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Reading Galatians 2:16-21 in Part 2 of this sermon by Pastor Gabe Hughes, understanding that we are justified by faith and not by our works. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me, when we understand the text.
This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program.
Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study of Galatians chapter 2, and as with yesterday, I'm going to begin by reading verses 15 through 21 out of the English Standard Version. This is the word of the Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the churches in Galatia.
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not. For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.
For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Picking up with the sermon that was started yesterday, this is part two of Crucified with Christ.
But Paul goes on in verse 17 to say this, but if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not. Now let me explain what Paul is referring to.
Remember that there was a group of Judaizers that came into the churches in Galatia and they were saying, you have to do these Jewish works of the law in order to be saved. Paul doesn't do those works.
He used to do them. He doesn't do them anymore. He's become a transgressor. So now as a representative of Christ, which these Judaizers also claim, they say it's fine if you believe in Jesus, but Jesus was a Jew.
So you got to do Jewish things in order to actually be saved. So if Paul is no longer doing those Jewish things, does that mean that he's become a sinner and Christ is also a servant of sin? And the last phrase that we have there at the end of verse 17 is certainly not.
In the Greek, it's mygenoita, which is the strongest possible phrase of opposition that Paul could craft. In English, we might translate it more accurately this way, no, no, a thousand times no. So Paul says, I have not transgressed in this way and certainly Christ has not transgressed in this way.
For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. Let me show you how Paul has flipped this argument here. So if Paul were to come in preaching the gospel and saying, it is only by grace you are saved through faith.
And all the Galatians went, amen. And then Paul went, oh, by the way, you also have to keep the works of the law in order to be saved. And if you do not keep these works, then you are not saved. Then Paul would become the sinner.
Then he's the sinner at that point. He's not the center for preaching the gospel of Christ. He would be a center for saying, you have to have faith and works in order to be saved. So these people who are saying that Paul has sinned by preaching the gospel and not of works, Paul is saying, no, actually they're the transgressor.
Because they preach a different gospel. They're trying to merit their own righteousness by their works. And by saying so, they've actually become sinners. So you understand, trying to gain righteousness by our works makes us sinners.
It doesn't make us righteous. So Paul says, if I rebuild what I tore down, if I tell you that it's by works that you're saved, when I just told you it's not by works that you're saved, then I show myself to be the transgressor.
Verse 19, for through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. Through the law, I died to the law. What does that mean? Well, remember, once again, it is Christ who fulfills the law. In Matthew 5, Jesus said, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. I tell you, not a dot, not a tittle, not an iota will pass away from the law until all of these things have been fulfilled. So if one person reduces even the least of these commands, he is a transgressor of the whole law, according to Christ.
So Jesus says that he has fulfilled the law. And Paul, understanding that teaching of Christ, says, through the law, I died to the law. I don't live according to the law. I can't. I cannot gain eternal life by living according to the law.
So I've died to the law, and I've become alive in Christ, that I might live to God. Now this phrase is very, very important when it comes to understanding the role the law has in our lives as Christians.
For Paul to say, for through the law, I died to the law, so that I might live to God. Let me explain something plainly, because there's this idea that we have as Christians that we don't have to keep a law at all.
And usually this understanding has come from tearing a certain verse out of Scripture in Romans chapter 6, where it says that we are no longer under the law, but under grace. And so that verse will get ripped out of context and say, Pastor Gabe, you cannot tell me to obey God anymore, because we're no longer under the law.
We are under grace. That's not what Paul was saying there. For Paul will go on to say in Romans chapter 8 that the law is spiritual, and in 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 8, that the law is good. So he's not trying to dismiss the law as something that we do not have to follow.
But through the law I died, meaning understanding that I do not come to right standing before God by my keeping of the law. But this happened so that I might live to God. Meaning what? Previously, before Paul became a follower of Jesus Christ, he could not keep the law in a way that was pleasing to God.
But now that he lives in Christ, and the Holy Spirit of God lives within him, now Paul can keep the law in a way that is pleasing unto God. My friends, the law has not been abolished. Once again, I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.
Christ has fulfilled the obligation of the law. So by the law, we do not earn our salvation. It is only by faith in Christ. But now in Christ, we live to God. What does it mean to live to God? We obey His commandments.
Jesus said in John 14, 15, You will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments. And now in Christ Jesus, with the Holy Spirit within us, the law is no longer this thing that is outside of us, etched on stone, and we're reading it and gliding our finger down it, trying to find all the little places that we're not doing it right, and we need to do it right in order to gain favor with God.
The law is no longer written on stones, on stone tablets. I was going to say tones of stablet. On stone tablets. The law is not written on tablets of stone. It is written on our hearts. In Ezekiel 36, through the prophet, God said that a day was coming on which God would write His law on our hearts, that He would take out our heart of stone and He would replace it with a soft heart.
He would sprinkle clean water on us and cleanse us from all our uncleannesses. And He said, I will cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. My friends, that day is here now. It is for all of us who are in Christ that have the Holy Spirit of God within us.
It's not that the law is abolished. We need to understand what the role of the law is in the life of a Christian. It is not by living according to the law that we earn our righteousness. And if you ever hear a preacher say such a thing, that we must follow the law in order to be saved.
He is a false teacher. He is a heretic. Leave that church. Get out of the building. For our salvation is only by grace through faith in Christ. So what is the role of the law now in the life of a believer?
Was R .C. Sproul is illustrating. He takes this from Romans 3. This is not something that has just been made up by some theologian. But R .C. Sproul illustrates that the law has three uses in the life of a believer.
Number one, the law serves as a mirror. Whenever we look into the law, we see our sinfulness and our need for a righteous Savior. Paul makes this point in Romans chapter 7. Through the law, I realized what it meant to not covet.
I didn't know what coveting was until I read in the law, do not covet. And then I realized in reading that I'm a covetor. But Paul goes on to say also in Romans 7 that when I read that command, it actually awakened the sin in me because I read do not covet and I go, okay, I'm not going to covet.
But then by concentrating on not coveting, I'm actually concentrating on coveting and sin became alive in me and I became a covetor. So he said my concentration on the law could not keep me following the law.
And you get to the end of Romans 7 and he says, wretched man that I am who will save me from this body of death. Praise be to Christ Jesus, my Lord. So through the law, we realize the weakness of our flesh and the sinfulness that is inside of us and the desire that is inside of us to do our own thing, to chase after the passions of our flesh.
And we realize that God is righteous and we are not. And we see his righteousness and how his righteousness is defined according to his perfect law. And so by looking into the law, it becomes like a mirror.
It shows us our sinfulness and shows us God's righteousness. That's the first use of the law. The second use of the law in the life of a believer is it becomes a restraint against evil. Now, by keeping the law, we're not justified.
But the law, nevertheless, will prevent you from falling into worse sins than you could be doing. You know, when I told you that in my young adulthood, when I kind of went my own way and God had to let me alone since I was trying to justify myself, he took his hands off of me and let me fail.
But yet I was never too far away from him. There's also a verse in Psalm 119 that says,. Though I take my life in my own hand continually, yet I will not forget your law. So the things that I had been taught from my youth were still with me, even though I was trying to do my own thing.
And the law was preventing me from falling into worse sins than I could have been going into. So in such a way, the law works as a restraint. When we're tempted to do sin, we are reminded of what God has asked of us.
And we don't do that, but we desire to do the righteous thing. We're not trying to give permission to our own sins by saying things like, well, God has justified me and now I'm free to go sin and do whatever I want because the grace of God is upon me.
No, Paul has said in Romans 6, if that's your attitude and that's your behavior, then you don't actually have the grace of God. If you think the grace of God exists to give me permission to sin, you don't actually have his grace.
You're still dead in your sin instead of being alive in Christ. You are still a slave to your sin instead of a slave to righteousness. Paul says, I say these things according to your human limitations.
So he uses the illustration of slavery. You are either a slave to righteousness or you're a slave to sin. And if we are in Christ and released by his grace, then we cannot help but to walk in grace and having the Holy Spirit of God within us, desiring to reflect the holy and perfect character of Christ.
Romans 8, 29, in Christ, we are being made into the image of the son. And so that is our pursuit as Christians. So again, three uses of the law. It is to be a mirror. It is a restraint of evil. And the third use of the law in the life of a believer is that it reveals what is pleasing to God.
What is the first and greatest commandment? You will love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second commandment is like it.
You will love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus said, when he was asked this question and he gave these two commandments, he said, all the law and the prophets hinge on these two commands. Now understand, those two commandments are not gospel.
They are law. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Well, where do we find that in the Ten Commandments? It's actually the basis of the first four commandments. You'll have no other gods before me.
Do not raise up any graven image. Do not take my name in vain. You will honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. All four, all of those first four commandments are vertical commandments. They have to do with our relationship with God.
Loving the Lord, our God, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Where do we find that in the Ten Commandments? That's the next six. You will honor your father and your mother.
Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not covet. All six of those commandments have to do with our relationship with man. They are horizontal commandments.
The way that we treat one another. So all the law and the prophets hinge on these two commands. Loving the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And loving your neighbor as yourself.
So when it comes to understanding what is pleasing to God, we look into God's law and we find how we shall now live in this world. And Paul says in Romans 12, 1, therefore, my brothers, in view of God's mercy, present yourselves as holy and living sacrifices unto the Lord.
This is your spiritual act of worship. And we're only able to do that and do it in a way that is pleasing unto God because we have the righteousness of Christ. Again, righteousness is not just the requirement.
It is also the gift. And when we live in righteousness, it is not to merit our salvation. It is to display with our whole lives that we have salvation. We have been saved by Christ and his grace, and therefore, we live by faith.
We are saved by faith. We live by faith. And it's an understanding, once again, this threefold use of the law that we realize as Christians how we are to live. We're not justified by works of the law, but it's through the law that we see how we might live a life that is pleasing unto God, now that we've been called out of this world and into his kingdom of light.
So reviewing those things once again, the threefold use of the law, it is to be a mirror reflecting to us our sinfulness, but also that we might see God's righteousness. Number two, it is a restraint of evil that we would not do the sinful thing, but desire to do the righteous thing.
And number three, it reveals to us what is pleasing to God in the way that we live. I went through these things with our high school students in the Romans class that we have on Wednesday night. And to summarize those things into three R's, the threefold purpose of the law, reflect, restrain, reveal.
So if you can remember that, as you go from there, Gabe said three things about the law, but I don't remember what they are. Let me summarize it down into three words, reflect, restrain, and reveal, so that we might see in the law the way that we live a life that is pleasing unto God.
And once again, stating this too in different words in the way that I've said it already, we've been justified by faith in Christ, we are also sanctified by faith in Christ. It's not God justified you, and now you're on your own to live a pleasing life unto God.
No, it is by the power of the spirit that is within us that we can even live a life that is pleasing to the Lord. So when you are tempted with sin, go before God. As James says in James 4, draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you. It is still by the power of God that we were saved, that we are saved, that we walk in this salvation, that we will get to heaven on the other side of this life.
All of that is the work of Christ in the life of a believer. So we do not even live the Christian life by our own strength, but by the power of God within us. Once again, Paul says, if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.
For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. So may we all, as Christians, live unto the Lord with our whole lives, loving the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength.
And again, it is the Holy Spirit of God that creates in us the ability to do that. Verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. Understand, reading that once again, the power of God that is within you.
Do not fall into despair when you are tempted with sin. And certainly don't be tempted and go, well, I can just give in to this and God is going to give me grace. There could come a time in your life that came in mine when you persist in that sin and God will take his hand off of you.
And you will either have to lose a hard lesson or it may be revealed that your heart was never really for God in the first place. It was just a passing opinion that you had for a while. You lived as a Christian as a time in this world, but when it no longer served a purpose for you, you went back to the ways of the world.
If the power of Christ is within you, do not make excuses for your sin. Kill it. As the apostle Paul said in Colossians 3, 5, put to death what is earthly in you. First Corinthians chapter 6, flee from sexual immorality.
Run away from it. Put it to death. Let it not reign anymore in your mortal body. But by the power of God, you live unto righteousness instead of unrighteousness. I have been crucified with Christ. I have put to death the sinful desires of my flesh.
And it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Jesus left his throne in heaven, became a man, and being found in human form, he became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
Therefore, having perfected our sanctification in his life and in his death, God is highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Every knee should bow. My friends, you will either bow or you will be made to bow. And don't you want to be the ones on judgment day who are bowing before Christ in glory instead of bowing before him in fear, knowing that judgment is not for us, but for all who are in Christ Jesus, we have been saved from the wrath of God and will live with him forever in glory.
So the life I live now, as long as I am still in this flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son and whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.
Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word when we understand the text.