get to the end of Romans 8 and verse four, it says to them that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And so we have all of what we need to walk in the power of that new life. You couldn't do anything with that pig.
You can't go tell him, look, you gotta keep the law better and you can't add something to the law.
The only thing you could do to help is to put the pig to death and give him a new life, the life of the sheep. And that's exactly what God has done with us.
And that's where the power of Christianity is.
To live in that new life by the power of the Spirit of God. Well, that brings me on to my last point.
What is the rule of life for the Christian?
We already saw in Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20 the life that I now live. I live by the faith of the Son of God. That doesn't mean it's the faith that the Lord Jesus has his faith. He's talking about that faith which has the Lord Jesus Christ as His object.
And so that is what we have is the rule of our life as Christians. It's not the law.
The law is not the way that we know how God wants us to live.
But what we're given as a role of life as Christians is Christ himself. He is a rule of life.
There are many verses on this and I'm only going to mention.
Maybe two. Our time is up.
But this would be a good exercise later on if some of the young people or others want to get together and look for other verses.
Christ is our life. That's one, isn't it, Philippians?
Colossians 3 Christ, who is our life?
We have him as our object. He is the one that we live for. Let's just look at maybe just a few of them.
Uh, one of them was mentioned this morning in Second Corinthians chapter 4. Find the verse.
2nd Corinthians.
Chapter 5 is the one I had in mind right now.
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Verse 14.
For the love of Christ constrains us. And the brother was saying very beautifully how there's a motive, a desire, and what is it, the love of Christ.
That's powerful.
You know, we don't time, time's gone. But he took up the study of the law. It all comes down to this anyway, love.
It's all summed up in that one thing, and the law didn't even get power for that one thing.
Love. But the Lord Jesus Christ does in the apostle Paul says the love of Christ constrains us. And he goes on to say, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, all then we're all dead.
Verse 15 And that he died for all that they which lived should not henceforth live unto themselves.
But unto him which died for them, and rose again.
There it is.
Living for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Learning of Him. There's another one. Matthew 11 verse 29, right? Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. What does He say? You'll find rest for your souls.
Let's just go to my favorite one, also mentioned this morning actually.
One page back.
2nd Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 18.
I think Brother Michelle mentioned this one.
But we all with hope and faith, beholding is in a glass the glory of the Lord.
Are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Here we have the Spirit of the Lord taking us and taking our eyes away from everything else and putting them on one person, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what does that do to us?
It changes us from glory to glory, going on one level after another, becoming more and more like Him. He is our rule of life. He is our object. He is the power for our life. And as we see that and understand more of that in the position that we have before God in Him, it brings all the liberty that God intends for us to have as His children.
Right now, while we're still here on earth. And so the apostle Paul says in Galatians, he says, stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ as made us free.
Well, brothers and sisters, let's stand in that liberty.
And that's also if I could encourage go out and engage other believers.
About the faith that we have, about those things that we know.
And it'll be good for us.
When you talk with people that don't agree with you, you always come away being helped. Maybe you won't convince them of anything, but the Lord will use that to help you. It'll be a blessing to you. It'll make you stronger. Well, may the Lord bless His word to us. Just close the prayer.