Beyond the Basics 6 - The Gospel (Gal 1:8)

Galatians 1:8 and the Curse on a False Gospel

I would like you, first of all, to open up your Bibles to Galatians 1 .8, a passage that I'm sure you all know very well, most of you know very well. Paul writes to the Galatians a church for which he did not give the warmest of greetings, and in the middle of his chastisement he says this, but even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed.

Now I want to make one thing clear, I will talk about Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholicism, any religion that has a different view of how one gets to heaven, and the reason I will do this, multiple reasons, Titus 1 outlines when it talks about the responsibilities of an elder, says he must be able to exhort and sound doctrine and refute those who contradict, and also this verse here, when we look at it, even if an angel from heaven gives a gospel to you that is different, that is contrary, that is opposed to the gospel of the apostles, he is to be accursed.

So when we say, listen, so and so says he's a Christian, and this is how he says you get to heaven, if that is contrary to what the gospel actually is, what the apostles actually taught, what Christ proclaimed, what the scriptures clearly teach, then he is to be accursed.

And I'll do that, and you know what, sometimes I may inadvertently, or vertently, is that a word? I may laugh at the absurdity of what they're saying. How they will look at the Bible and say one thing, and the Bible says directly something else.

But I take no joy in the death of the wicked. If we look at Ezekiel 18 .32, you don't have to turn there, but what does God say? He says, I take, what? No delight in the death of the wicked. God doesn't.

I don't. I think the saddest experience I've ever had in my life is being at the funeral of unbelievers, and listening as the person leading the funeral, assured everyone that that person was in heaven.

And they did so, I've been at several funerals like this, one on the basis that that person was baptized as a baby. Another, the basis was she was a good person. I had no reason to think either one of those people were Christians.

And it's a very, very sad experience. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the gospel. And I read an article this week, and I just want to share a couple of the highlights and or lowlights with you.

This one man, and I own a few of his books, which I'm having difficulty reconciling in my mind at the moment, talking about John 3 .16. He describes this verse as the gospel in a nutshell. Well, I don't have any problem with that.

He says, the verse indicates God's love is global, sacrificial, personal, and eternal. He says, this is a quote, we will never exhaust the content and the meaning of John 3 .16. I still have no problem with that.

And then he says, now listen to this kind of carefully. He says that the Greek word for whosoever, which occurs more than a thousand times in the New Testament, carries the idea of anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Whosoever believes in him is John's normal way of describing saving faith. He's talking about John 3 .16. Whosoever. Then he says, or he emphasized, this article says, he emphasized the importance of starting with an exegesis of scripture.

Working forward to find a biblical theology and then attempting to develop a systematic theology. And then this is a quote, what I'm after is, what does God say in the Bible, and then let the chips fall where they may.

John 3 .16, whosoever means anywhere, anyplace, anytime, anybody, etc., etc., etc. And as I've said before, there's only one problem with that. You're going to talk about, what is exegesis? Who can tell me what exegesis is?

I see that hand, Dr. Casey. To pull out. So what an exegete does, what a preacher does, is he looks into the text and he pulls the original meaning out. And to do that, he has to use proper hermeneutics.

Hermeneutics meaning he has to look at things in context, he has to look at the original language, he has to put it in a culture, consider the authorial intent, all these kind of things. And so when I say, or when he says, that he's looking at John 3 .16 and he's talking about whoever and how it occurs a thousand times in the New Testament, and you know what, I didn't even do my computer search to see if that actually is true, but here's what I do know.

Let's say it occurs a thousand times in the New Testament. I did look at this, again this week, because I just wanted to make sure I'm just not spouting this off. It does not occur in John 3 .16. It's not there.

Go home, don't take my word for it, look it up yourself. See if the word for whoever, whosoever, is in that verse. It's not there. It actually is a holdover from the King James. King James was written or translated with certain theological bent, and it's just so ingrained in our English understanding of the Bible that they keep putting that word in there, even though it is not in the Greek.

Anyway, I bring that, I mean there are other things in here that just drive me nuts, but I'm not going to... What's that? No? No? No? I'll tell you who it is if you want to know after class. It was not Dave Hunt though.

Exegesis, Hermeneutics, and Translating John 3:16

Okay. Last week we talked about various words in terms of how Christ's work, what it accomplishes for us, what it did, and again I don't know how many of you were here on Sunday night, but Pastor Mike talked about some of these things.

We don't have... In our English again, English is not... How many of you have ever studied any language? Spanish, Italian, German, Greek, Hebrew, take your pick. You know that every language has its own nuances.

Try this. Go to another country where they even speak English and start speaking as you normally would. Well, here's an example. Try this little New Englandese for... I heard this on the radio yesterday.

I just laughed. Somebody said, you know, I like such and such and someone else said, a radio host said, so don't I. I thought when I first heard that, I thought it was a Hebrew word, but turns out it's not.

So don't I. Can I just say, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And by the way, it's not in any dictionary that you'll ever find. So don't I. But anyway, if you take your little colloquialisms, your little phrases that you like to say over here and you go to Australia or something, you're going to get, you know, looks like...

What are you trying to say? So don't I does not translate, not only does it not translate in other countries, you know, but try it anywhere else in the country, they won't get it either. But when you're translating from one language to another, there are nuances, sometimes there are entire concepts that just don't neatly fit.

And this is exactly what happens when we look at the Bible, the New Testament, when we look at the Greek, it's sometimes hard to take things and translate them exactly into the English. For example, that's how, you know, John 3 .16, the idea of whosoever or whoever is there, even though the word, as I've said before, for those of you who haven't heard me say it, the word is actually a participle.

Who knows what a participle is? I see that hand. Go ahead. She's having difficulty describing a participle. What is it? Okay. If you're having trouble describing it, it's an ing word, right? It is a...

Right. It's a verbal noun. It's a verb with ing on the end, running, jumping. What are some other, you know... The concept is it is a verb, but sometimes we will, you know, he was running or... I can't think of any others.

So, you know, thinking. They are verbs that can be used as nouns and sometimes, you know, the art of thinking. I don't know why the art of thinking. You know, so it is a... It's a noun. It's used as a noun, but it's actually a verb.

And so, in John 3 .16, the verbal noun, the participle, or as they say in South Africa, participle, is believing. It's believing ones. It applies to those who believe. It describes a class of people who inherently are believers.

Through and through, they are believers. So, really, again, a better concept or a better translation of John 3 .16, if you were to just take the words that are there in the Greek and translate them, would be something like this.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that the believing ones, those who believe in him, I guess would be another good one, those believing in him, let's put it that way, those believing in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

And it describes, again, something that it's not a matter of ability. It describes what they are, who they are right now. So, all that to say, there are nuances that get lost in the language. Okay, so we talked about several of these things, expiation, redemption, other things.

Reconciliation Between God and Man

Reconciliation. Reconciliation, this is something for those of you who've never been to court. They will often use some kind of mediation. They want to get a dispute settled before you actually go into the courtroom because they don't want to clog up the court.

So, they make you go to a mediation court where somebody who's paid a lot less is brought in to try to resolve the two. Reconciliation. The action whereby two people who are at odds are brought back to a condition of fellowship and appropriate relationship.

Now, how would the term reconciliation apply to God and man? Stephen. Okay. God is at war with unbelievers. Is that true? Are unbelievers at war with God? How do we know that? Does the Bible ever say that unbelievers are the enemy of God?

Okay. Where? Where? Romans chapter 5. Let's look at chapter 5 here for a moment. I mean, that article that I didn't want to continue reading, it says that, you know, man, we shouldn't read too much into Ephesians 2 .1.

It says, man is dead in his trespasses and sins because if he were completely dead, that would mean he couldn't respond. That article also goes on to say that, you know what, you have to believe before you are regenerated.

What's the problem with that, Bruce? You gasped. That's the problem for you. A dead man can't believe. Well, there's more language here. Let's start in verse 6 of Romans 5. For while we were still helpless, but not completely helpless, certainly we could believe on our own.

What does helpless mean? If someone's helpless, do you just say, well, you know, helpless, but they can still mow the lawn. They can still go grocery shopping. They can still bench press 250 pounds. What does helpless mean?

Unable to do it on their own, to help themselves. For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Why would one not die for a righteous man?

What's that? They don't need it. Listen, if there was somebody righteous, Paul's already said that there's no one righteous, not even one. If there was somebody righteous, Jesus wouldn't have to die for them.

Though perhaps for the good man, some would dare even to die. How many good are there? There's no one good but God. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall now be saved from the wrath of God through him. Now, you know, I saw a bumper sticker again this morning. I love this bumper sticker. God is love.

But how would you like to see the bumper sticker that said God is wrath? I'd like to see that one. Is it true? I mean, like it says here, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. Verse 10, if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

Listen, so important, reconciled. We're not two people who are somewhat neutral towards each other, we're God and man. We are at war, we are enemies. Why? Because we are by nature sinners. God is by nature holy.

Holiness and sin are like oil and vinegar, oil and water. Why is it oil never mixes with anything? I don't know. Daniel, I'm at peace with God. Yeah, people think that, but are they really? What do unbelievers do?

I mean, you read the book of Romans and you know, we talk about, you know, it's theological, it's this, that. It really reveals a lot about mankind. Romans 1 says that men suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

They know the truth, they know some truth about God. How do they know it? Because of creation, natural revelation. They look around and they go, listen, what is the number one thing right now? I just saw this thing on the bus down in Washington, D .C. that these atheists are running.

It says, you know, basically it's got a Christmas theme to it. Have you seen this? Yeah, be good for goodness sake, and then why believe in a God? You don't need a God, you can just be good. Just be good for the sake of being good.

Mankind sees creation, sees that there is order to it, sees that that demands that there is a creator, and yet what do they do? They suppress that truth, the Bible tells us, and we see so much evidence of that right now.

Overwhelming number of people say, you know what, I see it, but I think it's just an accident. There really isn't any order at all, it's all random chaos. This is how mankind thinks. Paul ends in an excellent and accessible, meaning anybody can read this and get it, the Moody Handbook of Theology says this, the emphasis is of making peace with God.

This is what Jesus did. It describes an action whereby two people who are at odds are brought back into a condition of fellowship and appropriate relationship. Man is estranged from God. God from the womb, and is brought into communion with God.

Sin created a barrier between man and God and rendered man hostile towards God. Through Christ that enmity and the wrath of God was removed. God is the one who initiated this change. He moved to reconcile us to himself.

Let's look at one more passage because it's so good, 2 Corinthians 5. They're all good, but you know, I just really, starting in verse 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away.

Behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed us to the word of reconciliation.

Listen, this is what we do. We preach sin, we preach wrath of God, we do all these things. Why? Not to scare people, but to let them know there's a need for reconciliation, that they need to be made right with God.

This word is viewed manward. Man was the one who had moved out of fellowship, and man needed to be reconciled. Okay, reconciliation. Next, propitiation. This really is an interesting word because it's in the Bible and because we don't really pay a whole lot of attention to it.

I think it's one of those words where before you know what it means, you just kind of skip over it. I don't know what it is, but it must be good and I'm going to skip it. Propitiation. I'm just going to kind of summarize this for you.

God is angry with the wicked every day. God's holiness demands that sin be punished. There is a debt that is owed. Christ's death satisfies the wrath of God. It propitiates. It puts away. It is the very picture of the Old Testament sacrifice where something was burned and the aroma burns, you know, rises.

Well, when that sacrifice of Christ is viewed by God, it satisfies his wrath. I mean, picture this. Let's just say for a moment that it didn't satisfy the wrath of God. Then what would that say? That Christ died in vain.

Let's say that it only mostly satisfied the wrath of God. Then we've got problems. Christ's death is of infinite value. Infinite value. Why? How can I say that? Well, let's put it this way. How much do my sins, if we were going to rate on a scale of 1 to infinity, how much do my sins offend God?

Infinity. Brian, God doesn't, he doesn't, and that's an excellent point, he doesn't really run out of wrath. It's not like, you know, he has a checking account and at a certain point it's just overdrawn.

That's all the wrath he has. He has infinite love. He has infinite holiness. He has infinite justice, mercy, compassion, wrath. That's why I like, you know, God is merciful. I would like that bumper sticker.

You know, God is just. God is righteous. I just love to see that God is wrath. That's, Bruce, preach it. He saves to the uttermost. All right, propitiation. This is related to the wrath of God because he's holy.

His wrath is directed towards sin and must be assuaged, which means satisfied. Satisfied. If God has a little bit of wrath left over for Steve, Steve's in a lot of trouble. All right, substitution. Substitution, and I just wrecked the whole thing by reading the preeminent verse.

Jesus died in the place of sinners. So if you hear substitution or vicarious substitution, kind of redundant, but people talk about it that way. It is important to think about it rightly. What did, when we talk about Jesus as our substitute, there are two aspects of it.

Who can give me the two aspects? Charlie. Okay, what's the first part? His perfect 33 years. Okay. His perfect obedience for his whole life and then his perfect death. His perfect sacrifice. So on the one hand, he made payment for our sins.

And on the other hand, when he talks about his perfect life, what does that mean? He lived a perfect life that we are commanded to. You know, we forget about that. It's easy to forget about that, but we just read it in Romans five.

More so we will be saved by his life. It is important that our sins are paid for and it is equally important that our commanded perfection be lived out in another. So that when God looks at us, he sees not only, I mean, thankfully he doesn't really see us.

I mean, the way the Scottish Presbyterians, and I won't affect my accent this morning, but the way they see it is we're wrapped in the robes of Christ's righteousness so that when God looks at us, he sees the righteousness of Christ.

He sees the perfection of Christ and he says, I judge him to be righteous, not on his own merits, but on the merits of Christ. And when he looked at Christ on the cross, he saw our sins. All of the wrath of God for us was poured out on Jesus Christ on the cross.

There is no more important doctrine in the entire Bible than that. The substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. If you don't understand that, you need to raise your hand, you need to study it more, you need to get it.

It's not just that Jesus died for you, it's that his death paid for your sins and his life was the perfect righteousness that you are commanded to have. Jesus said what? Be perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect.

Christ is the substitute who bears the punishment and he also lived a perfect life for us, which is something I should add to the next thing of that. But double imputation, double imputation, let me just explain that quickly because it's in the notes here.

Double imputation, not amputation, imputation, you have to be really careful this time of the morning. Imputation is an accounting term. It means to lay to the account of another. So when our sins are imputed to Christ, it means that they are laid to his account.

He paid the price for our sins and when his righteousness is imputed to us, his perfect life is credited to us and it is on these two bases that we are granted eternal life. Alright, justification. Forgiveness is the negative side of salvation.

In other words, our sins are forgiven, are put behind the back of God. Justification is the positive side. When God looks at us and declares us righteous, even though we are, what? Are we righteous? No.

But we are declared righteous. It is a legal act of God whereby he declares the sinner righteous on the basis of Christ's death. Justification is, number three, through the grace of God, based on Christ's death and through the means of faith.

Man has sinned, broken God's standard and he needs to be justified. Why? Why does he need to be declared righteous by God? Because he is born a sinner, but with an eternal perspective, he is born a sinner and he needs to be declared righteous in order for what to happen.

Can I see a hand? Daniel. Pardon. Okay, pardon for sin, we have to be declared righteous. Bruce? For us to go to heaven. For us to go to heaven, we cannot have any sin. We cannot be sinful people and get into heaven.

God's Motives in Salvation and His Glory

Number four, God's motives. Roman numeral four, God's motives for sending his son. We could discuss many of them, and I thought of some more this morning. I mean, I think the list is pretty long, but certainly love is one of them.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believed in him may, what? Not perish, but inherit eternal life. Okay, his glory. You know, that's one that we don't often think about, but I'd like you to open Ephesians 1 again.

Ephesians 1. I think I probably said this before. Let me put it another way. I think the most difficult theological questions, well I'll just make up four chapters right now. If you read and understand these four chapters, you can answer almost any difficult theological question.

Ephesians 1 and 2, Romans 9 and John 6. Memorize those and get back to me. Okay. Ephesians 1, and it is fascinating to read this, starting in verse 3, and just look at how often, well first of all, notice what man's responsibility is.

Well, I won't put it that way. Look at what man's actions are throughout this whole prayer that Paul is praying. Try to find out what we do in all this. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him.

In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his kind intention, which he purposed in him, with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

In him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of his glory.

Verse 13, in him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory.

Now if you look there at the notes, his glory, I said, Ephesians 1, 5 and 6, 12 and 14, it just keeps going on about his glory, all this is done for what purpose? For the glory of God, for the glory of Christ, that he might be praised, not that man might be praised, and in fact if you look at verses 3 to 14, and you try to figure out what part we play in it, it's pretty hard to see.

All the things that apply to us are passive. We didn't decide to be inheritors, there's nothing in here that we do. This is all about the glory of God. So let's just move on here. What can you do, or what you cannot do?

You can't do any of these things. You cannot independently, and independently is important, acknowledge that you have sinned and are not acceptable to God. You can't really believe that all by yourself.

If you could, then you wouldn't be helpless. If you could, then you wouldn't be dead in your sins and trespasses. You would have, as some theologians call, an island of righteousness, a little space untainted by sin that you could act on your own.

You cannot independently repent and call upon the name of Jesus to save you. Notice that, independently, why do I say that? What does independently mean? By yourself. So here are the two concepts. There is monergism and synergism.

Synergism we all know. What is synergism? The reason I say we all know it is because I think we all live in a business-occupied realm. What is synergy? Working together, cooperation. And erg, by the way, the sin, urge, synergy, that means work.

Work, work, work. Sin is together. It's S-Y-N, not S-I-N. So the idea is that it's two or more people or forces working together, synergy. Monergism is one working alone. And salvation is monergistic or synergistic?

Monergistic. If you say it's synergistic, for example, if you say that grace fills in the spaces after all that we can do, then may I suggest you throw away your Book of Mormon because that's what they teach.

That's in the Book of Mormon. Grace, I'll forget the exact quote because it's been a while since I've been a second Nephi, but what they suggest is that you do everything you possibly can to be right in the sight of God and then God just kind of goes, you know, good job, let me give you a hand up.

Is that a picture of salvation? Is that for the glory of God as we just read in Ephesians 1? No. You cannot independently do these things. You cannot independently seek forgiveness through the blood of Christ.

D, you cannot independently acknowledge that he is the rightful ruler of your life. But you are required to do these or go to hell. And here is the mistake that many theologians, how many theologians do we have in here this morning?

Oh, that is so bad. Can I just see a show of hands of all the theologians in here? Rhonda, Barbara, come on. You're theologians. What does it mean to be a theology person, theologian? Study of God. You study God.

You can't be a Christian and say I'm not a theologian. You are a theologian. You might not think I don't want to be a theologian. Well, yeah you do. Do you want to know God better? How many of you would like to know God better?

Good. Keep those hands up. How many of you are theologians? Good. I think we're getting somewhere. You are a theologian. And here's the question with which theologians wrestle. How can God command us to do something which we don't have the ability to do?

How can he do that? Charlie? Okay. We did before the fall, correct? Is it fair to command us to do something? Mike? Okay. Yeah, the requirement is still the same to get into heaven. Did God go, man, Adam, Eve, you guys really blew it.

So now you know what? I was going to set the bar of perfection, but now pretty good. We'll get you in. Going to have to just, you know, it's like Olympic trials. Hey, nobody can get over 17 feet. We're going to go with 16.

Six is the qualifier. Somebody has to win. Fewest misses wins. Anybody still pole vault? I don't know. That's exactly right. God's standard. What did Jesus say? You must be perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect.

And if you're not perfect, you can't get in. You must be perfect to get into heaven, but responsibility does not equal ability just because they sound like they end the same response ability. It's an I, not an A.

You don't have the ability. God is the mover. God is the mover. What do I mean by that? In salvation, God goes first. What would happen? Let's hear from somebody who doesn't ordinarily answer. What would happen if God just said, you know what?

I am going to wait for someone to approach me before I save them. What's that, Flo? We never would. Flo says we never would. Well, somebody else, some other theologian. How many theologians are in this room?

Why would we never approach God seeking salvation? I see that hand. Will. Because of our nature. Sure. Because of our nature. Do we naturally love God? We're not even neutral. You can't find biblical language that says we're neutral toward God.

We're going to skip over the MacArthur section and go down to page 22. Remember, the whole initiative of salvation is with God. Let's look at 1 Thessalonians 5 .9. God starts salvation. We can look at Jonah.

Salvation is of the Lord. Who has 1 Thessalonians 5 .9? Brian. Okay. God has not destined us for wrath, but for... Who is he writing to? Believers. The church at Thessalonica. And he says, listen. God didn't design it.

He didn't destine us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. You can't find any passage that says, listen. You have to start the process and then God will respond. Let's just talk about what salvation means.

Salvation in the New Testament sense means a total salvation from the penalty of sin from your past. From present, in the present sense, salvation means from the power of sin. We now have the capacity to obey God.

We're not in bondage to sin and future from the presence of sin. In heaven, are we going to sin? No. No. There will be no sin in the presence of God. Now, a couple questions here. Thought questions. What about the Aborigine in Australia?

People ask these kind of questions. The prisoner in Siberia. The Buddhist priest in Nepal. What about those people, in other words, who never hear the gospel? Do they get a second chance in heaven? Romans 1 says they're still guilty.

That's exactly right. Does the book of Hebrews tell us that there's a second chance? It is appointed to men once to die and then a second chance. No. And then to judgment. What is baptismal regeneration?

Since Mike says that all the time, it's silly. Mike says that all the time and sometimes I think we throw these words out too fast. And that's one of the advantages of these kind of sheets in this class is you hear things, you go, what in the world does that mean?

What's baptismal regeneration? By sprinkling with water, you're saved. That's right. And there are even some churches that teach, you know what, you have to be dunked in the water in order to be saved.

Church of Christ in Boston teaches that. In fact, they have to baptize you. Mormon Church says that it is the baptizing, the act of being baptized that washes away sin. Catholic Church, I mean, you know, if you believe this, then you would run around hospitals baptizing babies too because if you believe that that is what washes away sin, then you're going to do that.

Is it biblical? Is the concept of baptismal regeneration biblical? No. We'll talk about that more in the weeks to come. But what do you have to know to be saved? What do you have to know to be saved? Do you have to be a systematic theologian?

Do you have to be on the level of John Calvin, Martin Luther, R .L. Dabney? What do you have to know to be saved? That you're a sinner. You have to know your own state, right? That God is holy and demands payment for that sin.

Good. That Christ is the payment for that sin. And he's the only way, the truth, and the life. And he is. He's a very good man. No, you have to know that he's God. And then what? If you have all those intellectual facts, then what?

Repent and believe. Repent and believe. Not so hard. I understand Pastor Mike has the men in his discipleship lab give a one minute gospel. I think we just did it in one minute. We didn't mention the resurrection.