Galatians 4:1-7

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Pastor John and Pastor Jeff teach the book of Galatians

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Lord and Father, we come to you and we continue to hear truth from your word in this letter, this book of Galatians, about the power of what you have given, your moral law, and the weakness of having to follow ceremonial laws, the power of your grace, the truth of your covenant.
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But Lord, we know that you have given the law not to redeem us, but to point us to you, and you've even given tutors and teachers to help us to see.
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We thank you for the message today, the elemental things. We pray, Lord, that you would give
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Pastor Jeff your words for us, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. More often than not, the people of a culture will be indifferent towards the things of God, or even hostile to the things of God.
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If you approach them with the law of God, they will consider themselves above the law.
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They will, rather than feeling the conviction of sin, look for ways to justify themselves, so as to conclude that under the law they are self -righteous, they have earned enough righteousness.
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This is the typical reaction. Satan hates when people begin to take the law of God seriously, because from that conviction of sin, one can be led to be the savior for sinners.
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You have to first of all know the weight of sin before you can come to repentance and faith. Most people are blinded by the devil to their own need for a savior, and therefore they're not interested in the things of God.
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Something that I've seen over the years is the converse of this, and I think it is like the screw tape letters.
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How many of you have read C .S. Lewis's screw tape letters? That demon Wyrmwood always has a strategy based on the situation of the person he's dealing with.
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Sometimes a young person or someone coming to faith becomes very convicted by sin and begins to be awakened to the importance of scripture, and they begin to read the word and they're very close to being saved.
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But that demon Wyrmwood has a strategy for the very spiritual ones as well, and what the demon will want to do at this point is to divert the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ into some spiritual fraud that would derail the person.
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Substitute. As a substitute, yeah, for the genuine. So I can remember one night having a conversation with a young man who was very, very zealous for the things of God.
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He was part of the International Church of Christ, the ICC. Now the particular doctrine of the
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International Church of Christ, which is different than some other churches of Christ, is that they hold that you must be baptized in order to be saved.
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Unless you're baptized in water, you are not saved. But more than that, even if you as a
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Christian here have been baptized in the triune name, but you were not baptized calling on his name for salvation in that baptism, in other words, believing that this baptism was the moment of your regeneration, then you are also not saved.
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Sadly, what this young man had done is Judaize the gospel. He was very zealous for the things of God.
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He did not believe that I was a Christian even though I was baptized and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ because I had not believed that in baptism
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I was buried with Christ for the salvation of my soul in that moment.
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He was convinced that I was not a Christian. So we debated scriptures and we looked at 1
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Peter 3 and the passages in Acts from Acts 2 -38 and following where baptism and salvation are connected in certain ways.
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We debated those passages, but for all of that, he still held on to his Judaized form of the gospel.
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Another young man that Tim also knows, and I don't particularly know him as well as Tim does, but he was very zealous for the things of God and spent much time reading the word of God until a false teacher named
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Geno Jennings introduced the idea that you have to be baptized in a certain way and speak in tongues in order to be saved.
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These additional practices or works that are required for salvation, again, this led to the derailing of his faith.
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What began as an earnestness for the things of God, a hunger to read the Bible, was diverted after these new laws, what the
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Bible today is going to call the elementary principles. And by that, it does not mean elementary as in basic and true, but elemental, of this world, an element of this world.
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Yes, Stan? Where do they come in? Very good.
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Well, this is the comparison I was seeking to draw here this morning. So in the first century, in the
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Galatian church, nobody was saying you have to speak in tongues and be baptized a certain way in order to be saved.
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Nobody was saying what the International Church of Christ says or the Geno Jennings cult.
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Their false teachers had another doctrine and that was circumcision. So in their church, these were
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Jewish background believers where they would name the name of Christ, but now they're getting diverted after a works righteousness.
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And what they were saying, you see it in the Jerusalem Council, Acts 15 .1, you must be circumcised in order to be saved.
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That's what they were teaching. So whether it's circumcision or baptism or speaking in tongues or the
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Hebrew Roots Movement, which is a return to the law in order to be justified before God, or Roman Catholicism with the sacraments that you have to do penances and go to a priest in order to have your sins atoned for, all of these things are
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Judaizing the gospel. So let's pick up again where we left off last week and it gets very complicated here in the first seven verses of chapter four.
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So turn with me to Galatians chapter four. Last week as we concluded the third chapter, there's a few important things to remember.
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One is that the law and covenant are different things.
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It's not that they're against each other. Look at verse 21. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?
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And what is Paul's emphatic assertion? Forbid. Forbid, right. So is the law bad?
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No. No. The law itself is good. It is the holy righteous standard of God, but it's different from covenant.
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The Abrahamic covenant was given before the law and before there was circumcision,
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Abraham was already declared righteous on the basis of faith. And so the promise of a coming offspring in Genesis 12, seven, following the
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Abrahamic covenant in 12, one to three, is a promise that is by faith.
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Those who believe the promise and put their faith in the offspring, singular, not plural.
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There's not many saviors. There's one offspring to whom we look, and that is Christ himself. Those who have faith in Christ are counted righteous on account of their faith.
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So this is the covenant that God made. Now law is added later than covenant, right?
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The Abrahamic covenant was already in effect, 430 years later comes the law of Moses.
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Why did God add the law if we already had the covenant? What was the point of the law? Well, it would point you to your sin.
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Very good. Yep. It was added because of transgressions in the language here of the text.
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It came, verse 19, added because of transgressions until the offspring should come.
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Who's the offspring? Jesus Christ. Right. So the coming of the offspring of Jesus is a dispensational change.
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What is dispensationalism? Dispensationalism is a way to interpret scripture, which makes reference to the different time periods and the economy that God had under those time periods.
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So it emphasizes that things change when the Son of God comes.
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When the offspring appears, there is what theologians would call a radical discontinuity, things that are changing when the offspring comes.
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Now, we've already said that the law is good. The law of Moses is good.
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Every covenant and every promise that God made in the Old Testament is good.
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It's not that God simply annuls something and throws it out as being irrelevant, but the way covenants work is that they're almost telescoping.
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Have you guys ever seen like a telescoping microscope that can expand and contract?
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Or one of those shell games where the cups are inside of the cups, and as you take one out, the other's inside of it, right?
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Or you have the analogy of peaks, mountain peaks, that as you come closer, you see that there are subsequent peaks, but they all seem to be contained in the highest peak that you can see at the time.
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Think about this. There were five covenants in the Old Testament. None of them were annulled, but they fold into one another.
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So let's list the covenants, and you can make note of this because it applies to the new covenant.
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The first is the Adamic covenant, the covenant that God made with Adam.
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What is the Adamic covenant? It's the covenant made in the Garden of Eden where Adam is made a viceregent, a ruler, having dominion in the earth.
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He bears the likeness of God. Let me ask, is the image of God and the dominion of man over the beast still in effect, or was it annulled?
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Still in effect. But the image of God in man was defaced in the fall in Genesis chapter 3.
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And so the second covenant is the Noahic covenant, N -O -A -H -I -C, covenant with Noah.
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This covenant in Genesis 8, 20 to 22, and the first part of chapter 9, includes the
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Adamic covenant because Noah is told, fill the earth and subdue it. Isn't that part of the
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Adamic covenant? But it's re -emphasized because it continues on.
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But he adds to that covenant by introducing civil government, civil government to punish wrongdoing.
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If someone takes the life of an innocent person, then by man, that person's life needs to be taken.
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Capital punishment is part of the Noahic covenant. So it's not that anything has been completely annulled, but rather the covenants fold into one another and expand and enlarge what's already been said.
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In the covenant with Adam, there will be offspring as he is to fill the earth and subdue it.
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But in the third covenant, Genesis 12, this is the Abrahamic covenant, you have an enlargement of that promise, an unfolding of it.
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Now we know that the seed of the woman, spoken of in Genesis 3, 15, will also be more specifically the seed of who?
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Abraham. The seed of Abraham. And this seed singular,
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Genesis 12, 7, is none other than Christ himself. But do you see how the covenants are not disconnected and there's not an annulment, but there's an enlarging, an unfolding?
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So then comes the next covenant, which is the Mosaic covenant, Exodus 20.
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And all throughout Exodus, you see, it's not just the Ten Commandments, but the full covenant given.
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And then restated in Deuteronomy, the second giving of the law. Deutero, second, nomos law, the law is given a second time, reaffirmed.
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The Mosaic covenant now adds law because the people are still transgressing against their
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God. So the earlier covenant is not annulled by the coming of law, but the
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Mosaic covenant now is added of necessity because man is transgressing
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God and must be regulated, must be kept by a steward. It's as if Israel is so immature in the faith, they're like babies that need the guardianship of a pedagogue, of a slave leader that would treat them like slaves, even though Israel is a son.
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You following? They're children of covenant. They believe the promise. And yet now
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Mosaic covenant, Mosaic law, is added to govern them as a stewardship for a time, dispensationalism.
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There is a time where Israel must be governed by law.
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That law is good. And notice, this is the distinction we're going to see in chapter four, so pay close attention.
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What God taught Noah in civil government was based on natural law written on the conscience.
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Everyone should know thou shalt not murder. Adam knew he should not murder
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Eve, but love her. But that's before Exodus 20, thou shalt not murder.
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The law is given in the conscience, and it is based on the very character of God.
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It exists in the earlier covenant. It's upheld in the Noahic covenant, so it's still the same good moral law when it gets spelled out in detail in the
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Mosaic law. Does that make sense? It's an enlarging of what was already there. In natural law, the founders of this country in affirming that law, that rights, are inalienable, because they come from God, not just the dictates of popular opinion and culture.
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These are natural, because they're built into the natural order based on the character of God.
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So the Mosaic law, the law of God, comes in to give details of what that should look like in a civilized society.
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This is how God orders his people. There's one more covenant before the new, and of course, that is the
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Davidic covenant. Second Samuel chapter 7, verse 6 and 7. Here we are told that the seed promised in Genesis 3 .15
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to Adam, we are told that the seed is through Abraham, and then not
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Esau, but who? Jacob.
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Jacob, yeah. Well, yeah, I skipped Isaac. Isaac not Ishmael, Jacob not
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Esau. Judah not any of the other 12. Genesis 49 tells us.
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What's that? Judah and not the other 11. Correct. Did I say 12?
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He's one of the 12. Yeah, it's Judah. If you consider the half -tribe of Israel. Oh, yeah, it's split.
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Vanessa and Ephraim, so yeah. That's what I was thinking. That's what I had in mind there.
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I'm just a step ahead of you, Bob. I had you for a moment there. You had me, but John always bails me out.
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How many times have you bailed me out in the course of my ministry? I love this guy. Yeah, he's always got my back.
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So it's through Judah, but the promise of the seed has already been developed. And then in Second Samuel 7, we're told it's through David, right?
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The Davidic promise, the scepter of Judah will now specifically go and never depart from David and his descendants.
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So in Galatians 3, verse 19, and this is all set up for chapter 4, guys.
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This is a very long sub -introduction. That's right. But we have to have this, because it's a very complicated passage.
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If we don't understand these, we'll kind of gloss over chapter 4, and we won't really get it. In 319, the
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Mosaic law was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come.
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So by dispensationalism, we mean there are time periods in which God is dealing differently with his people.
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When the offspring comes, and then in his death, burial, and resurrection, we are given the new covenant in his blood.
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And that is the sixth covenant in this dispensational system. And a dispensationalist would say, there are radical changes that happen between the old and the new.
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Who here is familiar with covenant theology versus dispensational theology? Little bit?
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Covenant, dispensational. You surely heard the terms, right? Here's a very simple way to understand the difference.
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Both have elements of the truth. And the center point of where they intersect is somewhere over here.
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I think it's more towards the dispensational side. The truth is somewhere right here. Dispensationalists are emphasizing what changed, the discontinuities between the old and the new.
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Covenant guys are emphasizing what stays the same. So that's the difference, the continuities.
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They go so far on the covenant side to say, you know what, Israel is the church, and the church is
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Israel. No distinction. Now I would say, wait a minute, wait a minute.
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The church is distinct from Israel, even though there are some things that carry over from Israel to the church.
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Okay, because I'm more on the dispensational side. But you understand, what they're doing is they're just bringing things together as one continuity.
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So the eighth day circumcision of a boy, well, that's just baptism in the New Testament. So we should baptize our eight day babies.
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Infant baptism in Presbyterianism. That's covenant theology. And I'm saying, wait a minute, there are some discontinuities here.
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Baptism is not just the same thing as circumcision, although there can be a picture of the greater.
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We're arguing from the lesser to the greater. As things fulfill, we're given more light. And the shadow is a lesser thing, okay?
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So the dispensationalist is seeing discontinuities. And think about how many discontinuities there are between the old and the new.
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Yesterday I sat and read the book of Leviticus. And for chapter one, you have the offerings, the general offerings.
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Chapter two, the grain offerings. Chapter three, you have the peace offerings. Then chapter four, the sin offerings.
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In each case, you come and you lay your hand on the animal to impute your guilt to the animal, and then you slay the animal and you put the blood on the altar.
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John, when's the last time you did that? No. About 2 ,000 years ago.
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And there's the answer, because there's a radical discontinuity when our sin is imputed to the
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Lamb of God, His blood, the altar here is the cross. He has once and for all done this.
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And now things have changed. We don't offer animal sacrifices anymore. Radical discontinuity in the whole book of Leviticus, the whole sacrificial system, fulfilled in Christ, radical change.
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See the difference? Dietary codes, radical change. Sabbath, radical change.
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Jesus, hey, Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And they just could not get their minds around how radically
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Jesus was changing things from the status quo to something larger and more mature.
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Not an annulment of the old, but a fulfillment. Matthew 5, 17. So now let's read
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Galatians 4. John, why don't you just read it, Galatians 4, 1 to 7. With that in mind,
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I think you'll be able to see what's happening in this house. Can I ask you guys a question before we read? Yeah. All right, so in Jeremiah 31, 33.
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Yes. Talks about the new covenant, how God's gonna write the law in their heart.
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My question is like, if they were aware of the law before the law came, what's the difference with believers getting the law in their heart than as to when they had it on their conscience?
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You know what I mean? The New Testament ministry of the Holy Spirit is a more intimate and profound involvement of the
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Spirit in our hearts. David had the same spirit, right? If he didn't have the
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Spirit, then he's not regenerated. So there's continuity between the Old Testament and the New. But David also prays in Psalm 51, take not thy
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Holy Spirit from me. The Spirit would more come upon someone for empowerment, but it was not as deep and abiding as what happens in the
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New Testament. So the Spirit's role is very present in the Old Testament, and even more intimate and consistent in the
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New Testament. So what I referred to from the law written on the conscience, that comes from Romans chapter two, that the
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Gentiles not having the law are still under the law because they have it written on their hearts. That goes all the way back to the
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Garden of Eden. And government was already able to do this in Genesis nine, right?
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But the law then gives specific direction because what ends up happening, Tim, is what's called the noetic effects of sin.
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In Genesis three, noetic is not referring to Noah. It's N -O -E -T -I -C.
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It refers to know something. The way we think, the way we know is perverted in the fall.
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So come Genesis three, not only have people fallen into sin, their minds now are somewhat twisted.
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And you rationalize sin, you justify yourself when you sin, and you're even able to sear your own conscience as if with a hot iron.
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So the person who has fallen in sin, in Adam, who's not yet regenerate, yes, they have the law of God, but they twist and pervert it, the noetic effects of sin, to the point where they don't even realize how much they're doing it.
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And with the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, now you have a new principle, Romans eight.
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The law of the spirit of life is now within you. So it's this deep ministry of the spirit in the life of a believer, which includes a reordering of the mind to think the thoughts of Christ.
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The mind being renewed day by day after the image of Christ. So in the new covenant, it's not a complete change from the old.
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You still needed the spirit in the old. It's that things become much more personal and even powerful.
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Picture Peter before Pentecost. I think he's already regenerate, and yet he's denying Christ three times in weakness and cowardice.
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Come Pentecost, spirit indwelling, abiding, now he's preaching and willing to die on the streets of Jerusalem.
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You see the difference? For me, I understand death, burial, resurrection, and then
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Pentecost as a very drastic change, which is what makes me a dispensationalist, a very drastic change from what was going on.
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So the spirit is that change, as we're gonna see here. Does that help? That helps, yeah.
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Okay, yeah, wow. When you look at that in the Old Testament, it's legal.
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Yeah. It isn't indwelled, like the New Testament. Yeah. Related to that, when it's indwelled in the
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New Testament, once it's indwelled, it doesn't leave. Correct, and I would say, though, there's more continuity than that might imply.
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Unless the regenerating work of the spirit is involved, Abraham doesn't believe in Genesis 15 -7, and that spirit who came to regenerate him was still in him.
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There's still an indwelling ministry. What's different as far as the coming and going has to do with,
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I think, more empowering. So picture Saul. I'm not sure if Saul ever was regenerated like David was.
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So the spirit would come on him and empower him, and then actually leave, and an evil spirit from the
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Lord would come and torment him at times, and he'd try to pin somebody to the wall. That's not looking like a regenerate person to me.
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So the spirit could come on someone, and David also, I think, had a more inconsistent spiritual life than what we are to have as Christians.
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So he's already regenerate. The spirit is already with him and will never leave him because he's regenerate.
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He's saved by the same blood of the Lamb that we are saved by. But the spirit's ministry is not as powerful in the keeping work of the believer, in the sanctifying work, because David, he's sleeping with Bathsheba.
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He's murdering Uriah. He's, in his pride, numbering the fighting men. He's very inconsistent in a way that we are not taught to be in the new covenant.
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So Christians should actually be more consistent sanctificationally. But I just wanna be careful to acknowledge that you have to have an indwelling spirit in the
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Old Testament. Otherwise, where is regeneration? You need this, you can't have spiritual life without the spirit.
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David is regenerate like we were by the blood of Jesus. And so is Abraham.
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And so is Abraham. Through faith. Do you think in the new covenant times today, you think the spirit can come upon an unbeliever for a time and then leave, or is it?
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I don't see that happening. I think people are deluded to think that that's the case, and that's the point of Hebrews in chapter six.
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You see, they have tasted the heavenly gift and the goodness of the powers of the coming age and the word of God, and then they fall away.
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I think they are self -deluded. They think they have the spirit and they're in the assembly with everybody else, but the reason they fall away and they go out from us is they were never of us.
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So can they experience something? Sure, they can see a miracle. They can see, wow, this is profound.
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Something can really hit them from the word of God. So in that sense, they can experience
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God, but I don't think the spirit ever comes in and then out. Yeah, Stan.
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Two areas. Those who come into the church, and even there, they went through rituals, okay?
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And they thought that that was the way, just like we do here. We have the first Sunday of every month.
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We go through, you know, of the elements. Yeah. Now, people, and this,
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I'm going back into the Old Testament. People sacrifice the same way, thinking, oh, if I do this, this, and this, that's gonna be pleasing to God.
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Yes. The same way here with the element. Well, if I could do the elements, you know, I think I'm a
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Christian, so I'm gonna do the elements, and they go through these rituals, boom, boom, every month.
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Yep. And they did the same thing back in the Old Testament. Perfect. But they're really not born -again believers.
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What Tim is saying here, do you get it, and then you leave it? Does it come and go? Well, people,
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I'm thinking, when they come in, not just this church, but any church, and they go through the elements, they're like, okay,
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I did my thing. Yep. I went through the ritual. Yes. So I do these certain rituals every month.
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Wow, that is so profound, Stan. That is exactly right. It's one of the great dangers of religion, right?
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And I don't think we should say, we don't have a religion, we have relationship. No, we have a religion.
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James says, pure religion is this, look after orphans and widows in their distress. We have a rule, and that is, we're governed by the scripture to teach us what to do.
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But what the point people make when they say it's a relationship, not religion, is just this, Stan.
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So many people come and do the rituals. I think taking the sacrament in the
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Roman Catholic Church gives this false assurance that, oh, I've just received Christ, and now
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I'm good. Or that can happen in Protestant churches, too. I've gone to church on Sunday morning. I've done my singing, and I've taken communion, and they really believe that's sustaining them.
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But they're trusting in ritual. Yeah, Stan, I know you've been involved with this. When an individual comes into our fellowship, and they've perhaps been emotionally moved by what's happening here in our fellowship, and they desire it, because it's attractive.
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And so then they perhaps take some classes, and they pursue membership within our body.
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What's one of the most important things as an elder that you would have to ask that individual in the interview?
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Well, one is that do you truly believe Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? And why is that the important question?
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Because that's the whole element of everything about Jesus Christ. It is probably our aspect here, as opposed to the sacraments of the
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Catholic Church or whatever, to have somebody come in and desire, and even to be able to recite mantras that sound like, but to the
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Hebrew six, they've tasted, but they've never really. And to say, yeah, you're good enough, you can be a member of our church is actually the opposite of love.
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So the reason I bring that up, I talk and witness to a lot of people, and they go through their rituals.
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Oh, I go to church, I'm involved in the choir, I go every Sunday, I do communion.
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They go down their list, but what I really wanna hear, that they believe in Jesus Christ as their personal
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Savior. Right, never get to that. Yeah, right, right. If you go down south, the percentage of people who call themselves
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Christians and go to church on a Sunday morning is higher than it is in this part of the country.
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That doesn't mean they're all saved. That's what they all, I mean, in the Old Testament, God got angry with them because they were going through all the rituals, but they were not putting their faith and trust and following Him.
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But they were going through the rituals, and we got the same thing today. If you go to Jeremiah chapter three,
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God is going to call the nation of Israel treacherous, because they were.
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But He's going to be harsher on the nation of Judah, worse than treacherous
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Israel, because they pretended to be righteous. Before we go any further,
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I think you probably should read the text now. We're not gonna get through this today, you know that. Would you read first, one to seven, and then what we'll do is, next week we'll lead in with a review of this, because we're all good.
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And it's for a covering Bible study. We're in there, yeah. Because Bob, you felt like sometimes
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I fire -hose this Bible study stuff. I'm trying not to do that. Well, you didn't do that today. I've been listening.
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I felt bad just trying to grow. I know I questioned it, I got everything wrong. But Tim, Tim, just try it. Try it, yeah, try it.
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All right, so what we're gonna do is, we're gonna read the seven verses today, and then
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I'll give a few comments, but we'll go back into it in depth next week, and just keep going there. And this is actually good, because we want to time it that these last three chapters will correspond to the next eight weeks, nine weeks of teaching on Sunday morning, because we're doing
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Genesis one to 11, and then we're gonna pick up here in Genesis 12, so we'll be able to time it. I could take nine weeks on Sunday.
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See, we did this on purpose. I could take one chapter in nine weeks. That's right, so it'll time out good. John, would you read for us
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Galatians four, one to seven? Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be the
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Lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.
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But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
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And because ye are sons, God hath even sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying
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Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
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Okay, there was a Roman custom that Paul is referring to here.
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And that was that in a wealthy Roman family, the father would have a son, but would entrust his son to guardians to raise them.
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And he actually would not acknowledge the son as son and heir until a particular point, usually around puberty, when at this point in time they would hold an event, like a festival kind of party, and he would confer on the head what was called the toga virilis.
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It was like a toga, right? You picture a Roman toga. To indicate that this is my son.
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He is the heir of the estate. Until he had been raised up to that point, to achieve that level of maturity as a son, it was almost as if he was nothing but another slave of the house.
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He's under guardians, he can't do what he wants, he's told what to do, and we're gonna get into maybe next week, or maybe we'll touch it this week, what that looked like at different ages.
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But the big principle here is that there was a time under which this boy, growing up, was treated like a slave, he was under guardians.
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And then at a decisive moment, he was regarded and treated as a son, as an heir.
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So in chapter four, verse one, I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave.
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This corresponds to the old covenant mosaic arrangement, dispensation, which will be radically changed in the new covenant, you see this, when
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Israel, a son by covenant, by the Abrahamic covenant, believing, was under the guardianship of the mosaic covenant, guarded and raised up, treated not as a son indwelt by the
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Holy Spirit, able to discern right from wrong, having the powers of discernment trained by constant practice,
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Hebrews 5, 14, but treated like a child under this arrangement.
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No different than a slave, it says. Verse one, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.
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Now, where do you remember hearing the term guardians stressed? John, you remember this? In verse 24 of the third chapter?
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Well, it talks about there being a schoolmaster over those of the law. Yes, and that word, pedagogos, pedagogos is the
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Greek word. Guardian in the ESV, you said schoolmaster? That's the King James.
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King James has it as schoolmaster, okay. Now, here's the interesting point. When you really look at the
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Greek language, pedagogos, referring to the law, is a different word than what's also translated guardian in 4 .2.
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You would have expected pedagogos to be used here. What's different? The guardian in 3 .24
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was a slave who taught youngsters, usually from about the age of seven until puberty, to live virtuous moral lives.
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That pedagogos in Galatians 3 .24 is referencing the law of Moses as a good moral teacher.
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Beyond that, this is the one that's shaping and conforming the youngster to be raised up.
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So why not refer to what the Gentiles had with the same word?
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Something interesting happens at the end of Galatians 3. Paul, having been talking about his and Peter's Jewish upbringing, bringing under the law, transitions in verses 26 through 29 to now refer to the
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Galatian Gentiles and graph them in to include them in this discussion.
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For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God. He's talking to Galatian Gentiles, and so he says in verse 28, there's neither
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Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free. You see what he's doing? They didn't have the law, but in the covenant of believing in the offspring, they are also sons.
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28, neither Jew nor Greek. 29, if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring. You're part of this covenant promise too, heirs according to promise.
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So why does he use a different term in chapter four, verse two? The term epitropos, followed up by another word, just managers or trustees, refers to the arrangement when in Roman custom, very young children from infancy all the way up were cared for by these guardian manager trustees who were running the whole house, not specifically focused on raising and developing the child's moral life from ages seven to 12 like the pedagogos did.
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This was just a general house manager, often very distracted and not even focused on the child.
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The child who's an heir, who's a son, is disregarded, treated like a slave, just a member of the house, someone to be managed.
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Here's the comparison. Whereas the Jewish people had the pedagogos of the law, the fine moral instruction of the law,
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Gentile believers still had laws and rules in the house. There was still a moral code.
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You weren't allowed to punch your sister. You weren't allowed to go murder somebody or go steal a loaf of bread from your neighbor.
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There was moral law in the culture and in the household. But that moral law of God was not as fine -tuned and exacting as the law of Moses.
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So the Gentiles still had the general law, the general revelation. It's called here guardians and managers until the date set by his father.
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Verse three, in the same way, we also, when we were children, he's including all the Gentiles now as sons, they're viewed in this as well.
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Whether you were under the pedagogos of Moses or you were just under these guardian managers, you were, watch this, enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
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Being under law in Paul's worldview here, if you're trying to earn salvation by being good enough, it's like being a slave.
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You're never able to live up to the law. You're gonna keep falling short of it. But there's something better that comes when
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Christ appears. Look at verse four. Here's the radical discontinuity in the fullness of time.
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Dispensationalism, verse four. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, the true heir, the ultimate heir, born of woman, so he's incarnate, born under the law.
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He's subjected to law. Only he will keep it perfectly, whereas we all fall short.
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To redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
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We become adopted sons as the Gentile, we as Gentiles, as the Jews. All of us become adopted sons through the redemption, verse five, that comes through the son of God.
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And because you are sons, we're gonna pick up on this next week. We'll finish here. Because you are sons,
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God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
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So now what happens into this new covenant is that the spirit, this is very Trinitarian.
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We'll mention that and focus on it more next week. But in verse six, you have God the Father, God the
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Son, the Son is the one who redeems us, and now the spirit of the
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Son, in our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. It's a change of heart, where we're wanting to call out to our
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Father to follow our Father's lead, and the spirit is the one who will enable us to do the will of God.
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So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.
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So this is the distinction that's being made between the old covenant and what we have, and Romans eight also teaches this, with this living by the spirit, not by the old
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Mosaic law. Yeah, who had a question? Rick, yeah. Yeah, the note in the
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ESV, the work of the Son is outside in, and alien righteousness, the work of the spirit, is inside out.
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Yeah, I think that's legitimate. So that's distinguishing between the Trinitarian work. You could say in the plan of redemption,
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Ephesians one talks about this, the Father predestines redemption, the Son accomplishes redemption, the spirit applies redemption.
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So the Father is the grand planner, in accomplishing redemption, that's Jesus on the cross, accomplishing our redemption in his blood.
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And then it's the spirit who applies that in our lives. So yeah, I think the alien righteousness of Christ, his righteousness outside of us, it's the spirit though, who conforms us from the inside out.
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I think that's a legitimate interpretation there. And that's what's happening.
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It's the spirit inside of us, who's going to make us like Christ. We're not going to, so the big idea here is, if you've come to believe in Christ, he's given you the spirit of the
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Son, to live inside of you, making you an heir already, an adopted son and daughter of the
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King. You're to understand that this work of Christ is enough.
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Don't revert back to the old covenant. Next week we'll see in verses eight to 11.
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You're observing days and months and seasons and years. You're going back to weak and worthless elementary principles of the world.
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The Judaizers were trying to pull them back to revert to the old covenant, to try to establish themselves in a more profound and deep and elevated spiritual life by circumcision and holidays and perhaps even sacrifices, some of them might have said.
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Dietary codes and all of these things. They think they're so spiritual, but Paul is saying you are reverting back to the old dispensation, which is like a child treated as a slave versus the fullness of the
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Son of God living in a believer. Does it make sense? It's very deep.
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This passage is very deep. It's not milk, it's the meat of God's word.
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John, would you close us in prayer? Father, we look at verse seven, wherefore, and we understand that before are these presentations of how we, at one time, the law was our tutor, our governor, and that without the blood of Christ, because of the
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Son, God has sent forth the Spirit into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. We need the blood of the
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Son that we might become adopted sons. Wherefore, we are no more a servant, but a son.
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And so, Lord, we rejoice in the fact that the truth of the law draws us to you, that the grace of God gives us a heart to respond, and that through that now we cry out,
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Abba, Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit. And we say thank you, in Jesus' name. Amen.
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Amen. All right, we expect each of you to write a.