Law and Gospel (w/ Remnant Radio) | Theocast

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Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

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Christian life from a Reformed perspective. Our goal today is to pull the clutter off the gospel and to reclaim the purpose of the kingdom.

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Your hosts are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina and I'm John Moffitt, I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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Today is a unique podcast. We were interviewed recently by Remnant Radio and we enjoyed this conversation with both

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Josh and Michael, who are the hosts of the podcast, discussing all things law gospel. And we talked about the history, confusing passages and how it's often used inappropriately to rob us of assurance and how when it's used rightly, gives us assurance.

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So we hope you enjoy the episode, stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word, it's called pietism.

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You ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy? That you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what

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Christ has done for you. It's dread versus joy, really, that's pietism. Pietism causes

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Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

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And we have a little book for you, it's free. We want you to download it and we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism.

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Reform theology, really, how it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ and when

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Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like? You can download it on our website, just go to theocast .org.

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I got the guys over at Theocast, got John Moffitt and Justin Perdue with us.

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I've got a lot of great things to say about them, but before I do, I wanna remind everyone, you gotta hit subscribe to the channel, like the video, all that stuff, share it around for those who are going to be helped by this kind of content.

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We're gonna be talking about today about law and gospel and we have lots of different kinds of content coming out, kind of in this same very theme.

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So if you wanna stay updated on all the content we have coming out, we encourage you to click the link in the description, subscribe to the newsletter and you get notified when we come out with conferences, courses, discount codes,

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Patreon, all that fun stuff. And we did just recently release our course. You can register as early as today over at therimnitradio .com

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and if you're on the newsletter, you get a 20 % off discount on top of that. So that's super exciting. Let me toss it over to my co -host, my partner in crime,

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Michael Rountree, before we introduce our guests. Michael, how are you doing today over there in Oklahoma City? I'm doing well over here in Oklahoma City.

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I'm actually excited about our guests today, the Theocast guys. Maybe we can team up a little bit on Josh with some of that reform theology stuff, but no, we're super excited about having you guys on the show.

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And I know Josh just volunteered over here to ask how I'm doing. I pretty much went straight to you guys.

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That's why people are tuning in. Really excited to have you guys on a really influential and impactful podcast.

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You guys should check it out. If you're watching or viewing or listening to this one, make sure you check out

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Theocast, a very, very good podcast. So I can just give it over to either one of you guys and you guys just kind of introduce yourself.

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Tell us a little bit about your podcast. Yeah, my name is John Moffitt and I've been with Justin for,

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I guess this is going on our fourth year now. No, we've been together five, man. Five years. Wow, time flies when you're having a good time.

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But yeah, we started the podcast just kind of as church planters, pastors, who really wanted to give more information, just another kind of resource and tool for our churches.

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And a lot of other people started listening to it, which is great, but we really try to emphasize the sufficiency of Christ in the gospel for all of life.

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And so we believe that all of scripture is about Christ and that when you understand that, then it affects your motivation.

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It affects the way you live as far as godliness and evangelism. So we're pretty excited about what the

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Lord has done and definitely excited to be on the podcast with you guys today. Well, I guess just to say, I'm a pastor in Spring Hill, Tennessee, Grace Reform Church.

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And I'll let Justin tell you a little bit about him and his church. Yeah, I'm Justin Perdue. I am pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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So that's in the Western part of the state for those that aren't familiar. And it's kind of like the city where I live is sort of like Portland, Oregon, got dropped off in the mountains of North Carolina.

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And we're aiming to preach Christ and love the saints, love our neighbor here. Really glad to be a part of the show today.

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Thanks for having us on. Yeah. Well, it is our pleasure to have you on, man. For those of you who don't know,

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I brag about Theocast quite a bit. They've been in our YouTube, kind of recommended YouTube channels for a long time.

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Back in the day, I interviewed Byron. I don't know if that was like 2018. That was an old co -host on the show.

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I've been listening to Theocast, I think since 2017. And I think I've listened to every episode, which is nuts.

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These guys don't know this story, but I am in a classical Pentecostal church, right? I'm raised under the kind of revivalism culture, pietism, crazy high.

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We had rules on top of our rules. Our rules had rules so that we wouldn't break rules. And I remember trying to start

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Remnant Radio in 2017, and I'm cleaning out chimneys and dryer vents.

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It's very lucrative in Texas to clean out chimneys. I don't know if you guys know this. So I'm cleaning out chimneys and the soot is falling on me.

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This lint is blowing on me. And I'm hearing them interview a scholar friend of theirs talking about the covenant of works and the covenant of grace as it relates to Genesis.

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And I just remember ugly crying on this ladder, like three stories up with lint blowing in my face, just like kind of like the snot like that what you get in an altar, you know?

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Anyway, so these guys have like radically shaped the way that I preach, the way that I do ministry.

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I mean, I was a youth pastor at the time, an associate pastor. In fact, some of the teachings of law and gospel actually caused me to have to exit the church

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I was kind of attending at the time because it placed a demand on me to lighten the burden on the people of God rather than to place a heavier burden on them.

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So it's been, I would say, out of any podcast that I've ever listened to, highly recommended, probably made more impact on my life than nearly any other podcast, if any other podcast.

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So without just kind of blowing more smoke up everyone with this kind of intro,

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I use a lot of phrases. Well, I'm trying, I'm trying. Honor where honor is due, right?

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So the program today, Law and Gospel, people heard me say things like law, gospel, covenant of works, covenant of grace, a lot of phrases that people aren't typically familiar with.

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Could I maybe just lob it over to you guys? Define law, gospel distinction and why that's such an important lens for the body of Christ as they're approaching the scriptures as preachers are preaching, et cetera.

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Let's attack it first. You want me to take it now first? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. All right, so law and gospel distinction in all of scripture.

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So in Old and New Testament, we see law and gospel. So in the Old Testament, there's law and gospel. In the New Testament, there's law and gospel.

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And anywhere in God's word, where we read of what God requires for righteousness, of what he requires that we would be able to live in his presence and dwell with him in peace, that is law.

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So any command that is given, any imperative that is given along those lines is law. Anywhere in scripture,

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Old or New Testament, where we read of what God has freely given us, particularly in the person and the work of his son,

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Jesus Christ, what Christ has accomplished for us that we receive by faith, that's gospel. And so one of the ways, or I'll maybe give a few of the ways that we simply describe this distinction.

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And maybe some of these will be helpful to you. Maybe one of them. If one of them is helpful, it's worth the time.

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So law is do, gospel is done. So if you think in those terms, anytime in scripture, you are reading what you're to do, that's law.

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Whenever you read of what's been done for you, that's gospel. The law says, do this and live.

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So we'll talk more about the covenant of works probably in this podcast, but the law is a covenant of works to be kept for righteousness or to be broken.

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And then you would face condemnation, says do this and live. The gospel says, Jesus has done it, now live in him.

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Or even thinking after St. Augustine, we could say that everything that God requires in his law, he gives us in his gospel.

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And that's a comforting thing for the saints out there. Listening, I trust. And then last way I might describe this, and this one gets us shot at quite a bit.

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Maybe it won't here on Remnant Radio, but it does on Theocast, is that the law demands everything and gives nothing.

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Whereas the gospel demands nothing and gives everything. And so the law requires everything of us.

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It's an exacting standard. It's all or nothing. If you break any part of it, you're guilty of breaking the whole thing.

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There's no do over, there's no mercy with the law. But when it comes to the gospel, there's nothing actually required of us other than to receive it with an open hand.

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And it gives us everything. Christ has accomplished the entirety of our salvation. And so we rest and trust in him.

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Amen, amen. Well, thank you for that, Justin. So Josh, maybe I'll direct this question towards you.

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So given what he said, the law says do, the gospel says done, this encompasses the totality of scripture, not just Old Testament, but New Testament.

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How would you explain to somebody, maybe even just kind of give some examples,

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Old and New Testament, like how this can really be the case? Because I think in a lot of people's minds, well, the whole

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Old Testament, that's law, maybe except like the promises of outcries or something, but they just think of the

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Old Testament as law, especially the first five books, the Pentateuch, and then the gospel as the

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New Testament. And in defense of this, they might even use John 1, where it says that the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

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But I hear you saying, well, the law came through Moses, but there was also some grace in Moses' writings.

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And yes, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, but there was also some kind of legal requirements, some sermon on the mountain, turn the other cheek and all this kind of stuff.

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So like, help us understand how you find gospel in the Old Testament and law in the

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New Testament. That question was directed at John, right? Yes, John.

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You said Josh, and I was like, I'm positive he means John. I'm positive he means John. I said

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Josh, John. Yeah, this is gonna be great. I wanna hear Josh answer this. Too many J names on this podcast right now.

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I swear we're here to interview you guys. So yeah, no, that's good.

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You know what's interesting about the gospel? So the gospel has always been, it's always been the same.

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It's a promise to redeem sinners from the wrath of God. This was given to Adam and Eve.

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You think about the story of the Bible. You're not even three chapters in and Eve is tempted by the evil one.

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And then she takes up the fruit and eats of it. And then God meets Adam and Eve in the garden.

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And you'll notice there's no obligations put upon Adam and Eve. If you remember the story, he just tells them what he's going to do and what they can look forward to.

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From the seed of the evil come the one who will crush the head of the seed of the serpent. And from that moment forward,

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Adam and Eve needed to believe that God would make all things right through his power and through his means. And so the good news of the gospel has always been

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God will redeem. And then as it is very prophetic in nature in that he continues to give us more and more information of what to look for, how it will be fulfilled.

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So the people who have always believed that God is sufficient to save them have always been saved by faith.

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This is why it says, Paul says, that the gospel was preached to Abraham and he believed, right?

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Such a powerful statement. So the gospel has always been that God is powerful and sufficient and he will save by his means.

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And that his means is a Messiah, the seed of Eve. When you finally get to the New Testament and Jesus Christ raises from the grave and he ascends on high, the gospel ends up becoming what's called news because the fulfillment of the promise has happened now.

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Jesus died, he rose again. And what's interesting about news is that it's a past. When you think about when you watch the news or you read the news, you're reading about events that they are commentating on.

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And so as we go and proclaim the gospel, we're proclaiming the news that Jesus died for our sins and rose again.

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So the whole entire Bible is actually about the proclamation of this wonderful truth and then the fulfillment of it.

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So when someone says the Old Testament is about the law and the New Testament is about the gospel, we would argue that the

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Old Testament is filled with gospel hope because this is exactly what they were believing in is the coming of the

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Messiah. But I love this. Paul says, how do we know we need Jesus? How do we know we need a

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Messiah? I mean, we weren't in the garden. We're not the ones who ate of the fruit. They needed it, but how do we know we need it?

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Well, that's where the law comes in. The law shows us the beautiful righteousness of God, just absolutely perfect and other than we are.

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And it lays it out for us. If you want to be in God's presence, to enjoy what he is, you have to be like he is, which is perfect.

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That's why when Paul says in Romans, for all have short and falls short of the glory of God, we always use that as an illustration of like a bullseye and we fall short of the bullseye.

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That's not what he means. What he means is if you would have obeyed the law perfectly without failing, you would have the right to be in the presence of God's glory because God's glory is perfection.

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So when we sin, we fell short of that. And how is it we know we fell short of being in the presence of God and now under his wrath?

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This is the law. The law tells us that. So the law is not bad and the law is not evil, but for a sinner, it's utter death and destruction.

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So all throughout the Old and New Testament, so in the Old Testament, we are given the law, Mount Sinai, reminding us of the ways in which we have failed

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God. But even at Mount Sinai, we also have the promises of the gospel because it is still by faith in God's Messiah, the seed of Eve, then it coming through Abraham, it's the seed of Abraham who's gonna be the one who blesses all the people in the nations.

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So what Justin and I love to do is go through and show people Jesus throughout all of the

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Old Testament because Jesus, when he shows up on the scene and he's talking to the disciple, he says, if you would have read the

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Old Testament, you would have read about me. Jesus is the point of the gospel. Jesus is the gospel.

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So we would argue that the law and the gospel are very distinct. They're very separate, but the law and the gospel is not

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Old Testament, New Testament. It's all throughout the Bible. So simply, simply, no one gets saved by work.

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They're saved by God's good, mercy and grace. That's good news. Whether that's found in the Old Testament, they're deemed righteous by faith.

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Abraham deemed righteous by faith or in this new covenant that we have. And certainly we would say the new covenant is better.

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There's like blessing to it. It's like good news plus plus, you know, like it's extra. But it's not to say that there's no gospel in the

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Old. And I've got some rapid fire Bible verses that maybe we'll go through here in a second on is this law, is this gospel?

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But before I do that, I almost want to tell people what's at stake because they're hearing, okay, theology, theology, big words, categories.

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Okay, cool, that's fun. But what's at stake here when it comes to robbing the believer of assurance?

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I'd kind of toss this over to Justin. When it comes to conflating the law and the gospel, the danger that we put believers in and the constant panic and fear and burden that is upon their shoulders.

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Because I think that when you realize the weight of what we're talking about, you'll care all the more about what we're doing here.

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Justin, unpack that for us. Yeah, man, so when you collapse the law and the gospel, you just said it, what you end up doing is you take assurance away from the saints.

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I'm gonna give you some biblical examples. I think it's always good to try to make our points using passages of scripture.

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And the first way I might illustrate this is, I'm gonna paint pictures of what you often hear said in the evangelical church anyway, in our day.

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Take the ministry of Jesus and just his words while he's on earth. You'll notice that Jesus says a lot of things, obviously, in the course of years of ministry, but he says in some instances to certain audiences, when talking about eternal life, he will say, keep the law effectively.

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What do you need to do in order to have eternal life? Well, you need to obey the commandments. Then in other places with other audiences, when the topic of eternal life comes up, he'll say, believe in me.

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And what is often done is that people will say, well, it's kind of both. Of course you need to have faith in Jesus because he's our savior, but you also need to keep the law adequately.

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If you can know that you can know that you can know that you will finally have eternal life. And then what occurs for the tender consciences among us and the,

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I would say, the thoughtful, sane person as they're assessing their lives and they think about the standard of God's law, like, well, man, if I've got to obey this law, even to any extent, and I need to keep it well enough so that I can know that I'm safe,

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I don't know that I can know that I'm safe. I don't know that I can have assurance that on the last day

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I can stand before the Lord and that's gonna go well for me. Or if you even think about Romans chapter two, this is an example we've given before on our show.

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Starting in like verse six and following, Paul is writing about the fact that God's a righteous judge.

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He's impartial. He will reward those who do good with eternal life. And he will punish those who do evil with wrath and condemnation.

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And then he goes on to say, it is not the hearers of the law who will be justified. It is the doers of the law.

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And so what serious, well -minded or well -intentioned, serious -minded Christians will do with that is they'll say, see, this here is telling us that there is a standard of obedience that we must do, we must adhere to if we are going to finally be saved.

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And I think what we've done there is we've missed the point of Romans one through three, where Paul is building an argument.

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He is stating that the gospel is the revelation of the righteousness of God given to sinners by faith in Jesus Christ, because all human beings stand condemned in our sin.

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And he does say, man, if you do good, God will reward you. The problem is nobody does good. It is true that if you seek

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God, you will be saved. The problem is no one seeks him. The problem is no one is righteous, no, not one.

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And so this is why the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, and that is the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

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I would refer the listener to just Romans 3, 19 through 22, because it's very plain there that the law shuts everybody's mouth, it holds us all accountable.

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None of us can speak a word as to how we've kept it. And this is because by works of the law, no flesh will be justified since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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But now the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ given to sinners, and we receive it by faith.

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And maybe a quick clarification for those out there, if you're thinking, man, I need righteousness, right?

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I need to keep the law in order to live with God forever. I actually, I agree with you, but the way that you would ever be found righteous, a law keeper, is to receive the righteousness that Jesus achieved for you in your place.

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So when Jesus says, keep the commandments or believe in me, you can either pit the two against each other or act like it's this sort of ambiguous both believe and keep the law, or you can rightly understand biblically that one provides the other, that faith in Jesus Christ provides righteousness under the law because Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes in him.

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That's good. I don't have questions in here on Coram Mundo, Coram Deo distinctions, but I'm gonna add them in there under sanctification.

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We'll get there here in a second. I'll toss it over to Michael. Oh, sure. Well, I'd love to, maybe with John, just keep exploring this idea of assurance of salvation, because you have this tension.

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On one hand, you have like in 1 John, like by this, we know that we have eternal life, and he'll say stuff like obey his commandments and so on.

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So it sounds like he's directing us to view our obedience as a way of knowing that we have eternal life.

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Then on the other hand, you have, for instance, in Luke chapter 18, the parable of the tax collector, where, you know, and the

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Pharisee, where the Pharisee is saying, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. I tithe, I fast, I do all these awesome things.

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I'm so awesome. And then, you know, you have the tax collector who's beating his chest and saying, have mercy on me for I'm a sinner.

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And Jesus says, that's the one who went home justified. Interesting, he uses a Pauline word, justified, rather than the other.

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And so, you know, if I, so it sounds like Luke is conveying through the telling of his story, hey, don't look at your own righteousness in order to have assurance of salvation.

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And it looks like John is saying, hey, here's how you have assurance of salvation. Look at your own righteousness.

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And I think sometimes living in that sort of zone, people seem to kind of go to one side.

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You talked about, Justin, you talked about like how there's this kind of like ambiguous blend of faith and works and how does that work out.

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So, John, back to you, how do you work out the contrast between those two passages?

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Yeah, I think this is why the subject of Law Gospel Distinction is so important because if you can define the gospel, then it helps you with your assurance, right?

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So, you know, the gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ did everything that was required for us to be accepted into the family of God.

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And when we say everything, typically we only think of forgiveness, right? We only think about, oh,

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I'm dirty, I need to be cleaned. And a lot of our modern songs really emphasize that what we call the first part of the gospel, but we kind of ignore the second part of the gospel, which is, it's not just the absence of sin that makes you holy, it's the actual act of obedience.

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So fulfilling, so when Jesus says, I've come to fulfill the law, I've come to fulfill all things. And John Paul describes them as the second

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Adam, the one to which who earned for us glory and righteousness. And that we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, right?

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So that's the second part of the gospel is that we are seen as righteous because Jesus has given us his righteousness.

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So that's really important. That means when I stand before God right now, and he looks at me, he sees me as clean and righteous.

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That's how I'm seeing, clean and righteous, which means I no longer have to obey the law to earn righteousness because I've been given

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Jesus. I guarantee you, if you walk up with your righteousness in one hand and Jesus in the other, God's gonna burn yours.

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He's gonna take Jesus's righteousness. So this is really healthy and hopeful, but that doesn't mean there isn't a necessity for our obedience, which we'll get to in a minute.

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When it comes down to assurance, there is a promise, which is the third part of the gospel, which is a new covenant.

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We were talking about this in a minute ago, Josh. The new promise of the covenant is that the spirit comes to work within us in a really new and fresh way, right?

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He comes and he causes us to obey his commands. And this is where I think it's very biblical and healthy to say that those who are in Christ and those who have the

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Holy Spirit that lives within them will walk in his ways. Now, not perfectly, we know this, because in the same book that John says, this is how you know you can be assured, he also says, if you say you're not a sinner, you're a liar and the truth is not in you.

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So we obey, yet we're sinners, right? It's like this weird contrast. But there's a difference between saying, ah, man, the

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Lord has been so kind to me, I can see these good fruits coming out of me as the result of my faith, but the foundation of my assurance, like how do

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I know at the end of the day that this fruit isn't a false fruit? I mean, sometimes it's hard to tell, like, is this really a fruit of the spirit or is this a fruit of my own flesh, my own works?

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And sometimes we can be confused and we can be duped by that. So it can be as our,

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Justin and I, both our churches hold to the London Baptist Confession, and it says that our fruits can and should be an encouragement to our assurance.

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But it can't be the foundation, it can't be the cause of our assurance, right?

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The cause of our assurance always has to be Christ and the sufficiency of what he has done. So as long as I believe in the gospel and I know that he is sufficient to not only cleanse me, but also provide righteousness so that I can stand before the father and have no fear and understand that his love is truly sufficient to cover everything that I have or haven't done, that's the ground of my assurance.

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And then from that, as I do good works, my assurance can be and should be encouraged. A lot of times what happens though in modern day

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Christianity is that we reverse those and we make the emphasis and the foundation of our insurance, our good works.

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And Justin and I have been saying this for years, how many good works do you need in order for you to be convinced that yes,

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I have a real faith? Is it one? Is it a thousand? You know, an act of righteousness or, you know, a good work would be to not murder somebody, you know?

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Well, I've never murdered anybody, so does that make me a Christian? You know, or I've, you know, and you can start cycling down this.

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And so we have to put emphasis where the Bible does and Paul and the apostles make it very clear that the foundation of our assurance is always our faith in Christ and the gospel.

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From that, we can have our faith encouraged and strengthened by our good works, which is very right and true for John to say, hey, you know what?

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You can look at your good works and that can bolster and encourage your assurance. And so they're both true, we just have to make sure we put them in the right order.

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Hey guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

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So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the

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Theocast Community. We're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like -minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there and you can share it and ask questions.

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You can go check it out, the link is in the description below. I think of Luther who prior to his kind of Protestant revelation, his infectum, he is judging himself based off of his works and he's constantly in bondage to that.

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And then you have another group of people like the Pharisees who don't have necessarily a sensitive conscience, but have lowered the standard of the law to a point to where they can actually accomplish it.

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So on the outside, they look good, but inwardly aren't able to fulfill the law. So you have two primary outworkings of a view of law as my assurance.

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You have one person who beats themselves up and is robbed of all assurance. You have another person that's solely looking to their works for their assurance.

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That's a works -based salvation, that's Rome at its finest. And the other is one of a

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Great Depression kind of emptiness. Yeah, anyway, so I love that packaging.

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I think there are people who might be listening, they hear you say law and they hear you say gospel. They hear law, do, gospel, done.

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It almost sounds like the law and the gospel have been pitted against each other. Like law, good, or no, law, bad, gospel, good, right?

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Law, wrong, gospel, right. You're not comparing and contrasting these things as good and evil.

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Can you maybe unpack the law, the uses of the law as it relates to the Christian life so that people know that you're not walking around antinomian, anti -law, but are actually saying that the law has a place in the life of a believer?

28:50

Yeah, for sure. So the law and the gospel, like you just said, Josh, are in no way opposed to each other.

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They're not against each other. They are complementary, like complementary with an

29:02

E in God's economy of salvation, right? They work together. And you referenced the uses of the law.

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I'll try to go through those pretty briefly and I hope this will make sense to people. Now, depending on which tradition you're coming from, like whether you're a

29:14

Lutheran or like us, you're more of the reformed tradition, you might number these uses differently.

29:20

But for us, the first use of the law, the greatest and primary use of the law is to show us our sin and drive us to Christ who died to fulfill its penalty and who lived to fulfill its requirements, right?

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And so you see this repeatedly in the New Testament. I can just rattle some of these off really quickly. I already referenced

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Romans 3, 19 and 20, right? That by works of the law, no flesh will be justified because through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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That's a first use of the law paradigm. Romans 5, 20, that sin came in to increase the trespass of Adam.

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So when God gave the law at Sinai, it actually did not make man's condition better before him.

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It actually made things worse because it showed how sinful sin is, right?

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Paul says in Romans 7, like in verse 13, that through the commandment, sin is shown to be sin and it is shown to be sinful beyond measure.

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And what the result of these things is or should be is that we should be crushed. When it comes to keeping the law for righteousness, we should be crushed by it and see that we have failed to meet the standard.

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And thereby we need someone, we need a representative who has kept the law for us.

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And we have such a representative. His name is Jesus, which is how the apostles write, which is also how

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Jesus speaks, even in the Sermon on the Mount, beginning in Matthew 5, 17 and following. He says, do not think that I've come to abolish the law and the prophets, but I've come to fulfill them.

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And he says that none of the moral law should ever be relaxed and that people who do that should be viewed as least in the kingdom of God.

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And then he says that his audience needs to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Then he goes on to preach the law to the hearts of the people and apply it at a spiritual level.

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You've heard it said, don't commit murder. I'm telling you, if you've had anger in your heart toward your brother, you're a lawbreaker.

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You've heard it said, don't commit adultery. I'm telling you, if you've lusted after someone, you're a lawbreaker.

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You must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. He is preaching the law this way.

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You think you've done it, you haven't. And you need to look outside of yourself to someone who has kept the law for you.

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You're in need of a righteousness that you don't have. And Paul says in Galatians 3, 19, that the law was given because of transgressions until the promised offspring of Abraham would come.

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So this is that first use of the law idea. And so we cast ourselves completely upon Christ who has fulfilled the law's penalty.

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He died the death we deserve. And we cast ourselves upon Christ who has kept the law and fulfilled all righteousness for us.

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And his righteousness is counted as ours. So that's that first use. I'll be quicker with the latter two. The second use of the law is broad.

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It's kind of a civil use. It restrains human corruption. God forbids and prohibits evil in the law.

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And he encourages good. And then the third use of the law is for Christians specifically. And in Christ Jesus, the law is the perfect guide for our living.

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And so it is the rule of life for us. So far from being against the law, we uphold it. And we say, man, the law of God is good and holy and wise and righteous.

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There is nothing bad about the law whatsoever. We now, in Christ Jesus, we don't need to keep the law for our standing.

32:31

The law no longer threatens us or condemns us when it comes to how we stand before God. We know that we're loved and accepted in Christ, but we strive by the

32:40

Spirit's work in us to live in accord with the law. And so if God says it's good, we pursue it.

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If God says it's evil, we flee from it. And we look at the law, like Paul says in Romans 7, we delight in it in our inner man.

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And so the law to the believer is now a really good and wonderful thing, not scary, but good.

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And we see how wise it is, and we see how it honors God, how it's good for us, how it's good for our neighbor.

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And so we pursue life in conformity to it. So that's the first, second, third use of the law. Love that, yeah, and that you mentioned,

33:12

I mentioned it earlier, that Coramundo, Coram Deo distinction. For those who watch the show, they hear me use this a lot.

33:19

The Coram Deo, my righteousness before God, my Coramundo, my righteousness before men or the earth here, those are two different righteousness, right?

33:26

So I have a secured, imputed righteousness that has been given to me because of Jesus.

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I trust him, that's not moving, right? But then I have this other righteousness, this act of worship, right?

33:38

So like you have Romans that tells you, hey, your spiritual act of worship here is to live holy. Now that's law, but I get to do that, not out of fear of judgment.

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I'm not gonna get roasted if I stumble in this area. If I have a thought that is not perfectly holy in every way, right, oh, you know,

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I'm gonna repent. I'm gonna trust in Jesus, right? But I'm not worried that that thing is going to somehow rob me of the finished work of Christ.

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I'm going to conform my thoughts. I'm gonna conform my actions as an act of worship and praise, rather than earning something from God by way of obedience.

34:12

Anyway, I just, I love this topic. I've already taken it out of order for Michael twice. So I'm gonna go with that.

34:19

It's all good. Josh and I try to be polite to each other and take turns. We do. But sometimes we're not as polite.

34:25

But I take personal offense, Josh. So no, I wanna ask you guys.

34:31

So some would argue, hey, this law gospel distinction, really helpful in a lot of ways, but in some cases, maybe it's like overdone.

34:41

There are some gray areas that seem like maybe almost a blend of both. Now I'll put this example or a few examples out there.

34:48

So Paul seems to play with this word law whenever he says in Romans eight, for instance, where the law, the spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

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It seems like he's, I'm kind of voicing the potential critic here. It seems like he's calling the gospel, the law of the spirit of life, which sets us free from the law, which is like the way you're using the law.

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And then there are similar statements throughout the New Testament. Romans, or sorry, Galatians chapter six, bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.

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So bear one another's burdens. That's a do not done, but then he calls it law of Christ, not law of Moses. So it seems kind of gospel -y

35:32

New Testament, New Testament -y, if we can make that an adjective. And it obviously is in the

35:38

New Testament, but then James, another apostle. So James says, James chapter, gosh, is it one or two?

35:47

He talks about fulfilling the law of liberty, but then he starts quoting Mosaic law, don't commit adultery, don't, this and that.

35:55

And, but he calls it law of liberty. So help us understand what's happening in these verses and how you guys would understand these in terms of law gospel distinction.

36:07

That's easy for you. Yeah, yeah, I'll start, I guess, and throw it over to Justin and he can pick up whatever

36:14

I leave off, which is gonna be a lot. I'll give a short answer. It's important, what's interesting, when you read the

36:23

Bible, when you read the New Testament specifically, Jesus is the greatest preacher of the law. And sometimes because we think it's in red letter, it's gospel, it's good news, but that's not true.

36:34

Jesus came to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom, but in doing so, he kept running into people who didn't think they needed any help getting into his kingdom.

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And so they would come up and ask him questions like the rich young ruler would walk up and say to him, what must

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I do to inherit, to be a part of this kingdom you're talking about? And it's very important to pay attention to the questions that people ask

36:59

Jesus, because the man did not say, can you take me into the kingdom? He asked, what else am

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I lacking? Is there something else that I'm lacking? And so Jesus, what does he do? He gives them the law.

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He even asks them, first of all, what does the law say? And so the man quotes the law, and then Jesus says, do that and you shall enter the kingdom.

37:18

Do this and live, is what he says. Well, you need to think about that for a moment. Let's say Josh, Michael, and I are out on the street and we don't know

37:26

Justin, and Justin walks up to us and realizes we're proclaimers of Christ. And he says, guys, how do

37:32

I make it to heaven? And Josh and Michael look at me and go,

37:39

John, why don't you tell him? And I'm like, what does the law say? And so Justin happens to know the law and he quotes it.

37:45

I'm like, do that and live. And the two of you would probably look at me like, that is not what the man asked, right?

37:50

What are you talking about? This is not good news. So it's important to understand the context behind when a question is asked or when a statement is made by Jesus.

37:59

Because Jesus is trying to break the man down to the moment where he realizes that he is not righteous and that he does not have what is required to enter into the kingdom.

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Because Jesus makes it very clear to enter into his kingdom requires utter perfection. Or you go through him, right?

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No one can come to the father unless they go through me. And they go through him by faith. So it's important to understand that distinction.

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At the same time, for those who are in Christ and those who are part of his kingdom, God does have, or Christ does have a way for us to live.

38:32

And this could also be known as the law of Christ. You know, the two greatest commandments, love God with all your heart, mind and soul, and strengthen, love your neighbor as yourself, which can be described as the law of Christ.

38:41

So when Galatians 6, one says, bear one another's burdens or fulfill the law of Christ, this is what he's in reference into it, that this is a loving and kind thing to do.

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It's loving before the Lord, but it's also loving to your neighbor to carry their burden and therefore fulfilling a command given to us by Christ.

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But just because it's a command given to us by Christ, it isn't a command with a promise of salvation.

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And that's where the difference is. It's because you now belong to me and that I've saved you and you are now a part of my family, here's how we conduct ourselves.

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It's what we call, we live from the status that we are in. I am now the status of the child of the king, therefore

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I will live in accordance to the king. So it's living status forward versus trying to live to gain status, meaning that I will obey the law of Christ so that I can enter into his family.

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So you have to look at a context when Galatians, Galatians is talking to believers, he's not talking to unbelievers, right?

39:38

James is also talking to believers. So it's in reference to how one conducts themselves once they are a believer of the gospel versus not how one must conduct themselves to become saved or to become a part of the family.

39:51

Justin, I'll throw it to you. All right, I'm just gonna riff for a minute and Josh, Michael, you guys just cut me off when you want to and I won't be offended at all.

39:59

So I'm gonna pick up where John left off on the one hand and talk about Jesus for a minute. In Luke chapter 10, one of the most famous parables in all of scripture is the parable of the

40:07

Good Samaritan. What's often missed there is the context in which that parable is told.

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So beginning in like Luke 10, 25 -ish, there's a scribe who asks Jesus, what do I need to do in order to have eternal life?

40:19

And Jesus straight up says to him, what's in the law, how do you read it? So that's a dead giveaway that we're talking in terms of law right now.

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And the scribe answers, well, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says, you've answered well, do this and you'll live.

40:34

That is a law paradigm. So then the scribe wants to litigate, seeking to justify himself, right?

40:41

Justify himself according to what? According to the law. He says, well, who's my neighbor? And then

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Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. Now, the point of that parable in its first and greatest sense is to crush everybody and mow everybody down right there as it pertains to righteousness under the law.

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Jesus tells a parable that is so off the charts in terms of sacrificial self -denying love for neighbor that the reaction of everybody who's listening should be like,

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I hadn't done this. And then secondarily, we apply it and say, we should sacrificially above our neighbor.

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So this is just an example of how Jesus interacts with people. John already handled the rich young man, which is another great example where he dumps the full weight of the law on that young man's conscience.

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Because the young man has claimed to have kept the law and Jesus is like, all right, we'll prove your love to God and neighbor by selling everything you have, giving it to the poor and following me.

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And the young man can't do it. And he goes away dejected, exactly because human beings have not loved

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God and neighbor perfectly. And then the disciples are asking Jesus about this. And he makes the statement that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich person to inherit the kingdom of God.

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And we hear that and we're like, that's exactly right, Jesus. You tell him, you can't serve God in money. That's how we interpret that.

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But the disciples freak out and they're like, well, if that wealthy guy can't be saved, who then can be saved?

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And we need to ask ourselves, well, what's going on there? And the reality is in the old covenant, God had promised material temporal blessing for obedience to the law.

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If you keep like think Deuteronomy 28, if you obey the law, your crops, your livestock, all of this will flourish, right?

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And I'll bless you. If you break the law, there will be famine and it will be disaster and you'll suffer.

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And so the disciples see a wealthy man and think, well, this guy must be obedient if he's wealthy.

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And if he can't enter the kingdom of heaven, who can Jesus? To which Jesus says, well, with man, it's impossible, but with God, it's possible.

42:40

So this is a law and gospel reality. I wanna speak a little bit more directly to the question you guys asked though. I'm gonna use the letter to the

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Romans just to illustrate, because there are places where the apostles will refer to the law and even fulfilling the law.

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How should we think about that? Well, in the letter to the Romans, Paul has been super clear in the first several chapters, that nobody will ever be justified by obedience to the law.

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It is only through faith in Jesus Christ. It is through his death for our sins and his law keeping counted to us that we would be justified.

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But then he'll turn around later in the letter and say things like this. Even before I get to Romans 13, let me talk about Romans 7 for a second.

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He'll say that we once belonged to the law and now we don't belong to the law anymore. We belong to Jesus. And we needed to actually be set free from the law in order to bear fruit for God.

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And that's what has happened for us now that we belong to Christ so that we serve the Lord now, not in the old way of the written code, but in the new way of the spirit.

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And then Paul demonstrates in Romans 7 that there's nothing wrong with the law. The problem lies with us and our sin.

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And then he talks about how God did what the law, weakened by the flesh could never do in the early verses of Romans 8.

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And how Jesus came to die for sin and God condemned sin in the flesh. And now the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in us.

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Those of us who trust in Jesus. But then later in Romans 13, for example, Paul will say these words,

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Romans 13, eight through 10. He's saying, no, no one, anything except to love each other for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

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Then he says, for the commandments, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not covet. And any other commandment are summed up in this word.

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You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

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So we've got to ask ourself a question. Either Paul is schizophrenic and he means, he's talking out of both sides of his mouth.

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Like you can't ever keep the law, but then over here you can fulfill it. Or we would understand that Paul is talking in different ways.

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He's talking, I would say, in that first and third use sense that we talked about a minute ago. You can't ever keep the law for righteousness, quorum

44:49

Deo, Josh, right? But you can fulfill the law in the way that you live, third use, by obeying its commands.

44:57

And we should all seek to fulfill the law in that regard. And I think that's what the apostles often are writing about when they're talking about obedience, even in some of the verses and the passages that you referenced,

45:07

Michael. That's fantastic. Yeah, my text this Sunday was 1 Timothy 4, 6 -10, where Paul is telling

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Timothy, hey, at the end of this is the mystery of godliness. And then one through five, he's like, hey, false teachers are gonna come in, even if your structure is right, even if men and women's roles are perfect.

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The spirit expressly says in later time, false teachers are gonna come in with legalistic rules. But then right after that in six through 10, he's like, hey, strive, labor, train.

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I mean, like he uses competitive -like language. This is your responsibility. He's like, as a son, bought with the blood, you have household chores.

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You're not gonna be not a son if you can't take out the trash, right? If you got hit by a car and you're paraplegic, you don't become a son because you can't do the chores.

45:49

You're still a son. So the responsibility. Yeah, go ahead. To your point, we'll often illustrate it this way.

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The way that a lot of people present the Christian life is, all right, you're in the family, but if you want to remain in the family of God, you better do this, this, and this.

46:07

A better way, the way the apostles write, I would suggest is different, goes like this.

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You are a part of the family, and that is not changing. Jesus has seen to that.

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God has loved you from before the foundation of the world. And now that you're a part of the family, here's how we live in the family.

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Here's how we do things, right? Here's how the redeemed live. And then, to speak to the law really quick, well, how do we know what that family code is?

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How do we know how the family lives? We look to the law of God, because it's good and holy and wise and righteous.

46:41

That's good. I wanna rapid fire with you guys a couple verses. You've mentioned a few of them already in your talk, but we talked about Mark 12,

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Deuteronomy 6. Love the Lord your God, right? Love your neighbor as yourself, right? Love the people, love

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God. Is that law or gospel? Love God and love neighbor is law. Go ahead,

47:00

John. Okay, no, I was gonna say it's always law. Because we have to think about it this way. It's a good thing to love

47:09

God, but God is not asking, anytime there's a command in scripture, it's not relative to a circumstance, right?

47:17

The requirement is always perfection. And when you realize that, then it makes it really, like for instance, if I were to say to you, let's go play golf.

47:28

And I don't know if either of you golf, but typically when I ask people to say that, you know what's the first thing they tell me? I'm not a very good golfer.

47:35

And it's because we have this expectation that we need to be at a certain level. But if I said that you can only play golf with me unless you hit every shot perfect, you're like,

47:41

I'm never gonna play. And so sometimes what we do with commands is we relativize them and we make them acceptable.

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And then we think it's a good news, but it's not good news. But to love God is a good thing, but we can't do it perfect.

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So therefore we're gonna need something that covers us. And that's what grace is for. That's what the gospel is for, so that we can love

47:59

God by faith. I've got a question that kind of follows up on that because I've listened to, hey, law's got no power.

48:07

I think you guys said that in the kind of opener. I'd be curious, do you think, because in some sense, we would say that Christ fulfills the law.

48:16

So the law does give life, but it only gave it one time, right, like it only gave it to Christ and we have to find ourselves in Christ for that.

48:24

I suppose that's a follow -up question, but we would say that the law has some power to give life, but only under perfection, only if you love

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God perfectly and love your neighbor perfectly. And only Jesus has done that, yeah? I agree.

48:40

So, right, only like, I would even frame it this way. At the end of history, when we stand before the

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Lord, there is one question at God's bar to use a legal term. And the question is, are you righteous or unrighteous?

48:53

And to be righteous is to be a law keeper, to be unrighteous is to be a law breaker. Well, how is it that we as sinners would ever be found to be law keepers?

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It's because the perfect law keeping life of Jesus of Nazareth as a human being is counted to us.

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And so we are saved by works, just not ours. We're saved by the works of Jesus Christ in our place that we receive by faith.

49:15

So I completely agree. Yeah, I would word it like, so the law says this,

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I mean, Jesus and the prophets even word it this way, do this and live, like here is the requirements for righteousness.

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When you fulfill those, you will have eternal life. The gospel says that you are now alive in Christ, now do.

49:34

So the doing part doesn't go away. And that's the thing, sometimes people get like this either or, like the gospel somehow is like blocks good works or something, and it is not that way at all.

49:48

It's just, where do the works, where do they come? Like, at what place do they come? Because we've been set free by Christ from the obligations of the law for righteousness.

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And we have been set free from the burden of our sin. Do we now have the capacity by means of the spirit to obey it?

50:08

And sometimes, because this is the accusation that often comes our way with Justin and I is that you guys emphasize the gospel so much that people won't want to obey.

50:14

And it's, I just don't, it's just not in scripture. We just kick back on that.

50:20

And the more and more I've thought about it is if you really do believe that the law leads to life, if you perfectly obey it, everybody should be crushed by it.

50:29

But once you are alive in Christ, you have been given life, you then understand that from that life comes obedience.

50:36

But it's always from what we have received, not to gain it, is how I'd reword it.

50:43

That's great. I like that. Yeah, and you know, in the new covenant, we have the spirit earlier, one of you,

50:49

I can't remember which of you alluded to Ezekiel chapter 36, when you said, the Lord causes us to obey.

50:55

There's a translational, some translations say causes us or moves us. But either way, there's an unction of the spirit that is working inside of us to enable us to do, this is

51:07

Hebrews chapter eight, what the old covenant did not enable or empower us to do. The spirit empowers us working from the inside.

51:14

And that itself is liberating. So I want to ask you guys, we've talked a lot about the theology and the scripture associated with the law gospel distinction, but I want to take a moment and just look at the history of it.

51:28

If one of you guys could maybe answer this, where did this develop? I know both of you guys are reformed.

51:35

Are we looking to the Protestant reformation, where there are hints of law gospel somewhere before that, and just kind of who really pushed the law gospel distinction and into just our understanding of it today.

51:51

Go ahead, Justin. Okay, I mean, I'll speak briefly to it. There are other things that we may want to tackle before we get to the end of the show.

51:58

I mean, at my first answer, I know this is not exactly how you asked it. In my opinion, it is very plain from not even,

52:07

I mean, the old Testament, but certainly in the ministry of Jesus and the apostles are very clear about these things. And then yes, there have been people through the history of the church that have seen it.

52:14

I referenced even Augustine earlier. I think there are certainly traces of this, even in the early church,

52:20

Augustine being one of them, where he is seeing that everything that God requires, like Lord basically command what you will and grant what you command, right?

52:30

Like he says that. And so there's this clear distinction that exists, like the Lord's commandments are good and the

52:37

Lord has to give us everything that he commands. So you can even see it there. And then, yeah, in terms of the formal development of what we would call the distinction between the law and the gospel as a doctrinal category, we would point to the

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Protestant Reformation. And so that would include the Lutheran tradition and the reformed tradition. Sometimes people think that the law gospel distinction is a

52:58

Lutheran doctrine, which it is, but it's also a reformed doctrine too. So I'll name a few names in the reformed tradition.

53:06

William Perkins, for example, wrote on these things. You can see it a lot in John Calvin. You certainly see it in Theodore Beza, who was a student of Calvin.

53:14

You see it in some of the Scottish Presbyterians, like John Cahoon, or like Thomas Boston, or like Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, for example,

53:23

Horatius Bonner. We could go on and on. There's a number of folks through the history of the reformed tradition who have talked in these categories.

53:31

And so when John and I talk about the law and gospel distinction, we're not saying anything new. We're functionally just standing on the shoulders of those who have come before.

53:39

Great. Any follow -up to that, John? Yeah, I think it's important.

53:47

Like it has been lost at times throughout history, or it becomes a part of the fight. One of the books that Sinclair Ferguson has written called

53:56

The Whole Crisis, I think really important. It's really good. Yeah, and dealing with this, because there's a confusion where, you know,

54:03

I don't know who came up with the phrase gospel, where you're kind of mixing the law and the gospel together. And in that particular debate that he's dealing with with the

54:10

Merrill men is that they were putting an obligation in front of regeneration, meaning that one must repent of their sins as part of the goodness of the gospel.

54:19

Like the gospel is repent, do an act of work, and then believe and you shall be saved.

54:25

And so this debate, you know, Justin, there's this kind of a rise of what's called the Merrill men and we would definitely throw our hat in that ring and saying we want to be a part of that movement because it was really distinguishing this order of salvation where the goodness of the gospel is what has been done in Christ for us.

54:42

There's nothing to do in the gospel. Even when it talks about obey the gospel, that literally means to believe it.

54:49

And so throughout history, you can see where there's a collapsing of these two things that happen.

54:56

I'd even say probably the most recent debate of this would be the Lordship slash free grace movement, where you're bringing this debate back in again about what is the gospel and what is the law and are we putting obligations back in the gospel again?

55:12

So you can walk throughout history and kind of see as he says, as Justin said, and you can see it in Augustine and he's kind of wrestling with it.

55:18

But as people start collapsing them, the gospel gets really murky and then you're not quite sure what you're believing, which then goes back to your question,

55:27

Michael, earlier of, then your assurance gets all confusing because, well, have I repented enough?

55:33

Have I really turned from all of my sins? And the greatest command, when people wanna know, I have to repent.

55:39

So this is part of this law gospel in history, which is part of the Merrill men, worship, all this stuff going back. If you're asking me,

55:46

I have to repent of all my sins before I can come to faith in Christ, the greatest commandment we have is to love God with all my heart.

55:53

I've never done that. I can't repent of not loving God. It's just not something I'm capable of doing.

55:59

That's why Jesus has to repent me, right? Jesus has to cover my lack of capacity to do that and fill my heart with faith.

56:07

And so all throughout history, you can kind of see this debate come up, even within Calvinism, Arminianism debate.

56:12

You'll see the emphasis of the gospel starts to leak over into the law. And when you do that, you lose assurance.

56:21

It's great. I think I'll ask my final question here. I know we're running out of time, so I'll try to lob over an easy one.

56:29

Justin, sanctification, is it law or gospel? Romans 6 .19,

56:35

present your members as slaves to righteousness. That sounds like law. Thessalonians 4 .3

56:41

-4, your sanctification, you abstain from sexual immorality. So don't do this and present your body in holiness and in honor.

56:50

And yet we have other verses that make sanctification sound like a work of God. And may God himself, the

56:55

God of peace, sanctify you throughout. That sounds like gospel. Philippians 1 .6,

57:01

being confident in this, he started this work, he's gonna complete the work. So is this sanctification process a law thing, a gospel thing?

57:10

Dare I say a scary word, is it synergistic? Weigh in on this. All right, here's how

57:16

I'm gonna answer your question, Josh. You said you were gonna lob an easy one, and then you kind of - I know, I took the hard one.

57:22

Man, dude, a little bait and switch here at the end of the show. Yeah. All right, so here's how

57:28

I would answer your question and try to bring in the categories of law and gospel, okay? So the law guides our sanctification, but the power unto sanctification is found only in Christ.

57:39

And it's found through our union with the Lord Jesus. This is a biblical category. If somebody were to ask me, what is the perhaps the most neglected doctrine?

57:48

What's the biggest hole in our game is like serious minded Christians today. I think that our union with the

57:53

Lord Jesus Christ and what that means for all of my Christian life, not just my justification, but my sanctification and ultimately my glorification.

58:01

So through union with Jesus, I have been made alive together with Christ. His spirit has taken up residence within me.

58:08

I have now become obedient from the heart and Christ works in and through me to continue to transform me and conform me into his image.

58:16

And so the law guides my sanctification, but it cannot empower it. Only Christ for me and my union with the

58:24

Lord Jesus is the power unto sanctification. So that's how I would begin to answer that question. Is sanctification synergistic or is it monergistic?

58:32

Is it mine and God's work or is it God's work? Kind of depends on how you frame the terms and define them.

58:38

I might agree or disagree with you. I think it's very clear though in the scriptures that we participate in our sanctification by virtue of the fact that we have been made alive, right?

58:48

Just like we participate in life now by virtue of the fact that we're alive. But it is ultimately God who sanctifies us and works in and through us that we might will and work for his good pleasure.

58:59

That's good. The 15, 17 guys have a really good illustration about a homeless guy under a bridge.

59:04

He has to wake up and go to the soup kitchen to get the soup. No one would ever say, this guy has worked a job.

59:11

He's worked and earned his labor, but he has positioned himself where the soup will be, right? So like in some sense, there is a participation, but we acknowledge it's not because I got up and I read my

59:22

Bible that like all of my good work is sanctifying me. It's because the power of God unto salvation is found in Holy Scripture.

59:30

And when I take of the table, he's promised to be present in that table. You know, when I gather with the saints that there is a real spirit of Christ in our midst in this unique intangible way.

59:42

So in one sense, yes, but we acknowledge that our work alone is incapable of that sanctification.

59:49

It's the promise of Christ's presence in those means of grace that he has attached himself to that we partner in that.

59:58

So yeah, I love that. Rountree, do you have a closing thought or closing question before we wrap everything up? Can I just add one thought to what you said real quick?

01:00:05

Sure, John, yeah, real quick. It's important when you're talking about that word sanctification that you also look at the context of how it's being used, because there are times when the

01:00:14

Bible says, sanctify yourself. It's true, it means we are to set ourselves apart from the ways of the world in which it's sinful.

01:00:22

So I am not to pursue like fleshly desires. And that's a command that I am to obey.

01:00:27

But when we're talking about he who began a good work and you will complete it, the work of sanctification of the spirit inside of me, the transformation of my heart and soul, that is a work of the spirit.

01:00:37

So it's just important for us to understand like in the context, in general, sanctification is done by God.

01:00:44

But in particular passages, people say, see right there, you're supposed to do it. I'm like, yes, that's because that's the outworking of the spirit in my life.

01:00:53

So the reason why I wanted to throw that in there is that we do believe that we are involved in the sanctification, but at the end of it, we're gonna give

01:01:00

God the glory because we know it's the spirit power worked in us that allowed us to do that. That's good. First Corinthians 15,

01:01:07

I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God. That's good. Great, well, why don't we just finish with maybe a kind of nutshell, your little golden nugget takeaway, law gospel distinction, all the things that we talked about.

01:01:23

John, Justin, either one of you can start with that, but what would be your little golden nugget for people who've been tuning into this broadcast so far?

01:01:32

How would you, or what would you want them to walk away with above anything else? Yeah, I can jump in there and then headed to Justin.

01:01:42

If the gospel does not lead you to hope and rest, then you may not fully understand it yet.

01:01:49

Jesus says that, come to me, all you are heavy laden. And what he's talking about is those who are under the burden of the law.

01:01:56

They see that they are unrighteous, they are trapped. And so he says, you are weighed down, like you can feel the weight of it.

01:02:03

And he promises them something that's very important. He says, I'm gonna give you rest. And that's how we define our podcast, helping worried

01:02:11

Christians find rest in Christ. And rest does not mean that it's absence from work or absence from labor, because what is the very next thing that Jesus says?

01:02:22

My yoke is easy and my burden is light. And our hearts and our faith find rest in Christ and that he is sufficient.

01:02:29

And there's nothing else for us to do. That's what it means to rest, that we can fully crawl up into the arms of our father and he will carry us faithfully across the line to the end.

01:02:38

And there's nothing left for us to do. As it relates to our salvation, the way in which that we are cleansed and our righteousness, the way in which

01:02:49

God sees us, that is all under the banner of the gospel. And so this is why

01:02:55

Paul tells not unbelievers, but the believers, like Corinthians, like the worst church in the planet, right?

01:03:01

I would never wanna be the pastor of that church. Whoa. But what does he say? I want to come preach to you the gospel because they were now living their life in the flesh because they had forgotten the promises of the rest of Christ.

01:03:15

And so my encouragement to you is if your soul is anxious and you can't seem to find rest, it might be because the law has seeped in to your understanding of the gospel.

01:03:26

And so it's healthy and good to remind yourself that there's nothing for you to do, that Christ is sufficient to save, and that your obedience should always be a reflection, as 1

01:03:36

John 4 says, we love because he first loved us. So obedience is always the result of what

01:03:42

God has done to us. We don't obey so that God will do something for us. Fantastic, Justin.

01:03:51

That's good. All right, so this is not necessarily my golden nugget. This was just something I wanted to say and haven't had the opportunity to, so we'll just trust him with that.

01:03:59

All right, so I wanna try to illustrate the quorum Deo righteousness, Josh, that you've referenced a few times, righteousness in the presence of God with the juxtaposition of Sinai, Mount Sinai, and Calvary.

01:04:13

You have to understand Sinai through the lenses of Calvary, the hill upon which Christ died. Because if you remember when the law is given in like Exodus 19 and 20,

01:04:23

Sinai represents the holiness of God unmediated, right? And it's thunder and lightning and fire and smoke, and the whole mountain is shaking.

01:04:32

And God says, nobody come near this thing or you'll die. Right, so the word of Sinai is, do not come near, if you do, you'll die.

01:04:41

Whereas the word of Calvary, the word of the gospel is, calm all you weary and heavy laden, right?

01:04:47

We can't touch Sinai, but we can run to Calvary, right? We as sinners, right, we can't lay a hand to the law, but we can cast ourselves in the arms of the savior.

01:04:58

And that's the distinction that exists between the law and the gospel. So that would be my encouragement to all the listeners out there.

01:05:06

When it comes to what is the gospel, it is cast yourself into the arms of Jesus Christ who died for your sins and who kept the law perfectly to be your righteousness.

01:05:17

And in him, you have nothing to fear. Everything is done. And then now that you're in him, you live from that new identity and from the new heart that he's given you.

01:05:29

That's fantastic. Guys, thank you so much for coming on for those thoughts. If you're on the

01:05:34

YouTube page, I think you should go to our homepage. You can scroll all the way to the bottom. There's a bunch of channels that we recommend you subscribe to.

01:05:41

I got Dr. Jordan Cooper's on here, Mark Ward's on here, Theo Kass is on here. I encourage you to subscribe.

01:05:46

We kind of cross -pollinate with some of these theological channels on YouTube and Spotify and all the podcast app platforms.

01:05:56

Those two words are not one word. And yeah, and John and Justin both have done a really great job continuing to expound on this content.

01:06:04

They address other things that we didn't talk about in this podcast, such as piety, pietism, what revivalism is and how it's kind of become a bit of a cancer.

01:06:13

They're all for revival, but it's revivalism. They're all for piety, but it's pietism. It's creating those distinctions and really walking through theology carefully has been, again, a very burden lifting to me in my walk.

01:06:26

And I hope it will be to you and yours as well. So if you're watching still, hit that subscribe button, hit the like button and go over to Theo Kass, subscribe to their channel, give them some

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01:06:40

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01:06:47

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