Christ and the Law - Part III

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Matthew 5:17-18

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Well, this morning, as we continue on from the past two weeks, where we've begun sort of laying the foundation for what we'll be building through the remainder of Matthew chapter 5, we've been trying to wrap our minds around Christ and the law.
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So this is a little detour from our passage, Matthew 5, 17 and 18, but as we've said, we're taking the time to do this so that we can continue to draw from it as we work our way through Matthew 5 all the way up to verse 48.
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So it's very important that we build the foundation correctly. Of course, with a foundation, you're not building a finished home, and so there's a lot we could say that we won't say, but there's a lot that we'll be building from and drawing from in weeks to come.
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Matthew 5, beginning in verse 17, do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.
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I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly,
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I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
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So we began by setting out sort of contours of gospel obedience versus legal obedience.
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This gospel law contrast that will become very important practically, and we'll even have a little more to say about that next week.
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Of course, we considered last week the covenant of works in the law, and that was reflected in the first two paragraphs of chapter 19 in our confession.
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As we said, the gospel turns on the covenant of works. If you want to understand how we can have a righteous standing before our
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God, how we can be counted as justified by His blood, we must understand the way that Christ is the last
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Adam. You cannot understand the widest frame of the gospel in the way that Paul does if you don't plant it in the
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Garden of Eden and see Genesis 1 -3 as the horizon of all that redemption accomplishes.
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So last week, we considered the covenant of works in the law. This morning, we're going to consider the threefold division of the law, the threefold division of the law.
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Practical, very practical, very important, I might add, very reformed.
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This is sort of bedrock for reformed interpretation of the law. Sadly, it's easily absconded with more recently.
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There's been seasons here and there over the past centuries where this doctrine has played fast and loose with.
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We need to recover it confessionally. Many errors spring out when you don't understand the law according to this threefold division, so pay attention.
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And then next week, we're going to consider the threefold use of the law. How do we actually apply the law in our lives?
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And another sort of reformed bedrock is the three uses of the law. Not that there's only three, but there's generally three main ways that we apply the law to our lives as believers in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And what makes us distinctive is especially the third use of the law.
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And so we'll cover that next week. All of this is background for Matthew chapter 5.
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So the threefold division of the law. I'm going to be decidedly brief on describing each of these three divisions because I really want to draw out some riches from the
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Scripture. In fact, we could spend years doing this, just looking at various Old Testament passages as they're fulfilled and pointed to, cited, explained, and elaborated upon by the
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New Testament. We could do that, and I had to sort of settle for one, but I think it's one that's so rich it will show how all of these uses come together.
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So I want to make sure we have plenty of time to get to that. The threefold division of the law. Let me begin with a question.
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How do you understand and apply the law? How do you understand and apply the law?
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There was a miniseries many years ago that my sister and I, my family, we would watch.
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It was a nightly series on NBC called The West Wing. I don't know why. We grew up always watching NBC. It's not a way to grow up, but we all did it, and we watched this series with a fictional president played by Martin Sheen.
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His name was President Bartlett, and of course, there was always these political dramas and intrigues in the series, and you saw sort of an imagined sense of how the
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Oval Office was functioning in the early 2000s. Well, I remember one episode, and I looked up the script as it came to mind, and in this episode, the president,
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President Bartlett, keeps being sort of lobbied by a very smarmy and arrogant
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Christian woman, and she was a spokeswoman of sorts for some church ministry, and she was trying to engage the president because of her concerns about homosexuality and some of the legal weight that it was beginning to carry, and so she was trying to have audience with the president to say, you know, the
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Bible's very clear. Homosexuality is an abomination in the Lord's sight, and he's always very kind to her and somewhat dismissive, and then finally there's a moment where she's really trying to have her sort of John Knox engagement, and President Bartlett, in the daydream of the script writer, lets her have it, and this is how it goes.
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This is President Bartlett, sarcastically sneering. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.
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Mrs. Jacobs, the smarmy Christian. Well, I don't say homosexuality is an abomination,
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Mr. President. The Bible does. Yes, it does, says the president. Leviticus, Ms.
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Jacobs, 1822. Chapter and verse. You know, we've got a lot of sports fans,
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Ms. Jacobs, in this town, and touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean,
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Leviticus 11 .7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins, no longer called the
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Redskins, still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother
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John when he plants different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering when she wears garments made from two different threads?
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Think about these questions, Ms. Jacobs, won't you? Of course, you can understand what happens as a result of that.
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Ms. Jacobs is bewildered, stunned. She was so focused on one aspect of what the law said, she forgot how ridiculous all these other laws are, and so in embarrassed silence, she sulks away.
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And the script writer for this episode has this gotcha daydream that is meant to go unanswered.
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You know, if you Christians actually knew the Bible, you'd have nothing to say about anything. How ridiculous these laws are.
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And this is the assumption, circa early 2000s, that secular minds, secular thinkers have about Christian engagement with the law.
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The idea was if you actually understood and even proof texted the law consistently, you'd have nothing to say about anything.
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You'd be morally incapable of making any sort of claim. And they begin to imagine that the
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Bible itself is incapable of distinguishing, say, between eating oysters or condemning bestiality.
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And the scene is actually laughable if you know anything about Christian interpretation or theology or history.
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But the sneaking fear, my sneaking fear, is that it actually reflects the prevailing secular opinion of our day.
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And it's not only the prevailing secular opinion, but sadly, it reflects the poor, misinformed views of most
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Christians. There's a reason that Andy Stanley is, as popular as he is, says we need to unhitch the
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Bible from the Old Testament. There's a reason that he is a voice that gains traction. When a century ago, he would have been condemned as a fool, if not a heretic.
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Probably both. So I ask the question, how do you understand and apply the law? How would you engage
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President Bartlett? When he collapses everything together and says, therefore, you have nothing to say.
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Well, let me tell you how you ought to engage. Let me give you a better way. In the Reformed tradition, though it's not unique to Reformed theology, this is biblical.
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I think it's evidenced biblically. You certainly find the fathers picking it up, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, all down through the ages.
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We distinguish the law in three ways. We distinguish between the moral aspects of the law, the civil aspects of the law, and the ceremonial aspects of the law.
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The script writer in this imagined episode could only conflate all of these things together. He could see in no way how these different aspects have elements that are binding, elements that were binding temporarily for their purpose in redemptive history, and those that are no longer binding.
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They've been abrogated because they've been fulfilled in the person and work of Christ Jesus. So the answer, to begin, is you need to understand the law and you need to rightly apply the law according to this three -fold division, moral, civil, ceremonial.
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Looking first at the moral, and I'm going a little out of order here because our confession, for some reason, begins with the ceremonial, then the civil, and then ends with the moral.
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In almost every treatment you read, usually the order that's given is moral, civil, ceremonial.
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And so I'm just going to follow that traditional order in part because by ending with ceremony it'll be a good segue into some of the passages we'll look at.
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Let's consider first the moral law. The moral law is forever binding. The moral law is forever binding, and I hope you understand why
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I can say that in light of last week. Last week, the moral law reflects the character of God. For the moral law to all of a sudden vanish is to say that God's character must somehow vanish.
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For the moral law to alter is to say that God's character must be altered.
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So the moral law is forever binding. It reflects God's character, and it's the kind of law that was written on man's heart as an image bearer of God by virtue of creation.
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So I'm going to begin with paragraph five from our confession. Listen to this. The moral law does forever bind all.
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The moral law does forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof.
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And that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, not only what the moral law contains is the reason you obey it, but by virtue of the authority of God the creator.
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It's not just what it contains. It's who gives it. It's how it is given. It's a reflection of God himself.
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Neither does Christ in the gospel in any way dissolve, but rather much strengthens this obligation.
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Now what do you think they're drawing from in that last part of that statement? Christ in the gospel does not dissolve the obligation of the moral law.
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He actually strengthens it. Well, they're looking at Matthew chapter five, verses 17 through 48.
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It's exactly where we're going. Christ does not dissolve. As far as the moral law is concerned, he strengthens the obligation of man.
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So the only part of the law that the church has claimed should be ever binding is the moral law.
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That is situated by man's relationship to God in creation as an image of God, as a reflection of God.
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Christ does not arbitrarily choose certain commandments to function as a new law.
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That is a grave mistake. As we will see, Christ rather clarifies and affirms what has been binding from the beginning because at the beginning
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God created man in his image. Christ also clarifies and affirms that which is prophetic or written of him as he's accomplishing redemption.
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Truly, Christ did not come to destroy the law, rather he came to fulfill it. So Christ gives us the proper revelation of God's law.
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Not only does he clarify its teaching, he also gives us his own example of perfectly obeying the law in flesh in the midst of a fallen world.
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And yet living in perfect and blessed conformity to it. Not only that,
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Christ doesn't only clarify the law, Christ doesn't only provide an example in his life, Christ also gives us the presence and the power of his
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Holy Spirit so that we may abide by the law. Now the moral law as we said from the first two paragraphs of our confession, that same law that was written on man's heart was also given at Sinai in the form of ten commandments.
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So the moral law as reflected by the ten commandments is forever binding as our confession rightly states even to justified persons.
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You don't get saved away from the law, you get saved to the law.
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Christ takes away the condemnation of it and sanctification conforms you in to the very character of Christ.
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What is the perfect express image of the character of God? It is Christ Jesus. That's where your sanctification is heading.
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So we must remember that believers obey the law as the contours of their sanctification as they are led by the
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Spirit and freed by the blood of Christ from the condemnation of the law. We must remember, and of course
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Reformation Day helps us to remember as we celebrate this, obedience to the law has never been the means by which sinners are justified before God.
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Obedience to the law has never been the means for our justification and yet those who have been justified by the blood of Christ will live in obedience by the
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Spirit's leading to the moral law and they'll learn from the entirety of Scripture how to see that law and apply it to their lives.
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Remember what Ryan McGraw said for those who were at the Bolton yesterday. They love the law of the
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Lord because they love the Lord of the law. That's Christian responsiveness to God's law.
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For those in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation under the law and yet when they're filled by the Spirit of Christ they can say with the psalmist in Psalm 119,
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Make me to go in the path of your commandments for in them I delight. This is a result of the pardon of God, the liberating justification of God and the
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Spirit imploring the believer to seek after God in all of His ways. So that's the moral law.
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Secondly, the civil. The moral law was binding forever. The civil law was only binding on Israel.
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We're not done with that sentence yet but I want to say it fully. I want to say it fully.
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The civil law was only binding on Israel by virtue of the covenant
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God made with them at Sinai. He did not make a covenant with another nation at Mount Sinai.
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He covenanted with the people of Israel that he called to himself, the people that he had rescued out of Egypt.
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And so the civil laws they were bound to. And yet, and yet, here's where the qualification comes.
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And yet, since, as 1 John 3 says, sin is lawlessness. And as Proverbs says, sin is a reproach to any nation.
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Nations are to be bound by the revelation of civil law insofar as general equity applies.
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And that's a confessional statement to use that phrase general equity. What is generally equal, generally true, generally transferable out of the commonwealth of Israel established by God's covenant to any other nation of any other age.
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So we don't say it's become entirely irrelevant. It's not to say we'll just come up with something for ourselves.
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We receive it as blessed light that we are to take and apply in some equitable way, knowing that we are not the covenanted people of God having conditions for our life in Canaan.
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But we are still nations accountable to a holy and just God who will bring blessings and cursings upon those who spurn his laws or otherwise keep them.
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Now, by the way, the confessional statements in Westminster, Savoy, our Second London Confession, they're all uniform in using this idea of general equity.
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And none of them go into detail about what that means. They say, well, the general equity of the civil law applies.
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And you're like, oh, great, how? Figure it out. That's pretty much what they do.
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General equity applies. You go and figure out how it applies. Here's our confessional statement.
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To them also God gave sundry or many judicial laws, which, notice the language, which expired, which expired together with the state of that people, understanding that that covenantal relationship, that context of Canaan was about what
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God was doing in redemptive history, typologically pointing to the fulfillment of Christ and the church.
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So these various judicial laws expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any now by virtue of that institution, no, but their general equity being of moral use.
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Very, very helpful if we understand the two -pronged approach of the civil law.
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It's expired. It's no longer binding in the way that it was. And yet the force of the moral law shining through those judicial laws, through that civil law, certainly applies and binds.
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And blessing and cursing flows from it. So from the outset, the civil laws are binding the people in the land.
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It's very significant. When we find the apostles calling for obedience, giving various vice lists or whatnot, we often find them, in a way, elaborating upon the
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Ten Commandments. When it comes to civil law, they seem to refrain from applying any of the civil laws in ways that we would expect.
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In fact, they're often, as we see in 1 Corinthians 5, applying judicial laws in ways that are surprising to us.
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And so they seem to understand there is a context, a temporary jurisdiction of Israel's life in Canaan that does not universally apply to God's people of other nations.
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But that does not make these laws irrelevant. There is one standard for righteousness.
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That is God's law. And to the degree that we spurn what is revealed in God's law, we blur what is truly good, what is truly evil.
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Thirdly, the ceremonial law. The ceremonial law pointed to the person and work of Jesus Christ as the yes and amen of all that God had promised.
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And as a result of his accomplishment of redemption, it is now abrogated.
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That's the language, abrogated. That means revoked, put away. Some of you right now are putting away all of your summer things, your summer decorations, your summer clothes, your swimsuits, your flip flops.
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You're putting it in some massive plastic tub and you're shoving it in a closet and you're not going to look at it for another nine months.
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That's putting it away. That's abrogating what doesn't belong in light of a new set of circumstances.
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So now we're at the beginning, 19 paragraph 3, just coming off the heels of the covenant of works.
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Remember the law written on man's heart, then given in ten commandments to Adam, and now here we are, paragraph 3, besides this law.
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What law? Again, the law, the moral law, the law written on the heart, the law of the ten commandments. Besides this law, commonly called moral,
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God was pleased to give to the people of Israel ceremonial laws. These contain several typical ordinances, in other words, they foreshadowed the person and work of Christ, partly of worship, prefiguring
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Christ, his graces, his actions, his sufferings, his benefits, and partly holding forth diverse instructions of moral duty, all which ceremonial laws being appointed only to the time of reformation, that's a quote from Hebrews, are by Jesus Christ, the true
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Messiah and the only law giver, who was furnished with power from the Father for that end, abrogated and taken away.
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So we believe that the ceremonies, the symbols of the law, have ceased with the accomplishment of Christ.
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The Old Testament laws, the ceremonies, the feasts, as Colossians 2 says, were a shadow of things to come, but the substance is
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Christ Jesus. In other words, Christ was the content of the ceremonial law.
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The ceremonial law was given in order to give way to Christ. Christ did not come to conform and find neat ways to parallel the ceremonial law.
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There would be no ceremonial law unless it was meant to foreshadow and give way to the substance who is
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Christ Jesus. And as he accomplished his great work through his perfect life, his death, and his resurrection, the substance finally parted ways with the shadow, though that shadow was long.
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If you've ever been on a street corner and perhaps the sun is on the other side, shining behind someone, and you see this long shadow in front of you, and that shadow is sort of moving and moving, and you're heading forward in this way.
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You can't see the light, but you can see the shadow. And then finally as you turn, there's that person.
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That shadow had projected all across that sidewalk, and now you see what the shadow was of.
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You see the substance of the shadow. And that's Christ along the eon of human history.
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This long shadow begun from Genesis 3 .15 and the promise given to the woman.
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This shadow that's running down the corridor of history. And the prophets of old and those anointed by the
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Spirit of God are looking at that shadow, longing for it, anticipating its coming, and finally in the fullness of time,
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Christ comes and the substance turns the corner. Here is the promised one we've waited for.
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Here is the Savior of the ages. Here is the promised seat of the woman. Here is the serpent crusher.
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Here is the King in His glory. So truly in this way, the ceremonial aspects of the law are not destroyed.
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Now New Testament writers use that kind of language. They use this imagery of destruction, of divorce, of vanishing.
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It's so pitiful and weak and fleshly ordinances and commandments. You get the sense of almost vitriol that Paul has toward the
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Mosaic Covenant when he was a champion of it. Born of the tribe of Benjamin, a
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Pharisee of Pharisees. You look at his CV in Philippians. The Mosaic law was everything to Paul until he turned the corner and found
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Christ. And now it's rubbish. Any of the gain he had in the law as far as his own life is rubbish compared to the beauties and the glories and the excellencies of Christ Jesus.
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And so he uses this language of destruction. But what we understand rightly, truly the ceremonial laws are not destroyed in the sense that they're discarded as something worthless, arbitrary, meaningless.
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We should never think of them as merely abolished, but rather as fulfilled by being abolished.
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The shadow must give way. And so their fulfillment is their destruction. They're old, now ready to vanish because a new wineskin has come with new wine.
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The wine of Christ's own blood. And so the fulfillment of these laws, and we have to use this language of fulfillment to understand
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Matthew 5, 17. He didn't come to destroy. He came to fulfill and he fulfilled the ceremonial law.
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He fulfilled why those laws were given. He fulfilled their nature. He fulfilled their purpose. He fulfilled their trajectory.
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He fulfilled those laws. The point is that however we characterize or discern the law of God, however, and there's always some overlap and blur, they never divide as neatly as you'd want.
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The law truly is given as the law. That's how it's referred to consistently throughout the Gospels and the
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New Testament letters. We don't arbitrarily divide up sections of the law. There is overlap.
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We see that in 1 Corinthians 5. You see ceremonial being applied almost in a civil way for the life of the church.
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But the point is, however we characterize, however we distinguish the threefold division of the law of God, all of it is fulfilled by the person and work of Christ Jesus.
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Don't think he came to destroy. He came to fulfill it. Let me give a slightly more precise understanding of what's occurring in the
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Mosaic Covenant at Sinai. This is from A .W.
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Pink's book, The Divine Covenants, which is tremendous. Many, many books have been shed on covenant theology, especially according to a
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Baptist framework, a confessional Baptist view. And a lot of them are great. Few of them transcend
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A .W. Pink's book, The Divine Covenants. He's excellent. Now listen to this.
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He says, Much confusion will be avoided and much help obtained if the
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Sinai economy, the Mosaic Covenant, is contemplated separately under two leading aspects, namely, first, as a system of religion and government designed for the immediate use of Israel during its dispensation in Canaan, during its time in Canaan.
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So that's the first level, a system of religion and government conditioned upon life in Canaan as God's covenant people.
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And secondly, as a scheme of preparation for another and better economy. You'll be seeing this shortly from Hebrews 10.
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Something pointing to its own obsolescence. Something better is coming. What is coming, what is second, is going to take away what is first.
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Okay, so a scheme of preparation for another, for a better economy, by which it was to be superseded when its temporal purpose has been fulfilled.
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The first design and the immediate end of what God revealed through Moses was to instruct and order the life of Israel now formed as a nation.
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The second and ultimate intention of God was to prepare the people by a lengthy course of discipline for the coming of Christ.
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You see what he's saying? If you want to understand the Mosaic economy, the Mosaic Covenant rightly, first you must understand how the law is given to instruct and order the life of Israel in Canaan.
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That's a typological construct. But secondly, it's given in order to prepare the way for Christ.
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And both of these things run throughout the course of the law. Pink again, the character of the
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Sinai Covenant was in itself neither purely evangelical nor exclusively legal.
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Divine wisdom devised a wondrous and blessed commingling of righteousness and grace, justice and mercy.
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We see that, don't we? The requirements of the high and unchanging holiness of God are clearly revealed, while his goodness, kindness, long suffering are also manifest.
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The moral and the ceremonial law run together side by side, presented and maintaining a perfect balance.
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That's the right way to understand the Mosaic Covenant. The moral and the ceremonial law demonstrating
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God's justice, God's wrath, God's holiness, but also God's mercy, God's love,
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God's covenant faithfulness. The moral and the ceremonial running side by side. John Owen, picking this up from Hebrews 8, his commentary on Hebrews, he says, the
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Sinai Covenant thus made with these ends and promises never saved anyone eternally.
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It never condemned anyone eternally. Believers were saved under it, but not by it.
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Sinners perished eternally under it, but not by it, rather by the curse of the original law of works, by the covenant of works.
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We'll unpack more of this in weeks to come. The point here is it's important to understand that Israelites, situated in that national covenant with God in Canaan, with all the blessings and curses contingent upon their obedience to outward conformity to that law, were nevertheless still image bearers born to Adam and in Adam all dying.
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And so the temporal death, the temporal punishments, the stoning, the various judgments that we see of the law that seems so harsh, these are all just downstream from the death that God's holiness requires by virtue of man being made in his image.
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We shouldn't look at the Mosaic economy as something strange and bizarre. We were told back in Genesis, when you sin, you die.
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And if it's the moral law written in the heart that is then given as the 10 commandments at Sinai, it should not be surprising that in the elaboration of that law, situated in this conditional covenant of works, the penalty for sin is death.
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That shouldn't surprise us. That should not embarrass us. We should not sulk away from President Bartlett.
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The wages of sin is death. God's pretty clear about that, isn't he? And so we have to understand the
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Mosaic economy are right. Yes, they were situated under this covenant as a nation, but they were image bearers of God with the law written on their heart, even as Gentiles were.
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And so though there was temporal death and temporal consequences in the confines of that land, the highest scope, the largest frame of reference, born out of Eden was either eternal life or eternal death, either saved by the covenant of grace or damned by the covenant of works.
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Temporal blessing and cursing were part of the Mosaic covenant. Eternal blessing, eternal cursing are part of the
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Adamic covenant, the covenant of works. That's what we established last week. The gospel turns on the covenant of works.
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So moving now to sort of draw these things together and actually have a text we can begin to look at.
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I want to establish this. We're not importing something unjustly upon the law.
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Truly it is the law. Truly it's seen as a compact revelation of God.
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And yet the law itself distinguishes between itself. And God himself, even within the old covenant, distinguishes between aspects of the law.
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And the New Testament writers certainly lead us to distinguish the law. The analogy here is understanding the
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Trinity. I was reminded in speaking with David Green yesterday who, some of you have heard me mention of years past of a saint that's gone to glory now named
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Douglas Vickers, who was so astute he would be so bold as to correct the
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Heidelberg. And he did so, and David Green was quoting it in relation to the Trinity. And he said, three distinct persons.
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And Vickers had a problem with that. Is that really appropriate language to use of the triune God, to say distinct?
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David Green, revolvers on his side. Well, I'm just quoting the Heidelberg brother. And Vickers said,
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I understand that. I ask again, is that appropriate? And David Green now flustered said, well, what would you suggest?
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Not distinct, but distinguishable. Now there's a word that makes a difference.
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Not distinct, as though we have three disparate persons in the Godhead, but distinguishable.
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Three persons, one God. Well, it's analogous to the law. It's one law, and yet aspects of this law are distinguishable, distinguishable.
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The Old Testament does not treat all laws equally. Much to the chagrin of President Bartlett. It recognizes, in fact, it commands us to see morality always outweighs ritual.
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Morality always outweighs ritual. The principle is seen in passages that affirm
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God desires mercy and not sacrifice. We just don't allow the tectonic weight of those statements to land on us.
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The holy God, who is so precise about how he is to be approached, and what must be done to rightly maintain a walk with him, that God can say,
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I don't desire sacrifice, I desire mercy, and not just once in some vague, strained application, but Isaiah 1, 1
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Samuel 15, Psalm 51, Psalm 69. Micah 6 says, will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with 10 ,000 rivers of oil?
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And the expected answer is, no. Not if you neglect the weightier matters of the law.
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What's that? That's distinguishing the law. Jesus, no wonder, quotes this language of mercy and not sacrifice twice.
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If you read on in Matthew's Gospel, chapter nine, chapter 12, he's using this to refute the Pharisees and their misapplication of the law of God.
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The resounding claim within the old covenant itself is sacrifice and offering you did not desire.
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Burnt offering and sin offering you did not require. What? Yes, you did.
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You did require, which meant you did desire. How are we to reckon these things? Well, this is what we opened our service with from Psalm 40.
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We read this responsibly. Maybe you read past it. Let me read it for us again. Beginning in verse four. This is a
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Psalm of David. This is a prophetical Psalm. If we understand how the writer of Hebrews is going to use it, which
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I'll get to in a moment. Listen to this. Psalm 40, beginning in verse four. Blessed is that man who makes the
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Lord his trust and does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
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Many, O Lord my God, are your wonderful works which you have done and your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to you in order.
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If I would declare and speak of them, there more than can be numbered. Listen. Sacrifice and offering you did not desire.
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My ears you have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering you did not require.
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Then I said, behold, I come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me,
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I delight to do your will. Oh my God, and your law is within my heart.
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I proclaim the good news of righteousness in the great assembly. Indeed, I do not restrain my lips,
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O Lord. You yourself know. How is that taken up?
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By Hebrews. We're gonna be drawing from Hebrews nine and 10. These passages that show us how to understand the way that Christ fulfills the law.
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How we see the beauty of the moral law shining through and subsiding in. The civil law, the civil penalties of the law fulfilled in the crucifixion.
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Cursed is every man who hangs on a tree. As well as the ceremonial law. Hebrews is putting all of this together for us.
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Because the new and the better covenant is the one that had substance. Everything else is shadow. Listen to this,
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Hebrews 10 beginning in verse one. For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come.
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Shadow of good things to come. Shadow of substance. Shadow of promise fulfilled. For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come.
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And not the very image of the things. Can never with these same sacrifices, which they, the priests, offer continually, year by year, make those who approach perfect.
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You see his point. If these sacrifices were effectual at all, you would just have it one time.
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It wouldn't be a yearly exercise. If the priest could sanctify any of the worshipers, he'd be out of a job.
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But this priest has to continually offer sacrifice because the people are not actually atoned for.
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They're not actually cleansed. For then, he says, would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.
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Isn't that interesting? We find that, 1 Peter, throughout the New Testament. The role of the conscience.
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That's a sermon to itself. The role of the conscience. But in those sacrifices, they're a reminder of sins every year.
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For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. This wasn't something that switched with Jesus.
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Well, it used to work by the blood of bulls and goats. Now it'll be by the blood of Jesus. No, there was not one single sin that all the blood of all the bulls and goats slain in Jerusalem ever could atone for.
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It's what we sang. Not all the blood on Jewish altars slain. Now listen to where he's going with this.
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He's going to take Psalm 40 as a proof of everything that he's establishing about the efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ, the fulfillment of the law.
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In those sacrifices, there's a reminder of sins every year. It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.
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Therefore, when he came into the world, he said this. What is the writer of Hebrews telling us?
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Psalm 40 is prophetical. It's not David saying, I come. It's David's son and David's Lord saying,
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I come. Therefore, when he came into the world, he said, sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me.
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There's a translation issue here, isn't there? This is pulling from the Septuagint, a body you've prepared for me, whereas in the original in the
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Hebrew we see there, my ears you have opened. Won't go into the details about the dozens of views there are about how to rectify the two.
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Simply to say, I agree with Owen. We have it by inspiration of the Spirit. We perhaps have Spirit -inspired interpretation of what that original phrase meant to them messianically.
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Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you've prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you had no pleasure.
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Then I said, behold, I have come. In the volume of the book it is written of me to do your will,
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O God. So notice what's being held together here in Hebrews 10. He says,
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God, you are the one who gave the law for all of the sacrifices, for all of the requirements, and yet, sacrifice and offering you didn't desire.
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Instead, you prepared a body for me. Do you see what he's saying? You gave the law about all of these sacrifices.
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You established the priesthood, the continual exercise of these things. But here David is prophesying and saying, actually, in light of that,
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God never actually desired those sacrifices at all. Instead, he was preparing the body of the true sacrifice.
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A body you've prepared for me. Then he goes further. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you had no pleasure.
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He didn't, then why did he command it? Because of this. Because of the son of David saying to him in response, you had no pleasure in the sacrifice, then behold,
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I come, I come. In the volume of the book it's written of me to do your will,
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O God. The true will, the true purpose of the law. Previously saying, and the writer of Hebrews is helping us understand this.
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Previously saying, sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, offerings for sin you did not desire, nor had pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law.
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And how do we rectify this? Then he said, behold, I have come to do your will.
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You see? There's a will, there's a purpose, there's a fulfillment beyond the law.
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He takes away the first that he may establish the second.
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He abrogates the former that he may fulfill the latter. He takes away the first that he may establish the second.
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By that will, by that under arching purpose of God, by that singular purpose through the counsels of redemption, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
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Do you see the glory of this threefold division of the law finding its yes and amen in Christ Jesus, coming in the fullness of time, a body prepared before him, that to which the law and the prophets were always pointing to.
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He came in the likeness of sinful flesh, and though he was obedient to the law, to the point of death, as we said last week, he died.
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Now all this language of the ceremonial law, it's almost taken up in Hebrews as the temple construct itself.
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And there's a lot of emphasis put on this idea of the veil and entering into the presence of God, that which the law kept us away from.
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We were separated from the presence of God as a result of our sinfulness and his holiness. So when the writer of Hebrews is establishing this veil,
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Hebrews nine is an example, he lays out the most holy place, the holiest place was separated behind this veil, this second veil.
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So this veil becomes not just a picture of holiness, but a picture of the law that kept us apart, distant from God until the fullness of time.
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Now, when the one who said, behold I come, came.
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When the one who said, you've prepared a body for me, became incarnate in the likeness of sinful flesh, though yet without sin.
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And there, we read that this high priest came, the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, not of creation.
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We read, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, he entered the most holy place, once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
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For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer are sprinkling the unclean sacrifices, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living
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God. See how he's using this language? The law could never save.
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It kept us apart, it kept us that distance. But the one who said, behold I come, the one who perfectly fulfilled the law, he enters into that most holy place.
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He makes a way for us. And so he doesn't offer himself as a high priest, continually year by year, doing something ineffectual.
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He goes once for all. He enters the most holy place once for all.
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This is why the writer of Hebrews says that the veil that was torn when
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Jesus died was indeed the veil of his flesh. This is Hebrews 10, now in verse 19 and following.
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Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way.
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Remember, the second now has abrogated the first. Having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil, that is his flesh.
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You see how this is coming together? It's the flesh of the law keeper, the flesh of the one who fulfills the law that is torn to make this new way.
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The law being fulfilled, the law in this sense also being destroyed, destroyed in his own person, receiving the curse of the law as it were.
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And so this becomes the great privilege of a Christian. God cannot justify the guilty unless he satisfies his justice upon them.
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That's why when Jesus lets out that loud cry, it is finished. The veil that separated man from God, the veil that represents, as it were, all of the abrogated ceremonial aspects of the law is torn from top to bottom.
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No longer will man be kept at a distance. No longer will man be separated from God. Rather, Christ has made a new and living way by his own blood.
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This grace demanding a cross. This grace being wrought by the humiliated Son of God, stripped bare upon a bloody cross to save to the uttermost a pack of dogs bent on returning to their own vomit so that he can make them into a glorious bride.
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Conforms to his image and reflecting his glory eternally. And all of this, as Owen is saying in his commentary, all of this is opposed in the whole preceding verses by the blood of the law sacrifices, by the blood of the priestly sacrifice.
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All opposed. They couldn't procure it. They could never bring about liberty. They could never bring access to the holy place.
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This was done by the blood of Jesus alone. He accomplished what the sacrifices of the law could never do.
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What have we seen? We've closed with it every week in Romans 8. What the law could not do,
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God did by sending his Son. What the law could not do,
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God did by sending his Son. A body you've prepared for me. Behold, I come.
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This is just the other side of the coin of Romans 8. What the law couldn't do, God did by sending his
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Son. What does the Son say? I know you don't take any pleasure. You haven't even required what's in the law. Why?
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You prepared a body for me and behold, I come, the fulfiller of the law. I delight to do your will.
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Your law is written in my heart. Do you see? How could Jesus come to abolish the law?
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It's within his heart. He delights to do God's will. And the law and all of its types and all of its shadows and all of its ceremonies, symbols, prophecies, perfections, promises, and eschatology all had been fulfilled by the person and work of Jesus.
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Do not think that I have come to abolish the law. What does he say in Psalm 40?
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Behold, I come. I delight to do your will. Jesus is the yes and the amen of all that God foretold.
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And let me close with a little thought here, brothers and sisters. We do not have this
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Jesus as our high priest, as one who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace.
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I'll go so far as to say this. If you have not rightly understood not only the threefold division of the law, but how
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Christ fulfills every aspect of the law, you will never be able to come boldly to the throne of grace.
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The believer who comes boldly to the throne of grace is the believer who knows in the very marrow of their bones there is no condemnation on me.
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Christ has fulfilled the law on my behalf. The loud thunder of Sinai has been muted, muzzled, abrogated by the fulfillment of Christ on the tree of Calvary.
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Is the law a terror to you? Is the law something that causes you to fear and fret, and then you find yourself going, oh,
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I've gotta clean myself up, I've gotta work a little harder and do a little better, and then maybe then I'll find some access way to the throne of God.
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Maybe then I can, sort of if no one's looking, peek behind the curtain and try to make my way. Maybe if four or five other brothers and sisters that are way farther ahead in sanctification than me begin to make their way boldly to the throne of grace, maybe
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I'll just kinda sneak in with them, hide under their sweaters. You haven't understood these things at all, have you?
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The one who comes boldly to the throne of grace is the one who understands Christ is the fulfillment of the law.
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Is the law muzzled? Is the law muted? Is the condemnation of the law abrogated in your understanding?
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How clean is your conscience as a believer standing under the blood of Christ Jesus this morning?
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How clean is your conscience from dead works that you may serve the living God? Those loud thunder peals of God's law have no threat to condemn you who have taken refuge in Jesus Christ.
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Isn't it a beautiful thing? I was doing it this morning. You know, I'm running on just a few hours of sleep after a busy weekend and so I went to bed as the sun was coming up and set my alarm for a couple hours later and I said it loud.
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And when that alarm through my iPad speakers next to my ear began to blare,
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I wildly swatted to mute it. And what a beautiful thing to hit that side button and just go silent.
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And sometimes in your Christian life, you struggle and you see your sin and you despair and you're mourning over your sin, you're grieving over your sin, you're hating your sin.
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The devil has somehow made his way into your understanding to say, well, you're really not a Christian. In fact, you better work really hard to prove you're a
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Christian. You have no access to the throne of grace. Now you've blown it. You're filthy.
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In fact, not only should you not be at the throne of grace, you shouldn't even be around God's people. Work really hard and never expose how bad things are.
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You shouldn't bring it to God until you've really cleansed your hands. And you find the law of God and you find moments in preaching, you're sitting at the
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Bolton and there's words that are like daggers to you. And the law of God is now thundering in all of its threat.
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And the blood of Christ is this eternal muzzle to say, therefore, now there is no condemnation.
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There is no condemnation for those who believed in Christ Jesus, amen. Brothers and sisters, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize.
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Therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace. The veil has been torn.
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Having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh.
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And having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith.
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Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, our bodies washed with pure water.
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Christ is the end of the law for all who believe, amen. Let's pray.
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Father, thank you for your word. Bless it to us, we pray. Lord, convict the comfortable in this room and comfort the convicted.
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For those who are terrorized by the threat of your law because they have no refuge in Christ, may the law be a schoolmaster to them to lead them the way to the
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Savior. To those who have a weak and defiled conscience, may they see the power of the blood.
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The power of simply trusting in what Jesus has done for them. Knowing that he promises all who come to him will never be cast away.
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Lord, may you strengthen our understanding of these weightier matters of the law. May we not neglect, or as we were exhorted yesterday afternoon, may we never settle for weak grace.
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Empower your people that we might be conformed to your image who's written the law on our hearts and guides us to it by your own spirit.