Well, what a privilege it is for me
to be here with you this evening and
to look into the Word of God with
you.
We're going to be considering tonight and tomorrow
this subject of the Law of Christ.
And in one way, it's of tremendous advantage
to be talking about the Lord Jesus Christ,
because He's such a wonderful subject.
In another way, it's a tremendous disadvantage, because
we know we cannot begin to describe and
to do justice to Him.
His glory is such that we can't do
that.
And so, we're utterly dependent upon the Holy
Spirit to make real to us these things.
Let's turn this evening to 1 Corinthians 9,
and we'll begin reading with verse 19.
I'm reading from the New American Standard Translation,
1 Corinthians 9, and verse 19.
For though I am free from all men,
I have made myself a slave to all,
that I might win them all.
And to the Jews I became as a
Jew, that I might win Jews.
To those who are under the law, as
under the law, though not being myself under
the law, that I might win those who
are under the law.
To those who are without law, as without
law, though not being without the law of
God, but under the law of Christ, that
I might win those who are without law.
To the weak, I became weak, that I
might win the weak.
I have become all things to all men,
that I may by all means save some.
And I do all things for the sake
of the gospel, that I may become a
fellow partaker of it.
Let's pray once more.
Our Father, we pray that You would do
what we cannot do, and that You would
make Your truth come forth in power and
clarity and revelation to our hearts.
We ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen.
I want to ask you some questions this
evening as we go along.
And the first thing, just to begin with,
we've read here in verse 20 and 21
about three groups of people.
So I would ask you, who are the
three groups in verses 20 and 21?
First of all, who does Paul mention?
The Jews.
So first of all, the Jews.
And then secondly, in verse 21, who does
he talk about?
The Gentiles, those without the law.
And then finally, the third group is Christians,
represented by Paul himself.
Now, how does he describe these groups?
Well, he speaks of the Jew as being
under the law.
Now, that's quite a way of saying it,
isn't it?
Under the law.
And he's talking about the law of Moses.
And then he describes the Gentile, and he
says they're without law.
Now, let me ask you a question here.
Are Gentiles completely without law?
Do they have any kind of law?
They have some kind of law.
What is that law that they have?
Excuse me?
Conscience.
Or we say the law written on the
heart.
Where does the Bible talk about that?
Romans chapter 2.
Let's just turn to that.
Keep your place here.
In Romans chapter 2, Paul talks about that.
In verse 14, he says, For when Gentiles
who do not have the law, that is
the law of Moses, do instinctively or literally
by nature the things of the law, these
not having the law are a lot of
themselves, in that they show the work of
the law written in their hearts, their conscience
bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or
else defending themselves.
So, the Gentiles, he says they're without law.
He's talking about the law of Moses.
They have some kind of law.
They have the work of the law written
on the heart.
You remember there in the book of Acts,
when Paul was bit by that serpent?
You remember what they said?
They said, this man must have been a
murderer, and vengeance or justice has not allowed
him to live.
Now, where did they get the idea that
murder was wrong?
And where did they get the idea that
there's such a thing as justice?
You see, they had that innately without ever
being taught the Ten Commandments, the law of
Moses, any of those things.
So, men have the work of the law
written on the heart, but relatively speaking, Paul
says, they are without the law.
In other words, we'd say in our day,
we could say the man that's never heard
the Bible, the man that's never heard the
law of Moses or the Ten Commandments.
And then there's this third group, the Christian.
Now, this is amazing, isn't it?
Here is Paul, who was Saul the Pharisee,
and he starts talking about those Jews over
there.
He says, to those Jews, I became like
a Jew.
Something tremendous, something miraculous has happened where this
Pharisee, this one-time Jew of all Jews,
is now standing over here talking about those
Jews over there.
And he says, to those Jews, I became
as those who are under the law.
Now, he says, he's not under the law.
He's not under that law.
He says, to the Gentiles, to these people
over here that don't have the law, I
became as one without law.
Now, lest you get the idea that I
went wild, he says, no, I still have
the law of God.
Now, isn't this something?
He calls the law of God something different
in this case than the law of Moses.
That's incredible.
He says, I still have law toward God.
He says, I'm under the law of Christ.
Now, for each of us as Christians, we
ought to be able to say something about
this law of Christ.
What does it mean, the law of Christ?
This is what I'm under.
I'm under the law of Christ.
I'm in a relationship with Christ that has
to do, and my rule of duty is
this law of Christ.
What is it?
And so the question that we ought to
ask and we ought to be able to
answer, we ought to have an understanding, and
that's what we want to look at, Lord
willing, in these times.
What is this law of Christ?
And what does all this mean that Paul's
talking about here?
So, first of all, when we think about
the law of Christ, the first thing I
want to do is say what the law
of Christ isn't.
And we're going to have to go back
to some history in the Bible and look
at things.
But the law of Christ, we know plainly
from this verse, the law of Christ cannot
be equated with the law of Moses.
Very clear here.
He says, to those who are under the
law, I became as under the law, but
I'm not really, you see.
And so the law of Christ is something
different than the law of Moses.
The New Testament makes it very clear that
Christians are not under the law of Moses.
Now, I want to take some time to
look up some verses just so we can
feel how major this is.
Not one little passage we're building this on.
This is something that comes up again and
again.
So let's consider these.
You can turn if you want, or you
don't need to.
But Romans chapter 6 and verse 14, he
says, Sin shall not have dominion over you,
for you're not under the law, but under
grace.
You're under grace.
Again, in Romans chapter 7, a major teaching
on this in verses 4 to 6, Therefore,
my brethren, you also were made to die
to the law through the body of Christ
that you might be joined or married to
another, to him who was raised from the
dead, that we might bear fruit for God.
For while we were in the flesh, the
sinful passions which were aroused by the law
were at work in the members of our
body to bear fruit for death.
But now we have been released from the
law, having died to that by which we
were bound, so that we serve in newness
of the Spirit and not in the oldness
of the letter.
Now he talks about being released from the
law and having died to the law.
Again in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 14,
For he himself is our peace, who hath
made both groups into one, that is, Jew
and Gentile, and broke down the barrier of
the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh
the enmity.
Christ abolished the enmity, which is the law
of commandments.
Now that is pretty strong language, isn't it?
He has abolished in his flesh the enmity,
which is the law of commandments, contained in
ordinances that in himself he might make or
create the two into one new man, thus
establishing peace.
He might reconcile them both, Jew and Gentile,
in one body to God through the cross,
by it having put to death the enmity.
So here it is.
And then in Colossians chapter 2, parallel passage
here, he says in verse 13, When you
were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, he made you alive together
with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting
of decrees against us, which was hostile to
us, and he has taken it out of
the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Amazing words here.
And then one more passage in Galatians.
Now there is a lot more than this,
and we will be touching on some of
them later, but just a sampling.
Galatians chapter 2, Paul speaking here in verse
19, For through the law I died to
the law that I might live to God.
What an amazing thing that is.
I died to the law.
This is a Pharisee speaking.
I died to the law that I might
live to God.
I have been crucified with Christ, and it
is no longer I who live, but Christ
lives in me.
In the life which I now live in
the flesh, I live by faith in the
Son of God who loved me and delivered
himself up for me.
I do not nullify the grace of God,
for if righteousness comes through the law, then
Christ died needlessly.
Now, the New Testament teaches clearly we are
no longer under that law.
We are not under that law.
We have died to that law.
We are free from that law.
Amazing words.
And in looking at this whole thing, I
want us to just consider a little bit
of history here.
What was this law of Moses that he
is talking about?
It was not some little thing.
Beloved, if you think back, and I am
going to build an imaginary blackboard here, right
about in here, 1,500 years before Christ,
God gave that law through Moses.
And I say it was not a little
thing.
God came down, you remember, on that mountain,
the mountain shaking.
It was like a furnace, flames going up
into the air.
And such sounds and frightful things that even
Moses was exceedingly fearful and trembling.
I mean, it was an incredible, mighty thing.
And God Himself comes down and writes, and
I do not know how He did it,
but He writes those Ten Commandments on tablets
of stone.
Now, you can see why the Jews, after
having experienced that as a people, they thought
this is it.
And they centered everything around that law.
And they had in the law the embodiment
of truth and knowledge.
And they put their trust in that law.
And they were looking at that thing.
And they thought that was as permanent as
permanent could be.
But beloved, some 900 years later, now here
we are at 1,500, some 900 years
later, the prophet Jeremiah said something from the
Lord.
You remember what it was?
Behold, days are coming, saith the Lord, when
I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of
Judah.
Not like that old covenant, because they did
not continue in that.
And I am going to make a covenant
that they will continue in.
And this is what I am going to
do in that new covenant.
He says, I am going to write my
laws on their hearts.
Not on the tablets of stone, I am
going to write them on the inside.
And they shall not teach every man his
neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord, for all shall know me from
the least to the greatest of them.
Every single Christian knows the Lord.
Now, you could be a good Jew.
You could be in the old covenant and
not know the Lord.
In fact, most of them did not know
the Lord.
You just look at what they did.
You could be a good Jew.
You keep your sacrifices.
You are born a Jew.
And you are born in that covenant without
knowing the Lord.
Now, you see, that is why we do
not baptize infants.
People say, well, look, they circumcised infants.
Why shouldn't we baptize infants?
Well, they circumcised the infant because he really
was in the old covenant by birth, by
physical birth.
Now, we do baptize infants, but they are
spiritual infants, you see.
As soon as somebody gets born spiritually, they
are in the new covenant.
And we baptize that kind of infant.
But you see the difference here?
We are talking about a covenant in which
every single person knows the Lord.
You come to one Christian who does not
personally know the Lord.
Beloved, do you know God personally?
If you do not know Him personally, you
are lost.
It does not matter if you have come
forward.
That is what it means to be in
the new covenant.
Do you remember what the Lord Jesus says?
It is written in the Prophets, they shall
all be taught of God.
Every single one.
Every man who has heard and learned from
the Father comes to Me.
There is none without exception.
There is no exception.
Everybody that has heard and learned directly from
God comes to Christ.
They will get to Christ.
You do not have to worry about that.
And nobody ever becomes a Christian without knowing
God personally and having had God teach them
personally.
That is the new covenant.
And what else does He say about the
new covenant?
He says, there are sins and there are
iniquities.
I will remember no more.
They are gone forever.
The whole category is gone.
I will remember them no more.
They are gone.
They are taken care of.
Can you imagine what it was like to
be a godly Jew and read those words
from the Prophet Jeremiah?
Days are coming, saith the Lord, when I
am going to make a covenant where every
single person in that covenant knows Me personally.
And every one of them will have their
sins wiped out forever.
And every one of them will have My
law written on the inside.
I think of these Jews looking and saying,
when is it coming?
When is it coming?
One hundred years passes, nothing happens.
Two hundred years, three hundred years, four hundred
years, five hundred years, six hundred years later,
in a little upper room with just a
handful of men, Jesus says, this is it.
This is My blood of the new covenant.
This cup is My blood of the new
covenant.
Now, the new covenant in My blood, not
the blood of bulls and goats.
The blood of Christ, the precious blood of
Christ.
This new covenant is sealed with the real
thing now.
Beloved, we've got to get this thinking out
of our heads, the idea, you know, was
Christ really a priest?
He was the only priest.
No other priest ever put away sins by
a sacrifice.
There was no other priest but Him.
Was Christ a real prophet?
There was no other prophet but Him.
He is the final Word.
He's God speaking to man.
Was He a real king?
He's the only king that ever was.
Every other king is just a little shadow.
Do you see how all of this stuff
that came before is shadows?
It's shadows.
You're not dealing with substance back there, you're
dealing with shadows.
When you get up to Christ, then you
start seeing what the real stuff is.
You start seeing what real temples are and
real sacrifices.
You see that?
Now, the writer to the Hebrews, he says,
look, in that He saith a new covenant,
He's made that other one old, obsolete.
And that which is obsolete and growing old,
it's ready to pass away.
Now, the Jews did not like that.
And that's a radical.
Well, you can't blame them for not liking
it.
I mean, you really can't.
You're talking about what God did on Mount
Sinai, and He's talking about all that passing
away.
I mean, we should have some sympathy for
guys like Peter.
But think of what he's saying here.
He's saying, God said it's a new covenant.
That means that one is an old covenant,
and it's gone.
You ever think about it?
Why do we call this the Old Testament?
Why do we call it the Old Covenant?
God didn't say back there to Moses, I'm
going to make an old covenant with you,
Moses.
He didn't say, we call that the Old
Covenant because there's a new one.
And the fact that there's a new one
means that's an old one.
And the writer to the Hebrews says in
chapter 8, he says, that means that thing's
gone.
Now, the Jews didn't like that.
And they said, look, it's fine to believe
on Christ, but you've got to keep that
law.
Now, how is Paul going to refute them?
He does refute them.
In Galatians, for example, he spends the whole
book refuting them.
How is he going to refute this false
teaching?
He says, anybody who teaches that, let him
be accursed.
It's not just a little error.
Anytime you start adding a little bit of
works in here, just a little bit, just
a tiny bit, that's all it takes to
put you in hell forever.
Because you've moved from one realm into another
realm.
And Paul says, look, if anybody comes saying
that, if we are an angel from heaven,
he says, if I come back here next
week saying that, let him be anathema.
If an angel comes down here and says,
hey, I want to tell you that you've
got to put a little bit of works
in here, let him be accursed.
He gets rough and ugly in Galatians, doesn't
he?
He says, I wish they'd even mutilate themselves,
these guys that are saying this.
Unbelievable, the language that he uses, because it's
heaven or hell.
That's why.
How is Paul going to refute them?
Well, let me ask you a question.
Was there any other covenant besides the covenant
through Moses?
Let's hear, what was one outstanding one?
Covenant with Abraham.
Now, this is what Paul does.
He says, look, here's the law of Moses
here, 1500 BC.
But there was something before that.
Come back here.
Before the Jewish nation even got started, the
father of the faithful, there was a covenant
made with Abraham.
And that was 430 years before this covenant
made through Moses.
And that covenant was a covenant of promise.
That's a big word.
It was sheer, flat-out promise.
God said to Abraham, He said, go out
and look at that sky.
Count.
See if you can count them.
That's how many seed, that's how many children
you're going to have.
Period.
It's a promise.
It's absolutely certain.
Paul goes back to that covenant to show
the real place of the law of Moses.
Let's look at it in Galatians chapter 3.
Galatians 3 and beginning at verse 15.
He says, Brethren, I speak in terms of
human relations, even though it's only a man's
covenant.
Yet when it has been ratified, no one
sets it aside or adds conditions to it.
Now, the promises were spoken to Abraham and
to his seed.
He does not say, and to seeds, as
he's referring to many, but rather to one,
and to your seed, that is, Christ.
What I'm saying is this.
The law which came 430 years later does
not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God
so as to nullify the promise.
Now, you see what he says in verse
15?
Even in human relations, you don't nullify it.
I mean, when my grandfather died, I remember
our family got together and my older brother
read his will.
And in that will, he said, I want
my revolver and my old cap and ball
rifle to go to my grandson, Charles.
Well, that's the first thing I ever heard
of it.
I was surprised.
I was included in that will.
And what did my brother say?
Well, we'd just put a line through that
because I kind of wanted to have that
revolver.
He didn't say that.
You don't do that.
You don't come even with a man's covenant
and start adding things on.
Well, Charles can have that gun if he
does such and such.
You see what Paul's saying?
He's saying if this thing, if this inheritance
is based on performance, it cannot be based
on promise because promise is flat out.
Now, that's really good when we start finding
out what God promised Abraham.
Let's read on.
Verse 18, For if the inheritance is based
on law, it's no longer based on a
promise.
But God granted it to Abraham by means
of a promise.
Why the law then?
What's the purpose of the law?
It was added because of transgressions or for
the sake of transgressions, having been ordained through
angels by the agency of a mediator until
the seed should come to whom the promise
had been made.
Now, a mediator is not for one party
only, whereas God is only one.
Is the law then contrary to the promises
of God?
May it never be.
For if a law had been given which
was able to impart life, then righteousness would
indeed have been based on law.
You see, righteousness tied in with life and
with law.
But the Scripture has shut up all men
under sin that the promise by faith in
Jesus Christ might be given to those who
believe.
But before faith came, we were kept in
custody under the law, being shut up to
the faith which was later to be revealed.
Therefore, the law has become our tutor or
schoolmaster to lead us to Christ that we
may be justified by faith.
But now that faith has come, we are
no longer under the tutor.
Now, he says it again.
We read those verses about not being under
the law.
Here it says, you're no longer under.
This child conductor brought us up to a
certain point, and now we're no longer under
that anymore.
That's what he said.
For you are all sons of God through
faith in Christ Jesus.
For all of you who were baptized into
Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
There's neither Jew nor Greek.
There's neither slave nor free man.
There's neither male nor female.
For you're all one in Christ Jesus, and
if you belong to Christ, then you are
Abraham's seed heirs according to promise.
There it is again.
Promise.
Now, I want to take the remainder of
our time here just to look a little
bit at this idea of promise, where all
we're doing here is just kind of getting
some things stirred up and laying a foundation
for what we're going to go on with,
Lord willing, tomorrow.
What did God promise Abraham?
Well, first of all, He promised him a
seed.
And that seed was Isaac.
Remember that?
In Isaac shall your seed be called.
He promised him a seed.
What else did He promise him?
He promised him a nation.
He said, I'll make of you a great
nation.
And that nation was Israel.
And He did.
He kept that promise.
And He made of Abraham a great nation.
We won't look up all these verses, but
I think you know, many of you anyway,
hopefully know them.
You can go back there to Genesis 12
and following and see those.
He promised Abraham what?
He said, get out of this land and
this country, and I'm going to take you
and what?
I'll give you another land.
He promised him a land.
And then He promised a blessing.
He said, I'll bless you and through you,
all the nations of the world will be
blessed.
And that blessing, riches, protection, old age, all
those things He did give him.
And He gave him a land, physical land,
the land of Canaan.
He gave him a physical nation, the nation
of Israel.
And He gave him a seed, Isaac.
But beloved, when we read in the New
Testament, we find out that promise was a
lot deeper and a lot bigger than those
physical things.
Who was the real seed?
Christ.
Paul says that.
Just flat out says it.
So God's, now think about this, how it's
fulfilled.
God says to Abraham, you're going to have
a seed one day.
Sure enough, where'd the Messiah come from?
He came from that lineage.
And the Messiah came, the seed came.
Now what else did He say?
He said, I'm going to make of you
a great nation.
You go out and count the stars, so
shall your seed be.
What did we just read about who the
seed are?
If you belong to Christ, you're Abraham's seed,
and heirs according to the promise.
So there is a spiritual nation, and that
nation is the church.
Now let me ask you, can you think
of a verse that says that?
It's nice to think about that.
Is there any verses along that line?
Alright, 1 Peter.
Let's turn to that.
Tremendous portion of Scripture.
1 Peter, chapter 2.
Beginning at, well, we won't read the whole
section, but let's just read verse 9.
But you are a chosen race, a royal
priesthood.
Now see, this kingdom of priests that God
talked about, that was not Israel.
The chosen race, that was not physical Israel.
He says it right here.
They were a picture and a type when
God separated them out as a holy nation.
They were a picture and a type of
a real holy nation.
And they were set apart physically from the
other nations as a picture and a type
of people that would be set apart in
reality from other nations.
And that's the church.
You are a chosen race.
You're a kingdom of priests.
The church is a kingdom of priests offering
up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people for God's own
possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of
Him who has called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light.
Can you think of another one?
How about this?
Matthew 21, 43.
He says, the kingdom of God is going
to be taken away from you and given
to a nation.
It's going to be taken away from you
and given to a nation that brings forth
the fruit thereof.
You remember that?
Let's turn back to it.
We've got plenty of time here tonight.
Matthew chapter 21.
What was the problem?
Jesus told this parable of this vineyard.
And the owner of that vineyard would send
slaves to receive produce and got nothing.
That's what happened with Israel repeatedly.
Finally, He sends His Son.
You know what the Lord is saying here?
He's saying, first of all, He's telling who
He is.
I'm the Son.
He's also saying something about those people that
crucified Him.
This is the heir.
Come, let us kill Him.
And they knew who He was.
They knew in their hearts what was going
on.
And they crucified Him.
And He says in verse 40, Therefore, when
the owner of the vineyard comes, what will
he do to those vine growers?
And they said to Him, He'll bring those
wretches to a wretched end, and will rent
out the vineyard to other vine growers who
will pay Him the proceeds at the proper
season.
Jesus said to them, Did you never read
in the Scriptures?
The stone which the builders rejected, this became
the chief cornerstone.
This came about from the Lord, and it
is marvelous in our eyes.
Therefore, I say to you, Therefore, I say
to you, the kingdom of God will be
taken away from you and given to a
nation, producing the fruit of it.
Beloved, the church, I'm not talking about Christendom,
but the church produces the fruit of the
kingdom.
If what you're looking at is not producing
the fruit of the kingdom and giving it
back to the Master, you're not looking at
the church.
That's the whole point of this transfer of
the kingdom.
He's going to give it to a nation
that will bring forth the fruit of it.
What about the land?
What's the land?
He said, I'm going to give you a
country.
Well, let's look at Hebrews chapter 11.
Hebrews 11 and verse 13.
All these died in faith without receiving the
promises, but having seen them and having welcomed
them from a distance and having confessed that
they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
For those who say such things make it
clear that they are seeking a country of
their own.
And if indeed they had been mindful, remembering,
thinking about that country from which they went
out, they would have had opportunity to return.
You want to go back?
The way is wide open.
If that's what you want.
But that's not what they wanted.
If they had been thinking of that country
from which they went out, they would have
had opportunity to return.
But as it is, they desire a better
country that is a heavenly one.
Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called
their God, for He has prepared a city
for them.
Do you know what that means?
Abraham was not just looking for the physical
land of Canaan.
That's what it says.
He's desiring a heavenly country.
And this promise of the land has to
do with the new heavens and the new
earth.
Think of it in Romans chapter 4.
Paul says this, The promise that he should
be the heir of the world was not
to Abraham or to his seed through the
law.
You see that?
He's going to inherit the world.
There's going to be...
What did Jesus say?
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit,
there it is again, the earth.
And God said to Abraham, He said, You're
going to sojourn, and one day you're going
to live as a stranger in exile in
land.
One day you're going to inherit the very
land that you're in exile in right now.
Your seed, to your seed I will give
the land of their sojournings.
Who are His seed?
We are.
Isn't this amazing?
Right now, Christians are crushed and ridiculed and
walked on.
True Christians are.
But blessed, Jesus said, are the meek, for
they're going to inherit the whole thing.
Now think about this, beloved.
God says to Abraham, He says, I'm going
to give you a seed, and I'm going
to make of you a great nation, just
like the stars in heaven.
It's certain.
It has to do with my eternal purpose.
It has to do with my promise.
It doesn't have to do with human performance.
It has to do with what I'm going
to do, what I've said I'm going to
do.
It's a promise.
It's by grace that it might be by
faith, not by anything that we do.
And He says, I'm going to give you
a land.
What else did He say?
I'm going to bless you.
What's the blessing?
This is a little bit harder.
What's the blessing?
Let me put it this way.
What's the opposite of blessing?
A curse.
Now, let's go look at this in Galatians.
Galatians chapter 3 and verse, well, He's already
said in verse 7, Be sure that those
who are of faith are the sons of
Abraham.
Look at verse 8.
The Scripture foreseeing what?
That God would justify the Gentiles by faith.
Preach the gospel.
That's what it is there.
It's evangelized right there.
Preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, All
the nation, that's the Gentiles, shall be blessed
in you.
Blessing, beloved, has to do with justification.
Just like the curse has to do with
condemnation.
Now, let's read on.
Verse 9, So then, those who are of
faith are blessed with Abraham the believer.
For as many as are of the works
of the law are under a curse.
For it is written, Cursed is everyone who
does not abide by all things written in
the book of the law to perform them.
Now that no one is justified by the
law before God is evident, for the righteous
man shall live by faith.
However, the law is not of faith.
On the contrary, he who practices them shall
live by them.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the
law, having become a curse for us.
For it is written, Cursed is everyone who
hangs on a tree, in order that in
Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come
to the Gentiles.
And as a result of that justification, we
receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Lost men, and Lord willing we'll look at
this tomorrow, lost men are walking around under
a curse all the time.
It's resting upon them.
They're condemned.
When you become a Christian, you're justified in
the sight of God and blessing comes down
upon you and it stays on you all
the time.
Blessedness.
Blessed.
Now what does David say?
David describes the blessedness of the man to
whom God imputes righteousness without work, saying, Blessed
are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose
sins are covered.
Blessed is the man to whom God will
not impute sin.
Blessedness.
Now look at this.
Way back here with Abraham, God says, I'm
going to send a seed through you.
And I'm going to make of you a
great nation.
Spiritually speaking, we're talking here about the church.
And He says, all the nations of the
earth, Gentiles like us, are going to get
justified through, they're going to be blessed through
you.
You see all this?
And one day you're going to inherit the
whole world.
And your seed will inherit the whole world.
Now, I don't know how much of that
Abraham saw, but you remember the Lord Jesus
said, He said, they said, you're not yet
50 years old.
You seen Abraham?
He said, your father Abraham rejoiced to see
my day.
And he saw it and was glad.
Now look at what we've done here.
We've gone to the New Testament.
And we have found out a whole lot
more meaning than things that we would not
have gotten if we started in the Old
Testament and imposed it on the New.
We've got to do this thing right.
Now, it's true in every area.
In a lot of the problems over the
Sabbath, people come to the Old Testament, they
set up everything that it ought to be
in the New Testament, and then they ram
that through the New Testament.
That's not the way to do it.
Go to the New Testament.
Find out how to understand things.
That's the way to interpret the Old.
And that's true in every area.
Find out what these things really mean and
what the fulfillment of these things really is.
We ought to be radically taught by the
New Testament.
God, who at sundry times and in diverse
manner spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets, He's spoken now in His
Son.
You remember what happened on the Mount of
Transfiguration?
They said, Lord, it's good to be here.
Let's build three tabernacles.
The cloud overshadowed them.
He said, this is my Son.
This is a different thing entirely here.
You're not talking about comparing Him with anybody
else.
Hear Him.
Have you ever wondered?
I mean, here's Paul telling us.
Paul's saying, look, the seed was Christ.
Where in the world did he get that?
And the blessings?
Justification.
How did he get that?
Well, we know it's by the revelation of
the Holy Spirit.
But have you ever thought about how, you
know, I like to think about how it
may have happened in his mind.
What was the big stumbling block to the
Jew?
We preach Christ crucified to the Jews as
a stumbling block.
Why was that such a big stumbling block?
The idea of a crucified Messiah is a
contradiction in terms.
Here you come to a Jew and you
say, the Messiah has come.
I've got good news.
The one we've been waiting for for so
long, He's come.
They say, where is He?
Well, He died on a Roman cross.
He died as a condemned criminal under the
worst type of judgment that you could have
from the Roman government.
And worse than that, you go back to
the Bible and you find out that anybody
who hangs on a tree is cursed.
And worse than that, you find out that
they're cursed of God.
Now, you try going to a Jew and
say, listen, the Messiah has come, the one
that's going to deliver us.
And I've got good news for you.
He's been cursed of God and died and
hung on a tree.
Talk about a stumbling block.
Now, something happened to Paul.
He's going down the road to Damascus, breathing
out threatenings and slaughter, and he met somebody.
And he didn't know who it was, but
he knew one thing.
It was the Lord.
Who art thou, Lord?
And everything changed then.
And he had a lot of thinking to
do.
Now, think of what this must have been.
He says, this man, he's the Messiah.
He's the Son of God.
I know who He is.
How could He have died under the curse
of God?
And then just like that, it must have
happened.
Isaiah said that he would die under a
curse, but not his curse, my curse.
God put that curse upon him that was
mine.
That's the explanation.
And he said he'd give his life a
ransom for many.
That explains it all.
And that explains why God said to Abraham,
through you all the nations of the earth,
the Gentiles will be blessed, because Christ bore
the curse.
See how everything...
I don't know if that's the way it
happened or not, but I know that God
has all these things right here, doesn't He?
It's just right there.
Right there.
What a thing this is.
What do we learn from all this?
And I said we're trying...
I'm closing here.
We're trying to lay a foundation.
What do we learn?
As we look back at these promises and
see what they really meant and so on.
What do we learn from the spiritual nature
of these promises to Abraham?
This is what we learn.
We learn that all along, God has been
moving history toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's where He's going, the summing up of
all things in Christ.
And it goes back even before the covenant
with Abraham, it goes back to the promise
made there in Genesis 3, you remember?
God says to the devil, before He ever
pronounced a curse on the woman and on
the man, He says to the devil, He
says, I will put enmity between you and
the woman and between your seed and her
seed.
If it hadn't been God putting it in
there, it wouldn't have happened.
We'd still be in league with the devil.
We'd be just like that with him.
God says, I'm going to put enmity between
you and her seed, and you're going to
bruise His heel, He's going to crush your
head.
And that was in Genesis 3.
And now He begins working His way toward
Christ.
He raises up the line of Seth after
Abel is killed.
And He begins to work His way, and
down through Noah, and up here He gets
to Abraham.
Now He's going to call out a nation.
Now, He's calling out that nation, not as
something permanent, but in order to get to
Christ.
And He gives the law of Moses, you
see.
Once this nation is established, He gives the
law of Moses as a schoolmaster to help
get us there.
And the law of Moses, what it does,
it shows you, number one, how sinful you
are and how much you need a Savior.
And it's loaded with types and pictures of
the One who's coming that's real.
This stuff is shadows, but it's going to
give way to reality eventually.
You talk about a parenthesis, Israel is the
parenthesis.
It's on the way to get to the
reality.
That's it.
God never goes backwards.
He's put His Son up here on the
throne, ruling and reigning over the spiritual realms.
He's got a spiritual nation of truly holy
people, not just set apart by some ritual
or ceremony.
He's got reality.
There's substance now.
There's reality.
You see that?
The same thing is true of the law
of Moses as it is with the nation
of Israel.
God gave the law of Moses with a
purpose of getting us up to somewhere.
And Paul says, now that the work's over,
you're no longer undertutor.
I like the picture that one brother used
of a nurse crop.
And I don't remember on this from my
days when I was growing up.
We grew up on a little farm, but
at least the way they used to do
it was that when they planted alfalfa, they
wouldn't just plant alfalfa by itself, but you'd
plant something with it like oats so that
it would have protection the first year.
And it doesn't have to go through, you
know, the rigors of winter.
But you've got to get something that will
die out the next year so that the
alfalfa can take over.
That's what the nation of Israel is.
It's a nurse crop.
The spiritual reality is inside there.
And when John the Baptist came, he said,
springtime's come.
Time for the nurse crop to die out.
Now we're going to go on with reality.
I think that's a pretty good picture.
That's what the church is.
The church is not a physical thing.
The church is a living God.
It's not a political power.
The church is a spiritual reality, a spiritual
entity.
That's what we're a part of.
If you truly know the Lord.
Lord willing, we're going to go on tomorrow
and consider this subject of what it means
to be free from the law.
And what the law of Christ is.
Amen.