The Gospel of Luke (42):How to Inherit Eternal Life 10/22/2023

It's amazing, a church that Paul had never visited, he had so many acquaintances there in that church.

And they're listed, many of them, here in Romans 16.

And it really reveals the great mobility of people in the Roman Empire in that first century.

And so now we get to listen to Pastor Jason pronounce all these names.

Romans 16.

I commend you to our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Sencreia, that you may

welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you.

For she has been a patron of many, and of myself as well.

Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risk their necks for my life,

to whom not only I give thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well.

Greet also the church in her house.

Greet my beloved Eponatus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.

Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you.

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners.

They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

Greet Ampelatus, my beloved in the Lord.

Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stockus.

Greet Apellas, who is approved in Christ.

Greet those who belong to the family of Arastibulus.

Greet my kinsmen Herodian.

Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus.

Greet those workers in the Lord.

Tryphania and Tryphosa.

Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.

Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well.

Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Petrobus, Hermas, and the brothers who are

with them.

Greet Philagos, Julia, Nerasus, and his sister,

and Olympus, and all the saints who are with them.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the churches of Christ greet you.

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the

doctrine that you have been taught.

Avoid them, for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites,

and by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.

For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is

good, and innocent as to what is evil.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you, and so do Lucius, and Jason, and so Sipater,

my kinsman.

I, Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.

Gaius, who is host to me, and the whole church, greets you.

Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother, Quartus, greet you.

Now to him who is able to strengthen you, according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ,

according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but now has been

disclosed through the prophetic writings, has been made known to all nations, according to the command of

the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith.

To the only wise God be glory forevermore, through Jesus Christ, amen.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we thank you for this morning, where we could gather together as a reprieve from the wickedness

of this world.

We gather together to worship you, to exalt you, and to glorify you, and we pray,

Lord, that we would see you clearly as you have revealed yourself in the scriptures.

We pray, Lord, that the words that we hear today, that you would implant them deep within our hearts, and that we would live them out

in our day -to -day lives.

We pray, Lord, that everything we do would be to your glory.

We ask that you help Lars in his proclamation of your word.

We pray that you would give him clarity of mind and clarity of tongue.

We pray, Lord, that as these words go out, that you would be pleased and you would be honored.

Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, let's turn in our Gospel of Luke to chapter 10 once again, and today

we'll give attention to verses 25 through 29.

This is a short account of our Lord Jesus engaging a Jewish scribe,

and Luke calls him a lawyer, who sought to test Jesus with a theological

question, and so this man was not teachable.

He wanted to discredit Jesus through this inquiry of him.

He was attempting to discredit Jesus in the eyes of others as well.

But in the manner that Jesus responded to this scribe, not only did Jesus foil the man's intention

to discredit him, but Jesus brought about the scribe's own failure to live in order to

enter eternal life.

And so the scribe's test of Jesus resulted in Jesus' test of the scribe, and the

scribe showed forth his failure.

In Jesus' response to this scribe, he set forth the course of the Christian life, how we are to

live in order to inherit eternal life.

Jesus drew forth from the scribe a summation of the law of God as the standard of

behavior for Christians, the moral law of God should govern our lives.

And so here is the passage.

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, teacher, what shall I do to

inherit eternal life?

He said to him, what is written in the law?

What is your reading of it?

And so he answered and said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your

mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

And he said to him, you've answered rightly.

Do this and you will live.

But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor?

The concluding question that the lawyer posed to Jesus, and who is my neighbor, resulted in

Jesus giving the parable of the Good Samaritan, which was his response to the lawyer's

question.

And so really these two episodes go together, what we just read and the parable of the Good Samaritan that follows.

One expressed their close relationship in this way, the story of the lawyer's question and the parable

of the Good Samaritan manifestly belong together in the mind of Luke.

Although the latter appears to follow as a kind of appendix, it is integral to the pericope, in

other words, the entire episode, and forms the climax.

The two sections, in fact, fit perfectly together, and it is difficult to imagine the

parable without its present setting to provide the context for it.

But though they do go together and should be best addressed together because of the time that would involve, we'll

need to address the parable next time, obviously, we can't do so today.

But we should recognize that they go together.

However, in acknowledging that these two episodes go together, we should not view the first portion before us, verses 25

through 29, as a mere introduction to the parable that follows.

These verses convey an important truth in their own right.

They set forth the way a person may inherit eternal life.

Granted, it is set forth in a thoroughly Jewish fashion through setting forth the two great commandments of the Old

Testament, but in doing so, it really demonstrates the continuity of salvation

between the Old Testament and the teaching of Jesus Christ.

The promise of the Old Testament scriptures, the way or the life of the

one who will inherit eternal life is the same in both Testaments.

It is a life ordered in conformity to the law of God.

Now, considering our Lord's teaching before us, it will require a careful consideration because this

passage is easily misunderstood.

May the Lord help us all to understand our Lord's words rightly.

As we look at these verses, we can establish a simple outline as follows.

First, the lawyer asked Jesus a question, verse 25.

Second, Jesus responded by asking the lawyer a question.

And then third, the lawyer answered Jesus's question.

Fourth, then Jesus affirmed the correctness of the lawyer's answer to his question.

And then last, this resulted in the lawyer posing another question to Jesus.

Question, answer, question, answer, affirmation, question.

Let's work through these verses.

The lawyer first asked Jesus a question.

Let me read in verse 25.

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to

inherit eternal life?

The question posed by the lawyer to Jesus was one that was commonly addressed by Jewish rabbis.

What could be more important than knowing what God requires to those of whom he grants eternal life?

It is recorded of a later Jewish rabbi that his pupils asked a very similar question of their teacher toward the end of the

first century.

Rabbi Eliezer was asked by his pupils, Rabbi, teach us the ways of life so that by them

we may attain to the life of the future world.

We read of a lawyer, commonly called a scribe, of course, sometimes referred to as an expert in the law, the

Mosaic law, that is, the Hebrew scriptures.

This man was the theologian of his day.

He must have been sitting and listening to Jesus teach, but we see he was there not to be taught.

He didn't come to Jesus to be taught, but to find fault with the teacher.

How we must guard against this spirit, we who feel ourselves to be experts in the things of God,

and so often that is characteristic of professing Christians.

It is difficult to remain teachable when we've acquired a bit of knowledge, but it's essential that we

do remain teachable.

This man had failed in this respect, and we see he would not only judge Jesus and dismiss in his

own mind the teaching of Jesus, but he knew so much, or so he thought, that he

would discredit Jesus in the minds of others.

So there was an arrogance of this man, a self -sufficiency.

He wasn't teachable.

And so this bold man stood to test Jesus and asked him a very important question, a

valuable question, perhaps the most important question a person could possibly ask.

Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And so this man asked a good question.

In asking this question, this man revealed some things about himself.

This scribe knew and believed that there was such a thing as eternal life.

Not all would oppose this question to Jesus because they did not all believe there was such a thing.

The Sadducees, that group of religious people who predominated the Jewish

priesthood, for example, did not believe in a resurrection in the future.

They did not believe in the bodily resurrection.

They claimed all that is is what experienced in this life only.

They didn't believe in an afterlife.

They didn't believe in angels.

And so many would never have posed such a question to the master.

But this man revealed that this was the most important of all matters, and he was right in this.

Now, it's true that he was testing Jesus.

Nevertheless, he could best test Jesus by asking Jesus the

most important of all questions, hoping perhaps the Lord would either stumble all over

himself or say something that was in violation of the law, or at least would discredit him in the

view of others.

Perhaps this scribe was revealing his self -righteousness by him verbalizing this question, perhaps so.

There may be the idea suggested that he thought he could earn or merit eternal life by something he did.

I think later on we see that this was certainly characteristic of his thoughts.

But this, of course, would be a terrible defect in his faith and practice.

So again, he asked Jesus, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Now, it would be a very easy thing to misunderstand the nature of this question and what it suggests.

The question involves how one with faith should live with

view to one day inheriting eternal life.

How would God have his people live in this world with view to entering life everlasting?

Now, as we've said before on a number of occasions, it's important to understand the nature of eternal life set forth

in the biblical record by the biblical writers.

Most evangelicals equate obtaining eternal life when first receiving the forgiveness of

sins.

That is when the believer becomes justified before God through initial faith in Jesus Christ as

Lord and Savior.

I have eternal life.

Most people, most Christians would claim.

But the scribe here was not asking Jesus how a sinner may obtain God's forgiveness of his sins.

He was asking Jesus how God would have his people live out their lives in order to inherit eternal

life at the end of one's life in this world.

Do you see the difference?

There's a significant difference between these two meanings of his question.

To better understand this matter, we must remember that obtaining or possessing eternal life is set forth differently

by the writers of the New Testament.

In John's gospel and in his short epistles, John sets forth eternal life as that which the true believer

in Jesus presently possesses.

This is clear in the following verses.

John 5, 24.

Jesus, most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me

has, notice present possession, has everlasting life and shall not

come into judgment but has passed from death into life.

Speaking about when he was, that person was born again.

Life is a present reality.

Eternal life is a present reality for the one who believes on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Also, John 3, 36.

He who believes in the son has, presently possesses eternal life.

Presently is characterized by having eternal life.

And he who does not believe the son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him.

And so here is declared the true believer in the son of God for salvation presently possesses everlasting life.

And the same truth is stated in the next two verses cited.

John 6, 47.

Jesus, most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life.

And first John 5, 12.

Now we go into his short epistles.

He who has the son has life.

He who does not have the son of God does not have life.

And so in the above verses, everlasting life or eternal life is a present possession.

It's set forth as a quality of life, not just an

unending duration.

It's the quality of life, not the quantity or extent of life in John's writings.

It characterizes those who have been regenerated or born again by the Holy Spirit.

They have life.

It is unfortunate, however, that many do not readily see that in the New Testament, eternal life is often set forth.

And I would say in the majority of cases, eternal life is often set forth as received or obtained at the

end of a life of faith.

In these instances, eternal life is not a present possession, but it's set forth as a promised inheritance

that we have not yet received, but that God has promised us after

having continued through persevering faith and obedience to Jesus Christ.

And so consider these verses.

And here you see, we don't currently possess it.

It's promised to us.

We'll yet receive it.

That doesn't put it in doubt.

It just means it's a future promise.

Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is a gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction.

And there are many who go in by it because narrow is a gate and difficult is the way which

leads to life.

See, life is at the end of the journey, this pilgrimage on

this difficult way.

And there are a few who find it.

And then Titus three, four through seven.

But when the kindness and love of God, our savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but

according to his mercy, he saved us.

Past tense, he saved us.

So when we first repented of sin, believed on Jesus.

Through the washing of regeneration, that was his work of grace in us, the new birth, and renewing of the

Holy Spirit, he gave us new hearts, new lives.

Whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our savior, that having been justified, again, past

tense, we've been forgiven and the righteousness of Christ credited to us who faith

alone.

But notice by his grace, we should become heirs.

We haven't got it yet.

Heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

And by biblical definition, hope is always fixed on something that you haven't yet received.

It's a certain day, it's not like we wish we'll have eternal life, but we will have eternal life and this gives us hope,

which is the staying power, which gives us strength to persevere through tribulation and difficulty.

We didn't put it in our notes, but I believe that this is one of the major reasons why many evangelicals are not

prepared for the difficulty that's coming to them.

Because they say only eternal life is something that they have, that they received in the past.

If you don't fix your hope on the eternal life that is promised to us, you're not gonna have the

grace of strength to endure difficulty.

You're gonna become disillusioned, perhaps overwhelmed by it.

Very important.

Now abides these three, faith, hope, and love.

Yeah, the love is most important, but hope's there too in the top three.

Very important.

And so take note that in this Titus passage, Paul sets forth that Christians have been saved through the washing of regeneration,

renewing of the Holy Spirit.

He stated that we've already been justified by his grace.

Nevertheless, eternal life is still a future inheritance to be received by us.

He asserted that we may have assurance that we will one day inherit eternal life.

It doesn't put it in doubt.

This assurance of our future entering eternal life gives us hope in this life.

And so the New Testament presents eternal life as a present possession, John's writings, but also as a

future inheritance, the other writers of the New Testament.

And often this present and future aspects of the possession of eternal life is set forth in terms of entrance to the

kingdom of God.

And here we have again the notion we are in the kingdom of God, and yet there is a future

full entry and a realization of the kingdom of God, present and future.

To have eternal life is to be a citizen of the kingdom of God.

And just as eternal life is presented both as a present possession and a future inheritance, so it is

regarding our citizenship in the kingdom of God.

True disciples, that is true believers of Jesus, are presently citizens of the kingdom of God.

Paul wrote, he, God the Father has delivered us, happened in the past, from the power of

darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love.

We're presently in the kingdom of God, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of

sins.

We're citizens of another realm, we're citizens of the kingdom of God.

But we also read that we will in the future enter fully the kingdom of God after

our bodily resurrection from the dead and after we experience and stand exonerated on the day of judgment.

And so Jesus will say to the sheep on his right hand, come you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom.

See, just like eternal life, inherit eternal life.

Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Paul also set forth our future inheriting the kingdom, in other words, eternal life, in

1 Corinthians 6, 9 -11.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

See, it's yet future.

Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,

nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

They'll be damned.

And such were some of you, thankfully.

But you were washed, speaks of regeneration, sanctified, so you're no longer those things.

You were justified, forgiven, pardoned, regarded as righteous in the name of the Lord

Jesus by the spirit of our God.

But again, the kingdom of God is a future inheritance rather than present possession.

And we can also read in James 2, 5.

Listen, my beloved brethren, has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom?

See, it's promised to us.

It's a certainty.

It's reserved in heaven for our salvation.

And we will inherit it, which he has promised to those who love him.

And so eternal life as a future inheritance is really what the scribe was addressing in his inquiry of

Jesus.

Again, he asked Jesus, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

From the time that we come to initial faith in Jesus Christ for salvation until the day that we are granted

entrance into our promised everlasting life, God would have us live before him.

What is the standard by which he would govern our lives by faith?

And the answer is the law of God.

That's what Jesus says here, the moral law of God.

The lawyer answered Jesus rightly.

Jesus says, you've answered rightly.

Do this and live.

And this is how we are to live.

And if we live in this way, which is the way a true believer lives, we may be assured

of entering eternal life at the end of our life of faith.

And so the law of God is the rule of life for the believer.

Now, among evangelicals, they don't understand this at all.

Well, doesn't the Bible say we're not under law but grace?

We're not under the law as a covenant, but we're still under the law as a moral force, as a moral rule.

No, no, we're supposed to be like Jesus, not according to law, conform ourselves to Jesus.

The more you're like Jesus, the more conformed you'll be to the law of God because his life was a perfect

manifestation of what it is to live according to the law of God.

The moral law of God is our standard.

You cannot be saved because you keep the law of God, but you're not gonna be saved unless you

order your life according to the law of God.

This is the way, this is the course of faith.

This is the narrow gate you go through and the difficult way that you proceed that leads

to life.

And that's what the scribe was asking Jesus.

And so Jesus responded to this question when he asked,

what do I do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus responded by asking the lawyer a question, verse 26.

And so after the lawyer asked his initial question of Jesus, the Lord responded to him with a question recorded in

verse 26.

What is written in the law?

What is your reading of it?

The Lord directed the scribe to the law, that is the teaching of the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament.

Here our Lord was affirming the source of spiritual truth and the divine authority of the written word of God to

find answers to questions regarding God and our relationship to him.

How should I live if I'm gonna inherit eternal life?

What do the scriptures say?

Is what Jesus answered.

What is written in the law?

What's your reading of it?

Now by this question, the Lord Jesus revealed something about himself.

He asked what is written in the law?

And so we see the Lord's teaching agreed with the Old Testament.

He was demonstrating that his teaching was perfectly consistent with the Old Testament scriptures.

Everything he taught was based on the scriptures.

He had not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, as he stated forthrightly in the Sermon on the Mount.

Don't think that I came to destroy the law of the prophets.

I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

And he did.

And he does in us too by the Holy Spirit.

For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means

pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

There Jesus is affirming the abiding authority of the moral law of God.

Oh, I'm not under the law.

It doesn't matter how I live because I'm saved by grace.

That's heresy.

We're saved by grace and enabled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live according to God's moral

law.

And so he said those who break the least of these commandments and teaches men so.

And some people do.

They should be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does and teaches them, he should be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

For I say unto you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness that is described in Pharisees, which was merely

external or outward, in other words, it has to be inward, a true inward righteousness of the

soul, the heart, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

So by Jesus asking this question, he was confirming that all answers to spiritual questions of this life, death,

eternal life, and damnation are to be found in the Holy Scriptures, the Bible.

All questions regarding God and matters of faith and practice should be questions that are posed to the scriptures.

So whenever a question is posed to us regarding our Christian faith and practice, we should immediately reflect

prayerfully what does God's written word teach about this matter?

What says the scriptures?

The standards of God do not change, although men's laws do nothing but change.

We see that in our own society.

What is written in the scriptures?

And the right answer is not according to what you think or I think, what difference does that make?

Or what society thinks.

We cannot allow ourselves to be squeezed into the world's way of thinking or accept and reject the things

that the world approves.

We shall not follow a multitude to do evil.

The word of God is our soul and final authority in all matters of faith and practice.

But notice the Lord asked a second question.

Now what say the scriptures?

What's written in the law?

Secondly, what's your reading of it?

That's a different kind of question.

As soon as we begin to tell someone of what the Bible teaches about a matter, we enter the realm of our understanding of what the

scriptures say.

It's one thing for us to quote a verse of scripture for that is the authoritative inerrant word of God.

But when we begin to speak of our own understanding of what the word of God teaches, then other factors

come into play.

The question that our Lord posed was an attempt to reveal the scribes interpretation of the word of God.

How do you read it?

And that's a good question to ask of others.

And so in our Lord's questions, he clearly revealed his understanding that the scripture, that which is written takes

precedence over man's interpretation.

What does the law say?

How do you read it?

Let's make a determination now.

Do you read it rightly?

We should always ask first what is written, but then it's good to ask the one with whom we are discussing the matter.

How do I read it?

How do you read it?

How do you understand it?

And we are then to correct it and conform our response to the scriptures alone.

And so in the end, it's not how you or I read it.

It's not how this church reads it, not how the Roman Catholic Church or the Lutheran Church reads it.

Rather, the question to ask is what is written?

Those who claim tradition is equal to the authority of the scriptures, like Rome does,

have departed from the scriptures as the Lord's method of understanding

truth.

The Lord Jesus always judged tradition according to the scriptures.

You find that throughout the gospels.

He never judged scripture according to tradition.

That's what the Pharisees did, and they were condemned by Jesus for doing so.

What is written, as well as where is it written, are two questions that we have a right to ask of

anybody who claims to speak on behalf of God.

Pastor, where do you get that, is a legitimate question for anybody to ask any time

of any teaching that comes forth from me or anybody else in this church.

Where do the scriptures say that?

Where do you get that?

And when man's interpretation differs from what is written, it must be corrected according to what is

written.

So the question, what is your reading of it, is a good question to ask when speaking to someone about the Lord.

And I happen to have that occasion this week.

I employed this query when speaking with a young housewife and mother in New Hampshire who listens to our daily radio program.

And I've spoken with Denise three or four times in the past half dozen years or so.

And the other day, she first expressed appreciation for our radio program because it weaned her from a lot of

common but spurious teaching regarding the end times, and she was very happy about that.

And she then asked if I were a Calvinist, which she knew that I would affirm.

I said, yeah.

And then she told me that she accepted some of what Calvinists believe and taught, but she could not accept everything.

She was not thoroughly convinced, but she's very sincere.

She wanted to know what's true.

So I inquired of her what it was that troubled her and why she had a different understanding.

And she told me she couldn't accept the doctrine of total depravity.

And the reason is, and I asked her why, why, you know, why is that the case?

She said it did not seem to conform with her perception of all non -Christian people, for many seemed to her

to be very good and moral in many ways, which is true,

even though they were unbelievers.

And so I then explained to her that she misunderstood the biblical teaching of the total depravity of man.

That was her problem.

And so I explained to her what total depravity does not mean, first of all.

Total depravity does not mean that every person is as wicked as he possibly could be.

Rather, it means that every aspect of the human person, the total person, has been adversely tainted and

spoiled by sin.

Total depravity does not mean that every man is at the worst state he can be, that every man

expresses the full extent of his evil nature at all times.

We don't believe that.

And so the doctrine is not utter depravity or absolute depravity, as Arthur Pink once

wrote, but rather total depravity.

And so I explained to her that if it were not for the common grace of God,

each of us and all of society would manifest evil in our lives to the fullest measure.

God takes away his restraining hand.

God restrains even non -Christians in their sin, saying this far and no farther.

And moreover, God has given us a society, laws, a legal system, fear of man's opinion of us, fear of temporal

consequences, which prevent us from manifesting our sinful natures more than what we

currently do.

It's not because of a love of God and righteousness that fallen man does not live more wickedly.

Rather, due to the common grace of God.

But further, the biblical doctrine of total depravity does not mean that man is incapable of human good.

Fallen people do many acts of kindness, generosity, heroism, and self -sacrifice.

Non -Christian men can love their wives, wives love their husbands, their children.

And it does not mean that unsaved man is incapable of distinguishing to a degree between good and evil, because

God has given each of us a conscience by which right and wrong can be distinguished.

However, because of sin, even the conscience of fallen man is corrupted so that a fallen man

cannot discern the presence of all his own sin and the exceeding sinfulness of his

sin.

Well, after I explained to her what total depravity doesn't mean, which was helpful for her, I

explained to her what total depravity does mean.

Total depravity understands that a fallen man is incapable of doing anything that can merit God's favor

with respect to salvation.

All his good deeds are performed without a view of glorifying God.

Solomon wrote in Proverbs that even the plowing of a farmer, the plowing of the wicked is sin.

He's not plowing and sowing seed, looking for harvests with view to glorifying God, but

rather to feed himself and his family.

And therefore it's sin.

Whatever is not of faith is sin.

It means that in his natural state, fallen man is incapable of doing anything or desiring anything that is

truly pleasing to God.

It means that his loves and loyalties lie in the things other than God and his will.

He lives for himself, not for God.

He loves darkness rather than light.

He chooses to serve self rather than God.

And so I stressed to her that by total depravity, we mean that man is as bad off as he can be and

that there's no part of him which has been unaffected by the fall, his mind with its understanding, his heart with its

affections, his loyalties to himself and Satan.

It means apart from a work of God's grace in regeneration, he'll continue in this state for he is

both unwilling to change and incapable of remedying his situation.

It's gonna have to be by God's grace or it's not gonna happen.

It means that although free offers of pardon and salvation may be presented because his will is so bent on ordering

his own existence, he's unwilling to be subject to the law of God.

He cannot be, the scriptures say.

And if left to himself, he will reject offers of mercy, persist in his self -directed existence to his own

destruction.

He's totally depraved.

And so it means that man does not have a free will if what is extended by that term is that he's free and

capable as a sinner to respond to God's commands apart from being born again.

Jesus told Nicodemus, you can't even see the kingdom of God unless you're first born again.

You can't enter it unless you're first born again.

And you cannot cause yourself to be born again.

That's something that God has to do in his sovereignty.

And so it follows that if he's to be saved, God must choose to save him and work his grace in him so that he will

be saved.

For if left to himself, he cannot and will not choose God.

Well, we spoke, I spoke with Denise for about an hour and my explanation satisfied her completely.

And so she hung up with newly reformed convictions.

And she said, well, you know, I was thinking I misunderstood what total depravity is.

And it really all stemmed from the question, you know, what does the law say?

What does the scripture say?

How do you read it?

And she revealed to me her misunderstanding.

What is your reading of it?

And so you learn the ways of a person, the way they're thinking according to scriptures and

in what ways they're in error by asking them, how do you read it?

Well, you know, as I was reading this verse, I recalled a pamphlet written by J .C.

Ryle.

And so Mary and I looked for it and I finally found it on a shelf there.

And it's, he wrote this book entitled, How Readest Thou?

And it's the King James version, of course, from this verse.

And so in his introduction, he referenced this verse with these words.

Reader, the question before your eyes is 1800 years old.

It was asked by our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was asked concerning the Bible.

I invite you to examine and consider this question.

I warn you, it is just as mighty and important now as it was on the day when it came from our Lord's lips.

I want to apply it to the conscience of everyone who reads this paper.

To knock at the door of his heart, I would feign sound a trumpet in the ear of everyone who speaks English and cry

aloud, how readest thou?

Dost thou read the Bible?

And so the whole pamphlet is urging people to read the Bible.

Why do I hold this question to be of such mighty importance?

Why do I press it on the notice of every man as a matter of life and death?

Give me your attention for a few minutes and you shall see.

Follow me through these pages and you shall hear why I ask, how readest thou?

Dost thou read the Bible?

We used to have a whole bunch of these pamphlets downstairs and I looked out in the gym.

There's none out there.

Ron, we probably ought to have them.

Okay, you might take note of that.

And so I basically distilled the whole pamphlet in these notes here on this page.

And so I just gave the headings and then he treated each one of these in quite some detail.

And so he set forth reasons why this matter is so important.

First, I ask, first of all, because there's no knowledge absolutely needful to a man's salvation except a

knowledge of the things which are found in the Bible.

If you want to be saved, if you want eternal life, if you want the forgiveness of sins, the only way

or place you're going to find it is in the Bible.

That's it.

Second, I ask in the second place because there's no book in existence written in such a manner as the Bible.

It is unique.

And he gave four reasons.

There's extraordinary unity and harmony in the contents of the Bible.

We're seeing that in our class on typology in Sunday school.

Second, there's an extraordinary accuracy in the facts and statements of the Bible, which is above man.

Third, there is an extraordinary wisdom, sublimity and majesty in the style of the Bible, which is

above man.

And four, there's suitableness to the spiritual needs of all mankind in the Bible.

And then third, another reason I ask in the third place because no book in existence contains such

important matter as the Bible.

There's an extraordinary depth, fullness, richness in the content of the Bible.

The Bible alone teaches us that God has made a full, perfect, complete provision for the salvation of

fallen man.

And only there.

Four, I ask in the fourth place because no book in existence had produced such wonderful effects on mankind

at large as the Bible.

It's transformative.

It turned the world upside down, the doctrines, teachings of the Bible in the days of the apostles, and then this book turned

Europe upside down in the days of the glorious Protestant Reformation, which we'll be

celebrating next week.

Fifth, I ask in the fifth place because no book in existence can do so much for everyone who reads it rightly as the Bible.

It's transformative.

You pick up the Bible and you start to read it and the Holy Spirit blesses it and you're gonna become a new person, a

transformed person.

And it'll be a work of God.

I ask in the sixth place because no gift of God to man is so awfully neglected and misused as the Bible.

How long has the Bible, somebody told me recently he had a Bible sitting on his nightstand for 20 years.

Picked it up three months ago, started reading it, it was converted.

Incredible story, wonderful.

Seven, I ask in the seventh place because the Bible is the only rule by which all questions of doctrine or duty can be tried,

which we've emphasized already.

Eight, I ask in the next place because the Bible is a book which all true servants of God have always lived

and loved.

This has always been the standard.

And then last, because the Bible is the only book which can comfort a man in the last hours of his life.

No other book can do that.

And then toward the end of his treatment, Ryle made an appeal to those who purpose to take up the Bible to read it.

And so these instructions, he very briefly stated,

he said, begin reading the Bible today, not tomorrow, today.

Read the Bible with an earnest desire to understand it.

Read the Bible with deep reference.

It's God's word.

With earnest prayer for the teaching and help of the Holy Spirit.

He has to illuminate your mind to the truth of it.

Read the Bible with childlike faith and humility, teachableness.

Read the Bible in a spirit of obedience and self -application.

Lord, whatever you say, I'm gonna do, as you give me grace to do it.

I'm not sitting here making judgments and picking and choosing what I wanna do, what I don't wanna do.

It's your word is authoritative.

Give me the grace to do it.

Read the Bible daily.

Read the Bible and read it in an orderly way.

Read the Bible fairly and honestly.

Read the Bible with Christ continually in view.

You look for Christ in its pages, principally.

And then he concluded with these words.

Last of all, let us resolve to live by the Bible more and more every year we live.

Let us resolutely take account of all our opinions and practices, of our habits and tempers, of our behavior

in public and private, in the world and by our own firesides or in the home.

Let us measure all by the Bible and resolve by God's help to conform to it.

Oh, that we may learn increasingly to cleanse our ways by the word.

Well, again, the Lord asked this question of the scribe and in doing so, he turned the table upon the man.

And now the Lord was testing the scribe.

What says the law?

How do you read it?

Well, the law, your answer, Jesus, in verse 27.

So he answered and said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind and your neighbor as

yourself.

That's a summation of the law of God.

And so the response of this scribe revealed more about this man and his relationship with the Lord.

The lawyer recites the Jewish Shema, which is recited daily in Jewish worship.

Taken from Deuteronomy 6, four and five, which read, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, you

shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

And then in addition, the scribe added Leviticus 19, 18, which reads in context,

you shall not hate your brother in your heart.

You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, not bear sin because of him.

You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as

yourself.

I am the Lord.

And so it was said regarding the first citation of the Shema, the command was rightly regarded as forming the

heart of Jewish religion.

It puts at the center religion, a love for God, an undivided loyalty to him.

It refers to the sincere loyalty of covenant partners to each other.

It does include notes of faithfulness and obedience.

To love the Lord God with all your being.

And of the Leviticus passage on loving one's neighbor, the question might again be asked, how readest thou?

For the Jews stripped this verse of its broader application to only some Jews are my neighbor,

not all.

And here again is a description of the comments Jewish take of this verse.

How readest thou?

The phrase your neighbor means one who is near, a neighbor.

And it was used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament to translate Ria is the word,

the Hebrew word Ria, a person with whom one has something to do.

Well, the Jews reason, well, I don't have anything to do with him, so he's not my neighbor.

I don't have to love him.

And so the Jews interpret this in terms of members of the same people, a religious community, fellow Jews.

He's my neighbor.

And there is a tendency on the part of the Pharisees to exclude even ordinary people from the definition.

The Qumran community where they saved the Dead Sea Scrolls, they so rejected

all of Judaism and all the priests, the temple in Jerusalem was corrupt and whatnot.

They weren't their neighbors.

In the Qumran community, it was just that couple hundred men who lived there and celibate life.

They were their neighbors of one another.

And so they limited the word of God.

However, in Leviticus 1934, the same obligation of love is extended to the Hebrew word ger.

In other words, the resident alien, the Gentile.

But Jewish usage excluded Samaritans and foreigners from this category.

You don't have to love a Samaritan.

We hate them.

And so again, in the parable, The Good Samaritan, Jesus throws his back at him that a

Samaritan was more consistent in ordering his life according to the moral law of God than the Jews were.

And that he treated this man abused by thieves and cared for him, provided for him.

Well, in verse 28, we read that Jesus affirmed the correctness of the lawyer's answer.

We read the Lord affirmed the lawyer was correct.

This is how one was to live in order to inherit everlasting life.

He said to him, you have answered rightly, do this and you will live.

Notice our Lord did not correct the man and give him a word of instruction on justification through faith alone.

Nor did he employ the kind of evangelistic methods that's used in every kind of witness setting that arises today.

Jesus did not attempt to gain a profession of faith from this man rather the Lord responds, you're right in what you

say.

Jesus affirmed what the law said.

If you desire to have eternal life, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your

mind and love your neighbors yourself.

That is the course of life for true Christians.

Now this may puzzle some, one might ask, well, in answering this way, was Jesus not encouraging this man's thinking that he could

save himself through his own efforts?

Not at all, just the opposite.

When Jesus affirmed the law of God, Jesus was revealing to this man his inability to justify himself as hard

as he might try.

He had to ask the question, but who is my neighbor?

See, he had to limit that.

And so the way the lawyer responded to Jesus' affirmation reveals this man knew that he did not indeed could

not live according to these commandments.

The law convicted the man of sin.

The scribe would have to redefine or lessen the extent the requirement of the commandment if he were to

include himself as one who would inherit eternal life.

The law of God that this man cited served to convict him of his sin, righteousness, and judgment.

And that's how the Lord employed it.

The fact that he had to qualify who his neighbor was, the one whom he must love as he loved himself, clearly

reveals his failure to live according to God's law.

The Holy Spirit was using the law of God to convict this man.

Paul wrote of this use of the law, he wrote of his own encounter with the law of God before conversion, I would

not have known sin except through the law.

Now we must affirm that no one can earn salvation because he obeys the law of God.

I hope we all understand that.

For the simple reason nobody ever has or will do these things fully consistently except for the Lord Jesus.

He is the only true law keeper among mankind because we're sinners.

As James wrote, for whoever shall keep the whole law yet stumble in one point, he's guilty of all.

You can't have salvation by keeping the law.

If anyone thinks he can or thinks he will be saved on the grounds of his law keeping is worse than a fool,

according to the scriptures.

God will justify no one based upon his own works.

No one can, no one ever will be able to sustain a standard of righteous or righteous living

throughout life to merit eternal life.

Even the lawyer knew he failed here.

And so he sought to justify himself.

Yeah, but who's my neighbor?

But here's the paradox, and it's important to understand this.

Although no one can earn his salvation by keeping God's law, no one will inherit eternal life whose life

is not characterized by keeping God's laws.

Now not perfectly, nobody can.

But it's the standard that orders our life, our thinking.

It's what we pray to do.

We ask God for grace to enable us to do so.

We ask pardon when we fail to do so.

It orders our life, directs our life, the laws of God.

John says in one of his epistles, this is love that you keep your commandments.

You order your relationships according to the law of God.

Take the 10 commandments.

You love your neighbor by not lying to him, by not coveting what he has, but rejoicing what he has.

All the commandments can be applied in this way.

And so it's true no one will inherit eternal life because he loves God, for this is love.

Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as atoning sacrifice for our sins.

But it's equally true that no one will inherit eternal life who does not love God supremely with an

undivided loyalty toward him.

And every true Christian loves God.

Did not the scripture say, if anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed?

Do you love the Lord Jesus?

Moreover, the scriptures declare, he who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.

He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Do you love the Lord?

Is he at the top of the list, supremely?

Matthew Henry wrote of this command, we must love God with all our heart.

Must look upon him as the best of beings, in himself most amiable, and infinitely perfect and

excellent, as one whom we lie under the greatest obligations to, both in gratitude and interest.

We must prize him and value ourselves by our elation to him, must please ourselves in him, devote

ourselves entirely to him.

Our love to him must be sincere, hearty, and fervent.

It must be a superlative love.

A love that is strong as death, but an intelligent love, such as we can give a good account

of the grounds and reasons of it.

It must be an entire love.

He must have our whole souls, and must be served with all that is within us.

We must love nothing besides him, but we love for him and in subordination to him.

A person born of God, a person with a new birth, has that love for God.

God has put it within the soul.

I love God.

I don't love him enough, but I love God.

And if I could have my way, I'd love him more, and not ever put anything

in front of him, but I too often do.

But what of loving one's neighbor more than yourself?

Surely you do not mean to say that one must love his neighbor as himself if he is to inherit eternal life, but that's exactly what

Jesus said.

Now again, no one will inherit eternal life because he loves his neighbor, but it's equally true that no one will inherit

eternal life who does not act in a loving manner toward his neighbor.

In fact, it will one day be the basis, one of the bases on which genuineness of your relationship with Christ will

be tested on the day of judgment.

Matthew Henry also addressed this.

We must love our neighbors as ourselves, which we shall easily do if we, as we ought to do,

love God better than ourselves.

We must wish well to all and ill to none.

We desire that everyone would come to salvation in Christ.

We must do all the good we can in the world and no hurt.

We're not going around stealing and harming people just out of a meanness and whatnot.

We really desire the well -being of other people sincerely,

and we must fix it as a rule of ourselves to do to others as we would have them do to us, and this is to

love our neighbor as ourselves.

Now, in our saying that the way we are to live according to the law of God with view to inheriting eternal life,

we are not to say that we're in conflict with the truth that faith alone is the instrument by which we receive

full and free forgiveness of sins by our God and acquire a righteous standing before God to

claim that what we're saying conflicts with that would be a wrong conclusion.

Justification through faith alone does not set aside the standards of God's law.

Rather, it affirms them.

Justification by grace through faith alone affirms that the law of God has authority over us.

Paul wrote, do we then make void the law through faith?

Certainly not.

On the contrary, we establish the law.

The law of God is our standard of morality.

Actually, our justification before God commences our sanctification by the grace of God, which is evident in a life

increasingly conforming to the law of God in Christ.

Paul wrote of this in Romans 3, 8, 3, and 4.

What the law could not do, apart from Christ, couldn't make anybody holy.

It could only condemn you.

For what the law could not do in that it's weak through the flesh, God did by

sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

On account of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.

For what purpose?

Then we have a purpose clause.

For the purpose that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh,

but according to the Spirit.

See, God and the Christian wants to enable us to live according to the law of

God, but we can only do so by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Listen to these words.

Let it never be forgotten that what the law demands of us, the gospel really produces in us.

The law tells us what we ought to be, and it's one object of the gospel to raise us up to that condition.

Hence, our Savior's teaching, though it be eminently practical, is always evangelical.

Even expounding the law, he is always a gospel design.

Two ends are served by setting up a high standard of duty.

On the one, he slays the self -righteous.

That's what he did with the scribe, the lawyer, which claims to have kept the law by making men feel the

impossibility of salvation by their own works.

And on the other hand, he calls believers away from all content with the mere decencies of life and the routine of

outward religion, and stimulates them to seek after the highest degree of holiness, indeed, after that

excellence of character which only his grace can give.

I shall not hold up the love of our neighbor as a condition of salvation, but as a fruit of it.

Amen.

I pulled that out of one of my old sets of notes, and somehow I did not put the author of that quotation, but it sure

sounds like Spurgeon to me.

True Christians are to order their lives according to the law of God.

We're not saved because we keep this law, but we will not inherit eternal life if we live in

disregard of God's law.

1 John 2 .3, now by this, we know that we know him.

See, it's a basis of assurance.

How do we know that we know him?

If we keep his commandments.

1 John 2 .4, he who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

The law of God is the standard of our morality in

Christ.

1 John 5 .2, by this, we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments.

See, this is how we relate to others according to God's commandments, and that's what love

is.

Ordering your relationships according to the law of God.

1 John 5 .3, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments.

There it is.

And his commandments are not burdensome.

They're difficult, but they're not burdensome.

We delight to do the law of God.

He's given that desire in our souls as Christians.

This is love that we walk according to his commandments.

This is the commandment that as you heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

See, we order our lives.

In faith, but the standard is the moral law of God set forth in the scriptures.

And then in the last chapter of the Bible, blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the

right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates into the city.

Now, there's an affirmation of what Jesus said, you know, that what must I do

to enter eternal life?

Well, those who do his commandments, they have a right to the tree of life and may enter through the

gates in the city.

Well, after all this, the lawyer posed another question to Jesus, verse 29.

It ends, the portion ends with this, but he wanted to justify himself, said to Jesus, who is my neighbor?

The lawyer saw that what he had cited to Jesus and what Jesus had affirmed as true was not true of him.

He had been honest and truthful about the scriptures, but if he were gonna be honest with himself, he'd have to explain away the

text.

For the two, his life and the scriptures could not stand as one.

And so for him, the meaning of the scriptures must change.

As Peter referenced, he would twist the scriptures to his own destruction.

And notice which of the two commandments gave him the problem, who is my neighbor?

He asked, he was all too confident he kept the first.

I love the Lord God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength.

And that's not strange.

The fact is, all religionists think that they love God.

Go talk to the people of Hamas.

Ask them if they love God.

Of course, they'll tell you they do.

But this man knew if he were to be at peace with himself and think himself to be at peace with God, he'd have to do something with that second

matter.

And so he asked the question, well, who's my neighbor then?

And one's true spiritual condition will most often be discovered here, not in the laws of the first tablet,

the 10 commandments, the first tablet, our duty toward God, but those of the second tablet of

the 10 commandments, our duty toward one another, toward man.

Don't tell us how much you love God.

How much do you love your neighbor?

And by love, I'm not talking about warm, fuzzy feelings for them, because that's not possible apart from the grace of God, but

how do you treat them?

How do you act toward them?

That's what it is to love your neighbor, how you treat them, not how you feel about them.

They might be your enemy, but you can treat them in a loving manner nevertheless.

How much do you love the stranger?

How much do you love your spouse and children?

How much do you love your brother or sister?

How much do you love your boss?

How much do you love the one who afflicts you, your enemy?

Jesus said in another place, if you only love them that love you, what credit is that to you?

Unbelievers do that much.

Non -Christians have that kind of love.

How much do you love others?

And that will reveal your true condition before God.

And so the expert in the law was faced with two choices, either admit he had failed, humble himself, recognize he had

no hope of salvation apart from God's mercy and grace through the Savior, or justify himself

by obscuring the meaning of the text.

I'll limit my conception of neighbor to those that I really like.

And so rather than confessing his failure, his moral and spiritual bankruptcy, he sought to lessen his guilt,

justify himself and his mind by obscuring the text or limiting its application.

He had been honest with the scriptures, but dishonest about himself.

The result, he'd have to be dishonest with the scriptures.

He'd have to twist and wrestle the scriptures since they're stripped of any force.

He distorted them.

That would surely result in his own destruction, twisting them to his own destruction.

And so brethren, as we close, let us be careful.

Just because you may not like a doctrine or a teaching, total depravity, all right, did not

coincide with the way you're living or the way you want to believe, don't resort to distorting the text.

What does the law say?

Don't twist it about to suit you.

How do you read it?

How do you understand it?

The scribes and rabbis had dealt with the question quite extensively, who is my neighbor?

Since internal life hinged on this, it was all important to state clearly who in God's side is a neighbor.

And they would love those persons as one of the things they felt was necessary to earn eternal life.

They thought they were earning righteousness by keeping the law rather than seeking Christ, of course, and that was

the true cause of their damnation.

And the response that Jesus gave to the question, the parable to the Good Samaritan, we'll address next time.

That's how he answered this scribe.

Who's my neighbor?

Well, you need to be as good a neighbor as the Samaritan was to a Jew.

And that has so many twists and turns that how the scribe would have handled that, who knows?

I don't know.

But I look forward to that next time.

Let's pray.

Thank you, Father, for your word and thank you, God, for your law.

Thank you for grace, our God.

Otherwise, we'd be totally lost.

For none of us, our God, can keep your law.

We transgress your law in so many ways.

None of us love you wholly and fully, Lord, but our love is corrupted and is

not as sincere, faithful, and fervent as it ought to be.

And certainly, our God, we're not always loving to others as we ought to be.

But we see that as a standard you've set for us and so we're in need of great grace.

May you put it in our hearts afresh, our God, to order our lives and our relationships with others

according to your word, according to your law.

And our God, as Christians, we are looking to the Holy Spirit to enable us, give us the desire

and the power to do so or else it will not be done.

And so grant us grace, our God, as we go forth from this place.

And Father, as we speak about your law, we pray that you would use it, our God, to convict of sin,

and particularly of that one who is a stranger to Jesus Christ, to show him, Lord, his

need of a savior, that he is totally helpless, bankrupt, and damned apart

from being in Christ.

And so help that, so give him the gift of repentance, give him true, saving faith in the

savior alone, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.