Legalism or Love? | Clip from The Jaw-Dropping Beauty of Jesus

In that kind of relationship. If we could understand that Jesus purchased for us, not divinity, we don't become God, but that He brought us in as sons and daughters, I think it would transform a lot about our fight against sin.

The Father's Delight in the Son and Our Adoption

Yeah, if you look at the Father's delight in the Son, not just the theological descriptions, but, you know, like the atmosphere in which these are given is infinite delight, that we could not begin to imagine what it would be like to have infinite delight without any mixture of...

Our greatest loves in this life are always mixed. We say, well, oh, I love this. It's not perfect. So infinite delight in the unalloyed perfections of the Son from eternity past, then unites Him to our humanity, and that delight does not dim, even though He's now connected to carbon molecules and clay.

And when we think of that, and then, like you said, John tells us that Christ turns to His disciples before He leaves them, and tells them in those wonderful chapters in John, explaining to them before He leaves, the same love with which the Father's loved me, I've loved you.

And then He explains how to live in the constant enjoyment of that infinite delight. That, if we start that verse with us, it's heresy. But if we start with Christ, it's life shattering and giving truth, you know, like you said, that would make a man unmovable.

Yeah, yeah. I believe Jesus was unmovable, untouchable by the things of this world, because of His confident awareness of the Father's love for Him. That's what I think Hebrews 1 is wanting us to see and to know, and to call us into that same privileged relationship of love.

So let me just mention a few other descriptions of the Son. One, it's actually, it's a description of the Son, but it's spoken concerning the angels. And the Father says, precisely during the incarnation, when He brings the firstborn into the world.

So, during the incarnation, there's another description, firstborn, privileges, inheritance, right, everything belongs to Him. But He says to the angels during the incarnation, all of you, point your gaze that way.

For the first time since their inception, angels aren't eternal, they're created. But from the moment of their inception, the nanosecond any angelic being was created, minus those who rebelled, demonic, Satan, all of the angels from the moment of inception, had the focus of all of their energy and holy affection, heavenward.

But when the Son comes into the world, the Father says to all of them, turn the locus of your focus to that incarnate Son of mine. That says something to us staggering about the Son. And if the angels who've never tasted redemption, Jesus didn't die to atone for them.

They don't know what it's like to have the regenerating power of the blood of Jesus forgive you. They don't know sonship. No angels are sons. We are invited into sonship. If they cumulatively, incessantly gaze upon, and God said, worship.

That's what he said. Admire him. Shouldn't that in some way inform the way we relate to him? Because he's not only admirable, he's our redeemer. We should therefore praise him in light of the fact that all the angels are called to do so.

You want to say anything about that before I click on another one? Okay. So I'll just mention two others. There's a twofold in verse nine. It comes from Psalm 45, description of the Son from the Father.

The Father says from Psalm 45, seven, you love righteousness and you hate lawlessness. Well, think about that just for a moment. I mean, we could spend eternities meditating just on this aspect. It's worthy of a lot of sermons and meditations, but what does the Father mean?

He's not telling us that we should see this, that we should. He's saying to the Son, he sees this in the Son. You love righteousness. The entire torrent of the rush of love, the total power of all of agape, all love of the Son flows toward righteousness.

That's a beautiful description of the Son. Equal tantamount to that torrent of love is a hatred, a vehement antagonism toward what he So you can say the Son, according to the Father, loves all that is pure and holy.

He loves righteousness. He loves God. Equal to his love of righteousness is his vehement hatred for sin. Well, that informs the believer's life, the closer you walk in intimate fellowship with him. You'll love what he loves and hate what he hates.

You can't walk in intimate fellowship with him and hate what he loves and love what he hates. So I think the Father wants us to see this is who he is.

This does give us, as you mentioned, it gives us an honest assessment of our walk with the Lord, because it is very easy to feel that when we emotionally and intellectually approve of truths in Scripture, and I don't just mean intellectually.

I mean, you know, so even hearing you talk about these things again. So I wasn't able to be at Grace Church and hear them in the sermons. But, you know, the heart rises up and says, it's true, it's true.

You know, sometimes I think that in good biblical teaching or preaching, it's like self jumps out at me and turns and points at me and says, why haven't you been doing, you know, like, it's true, man.

Like, grab it. And it's like, you feel like there's a net of truth wrapping itself around you. But if it stops there, with like, wow, that was really stirring. And it does not produce in me some coinciding response of alteration.

If I'm not being changed into that image, then I'm not walking with him, no matter what I claim. And if my Lord only talks to me about grace, and grace doesn't include that wonderful freedom from the love of sin and the freedom to hate what's ugly, then I've got a wrong view of grace.

So, you know, it's not legalism, it's love to Christ. But it is much, I think, you know, if you think about legalism, it's like a peace shooter against the fortress of selfishness in my heart. But the love of God is like a wrecking ball that.

Destroys everything I throw up against him, you know. Yeah, we say often around our church, obedience is not legalism, it's obedience. So, the initial call of Christ unto salvation is pre-packaged with the ongoing call of Christ to sanctification.

And, you know, you could say the other way, another way, the seed of justifying faith has in it this tree of sanctifying fruit. And over time, imperceptibly to us, we're all embarrassed and ashamed about how slow growing our sanctification is.

And personally, I don't think we can see it accurately ourselves. Like you said earlier, how do you quantify, you know, more love to Christ and less love to sin? It's hard to quantify these sanctifying graces.

But I'll tell you how it can be seen through the eyes of people who know you well. They can tell if you're more Christ-like in graciousness and gentleness and tolerance and humility, if they know you well, than you were this time last year.

And there has to be transformation. I mean, what you said a minute ago about, we can't just know these fascinating truths and be all inspired by them and have no corresponding effect in our life. I mean, this may expose my biblical ignorance, but as far as I'm aware, there's only one verse in the Bible that explicitly tells us how to be changed into Christ-likeness.

The verse I'll mention in just a moment is really what Hebrews 1 is doing. The verse is in 2 Corinthians 3, right? It's how will I be transformed? How will metamorphosis, new creature work, happen to me?

It's passive. I don't do it. I receive it. But how does it happen? Gazing as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord. And in that passage, it's Jesus. Just go back two verses. Verse 16, it's Christ. So as you look upon, to quote God, the glory of Christ,.

We are being transformed. Well, thank you for watching the clip. We hope that it was helpful for you. If you want to hear the full audio of that podcast, you can find it on any of your favorite podcast apps.