God's Law in Modern Society | Part 1

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The Sermon That Can Change A Nation- Part 2

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So I want to start this by reading, this is going to be an extended reading of Dr.

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Booth's first couple pages here, starting on page 253 of Mission of God.

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I think it'll help to give a little bit of background relevance, historical study that's important.

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So this is something that's often missed by us today as modern evangelicals. We miss the fact that as Christendom has been moving throughout the world since the inception of the church, the kingdom of God in the world, as the gospel was proclaimed in any society, and as that society was transformed all the way up to its level of government, it was always assumed, it's just assumed in Christian societies that you look to the law of God as the standard of righteousness and justice in a society.

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It was just assumed. So whether you're talking about Ireland converting to Christ and pointing to the law of God, whether you're talking about John Knox in Scotland, whether you're talking about the

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Puritans coming over to the United States and pointing to the law of God, we're going to actually show some examples of that tonight.

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It was just assumed. If you were the king of a Christian nation, it was assumed that as the king, you had the duty.

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You were duty bound to obey God, to increase the gospel of Jesus Christ and to point to the law of God in your statutes.

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And so it was assumed that a king had to obey God's law and point to God's law. Dr. Boot gives some examples of that, but first to this quote from Samuel Rutherford.

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He says, to me, it is a wonder that the Old and New Testament, which containeth an exact system and body of all morals, should not be the only rule of all morals.

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Dr. Boot continues. He says, in the ninth century AD, King Alfred the Great inaugurated codified, the

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Great inaugurated codified English law with the 10 commandments. In AD 1540,

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King Henry VIII established seven cities of refuge based on the biblical model of Numbers 27, one through 11.

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The Puritan settlers of New England self -consciously planned their commonwealth after the pattern of biblical law, as can be seen from the order of the

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General Court of Massachusetts, 1636, and the General Laws of Plymouth Colony, 1658.

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English canon law was so substantially drawn from biblical law that in regard to biblical regulations concerning inheritance and English inheritance law, the 19th century jurist,

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Sir Frederick Pollock, said of Numbers 27, one through 11, that it was the earliest recorded case, which is still of authority.

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When the civil government of Israel was established, God addressed the 70 elders of the people and poured out his spirit upon them, meaning the first Pentecost was a civil affair at the ordination of civil authorities,

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Numbers 11, 16 through 17. A similar Pentecost event later occurred at the anointing of Saul, which marked the beginning of a second form of civil government in Israel, a transition from a commonwealth to a monarchy in 1

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Samuel 10, one through seven. The early church continued such rites of coronation or anointing.

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This is where it gets really interesting. The form of the rite which highlights the role of God, God's law in our history remains with us.

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The oath required of Queen Elizabeth II, the head of the state of Great Britain and Canada, stated, quote, will you to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the gospel?

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Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant reformed religion established by law?

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After this oath, the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland brought to the Queen the

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Bible saying, quote, our gracious Queen to keep your majesty ever mindful of the law and the gospel of God as the rule for the whole of life and government of Christian princes, we present you with this book, the most valuable thing that this world affords.

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Here is wisdom. This is the royal law. These are the lively oracles of God.

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That's tremendous, isn't it? So it's interesting, this past year, God's given our family, our church, an opportunity to minister in a more direct sense in Ireland.

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So as you all know, God has used our ministry around the world. He continues to do so daily all around the world.

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So it's not just our state, not just our cities, it's not just our own nation, it's literally a global ministry of teaching and it has a tremendous impact.

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God has really used us in powerful ways. But going to Ireland twice this year, we went for a kind of a whirlwind trip recently.

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One of the things that causes great effect to any believer who cares about this kind of stuff,

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Christendom, the kingdom of God and history, is when you go to a place like Ireland, this is a nation that was so dramatically impacted by the gospel, by the kingdom of God, that though the culture of the

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West wants to abandon Jesus, wants to abandon God's law and move into autonomy and away from theonomy,

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God's law, you can't get rid of all the vestiges of the

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Christian civilization. It is unavoidable, it's unmistakable. It's interesting here in the United States, we've,

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I think, done a lot of work over the last generation to sort of erase a lot of that history. Some of it still exists, it's hanging around here and there.

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A lot in New England still is hanging around on the East Coast, Washington, D .C. There's still some remnants in Virginia, those sorts of things.

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You do see the vestiges of the Christian civilization, but it's unmistakable when you go to a place like Ireland.

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You can't turn a corner without seeing the history of the kingdom of God still prevalent and hanging out in Ireland.

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But what's interesting is considering that just one point. What we saw when we were there, we're trying to offer support to the church in Ireland because they're about to try to legalize abortion in Ireland, they're standing on their last leg right now.

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What you see is, and they clearly understood it, the 30 ,000 people on the march clearly understood this.

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They understood it better than we do here. It's the one thing, Zach, I forgot to tell you, that they understood and was different in their narrative and their rhetoric than we get here with the pro -choicers we actually collide with.

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They said on a number of occasions that they knew that this was because of the law of God and the church.

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They said this is about religion, this is about the church, this is about Jesus. So the difference between their signs and our signs, they were near identical, so our pro -choice movement is influencing them, but they actually had signs that were more overt in terms of coming against Christ and the scriptures.

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That was the difference. And I think that it's more easy for them to see it because they're hanging out with all of the remnants of this old

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Christian civilization and it's unavoidable. But listen to this. After the anointing, continue on page 254, after the anointing, which cited the anointing of Solomon, the archbishop of York presented the queen with a sword of state during which she is charged to wield, listen to this, the sword of justice in God's authority by stopping the growth of iniquity, protecting the church, defending orphans and widows, restoring, punishing, and reforming where required in service, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. That's powerful, right? For a leader to be given that charge.

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When the orb with the cross was then given to Queen Elizabeth II, the archbishop declared, receive this orb set under the cross, and remember that the whole world is subject to the power and empire of Christ, our

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Redeemer. Through the faith was perhaps, though the faith was perhaps absent, this whole service bore testament to the ancient coronation service in Israel and to the abiding relevance and authority of biblical law to the sociopolitical, cultural, and political spheres, clearly declaring that the civil order is directly under and accountable to God, being established by his decree as part of his kingdom reign.

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Formally, when the incoming president of the United States took the oath of office, it was done, not on a closed

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Bible, but on a Bible open to Deuteronomy 28 invoking the blessings and cursings of the law for obedience or disobedience.

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These oaths were taken with great seriousness because God's law was seen as a serious matter. So I think that's a good section to begin with in this study of the law of God, its abiding relevance in modern society.

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Dr. Boot points to the fact that wherever the gospel has connected, wherever the gospel has transformed, you always see those marks of the law of God as having abiding relevance today.

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Let me just consider the fact that the president of these United States put his hand not just on a closed Bible, but on Deuteronomy chapter 28, which is the section.

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Deuteronomy means, deutero means second, and onomy comes from the

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Greek word namos. So it's deutero namos, the second law. So it's, deuteronomy is the second restating of the law, but it includes within Deuteronomy 28, the section of the blessings and cursings if you disobey

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God's law. And so to have a president of the United States place his hand directly on Deuteronomy 28 says a lot in terms of what they understood about the role of God's law, the authority of God's law, and the need for obedience in a nation.

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So that's significant. We could, listen, this is six months. I need to cram into two nights, okay?

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So we're gonna go relatively fast here, and I'm not gonna talk about everything that I want to, though I am tempted to. Let's talk first and foremost about the theological foundations of the law of God.

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There are so many misconceptions today in modern evangelicalism in regard to the law of God in modern society.

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When you talk about the law of God today with the average evangelical, we get this often.

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Sometimes people will point to the Old Testament, and what will they say? They'll say, well, that's the Old Testament. We're not under law, we're under grace.

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Massive misuse of that text, completely out of context. You could quote right back to then Romans 3, verse 31, where Paul says, do we then make void the law through faith?

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And he says, no, we actually establish the law. So where do we go?

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Is Paul talking out of both sides of his mouth there? Oftentimes people point to the New Testament today as modern evangelicals in the

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West, and they say, well, we're under Jesus now, we're under grace. That old God of the Old Testament was a tyrant.

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He was heavy -handed, he was full of wrath, but Jesus is full of grace. So we really create this very strange fictional idea that we have the father as this wrathful, vengeful, sort of mean -spirited, harsh, heavy -handed

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God, and you have Jesus who is sort of the loving person who stands in God's way, saying, be gracious, don't forget to be loving.

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Completely a false God. I'll just say it in that way. It's a false

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God. It's an unbiblical notion, but we need to think about the law in proper perspective, because when you tell the modern evangelical,

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I believe that the law of God is good, it is holy, it is just, and that God requires of everybody to obey his law.

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When you say the law of God has abiding relevance today in modern society, in every realm, sometimes people have misconceptions, misunderstandings as to what you mean by that.

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So let's start with the law of God in proper perspective. So first text, the

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Bible says that the law of God is good. Romans chapter seven, I want you to go to your Bibles if you would,

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Romans chapter seven. We're gonna spend more time tonight in the Bible than we are in Joseph Boot.

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I'll let you, I wanna encourage you, by the way, as you get to Romans seven, to not miss the discussion, sit at my right hand, by Dr.

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Boot. Make sure you read that discussion. We'll try to touch it where we can, but I wanna lay down more of the theological stuff that Boot addresses in the book, but doesn't spend a lot of time unpacking.

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Romans chapter seven, verse 12, the Apostle Paul talking about the law of God says, so the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and righteous, and good.

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So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and righteous, and good. Now this is,

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I believe, in the context of the Apostle Paul, setting up an example of a

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Jew under Torah who is not in the Spirit. I actually disagree with many of the people that apply

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Romans chapter seven to Paul's current experience. Oftentimes people point to this text as the struggle that Christians have with their own sin.

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I do not believe that's what Paul is talking about there. I agree with many commentators that the

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Apostle Paul is actually setting up an example, and we can't go into all those details tonight, but of a

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Jew under Torah without the Spirit of God. I think proof of that is in Romans 8 .1,

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if you wanna just at least have that as something to meditate on. In Romans chapter 8 .1, he says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the

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Spirit of life has set you free in Christ from the law of sin and death, which is what he was discussing in Romans chapter seven.

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So I think the discussion there has to do with not the law being this awful, awful thing. He's talking about what it was like to be a

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Jew who was still without Christ in the flesh under the law. They may have in their inward man delighted in the law of God, but they couldn't do it.

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And Paul's discussion is in Romans 8, those who were in the flesh cannot submit to the law of God. They're not even able to please

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God, but you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit. And now we can do what the law required ultimately because we are not in the flesh, but in the

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Spirit. But here's my point, not to get into a whole theological discussion on that. When we did our Roman study years ago,

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I went into that and unpacked that, but that's not the point here. The point here is this, how does Paul talk in the new covenant, post

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Christ, post cross, post resurrection, post ascension? So all the work of Jesus is behind him now.

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And how does he then talk about the law of God under the new covenant with Jesus now on his throne, with his redemption accomplished?

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He says this about the law of God, the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

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That's what Paul says about the law of God. Again, think about the context that's in the new covenant. Deuteronomy chapter four, verse eight, this is how

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God speaks about his law. Deuteronomy, if you would go to your text so you can see,

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I want you to know that this is the word of God speaking here and not merely your pastor. Deuteronomy chapter four in verse,

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I might've quoted the wrong, here we go. Let's start in verse five.

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See, I have taught you statutes and rules as the Lord my God commanded me that you should do them in a land that you are entering to take possession of it.

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Keep them and do them for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who when they hear all these statutes will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people for what great nation is there that has a

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God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him and here it is and what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today.

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That's a testimony of God's word about God's standards in the Old Testament. Now, let me just ask a very personal question now.

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When you came to Christ and you began to read the Old Testament, how did you feel when you got to Leviticus and Deuteronomy?

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Skip over please. Generally people say, well, that's tough stuff, don't understand it, right? And that's understandable in many ways if you don't have any context and you open your

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Bible up and you start reading these laws of God. Sometimes people say, I have no idea what the context is, I don't even know what the story is here,

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I don't understand the narrative, I don't know what these are for. You start reading about the laws for the priests, you start reading the holiness code where God is separating

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Israel and their behavior from the other nations. He's putting training wheels on his people to teach them to be separate, to be holy, to be different than the

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Gentiles. They look different, they act different, they smell, they literally smell different.

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You can smell the worship in Jerusalem as is prescribed in the Pentateuch, in God's law.

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Everything about Israel was sort of shaping them to prepare them for the

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Messiah. Everything's pointing to Jesus, the priest is pointing to Jesus, the temple's pointing to Jesus, the

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Holy of Holies and the veil that is there is pointing to realities that existed where they were separated from God and couldn't enter his presence.

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They had all the animal sacrifices, the blood of bulls and goats, they have Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

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Every year, that's an annual reminder of their sin and their separation from God. It's this constant reminder.

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And God is giving Israel these training wheels, so to speak. This is how you are to be separate. And they understood that the new covenant was coming and there was gonna be a new way, where now the law of God's no longer on stone tablets outside of them, it's internalized.

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So they have sort of these training wheels. They're waiting for the big day where Messiah arrives and things do transform and change.

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They're waiting for those realities. But remember that as you look at Leviticus and Deuteronomy, though some of it may seem strange to us and difficult to us, it was a tremendous blessing and God calls it a blessing.

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He said, this is how people will respond when they hear about these laws and statutes that I've given to you.

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Not the way the modern evangelical responds today. Oh, God's a big meanie, he's a super harsh God, but they'll respond in this way.

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What great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

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So much for being a massive burden, so much for being harsh. This says the law of God is good and it was supposed to be their wisdom and the side of the peoples, so that people saw the law of God in this nation and they said, what kind of God is this?

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And what kind of nation is this that has these kinds of laws and statutes? Consider for a moment, just as an excursus, the pagan nations surrounding

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Israel, we have records of a lot of what those pagan nations said and what they did in terms of statutes and law, and it's a mess.

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You have injustice rampant in these nations. Injustice for the orphan, the widow, injustice in terms of property, injustice in terms of how you bring harmony when a crime was made.

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So for example, in the law of God, if there is theft, there has to be harmony brought.

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It's not about a prison system. It's not about cutting someone's hand off, which they still practice in some

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Arab countries today. You steal something, you lose your hand. That would be considered excessive. God says, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

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You have to have equal justice. Whatever the crime was, it has to be equal justice. You can't go over and you don't wanna go under.

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In the law of God, you have to pay it back and you have to pay it back double. You see, you have essentially reconciliation made in God's law.

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There has to be justice. Today, in our system of government today, in our judicial system, it's a mess in terms of standards.

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People can get essentially punished, put into prison, called all manner of things with no eyewitnesses, no evidence.

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You can have people whose lives are literally destroyed, turned upside down because there's no absolute standards of what is actually just in terms of even receiving an accusation against somebody.

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The law of God protects us. In our society today, you can rape a woman. You can confess to it.

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You can be guilty of raping a woman in our society today. We so devalue the victim today and so devalue women and their dignity that we actually have people that have been in and out of prison for rape.

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The law of God says, if you're a convicted rapist, if you did that crime, if it's proven that you actually did it, you die.

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That's how much God values the woman in God's society. And so God has a system of justice and righteousness.

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Another example, and here's where we'll just do this in a way where we all get involved. Everyone have their Bibles? Turning your

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Bible to the supreme passage on the law, what would that be? Psalm 119, there you go.

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Psalm 119, the oldest, sorry, not the oldest, the longest chapter of the

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Bible, in the Bible, Psalm 119, here's what I'd like you to do in this very, very long

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Psalm. If you would, find me a passage in Psalm 119 that talks about the goodness of God's law, it's abiding nature, it's righteousness, it's justice.

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Just go ahead and just peruse through Psalm 119 and nice and loud so that it gets into the microphone.

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Give me the reference and tell me the verse, okay?

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Is that relevant today? Is it relevant today? Do you think

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Psalm 119 one is relevant today? Absolutely. Which law is being described here?

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Very good, but in terms of the Psalmist and when he's writing this, is he writing it pre -Christ or post -Christ?

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Pre, and so which law is he referring to? The Old Testament law.

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Give me another one, somebody else? Yes. Verse 72, nice and loud?

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We don't believe that. Just be transparent. You got a box of treasure just filled with gold and silver, and you've got the law of God, the five books of Moses.

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Nobody's looking, which do you grab? Right? Yes. Right, right.

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The law of God. Okay, very good, Jim, thank you. More, nice and loud, guys, so it gets into the microphone, if you would.

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There are lots of choices. Verse 90, go ahead,

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Dustin, please. 92, very good.

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How about this one, 97? Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.

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God, I love your law. I think about it all the time, all the time.

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Your law. How about verse 33? Teach me, oh Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will keep it to the end.

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Give me understanding that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it.

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Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain. Look at this one, powerful. Verse 40, behold,

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I long for your precepts. In your righteousness, give me life. More?

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I was gonna say 96. Okay, right.

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That's right. That's right. How about 105? Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

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I have sworn an oath and confirmed it to keep your righteous rules. Verse 111, your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.

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I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever to the end, and here we go. Verse 113,

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I hate the double -minded, but I love your law. I love your law.

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So I would just encourage you guys to just read through Psalm 119. That is how God speaks about his law.

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Next verse, go to Hebrews chapter two, verse two. The writer of the

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Hebrews talks about the law of God and listen to what he says. Let's start in verse one. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

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For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution.

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So the writer of Hebrews, speaking about the law of God, said that every transgression or disobedience received a what retribution?

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Just. So every transgression received a just retribution.

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God's law, his response to sin, to crime in the world was just, just penalties.

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So God's law is good. God's law was supposed to be the standard of righteousness that caused other nations to look in at Israel and to say, wow, what kind of God is this?

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Psalm 119 is descriptive of God's love for the law and it is descriptive of how our love for the law should be.

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Hebrews chapter two, verse two talks about the penalties were just. Now, let's talk about the law of God in proper perspective in terms of what the law is not able to do.

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And for that, go to Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three. We'll move rather quickly through these because I think most of us understand this clearly.

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Romans chapter three. Here's what the Bible says about the law of God.

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After the long description in verses 10 through 18 of our sinful condition, here's what

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Paul says about the law of God. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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So what's the scope of the law of God? It's the whole world, whole world.

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People often say, well, that's just the law of God concerning Israel. God's not concerned about it for anybody else.

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But Paul says this in Romans three about that. He says, the law was supposed to shut you up. Number one, takes away your excuses.

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The law closes your mouth and the whole world may be held accountable to God. Here we go, verse 20.

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For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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So here's what the law of God cannot do. It will justify nobody. The word justify means to declare righteous, to be declared righteous.

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And so the law of God will declare, nobody will be declared righteous, justified in God's sight through the law because the law only brings a knowledge of sin.

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I think there's two ways you can look at that. One, it brings a knowledge of sin because it describes our sin.

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It talks about specific law, ways that we're guilty. But I think there's more to this personally in terms of what

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Paul describes here in this chapter. I think that when the law of God comes onto a sinful heart, it increases our knowledge of sin because what does the law of God do to a fallen sinful person?

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Make them not sin? It creates within us even more of a desire to sin.

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There's sort of a hostility and a rebellion and it causes us to sort of have more intimacy with that sin, knowledge with that sin.

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Now here's what the law of God can't do. It can justify nobody. And it says, verse 21, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift.

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Same essential word there. Paul is giving you a gift gift. That's what he says.

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By his grace as a gift, by his gift as a gift. And this is the description here of God being just because Jesus is a propitiation.

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God displays him publicly because of his divine forbearance. He passed over former sins.

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It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just because he's not ignoring sin and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus, the one who declares people righteous.

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Now, here we go. Romans 3, 28. In terms of what the Bible says through divine inspiration about the law and its ability to justify anybody, nobody will be justified, but in Romans 3, 28, it says clearly, we hold that one is justified, declared righteous by faith apart from works of the law.

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Because we're in a fallen state, because we are rebels against God, because we have violated and transgressed

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God's law, James says in James 2, 10, whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he's guilty of all of it.

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Break one part of the law, you're a transgressor of the law, you are guilty, you are condemned.

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And Paul says this, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. People say this, where do you ever get the idea that the

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Bible says we are saved through faith alone? Well, where do you wanna start? Do you wanna go back to Genesis or would you like to just land on Paul in Romans 3, 28?

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Faith apart from the works of the law is faith by itself, faith alone.

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And so law and proper perspective cannot justify any of us and quickly go to Galatians chapter three, very clearly the limitations of the law of God.

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Quick context, not assuming that anybody, that everyone knows the context here.

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Paul is addressing the problem of the Judaizers who were attempting to add circumcision, the law of God to new covenant believers saying it was not just faith in Jesus that justifies us, but you also must essentially take this one part of the law.

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You've got to keep the Jewish circumcision. You've got to have essentially become circumcised to really be in Jesus.

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So it was faith plus one part of the law circumcision. Here's what Paul says to that mess.

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Oh, foolish Galatians. That's not very nice. Oh, foolish

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Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

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Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? What should be the answer to that question?

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How'd you do it? Did you hear the gospel and believe? Is that how you, is that how you entered into this or did you do it through works of the law?

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That's why he says, foolish Galatians, just think about it. How did you come into Christ?

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How did that happen? And so he says this, are you so foolish? Having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

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Did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain, does he who supplies a spirit to you and work miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

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In the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

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So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Now here we go.

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For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.

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Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law. For the righteous shall live by faith, but the law is not of faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them.

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Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who has hanged on a tree so that it is in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the

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Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. Here we go. The law of God does come with a curse because it is

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God's holy and righteous law because it is his standard. And so if you come to God and you say,

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God, I wanna obey your law and I wanna be seen righteous through it, your standards, well,

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James chapter two, verse 10, you break one commandment, you're a transgressor, the entire thing. It's like that window that somebody knocks a golf ball through, right?

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So you're on one of those sort of retirement community. We have a couple of those out here, right? Retirement communities with the golf courses in them and everything else.

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I hate golf. I think that there will be no golf in the new heavens and new earth because that's actually being played in hell.

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So it's that golf ball that comes through the window, right? And someone knocks it through the window and it just takes out a corner.

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Guy comes outside and says, hey, this golf ball came through my window. And the guy says, chill, it's just a piece.

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The problem with that is, yeah, it's a small piece, but the problem is you've broke the entire thing. The whole thing needs to be replaced.

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A small crack breaks the entire unit. And so when you look at the law of God and you see

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God's holy and righteous standards, Israel was not supposed to see in that, oh, this is how I'm justified before God because they were supposed to understand from Abraham, their father in the faith,

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Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. When? Over 400 years before the law was even given.

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It was never meant to justify anybody, but the law is God's righteous, good, and holy standard.

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And you are to obey. And the curse of it all is, curse it is everyone who does not do all of this.

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But the beauty of the gospel is not that the law is a evil thing, a horrific thing, it's a good thing, but it's a curse because it's

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God's standard and we're in the flesh. We are fallen, we're sinful, we are hostile. But Jesus becomes a curse for us.

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He obeys the law of God perfectly to every single part of it. And yet he goes to that cross and dies a death as though he didn't obey it so that we could have his perfect obedience and his perfect life counted on our behalf.

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Quick text just to have on the ready in terms of the law of God justifying nobody.

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Here's what Paul says in verse 21 of chapter two. I do not nullify the grace of God for if righteousness were through the law, then

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Christ died for no purpose. I do not nullify the grace of God.

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You want to avoid the grace of God? You want a religion that makes nothing of God's grace? Then try to get righteous through the law to any degree.

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Don't forget, Paul here isn't fighting people who are saying it's every part and piece of the law and Jesus, right?

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They were saying it's faith in Jesus, all that, except you've got to at least keep the

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Jewish circumcision. Abide by that. He says, do that? You're under a curse to fulfill all of it.

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How you doing? Galatians chapter five, final point here in terms of law and proper perspective.

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Here's what Paul says. Verse one, for freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not be subject.

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Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision,

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Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

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You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. So Paul says, you want to do it?

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Do all of it. You want to submit to that standard? Then go ahead and take it. If that's how you want to be justified, he says now you're obligated to do the entire thing and now

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Christ is of no benefit to you. And of course you have the famous portion here where Paul says in verse 12,

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I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. Harsh words. Apostle Paul is saying these guys that like to play with knives, they want to bring you under the knife, they want to put you under the law like that.

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He says, I hope when they do it, they slip and they cut themselves off. That's what he says.

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So law and proper perspective, that's what the Bible teaches. I want to point you to one quick thing in terms of this will help extend the discussion.

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I want to point you to three chapters and I'll say it just quickly. I'm not going to go into detail. Romans chapter five, the apostle

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Paul gives you two people. Who does he give you in Romans five? Adam and Christ.

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He says you're either in Adam or you are in Christ. So he gives you that contrast there and he says

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Adam or Jesus. If you're an Adam, you get death, you get condemnation. If you're in Christ, you get righteousness and the gift of eternal life.

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So you have Adam, you have Jesus. You have death and condemnation, life and righteousness.

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Romans chapter six. In Romans chapter six, the apostle Paul gives you another example of two things opposed to one another.

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Contrast. Two, and that is death and life. He says, do we continue in sin so that grace may abound?

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May it never be. How shall we who died to sin continue to live in it? So you have Adam and Jesus, you have death to life and then in Romans chapter seven, as the apostle

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Paul describes the law of God and the inability to actually do it outside of the spirit, he moves into Romans eight.

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This is what I wanna point you to to show you Paul's consistency. Adam, Jesus, death and life and now you have flesh and spirit.

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And he says those who are in the flesh, if you're in the flesh, they cannot submit to the law of God.

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They're not even able to do so. He says, but you're not in the flesh, you're in the spirit.

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So Adam, Jesus, death and life and then we have flesh and spirit and there is the difference.

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How do we now relate to the law of God? We're not in the flesh. I'm not in the flesh where I am unable to submit to God's law, unable to do what's pleasing to God.

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Now I am energized and empowered by the spirit. Now I've gone from death to life.

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I'm no longer in Adam. Now I'm in Jesus indwelt by the spirit.

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So now Christians relate to the law of God in an entirely new way. Christians who are indwelt by the spirit of God no longer in the flesh, now in Jesus don't relate to the law in terms of death.

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We relate to the law in a new way because we're empowered by God's spirit and we no longer exist now in this hostile place towards the law of God with it existing on stone tablets outside of us.

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Now it is actually taking residence up inside in our inward parts. Next, let's talk about God's promised redemption, spirit and law.

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Now this is very, very important because when we talk about the law of God, it can't merely be hodgepodge proof texts here and there about the law of God.

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It was one of the frustrating things for me in Bible college and growing up in a dispensational pre -millennial context in Bible college,

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I was extremely confused about the law of God and it was mostly because I had learned via proof texting.

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And so there were a lot of difficult things to overcome in terms of reading the Bible and having really any understanding what's even happening.

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When you understand the entire scope and the entire symphony of history and what

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God is doing in history, the law of God finds its proper place. You don't use it to be justified, but you also don't diss it and disregard it.

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So God's promised redemption, spirit and law. What does the entire symphony say?

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First, Isaiah 53, redemption, salvation. Now we won't belabor that point tonight because that's not the specific topic of the evening, but Isaiah 53 gives you that wonderful testimony long before Jesus comes about what?

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About the coming redemption. What's it say? He'd be numbered with the transgressors. He'd be pierced through for our transgressions.

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He'd be counted among the rebels. He'd justify the many as he would bear their iniquities. They knew that their sins were being taken care of and God promised redemption.

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So now watch. Now that law that we relate to in terms of death and condemnation and curse, now that law that we violated, all of our sins and transgressions are dealt with in the

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Messiah so that we are forgiven. Our sins are covered. Jesus gives us redemption from our violation of the law of God.

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Next, the spirit. The spirit of God. Old Testament, Ezekiel 36.

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Ezekiel 36, beautiful passage that we love. Reform folks, love

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Ezekiel 36. And for good reason. But this is one of the important things to note. Mark this down.

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That the law of God was going to be a constituent element of what

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God was gonna do in the new covenant. Ezekiel 36, God speaks to his people and he says, let's start in verse 15.

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And I will not let you hear anymore the reproach of the nations and you shall no longer bear the disgrace of the peoples and no longer cause your nation to stumble, declares the

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Lord God. In verse 22, actually starting 21.

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But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came.

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God says here, I'm acting now because you've profaned my name among the nations.

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So watch, what God does in the new covenant with his spirit and the constituent element of his law is

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God vindicating the holiness of his great name. Because he says, Israel, my called, my chosen people, you've profaned me among all the nations.

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And God says, I'm jealous for my fame. I'm jealous for my name. And so what I'm gonna do is

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I'm gonna vindicate my holy name. Verse 22, therefore says, say to the house of Israel, thus says the

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Lord God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.

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And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations and which you have profaned among them.

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And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you, I vindicate my what?

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Holiness. God's saying, look, this is what I'm gonna do in the new covenant. I'm gonna vindicate my holiness.

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So much for God not being concerned with sanctification. So much for the idea that you can be a quote unquote, carnal

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Christian. I mean, isn't God essentially dismissing that idea here? It's your sin has profaned my name among the nations.

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And so I'm not doing this for your sake. I'm doing it for my name. I'm gonna vindicate myself because you have profaned me.

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I'm gonna vindicate the holiness of my name. And here's what he says he's gonna do. Verse 24, I will take you from the nations and gather you among the nations.

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I will take you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. And I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols,

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I will cleanse you. There's that cleansing of our sin. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit

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I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh.

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And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statue.

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And be careful to obey my rules. So if you notice, when

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God speaks about the new covenant and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God, he says, A, I'm doing it not for you, but for my name.

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B, you've profaned my name among the nations. C, this is what I will do.

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I will clean you of all your sin. I will give you a new heart. I will put my spirit within you and I will cause you to obey my statutes.

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You've profaned my name. You've disregarded my holiness. You've tried to bring shame to me through your sin and disobedience to my law.

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I will do something in the new covenant where I will empower you to obey my statutes to bring glory to my holy name.

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That's what God is teaching there, Ezekiel 36. Next, Isaiah chapter two. The law of God, again, is a constituent element of what

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God does in the kingdom of God under the new covenant. Isaiah chapter two, here is, and I love to unpack all these details and the beautiful imagery here, but this is what you need to hear.

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Chapter two, verse one. The word that Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the

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Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be lifted above the hills.

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Now, obviously you see the imagery there. That's not literal, that's imagery. And all the nations shall flow to it.

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They're coming up the mountain of God. And many peoples shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the

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Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths, for out of Zion shall go the

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Torah, the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

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So note that God's promised redemption spirit and law demonstrates that the law of God, the

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Torah, is a constituent element of what he does in the new covenant. Isaiah chapter two.

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Another one, famous text, Jeremiah 31, 31. Go there. Jeremiah 31, 31.

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Another example of the law of God being a constituent element of the new covenant. 31, 31.

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Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

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Here's the new covenant promise. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the

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Lord, but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

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I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their

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God and they should be my people and no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, know the

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Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

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So again, another example of the anticipation of the kingdom of God in a new covenant is that the spirit of God is poured out.

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People are empowered to obey God. God's law, the Torah, goes from stone tablets outside the people of God, written code, to now because of the spirits indwelling, it's now internalized and they are empowered by God to do it from within, from the hearts.

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Last text, many more can be demonstrated, but let's go to the last text, Isaiah chapter 42.

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Isaiah chapter 42, verse one.

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Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. It's about Messiah. I have put my spirit upon him.

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He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the streets.

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A bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice.

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He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law.

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So you have to ask some questions about this. Is this about heaven one day?

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Well, it couldn't be about heaven one day. There's no need for God to not grow tired and weary in establishing justice in heaven, a place where there is no sin.

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This is clearly a promise of the scope of the work of the Messiah is that when

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Jesus comes and he has come, he will work to bring forth justice to the nations and notice that it says, he won't grow faint or be discouraged until he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands are what?

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Waiting for his law. So much for being a curse or a burden, the coastlands waiting for his law and justice.

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Okay, so now quickly, two questions. What was Jesus' relationship to the law and Paul's relationship to the law?

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So to do that, let's go quickly to Matthew 5, verses 17 through 19.

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Matthew 5, Jesus says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

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I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whoever, one, does them, and two, teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

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Whoever does them, whoever teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Quick point here, I've said it often, but make sure you guys know it.

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Do not think that I have come. Do not think, in the Greek is me namasete.

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Now we don't often know why is that so important, but in the Greek, it's a very, very strong, strong way to say, don't even begin to think.

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Jesus doesn't say to his opponents, stop thinking. He says, don't even start thinking.

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Don't let it into your mind. Don't begin entertaining the thought that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.

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I have not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them, to put the law into its proper place.

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That's Jesus' relationship to the law. One more text with the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 22, same book, move on down to Matthew chapter 22.

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Here's what Jesus says about the law of God, verses 36 through 40. Important one, most people have memorized.

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Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said to them, to him, you shall love the

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Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.

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And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Notice he's quoting from what?

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He's quoting from the Old Testament. He's quoting from the law of God. That's not a new thing.

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That's like, hey, we have a new way of doing this. New covenant, totally different thing, right? Jesus says, here's the great commandments.

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One, love God. Two, love your neighbor. Now note what Jesus says here, ready? He says on these two commandments depend what?

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All, the law and the prophets. So consider this for a moment today when you speak to the average evangelical, and maybe they say the law of God's no longer abiding and relevant today, no longer has any value or meaning, it's done away with, it's gone, it's abolished, contradicting

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Jesus. We're not under the law, we're under grace. Ask the question, are these two commandments abiding and true in the new covenant?

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That you're to love the Lord your God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you're to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Are those two commandments still obligatory today?

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What are they gonna say? Absolutely, love God, love neighbor. Say, thank you, you just gave me all the law and the prophets.

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If love for God and love for neighbor are still abiding and relevant today, then watch, the

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Old Testament is an unpacking of what it means to love God and love your neighbor. In every instance, it is love for God and love for neighbor.

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That's Jesus' relationship to the law. Let's look at Paul's relationship to the law. In Romans chapter three, verse 28,

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Paul says what? Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

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Paul teaches that justification can only take place through faith alone apart from any work of law.

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If you mix law with faith in order to be justified, Paul says, anathema, false gospel,

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Galatians chapter one. Now here's an important one and I want you to see it. In Romans chapter three, verse 31, when

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Paul just finished explaining the glory of the gospel and Jesus taking the wrath of God, the propitiation, absorbing it into himself and exhausting

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God's wrath in our place, being a diversion of God's wrath in our place after he talks about the law justifying no flesh, after he talks about all of our sin, all of our unrighteousness, after he talks about Christ being the source, after he says that it is a gift of God's grace through the redemption that's in Jesus all through faith, here's what he says now is our relationship to the law and the new covenant.

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He says in Romans 3 .31, do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

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And there's the question of the night. Because of Christ, because of the gospel, because of justification through faith alone apart from any work of law, because of the propitiation that's in Jesus, because of redemption, do we now take the law and say overthrow it, void the law?

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It's no longer relevant. Here's Paul's answer. In the same text about justification through faith alone, he says by no means.

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On the contrary, we establish the law. We uphold the law because of faith in Jesus.

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The law is now not voided. It's not now done away with. Because of Jesus, because we're justified through faith, because we are now indwelt by the spirit, because we are in Jesus, we establish the law.

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And wouldn't you know it? Because the old covenant promises about the new covenant said what about the law?

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That the spirit of God will be poured out. We'd be empowered by God's spirit. The law would be internalized now.

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The law would go forth from Zion. The coastlands wait for God's law. God would now have us in a new relationship with him and his law, different from the old covenant.

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But here's something interesting. It's a little known text that's important. I want you to think about when this text or this event happens.

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Acts chapter 25. Acts chapter 25. This is the apostle

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Paul as the church is on the move now, proclaiming the gospel. They're going into cities and preaching the gospel.

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There's conflict happening. They're godly troublemakers. Paul is getting beat up.

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He's hungry. He's in rags. Well, now Paul enters into the part of his life where he is facing trial.

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Acts 25 verse 11. Now, I want you to consider the time. This, again,

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I'll say this a lot, is post -Christ, post -cross, post -resurrection, post -ascension.

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That might not mean a lot to you at the moment, but in terms of theological discussion that we get into with brothers and sisters that may disagree with our thesis, this is tremendously important.

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This is not in the area before Jesus or even during his earthly ministry.

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This is everything's accomplished. This is what Paul says about the law.

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Paul is essentially now being accused, and let's start in,

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I'm gonna, the text is 11, but I want you to start in verse six. After he stayed among them not more than eight or 10 days, he went down to Caesarea, and the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered

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Paul to be brought. When he had arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him bringing many and serious charges against him that they could not prove.

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Paul argued in his defense, "'Neither against the law of the Jews, "'nor against the temple, nor against Caesar "'have

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I committed any offense.'" Pause. "'Neither against the law of the

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Jews, "'nor against the temple, nor against Caesar "'have I committed any offense.

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"'But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, "'said to Paul, do you wish to go up to Jerusalem "'and there be tried on these charges before me?

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"'But Paul said, I am standing before Caesar's tribunal "'where I ought to be tried.

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"'To the Jews I've done no wrong. "'As yourself, no very well.'"

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Verse 11, "'If then I am a wrongdoer "'and have committed anything for which

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I deserve to die, "'I do not seek to escape death. "'But there's nothing to their charges against me.

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"'No one can give me up to them. "'I appeal to Caesar.'" So the Jews are actually planning to ambush, to kill

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Paul on the way. The Jews are bringing charges against Paul that he's sinned against the temple, against the law of God.

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And now what Paul says is this. Watch, New Covenant. If I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which

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I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death. What's Paul's relationship to the law here?

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What's he say? In this premier opportunity for Paul to say, none of those just penalties are necessary anymore, none of them are valid in the

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New Covenant, the Apostle Paul says, on record, trial. He says this, if I've done anything worthy of death,

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I don't object to dying. That's Paul's relationship to the law. A lot of Christians will say today, well, the law of God and the penology of the

01:00:09

Old Testament, God's penalties that he has in his law, those are no longer necessary anymore, those aren't just any longer, we just do away with all of those because we're in Christ now.

01:00:21

Paul doesn't have that perspective of the law. Paul says this, if I'm guilty of the law of God in anything, even to the degree of capital punishment,

01:00:29

I don't object to dying. Now, they can't prove anything they're saying, but if it were true, under the

01:00:37

New Covenant, I don't object to dying. If I deserve a just penalty, then

01:00:42

I don't object to it. That's Paul's position on the law of God.

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Significant. So, Paul says I don't object to dying. Last text on Paul and his relationship to the law, 1

01:00:55

Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter one.

01:01:03

This is a significant one. 1 Timothy chapter one, and look at verse eight.

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This is Paul. Now, we know that the law is what? Good. When does he say this?

01:01:18

Christ is on his throne. Christ has accomplished redemption. And he says, in the New Covenant, what?

01:01:23

The law of God is a awful curse. It is so harsh. It is so just wrathful.

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He says, we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully.

01:01:37

Understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed

01:02:04

God, which with I have been entrusted. Paul takes a lot of sins and crimes, criminal offenses.

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I'll just say this quickly. For those of you guys who are new to this discussion, in the Old Testament, and of course in our new, there's a difference between sins and crimes, right?

01:02:24

Some sins are also crimes, but not all sins are crimes. Just as an example, in the

01:02:30

Old Testament, drunkenness is a sin. It's a very serious sin in the Old Testament. Drunkenness is seen as a sin, but there are no judicial penalties for drunkenness, right?

01:02:43

So another example is coveting in the law of God is a sin, but coveting isn't punished in the judicial system, okay?

01:02:54

So it's a sin, but not a crime. So when you look at this text before us,

01:03:00

Paul says the law of God is good. It's not for the obedient, it's for the disobedient, and he names particular sins and crimes that were even punishable, listen, by death in the

01:03:14

Old Testament, and this is what he says about those passages. It's not good, it's no longer relevant.

01:03:21

That's not what he says. He says, the sexually immoral men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed

01:03:36

God with which I have been entrusted. In accordance with the gospel.

01:03:43

The law of God is good, here's a list of sins and crimes, and it's just in accordance with the gospel.

01:03:53

That's Paul's relationship to the law. Now the question is this. It's not a question of whether or not we'll be ruled by the law of a

01:04:02

God. It's always a question not of whether we will have a God of the system, whether we will have a theocracy, but which

01:04:12

God and what laws. So for example, if you were in a

01:04:18

Muslim country, predominantly Muslim, from top to bottom, which law does that country hold to, which law?

01:04:29

A law. A law is God, obey him, that's his law. Now we disagree, by the way, and we think that system of law is wicked and evil in many respects, of course, but the point is they're being consistent.

01:04:42

You can't fault them for their consistency. If Allah is God, obey him. Now if you look in another country, for example, if you look in a

01:04:51

Christian civilization, a Christian country in history, where Jesus Christ is proclaimed as Lord, which law do they look to?

01:05:00

The law of God, that's a reality of history. Now if you look at modern society, humanists, atheists, secularists, they say no to Jesus, no to God, we are autonomous, we will govern ourselves, society determines what's right and what's wrong, then the people are ultimately the ultimate in the system, and it is the law of demis.

01:05:23

Democracy means demis, right? Demis, it means people, democracy means the people determine and decide, and so demis rules and it's demis' law.

01:05:35

So it's a question of theonomy or autonomy. Do we obey God's law or are we autonomous and create our own law?

01:05:44

That's the major question. Carmen, just say this quick,

01:05:49

Carmen. It's blinking, does that mean it's gonna lose how much time we have left?

01:05:58

Okay, I'll try to go kind of fast. What time is it, by the way? What's that? 8 .50,

01:06:05

okay. So here's the question, with all of this laid down, the law and proper perspective, with God's promise, redemption, spirit, and law, with Jesus' relationship to the law, with Paul's relationship to the law, understanding theonomy,

01:06:21

God's law, theos, namos, God's law, versus autonomy, self -law, the question is this, and it'd be good to answer this.

01:06:30

Are rulers today required to obey Jesus? That's the question.

01:06:37

Does God require today rulers to obey Jesus specifically?

01:06:44

Well, I would argue that the Bible says, Psalm 110 .1, the

01:06:49

Lord said unto my Lord, sit on my right hand until I make all your enemies a footstool for your feet. I would argue Psalm chapter two.

01:06:57

The Father says to the Son, ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your possession.

01:07:03

And then God speaks directly to the kings of the earth in Psalm two, and he says what? Obey the

01:07:08

Son, or you will perish. The Bible says that Jesus is the king of what?

01:07:15

Kings, and the Lord of, is that current? Are we waiting for that? That's today.

01:07:22

He's the king today of kings, and the Lord today of lords. God expects them to obey. Romans chapter 13 says about the civil governing authorities that the government is established by God, and he says the role of government is to be

01:07:38

God's deacon, God's servant to punish the wicked and to protect the righteous.

01:07:45

That's the role of government established by God. That doesn't mean every government does that, but that's what

01:07:50

God's prescribed role is for government. So he says two things. One, all the kings of the earth, you must now obey

01:07:57

Jesus. And he says two in Romans 13, you are to be God's servant, wielding the sword of what?

01:08:04

Justice. So the question is, ready? If the governments in the world today are to obey

01:08:10

Jesus and wield the sword of justice, the question is, what justice, by what standard does

01:08:16

God require them to obey? Now, it is a clear point and something we say all the time.

01:08:24

We believe as Christians, as reformed Christians specifically, that we have a revelational epistemology.

01:08:30

What's that mean? Ready? How do I know something for certain is revealed by God.

01:08:38

Seems simple, right? It's potent. It's a powerful thing. So the unbeliever says no to Jesus.

01:08:44

I don't want you. I don't want you in my thinking. I don't want you in my knowledge. I don't want your law. I don't want you to tell me what to do.

01:08:49

You have no authority over me. And so that unbeliever now says, well, we have this problem, this conflict between two people.

01:08:56

How do I solve the problem of the man raping the woman? Well, I don't want to look to God's standards and to his justice, so now

01:09:02

I look to self -law. And what do I now do is I try to come up with something that becomes an arbitrary standard as to how

01:09:09

I deal with a problem, say rape. Well, if the governing civil authorities are

01:09:14

God's servant to wield justice, does God want that civil authority to wield his standard of justice or some other

01:09:23

God's standard of justice? So for example, put this scenario before you. You have

01:09:29

God's law and his own revelation saying that if somebody steals something, they have to pay it back double, okay?

01:09:36

That's God's stipulated standard, his own mouth, his own law, his law, which is righteous and good, and the penalty, which is

01:09:44

Hebrews 2 .2, just. Now you have another system that says Allah is God, and here's how you deal with thieves, cut their hands off.

01:09:54

Question, if the civil government is God's organism to establish or essentially execute justice, which standard does

01:10:03

God approve of? Restitution.

01:10:10

Here's the question, here's the answer. There's no problem here of confusion.

01:10:15

We know what God's stipulated standard is, and we know what the Bible says about it. It's good, it's holy, it's righteous, it's true, it's a just penalty.

01:10:25

So any society that's transformed in Christ and has experienced redemption is indwelled by God's spirit.

01:10:31

If those people have been changed by the gospel, then that government will seek to submit to Jesus and obey his rule, and they will look to his revealed standards as to what is actually just.

01:10:45

So I'll say this next. Is Jesus interested today in establishing justice in the world, what do you think?

01:10:56

Give me some verses that tell me that Jesus is actually, well, Isaiah 42, Psalm 110 .1,

01:11:04

putting his enemies under his feet. But a good text that will display the scope is 1

01:11:10

Corinthians 15. It says Jesus is reigning now and he must reign until all enemies are put under his feet.

01:11:16

The last enemy he will defeat is death. So every enemy and then finally death.

01:11:21

Colossians chapter one, one fast look at Colossians one, and you know that I hate going this fast, but I wanna make sure

01:11:29

I arm you guys with as much as possible here. In Colossians chapter one,

01:11:49

Paul says this, verse 15, he's the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things and in him all things hold together.

01:12:06

And he is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead and in everything he might be preeminent, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself, what things?

01:12:20

All things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.

01:12:26

So is Jesus concerned with earthly things or merely spiritual things? He wants to reconcile all things where?

01:12:36

In heaven and where? On earth. All things, reconciling all things to himself.

01:12:42

I point that out because our millennial brothers and sisters will often say, well, this is merely a spiritual kingdom with a spiritual emphasis, spiritual realities, but you can't get away from the fact that the

01:12:53

Bible doesn't talk about the kingdom of God in that way, with that kind of sharp duality. The Bible talks about the spiritual kingdom of Jesus as having earthly impact, that Jesus says, all authority where?

01:13:06

In heaven and on earth has been given to me. He's reconciling all things to himself, whether on heaven or in heaven or on earth and the

01:13:16

Bible says clearly that the kingdom of Jesus will actually affect the world itself with the law of God and justice now actually being a focus and emphasis of God in the earth itself.

01:13:28

So there's no sharp dichotomy in scripture between the spiritual and the physical.

01:13:34

In the Bible, Jesus is concerned with both, both. I do believe that the church is heavily impacted by Gnosticism and dualism to the degree that you have many brothers and sisters that acknowledge the fact that the

01:13:50

Bible teaches that the kingdom of Jesus came in the first century and that it is advancing now, but because they're so impacted by really an unbiblical dualism and even some forms of Gnosticism, we make a sharp distinction and we say, no, it's just the spiritual that Jesus is concerned with, not the physical.

01:14:10

So in that view, the physical becomes really a kind of a throwaway. God created the world, physical and spiritual realities together and connected, sin blew that up and so now

01:14:21

God is focused on the spiritual with the physical being sort of a throwaway for now.

01:14:27

So that's a significant issue. Is Jesus concerned with justice in the world and the law in the world and reconciliation in the world?

01:14:36

Well, he says as much, but Matthew chapter five, Jesus says it is the meek who shall inherit the earth and he also gives us a way to pray.

01:14:45

What does he say in that prayer? He says, what? He says, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, may your name be holied.

01:14:54

That's a prayer. God, your name be holied everywhere. He says, your kingdom come, your will be done, where?

01:15:02

On earth as it is in heaven. Another example of Jesus, if I could say it as much,

01:15:08

Jesus rejecting the dualism that is so prevalent within the church today.

01:15:14

On earth as it is in heaven. So quickly, I'll point to the hermeneutic and I gotta do it quickly while this camera's still running.

01:15:23

The hermeneutics. In the New Testament, this will be fast, guys. The hermeneutics.

01:15:30

The New Testament apostles and writers of scripture assumed the abiding validity of the

01:15:37

Old Testament law. They assumed it. They don't assume the law of God is defunct and over and gone, but I'll pull out some verses here or there and now those are relevant.

01:15:51

They always assume the law of God and its abiding validity today unless they give explicit changes to the administration.

01:15:58

So for example, when there's a change from the Old Testament to the New Testament, the writers of scripture give us what that change is.

01:16:06

Example, when the writer of Hebrews explicitly talks about this, he talks about the new and better priest,

01:16:13

Jesus. He talks about the temple. He talks about Sabbath. He talks about the animal sacrifices.

01:16:19

Do we do those anymore? Of course not. Why? Because those shadows have been fulfilled in Jesus. The apostle

01:16:26

Paul in Ephesians chapter two talks about the dietary restrictions, the holiness code, and he points to the fact that now

01:16:33

God has abolished those commandments. Why? Those are the training wheels, right? Those are no longer relevant.

01:16:39

God has broke that down now and he's brought Jew and Gentile into one man. So the apostle

01:16:46

Paul gives you that change. So what we say is this, the apostles always assume the abiding validity of God's law and God gives us, he's the only one that has the right to give us when there is a change of administration or a law to be actually now viewed or obeyed differently.

01:17:05

And so that's what the New Testament does. The apostles assume it unless there are changes.

01:17:11

Here's a couple examples quickly. Is the law of God relevant in the new covenant today? Well, how about animal husbandry laws?

01:17:21

First Timothy chapter five, verse 18, first Corinthians nine, verse nine.

01:17:27

It's assumed that you understand that you're not supposed to muzzle the ox while it treads.

01:17:32

That's an animal husbandry law. And what's it applied to? The laborer is worthy of his wages.

01:17:39

If somebody is working for you, then you pay them. Don't muzzle the ox while it treads.

01:17:44

That's God's law, his commandment. That's assumed in the New Testament. That's an animal husbandry law.

01:17:50

How about this one? The judicial law of God, second Corinthians 13, one, Matthew 18, 16, first Timothy five, 19.

01:17:58

What's that about? It's about nothing. You can receive no charge against somebody unless it's on the basis of two to three witnesses.

01:18:08

And what's that from? Deuteronomy chapter 19, 15. That no accusation can be made and no charge made unless it's on the basis of two to three witnesses.

01:18:20

The apostles assume that standard after the ascension of Jesus. They apply to animal husbandry laws and take the general equity of it and judicial laws and judicial standards of how you actually bring charges against somebody.

01:18:33

Or how about this one? Ephesians chapter six, verse one. Children, obey your parents and the Lord. It's the first commandment with what?

01:18:40

Promise. Well, what's that referring to? The Decalogue, the 10

01:18:45

Commandments. So you have animal husbandry laws, judicial law, the 10 Commandments, assumed, just assumed.

01:18:56

They don't say, hey guys, we know all that's defunct now, all of it's over now, but we're gonna use this one in a new covenant.

01:19:02

They assume you're supposed to know this. You're supposed to believe this. You're supposed to obey this.

01:19:09

And finally, proper place for ritual. First Corinthians chapter five, verse eight.

01:19:16

The apostle Paul talks to us about obeying even Passover and doing it in the new covenant way.

01:19:22

To rid ourselves of malice, rather than the leaven in the ritual, to rid ourselves of malice and wickedness.

01:19:33

So I'm sure this is gonna go off in a second here, but I just wanted to point you to, just for fun, a couple laws from the

01:19:45

Puritans. By the way, the Puritans were not completely monolithic. It's wrong to talk about the

01:19:50

Puritans in terms of the Puritans had one view on anything. They were Christians just like us, and they screwed things up a lot, and they did a lot of things really, really well.

01:19:59

So we're not highlighting the Puritans as perfect and utopia, and let's get back to it.

01:20:04

But we do believe that the Puritans had an astonishing commitment to the glory of God in every realm.

01:20:14

And it's interesting, as you look at the Puritans, many of them pointed directly to the law of God. Let me just read these to you.

01:20:22

These are laws in New England colony. Capital laws.

01:20:34

Murder. Capital laws. If any person shall commit any willful murder upon premeditated malice, hatred, or cruelty, not in a man's necessary and just defense, so there's being able to defend yourself, nor by mere casualty against his will, he shall be put to death.

01:21:01

Here it is. Exodus 21, 12, 13.

01:21:06

Numbers 35. So here's the Puritans in their judicial system giving the code.

01:21:14

If you commit murder, if it's not in self -defense, if it wasn't by coercion, then you must be put to death.

01:21:20

You receive the death penalty. And what do they quote? Mithras, Allah.

01:21:27

They quote Exodus and Numbers. But here's my main point at the very end of this.

01:21:35

If God's apostles in the New Testament assume the law of God down to animal husbandry, the

01:21:45

Decalogue, God's judicial standards of bringing charges, if they just assume it, then we ought to assume it as well.

01:21:55

And the only time we have a right to say, I'm no longer gonna obey even the least commandment there is where God, through divine inspiration, through his apostles and the

01:22:05

New Testament authors tells us where there's a change. Make sense?

01:22:12

All right, so questions. I know I kept you a little later, but I'm trying to cram six months into two nights. So questions, anybody?

01:22:22

Thomas. In today's society, the investigation has to be done, like you said, according to two or three witnesses.

01:22:50

A lot of times today, they don't even do that. Right. They just falsely accuse someone, put them on death row because that's who they had in mind and they wanted to target.

01:22:58

Right. And that's a problem, just as much as not obeying how to punish people for disobeying

01:23:05

God's law is how to properly execute that judgment on people so that there's not false criminal charges brought.

01:23:14

And this is why we can't merely drop the laws of God piecemeal upon society. Because if you take, say, capital punishment for murder and you put it into the hands of one of these unrighteous judges, well, now you've got a lot of innocent people who are gonna be put to death.

01:23:30

So what we would say is that transformation has to occur from the bottom up so that we actually hold to God's standards consistently so you can protect against people actually being executed through false accusations.

01:23:44

Another thing, Thomas, that's a huge blessing of the law of God is perjury today. If you perjure yourself in court today, smack of the hand, maybe a fine, but not much.

01:23:57

In God's law, if you perjure yourself in court about somebody making an accusation and it's discovered that you lied in court, then the law of God says that you will receive the penalty that they would have received had that you've been believed in your testimony.

01:24:16

So for example, if somebody today makes a false accusation of rape, well, today people literally walk away from that.

01:24:23

You give some guy a false accusation about rape, nothing really happens.

01:24:29

Maybe a fine, maybe 10, 12 days in jail, or maybe not even that. In God's law, the penalty for raping a woman is the death penalty.

01:24:38

If you make a false accusation in God's law and the penalty would have been a death penalty, that means that it also preserves women from making false accusations because it's the death penalty, because it's such a horrific crime.

01:24:51

And I will say, by the way, something else here. When we talk about the law of God in modern society, and this is important, we are not simply talking about penology, right?

01:25:02

We're not simply saying, we really want capital punishment today. Next week you're gonna see that that's not even the main thing with theonomy and the law of God, not to any degree.

01:25:13

Yeah, it's just a matter of justice. It can have to do with theft. It can have to do with property rights. It can have to do with children obeying their parents and the

01:25:20

Lord. It could be about paying your employees for their labor and paying them on time.

01:25:26

That's also a commandment of God. So, so many parts of the law of God, and we're not merely talking about penology and the penalties and capital punishment.

01:25:35

People say, oh, you just want death penalty. No, that actually is such a small part of God's law anyways.

01:25:41

It's just like this little sliver. Yeah, it's major crimes.

01:25:49

That's right. That's right.

01:26:00

Such an extreme thing. If you take a human's life, then your life has to be taken. God says it in Genesis.

01:26:06

He says it in Exodus. He repeats it a number of times in the Bible. God's standards about capital punishment in terms of life for life don't change.

01:26:17

And when we move away from that standard, it creates people, it gives people a boldness about their sin because they recognize,

01:26:28

I'm not really gonna receive any serious penalties. I mean, some people are career criminals that go in and out of jail and they're used to it.

01:26:36

These are their buddies. For them, it's not really this tragic circumstance, but the law of God would give justice to the victim.

01:26:46

Last thing I'll say, because I know we're late here, but the law of God is concerned with the victim, not with the perpetrator.

01:26:54

Our justice system today is more concerned with the perpetrator and how to, what's the word?

01:27:01

I've had a long day. What's the R word? Rehabilitate. Yeah, it's about rehabilitation today.

01:27:08

It's not about the victim. Right, and think about this for a moment now. What do we call our jails or our prison systems?

01:27:17

Correction facility. Correction facility, but there's a P word there. What is it? Penitentiary. Penitentiary, what's in penitentiary?

01:27:23

Penitent. So we did move in a fairly recent time.

01:27:30

We moved away from a system that was about reconciliation and payback and harmony to a system of penitence where we try to get criminals to be penitent, to be repentant and to change and be sorry over their sin, whereas God's system says, we're concerned about the victim.

01:27:52

We want this to be fixed, not we just want the person to feel bad about what they've done and come back to society with a changed heart and mind.

01:28:00

They have to fix what they broke. Yes. Probably be pretty concerned with the stuff they took.

01:28:14

That's right. The way it is, it's gonna be, they're gonna get punished.

01:28:19

Maybe it's really severe, but it's like, okay, it's a lose -lose. And the taxpayers now say,

01:28:26

I steal from you, right? I steal, say I steal $200 from you.

01:28:34

And now the state gets involved and now the state considers themselves in control of this, not you.

01:28:40

So in God's law, you have the right to give me mercy and forgiveness and tell the state, go away, I'm letting him go.

01:28:46

You can tell the judge in God's law, I tell you to let him go. I'm giving mercy. In God's law, the victim always has control as to what you want to take place.

01:28:55

So the judge can say, this is the penalty, and you could say, give him mercy, I'm not holding it against him.

01:29:01

But in today's society, I steal $200 from you, and now I go to jail, and let's say

01:29:07

I go to jail for, let's say I spend 30 days in the jail system, right?

01:29:12

Well, that costs now the taxpayers in society a whole load of money to pay for the prison, to pay for the lights, the food, the healthcare, the judicial system, everything else.

01:29:25

So my $200 just now costs the taxpayers five, 10 ,000, $15 ,000.

01:29:31

So now society now becomes victim because of the jail system we have, when in God's system, it's a much simpler process of forcing me to pay you back, right?

01:29:42

And we're not penalizing everybody else around. Or how about the rapist? The rapist rapes, say, a child, and goes away for 15 years, right?

01:29:51

Well, that's 15 years at about, say, $40 ,000 to $50 ,000 a year. Well, how much did that cost society?

01:29:57

And what did they have to do with it? What did the neighborhood around there have to do with that person's crime?

01:30:03

Nothing. But now they pay an unjust penalty for his crime, whereas God's system would say this, that person that rapes a child, though we want them to experience the grace of Jesus, there must be harmony brought.

01:30:15

And so it'd be capital punishment. And so you rescue society, you bring harmony and justice, and so there's a lot of blessings.