Saved by Works? (w/ The Pactum) | Theocast

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Question for you, the listener, are we saved by works? The answer to the question might astonish you.

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In fact, we are saved by works. The real question though, is whose works save us?

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Ours or someone else's? That will be the topic of the conversation today that John and I get to have with our friend,

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Pat Abendroth from the Pactum, when we will be talking about the active obedience of Christ.

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If you don't know what that means, this podcast is for you. If you know what that term means, this podcast is also for you.

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Your soul will be encouraged. Jesus is better than we ever thought he was.

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Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word. It's called pietism. You ever felt like the

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Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy? That you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what

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Christ has done for you? It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes

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Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

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And we have a little book for you. It's free. We want you to download it. And we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism.

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Reform theology, really. How it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when

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Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like? You can download it on our website.

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Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

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Christian life from a confessional, reformed, and pastoral perspective. Yes, we hope to be all three today.

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Your hosts today are John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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And we have a special guest on with us today. And John is gonna intro him here in just a moment. We're pretty geeked about this conversation.

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We hope you're excited as well. One brief announcement for you, especially if you're new or with us, we would encourage you to check out the

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Theocast community. It's on the Circle app. And so you can figure out all the information that you need over at our website, theocast .org.

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If you get on there, you're gonna find that it's basically like Facebook, but way better. No ads, no weird things, no memes, no flame throwing.

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Just a bunch of people who charitably want to interact and better understand the things of the faith and want to point one another to Christ.

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We would encourage you to go check that out. I think that you'll enjoy your time there. So without further ado,

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John, why don't you introduce our very special guest that we have on the pod with us today?

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Yeah, he's no stranger to Theocast, thankfully. The Pactum Verse has influenced us and we are thankful for it.

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And it's good to have one of the main drivers of the Pactum Verse, Pat Eberdroth.

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I just want to talk about Pat just for a moment. Come on, every guest is special. So thank you for calling me special.

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Yeah, I've been aware of Pat for like 15 years. I remember hearing about him in seminary.

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And then when I moved to Tennessee, I had the joy of getting to know Pat, sitting underneath his preaching and teaching at different conferences and men's events.

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And then over the years, we've been able to spend time in California and just really appreciated our brother who is beyond kind and gracious with his time with Theocast and with me personally.

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And so just wanted to do a shout out and be super thankful for you and your ministry. And if you aren't listening to The Pactum, you do not know what you're missing, absolutely.

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What a great photo. Great picture. That was a good night. A great picture of the three of us. Man, I want to be back in January. That was awesome.

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That was awesome. What a great time we had at dinner that night. It was fun. Yeah, it was a good night. If you don't know what we're talking about, we went to the

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West Cal Conference and got an opportunity to hang up with Pat. And today was supposed to be a different podcast.

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And in God's providence, we are going to sneak one in with Pat because of the original one we're not able to do.

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And so Pat, we're here to talk to you about my now, I guess it's been like four or five weeks since this comes out, but Pat has a new book out.

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Indeed, indeed. And I don't mind. And that's why we want to talk to him. I don't mind being the consolation prize. So I'm glad we get to do this.

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I'm thankful for Theocast. I'm appreciative of Justin and John. So thanks for having me on to talk about a new book.

04:28

Yeah. And to talk about a really important topic. Let's be real. It's not like, yeah. So we're going to talk about the book because you're going to need to buy it.

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This is not going to be sufficient. I'm just telling you right now, we're going to just kind of bait you just to go buy this thing.

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And it's a good resource. And may I make a recommendation? I heard someone do this recently and I liked it. Buy two.

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Here's why. Buy one for yourself and one to give away. That's right. And it's not that expensive.

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It's a pretty smaller, it's a little book, right? It's not going to be like a massive tome. So not too intimidating at all.

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And available on Amazon, is this correct? It'll be $10 .99, so keep it simple.

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For less than $21, $22, you'll be able to encourage yourself and someone else.

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And it is definitely a good gospel track to share with people who need to be encouraged. So that's what we're going to talk about today.

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Believe it or not, we're going to talk about salvation by works and how all three of us love it. Pat, what is the title of your new book?

05:27

It is called The Act of Obedience of Christ. So it is not very creative, but I didn't really want to have the theme get lost.

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You would rather be clear than cute. Because that's what you're saying. It's actually about, and right, it's actually about the fact that salvation is by works.

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So please keep listening though, to this episode of Theocast. We are, each of us are thorough going

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Protestants. We believe in solos, but salvation is by works, as R .C. Sproul would say, that it's by the works of Christ.

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That's right. Which, you know, it really triggers people. I can just, you know, on a Sunday morning, I remember actually asking people, who here thinks salvation is by works?

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And you know, people are shaking their head no, and then the brave souls are putting their hands up, and you think,

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Jesus didn't just show up and, you know, take a nap, he didn't do nothing.

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He didn't just show up Passion Week either. That's actually true, right? He obeyed the law perfectly in our stead.

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And he - Wait, wait, it wasn't as an example? You sure it wasn't as an example? It's more than an example,

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John. Not less than an example, but more than an example. All right, so Pat, let me put it to you this way.

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If you were, because John and I like to do this on occasion. If you were to make your way to Asheville, North Carolina, or Spring Hill, Tennessee, and you were hanging out at a church office -

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I would go to burial if I went to Asheville. Yes, you would. Spring Hill, where would I go in Spring Hill?

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Where would I get good barbecue, John? Oh, for, oh, Edley's Barbecue, best in the state. All right, so there we have it.

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All right, so let's say, Pat, that you came to Asheville. I'm just gonna be selfish here. You came to Asheville, we went on a nice bike ride, and then we go to burial, and we're sitting there with some, maybe some members of my church, new members of the church that are newer to the faith, and they were to ask you, they're just like, hey,

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Pat, I've heard of this category called the active obedience of Jesus, but I've never heard anybody really explain it to me, which

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I don't think would happen if they were members of our church here, but let's just say I'm good. Pat, talk to me. Hypothetically.

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Talk to me over a beer about the active obedience of Jesus. I'm new to the topic. How would you respond?

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I'm gonna say, well, let me give you the short answer first, then we'll look at the menus and order, and then we'll talk about meat.

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That's a good strategy. This has happened before, so before we order, let me just tell you ahead of time, it's simple.

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The active obedience of Christ is about the fact that Jesus is better. All right, now let's look at the menus and let that simmer into your mind, and then once we place our order, then

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Jesus is better than we even thought he was because as Christians, we all are thankful that he made atonement for our sins.

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We're thankful that he suffered and died in our place, and that is vital because, as I would say,

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I have a lot of sins. We have a lot of sins that need, you know, we need atonement, but the reality is that would only bring us to zero, and God doesn't require zero.

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As a matter of fact, according to Jesus, God requires that we obey perfectly, that we love him with heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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We love our neighbor as ourselves, and so none of us have done that positively, and we must, or there's no eternal life based upon what

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Jesus says, and so the active obedience of Christ is where Jesus perfectly upholds, he perfectly obeys in our place so that the law can be fulfilled, so when

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Jesus says, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law, ah, there we have it.

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Jesus is better than we even thought he was. He takes away our guilt by his work, but he also positively provides perfect righteousness, which is law -keeping.

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There's the active obedience of Christ in a nutshell. No, that's really good. How'd I do? You did wonderfully.

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And what did we order? Now I really wanna go order something. I would have probably ordered some Imperial IPA or something from Burial, but no, you hit it on the head, brother.

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I mean, a lot of times the way that the gospel is presented is functionally, like you said,

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God brings us back to zero through the atoning work of Christ, and we functionally get a do -over. Yep, I think that's what

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Rick Warren said. The message of Easter is we get a mulligan. Golly, we need more than a mulligan, brother.

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A do -over is not good news, right? It's not good news at all. Let's not cut the work of Christ at least in half, because I'm thinking of Heidelberg Catechism question 60, where how are you righteous before God, right?

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That's the question that we're asking, because at God's bar, to use a courtroom term, at God's bar at the end of all this, there's gonna be one question asked of us effectively, and what is that?

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Well, did you keep the law? Absolutely, yeah. Are you righteous, i .e. a law -keeper, or are you unrighteous, a law -breaker?

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Yeah, and you know what I'm gonna say then, Justin, is I'm just gonna point to Jesus and say, I'm with Him. Exactly, exactly,

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I am with Him. That's the point. So much of life is who you know, and you know what?

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Heaven is gonna be based upon who you know, and it's gonna be based upon works. It is gonna be based upon works, but it's

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His, right? I love 1 John 2 so much, where it says, Jesus Christ, the righteous, right?

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Don't sin, but if you do, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, the law -keeper, act of obedience of Christ.

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It's so awesome. And it's, of course, His atoning work is counted to us, the satisfaction He made for sins is counted to us, but His holiness and His obedience are counted to us as our righteousness and as our obedience.

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It's as though we were as perfectly obedient to the law as He was. Yeah, yeah. And the gospel really does, or justification really does bring two benefits.

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I put it out recently that it does bring forgiveness of our disobedience, and then we are given the obedience of Jesus.

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Those are the two things that are, right? That's mercy and grace in the gospel. So mercy is to not receive what

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I do deserve, and then to receive what I did not earn. And that's really what you're arguing for is the second part of the gospel, which in essence,

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I think they're both important, but it's that second one that brings us the hope of the future versus dread, because otherwise it's me trying to earn the righteousness by perfection, which can't be done.

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And that's where we end up lowering, I don't know if you're going to hear Justin, but in our preaching, we end up lowering the requirements of the law so that we can meet them because we're not believing in the second gift, which is

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God's grace and His obedience given to us. If brief, brief insertion here, and then we can go there. When we talk about the gospel,

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Jesus, who He is and what He did, that's the gospel. And by receiving Him in faith, everything that's

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His is ours. So in receiving Christ, we receive all of His benefits, those benefits being forgiveness of sins, absolution of guilt, righteousness, and eternal resurrection life.

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And so we don't ever want to gut the good news by minimizing those benefits that we receive through our union with Christ.

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Amen. I love everything you guys are saying. Yeah, and we are saying the work of Christ is a single work, right?

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The whole work of Christ. But we're just taking it apart and looking at the one work of Christ from different aspects, different angles.

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Turning that diamond and looking at it, that's right. Yeah, absolutely. So it's a little artificial. It's the one work of Christ, but we can look at it from different aspects.

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The diamond analogy is good. So John, you were going here, let's chase this rabbit a little bit.

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What are ways that the active obedience of Christ are, ways that it's minimized, ways that it's neglected, ways that it maybe is taught against?

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And I think you were picking up on one of them by saying, yeah, we tend to dumb down the law and lower the standard functionally as though we can keep it.

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Let's talk about that maybe to start as to how that obscures the active obedience of Christ, but then maybe kick around some other ways that that happens.

13:15

Well, I'd love to throw it over to Pat. You had some experience in this, even just in your own ministry of wrestling through this subject, right?

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So once you go down the rabbit hole, I think of justification and trying to figure out sola fide, right?

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Once you go there, you start to see things you can't unsee, and we've had this conversation before, but what ends up happening is you say, okay, if we're declared righteous in justification, we're not made righteous, unless we mean made righteous in the eyes of God in the courtroom of God.

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But we're not infused with righteousness. No, it's not transformative. It's declaration, because it's

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Romans 4. He justifies the ungodly. So it's the declaration of God.

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Then you say, okay, but it's based upon what? Well, Rome says, you Protestants, it's legal fiction.

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It's declared righteous based upon nothing. And we need a response. I mean, I like it that they're thinking logically, but the response is actually there's real righteousness, and the real righteousness is the real righteousness of a substitute whose name is

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Jesus, and he fulfilled all righteousness. And we should also point out, so many people don't even know what righteous means.

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So I do talk about that in the book. It's simple. Start looking it up in different dictionaries, and it doesn't take long to figure out righteous has to do with law.

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And to be righteous is to be a law upholder, a law keeper. And we get a lot of traction if we just figure that out.

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So - You're entirely right. I mean, in preaching Romans recently, that was my, as I researched the word, that was my definition.

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Righteous is to be a law keeper. And then once we know that, we say, oh, it's not legal fiction. It's real because it's

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Christ. Exactly. So in life and ministry, it's become important because you've, first of all, sola fide, and then you deal with the arguments, and then imputation, it's

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Christ's real righteousness imputed to us. As a human being, it's righteousness. That's important. Right, Justin?

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That's another huge one. Because Rome will object and say that it makes no sense for the judge to impute his righteousness to the defendant.

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And it's like, no, that's not what we're saying. We're saying Jesus as a human being fulfilled the law and represented us as a man, and his righteousness as a man is counted to us.

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Yes. And that's another factor in all of this is the humanity of Christ. And it's good that we fought the

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Jehovah's Witnesses for years, and we have to fight for the deity of Christ, but I think lots of evangelicals don't know why he had to be a human.

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Even in 1 John, a big part of the issue is not his deity, even though that's important. People are denying his humanity.

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And so that becomes significant. Way back, I think it was in the 70s, it's in the book, I don't remember off the top of my head, but F .F.

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Bruce talked about this beguiling sin of evangelicalism or something like that, which is neglect of the humanity of Christ.

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And I think actually he was right about that. I think, I agree. And he was in the

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Brethren movement. And so you've got Darby in the Brethren movement who really doesn't understand a robust category for humanity.

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And so it's no wonder he denied covenant of works. No wonder he denied the act of obedience of Christ, essentially, because of these very kinds of things.

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So we're off and running now, boys, aren't we? I would love to ask Paul a question if I can.

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Go ahead, John. So, Pat, one of the things that you said, and we can hear him, and this is within the conservative

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Calvinistic, Calvangelical world, you said that we're not infused with righteousness, which most evangelicals would agree.

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But then they say, but we've been given a new nature, a new creation. So you're making it sound like that there isn't something new about us, which can sound antinomianism, which is why

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I think you deal with this in the last part of your book in the appendix. But talk to us how the act of obedience of Christ really falls in play with our understanding of saint and sinner simultaneously, right?

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It does, it does, yeah. At the same time, a saint and a sinner. So something new does happen, right?

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The new birth is real. God does regenerate, and that produces faith. But we still have to realize that justification is forensic.

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It's based upon the righteousness of another, not ours. Good works come as a result, right?

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Now that we're made alive with Christ, together with him. But we need to be - United to him, yep. Yeah, we need to be clear that Romans 6 comes after Romans 5.

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Right. Right? Right, amen. We should be so utterly clear about justification that it begs the question, does this mean we can sin?

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We can just sin. And not care. And, but we, if people aren't asking the question, as Lloyd -Jones said infamously, then we're not being clear.

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So we need to be that clear, and then we say, may it never be, absolutely. You should be following the law.

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Even in Romans 6, he uses law terminology, but now it's third use of the law. Now it's because we're in Christ by faith, no condemnation.

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We should, but, right? These are just, these are theocast things. Yeah, they're pactum things too.

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But it's, you talk about wrestling. There is a wrestling where the absolute statements of the act of obedience of Christ, of our justification, causes people to flinch.

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Because if you are able to, and I would say, when it comes to justification, all three of us are antinomians in that area, 100%.

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Like, all right. Actually, I know exactly what you're saying, but we're actually not, because Jesus Christ is the righteous.

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Right, but our part in it is the antinomian. Of course. It's our work. I mean, even the end of Romans 3, do we overthrow the law?

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The end of Romans 3, do we overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. Absolutely. He says, we uphold the law. How? It's this issue.

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It is entirely at the act of obedience of Christ that's in view there in Romans 3, 28 to 31. But if you don't like assurance, and Rome doesn't, so at least they're being consistent.

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So if you don't like assurance, Richard Baxter did not like the act of obedience of Christ. So basically,

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Baxter says that justification is based upon sanctification. Yep. And he did not like this doctrine.

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And that is common today. And thankfully, John Owen goes after him because of such things. But clearly, if Jesus perfectly makes atonement, and if he perfectly fulfills the law, and we know that he does, we know that he does because he's raised from the dead, which is his vindication,

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Paul says to Timothy, and he's declared righteous at his resurrection officially, and all of his benefits come to us freely by faith, man, he's better than we even thought he was.

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He's a complete savior, saving to the uttermost, and it's exciting to think about these things.

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Maybe going back to your point earlier about not emphasizing the law enough, that's what's going down in Romans 10.

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I mean, if we can get people to think through what's happening in Romans 10, they don't look to Christ as their righteousness provided by God freely to us who believe.

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What they do is they create their own standard, their own law. They seek to establish their own righteousness. Yep, they lower the standard, the standard being perfect, personal, perpetual obedience, and so they lower it, they come up with a new law that they can obey somehow, supposedly, maybe with God's help, and then they don't need a savior to justify them or to provide righteousness for them.

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They don't need Christ because they do it themselves. So I think totally with you guys, we need to preach the law unvarnished, that God will let no one into heaven, that he will give no one eternal life apart from perfectly obeying him.

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And we're undone, right? If we can, let's riff on that a little bit. So two passages that I would love for us to geek out on a little bit.

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One, I'll start with Luke 10, 25 through 29, which is the -

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You're taking the easy one, come on. Then we're gonna go Romans, then we're gonna go Romans 2, 3. All right, let's do

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Romans first. All right, so I love this one. All right, let's go. So Romans 2, 6 through like 13 even, where it's very plain that God is a righteous, impartial judge.

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He shows no favoritism. He will reward those who do good and he will punish those who do evil.

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Then he goes on to say that it is the, not the hearers of the law, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

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All right, so we have our friends, certainly in Rome, but then we have a number of friends, guys, who are well -meaning brothers and sisters in the

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Lord who would say that Paul is right. See, it requires us to do something, guys.

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Yes, faith in Jesus, but it's also spirit -wrought obedience that Paul is talking about here.

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And I'm with Robert Haldane that you leave that passage either a Protestant or a Romanist and there is no middle ground.

22:14

You know, and so - And I'm with John Calvin who says, if you can't figure out the meaning of this, you should be laughed at even by children. No, he didn't.

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Brother, it's - Oh yeah, what a great quote. All right, so here's the deal, guys. I'll go ahead and launch this out and then you guys riff as you want.

22:28

It is true that God rewards those who do good. The problem is, as Paul's gonna say in the early verses of Romans three, no one does good.

22:36

It is true that God rewards those who diligently seek him. The problem is no one seeks for God. It is true that God will give the righteous eternal life.

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The problem is there is no one righteous. No, not one, right? No one has done it, which is why the righteousness of God is revealed apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, which is the righteousness of God given.

22:58

Romans 2 13 ends up being a litmus, right? Yes. Okay, to find out where somebody really is and if they understand these things -

23:04

On this issue, you look up Romans 2 13 to see how do they explain? God doesn't justify the hearers.

23:11

He justifies the doers, which is your point. And it's alarming, right? People who would otherwise be clear about things lose their ever -loving

23:20

Protestant mind. Oh, and then James, they do it in James too. Yeah, yeah. So the book is positive by and large because I'm a positive person, but there are some footnotes.

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So John Piper's an example and a footnote because all of a sudden now justification, according to Romans 2 13, somehow is by faith and works.

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Tom Schreiner's the same way. Tom Schreiner's the same way. It's not helpful at all regarding these issues.

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And so we need to be clear, justification is only for the doers of the law. And there's only one person who stands in that line,

23:59

Jesus Christ, the righteous. And so don't read Romans 2 13, dear listeners, don't read Romans 2 13 without continuing to read like Justin just did to chapter three.

24:09

Yeah. Otherwise it's a wonder we can't have assurance. Hey guys, real quick. Some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

24:18

So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the

24:25

Theocast Community. We're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like -minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there and you can share it and ask questions.

24:37

You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. I love this from Paul in Galatians 3 when he says, but now that faith has come, we are no longer under guardian or under a guardian for in Christ, you are all sons of God through faith for as many as you were baptized into Christ.

24:54

Now listen to how Paul words this, have put on Christ. Why would he say that? He's not saying put on his forgiveness.

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He's saying you're putting on the person of Christ. You have received the benefits of Christ. We kind of miss the imagery here when he says baptized into Christ.

25:11

Jesus stands in the waters of baptism and he looks at John. John, he tells him, hey, you need to baptize me.

25:16

John's like, you need to baptize me. And Jesus' words out of his mouth are very important. He says, you need to baptize me to fulfill all righteousness.

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And it says that John stopped disputing because he understood what it meant. And so Jesus receives the baptism that's required for the holy priesthood to become the great high priest.

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And when he comes up out of that water, that's the baptism he's talking about. Paul's like, you've been baptized into the fulfillment of Christ's righteousness.

25:40

He fulfilled all of the required righteousness. What does Peter call us? He calls us royal priests.

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Why? Because we're wearing the priestly gowns of Jesus. We didn't earn the rights as priests.

25:51

We can't be of the right line. We can't be perfect. But all of this - But that screams Joshua in Zechariah 3, right?

25:56

That's right. All of this imagery is that we're clothed in all that Christ didn't do, which he didn't break the law.

26:04

And he also fulfilled the law. And in doing so, all of that's given to us. And that's why

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Paul uses that language of clothing. So yeah, there is the center reality is that I, in my standing before God, am set free from all obligations.

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But there's a difference between my standing before God and the work that it's left for us to do.

26:24

So Pat, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about how does your view of the act of obedience of Christ actually encourage obedience for the right reasons?

26:33

Yeah, absolutely. Because we're in the family now, right? Romans 8 and Romans 5 as well.

26:40

But there's therefore now, think about that, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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Which is fascinating because he's talking about the future. He's talking about judgment day, condemnation.

26:54

So justification, condemnation. Condemnation is what you don't want. Justification is the positive way of saying the same thing.

27:00

So in God's court of law, because we'll all face the judge one day, guess how it's gonna be for you if you're trusting in Christ now.

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So therefore, there's therefore now. I take that as, let me tell you the future. Here's how it's gonna go.

27:14

So much for final justification. Yes, because he's talking. Yeah, right? Because he's talking about final justification right there.

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He is in Romans 5, like you said, and he is in Romans 8. Yes, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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We already know the future because we're in Christ. It's absolute. And so we have assurance.

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And then you keep reading Romans 8. I mean, Paul just goes out of his way. Nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

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He defies all of the cosmos, right? It's like nothing. Just mind -blowingly wonderful.

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And to go back to your point, John, so obedience then flows out of that. I mean, Romans has a lot to say about obedience, not just in chapter six, but I mean, you transition chapter 12, and it's just launching, but we need to remember that it's an act of worship, right?

28:08

So by the mercies - And he appeals by the mercies of God. Yes, he's appealing back to all you've learned about Christ now that you're in the family, now that you're in error, do the right thing.

28:19

Yeah. And we wanna do the right thing, and we can do the right thing, but ultimately we have

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Jesus Christ the righteous. Amen. Right, would you say this is Paul or John in first John when he's talking about perfect love casts out all fear, that we could say that fear is the act of obedience of Christ righteous on our behalf.

28:37

Would that be fair to say? Yeah, absolutely, yup. So the other day, Molly and I were going to a

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Creighton basketball game. So Creighton's doing all right, so I'll mention them. And we're running behind, and we gotta get in, and it's freezing cold.

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Somebody had given us their tickets, and so we get there, and we realize that she couldn't bring her person, right?

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You have to have a see -through bag and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, you know, I just wanted to spit. I was so, like, what do

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I do? But I don't like to take no for an answer, so I thought, oh, I have a friend who works security here.

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Let's call his, let's say his name is John because it is. So anyway, so we step out of line,

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I call John, and he's just like, sorry, can't do anything for you. I'm kind of bugged. I mean, he's a deacon in my church after all.

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So anyway, I'm like, surely there was a workaround. And then he said, before I hung up, he said, now

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Molly does have medicine in her purse that she needs, doesn't she? And I said, indeed, she does.

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And he said, tell the guy that that's what you, at your entrance, that she has medicine, and they'll red -tag it, and she'll get in.

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And so it all happened, it all went down, and what I walked away with thinking was, don't tell me you can't get into heaven with your sin.

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I can get into heaven with my sin because of who I know, right?

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Oh my, that is so good. Jesus Christ, the righteous. Now again, I wish

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I didn't have any sin. So just a good illustration to think through. It really is, going back to what we said earlier, it's who you know, and it is by works.

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It's just based upon his. Well, and I think what's so hard about this conversation is that just kind of, without evangelicals knowing it, if you embrace stuff like Schreiner and Piper, and I would even say

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Doug Wilson, your good works, you really start to value them. Instead of them being for the glory of God and the advancement of the kingdom, right?

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For the benefit of others, for the good of neighbor and the glory of God, they become a way to tally your righteousness, to guarantee that God's gonna accept you.

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That's where we say resting doesn't lead to motionless, like no motion.

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Actually, resting in the sufficiency of Christ, I think, causes you to work harder going, I don't need to prove to God that I'm righteous.

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Because I'm righteous, I'm gonna go and exert, well, I'm gonna be a sacrifice. I can lay myself down for others, which

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I think you end up becoming more effective because you do works that benefit others instead of works that benefit you.

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Like my own righteousness benefits by this. I don't need my righteousness to benefit from this. I need you to benefit from this.

31:15

That's right, right. Sorry, Justin. So let's do the, just to illustrate some more confusion, let's have fun with Luke 10 for just a moment.

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And then we'll figure out a way we wanna land the show. So Luke 10, 25 and following, one of the most famous parables

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Jesus ever told, the parable of the Good Samaritan. What I think is often missed is the context of that parable.

31:36

It's not meant to be what you name hospitals after? Correct. So I'll go ahead and paint the picture and kind of get us off and running and then you brothers can pile on, okay?

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So we have a lawyer that approaches Jesus, asks him, you know, good teacher, what do

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I need to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus, dead giveaway, what's in the law? How do you read it?

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And the scribe answers, the lawyer answers, will love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, love your neighbor as yourself.

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Jesus says, you've answered correctly, do this and you will live. That's Leviticus 18, five.

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That is a law as a covenant of works paradigm. If you do this, you'll have life. And then the lawyer, here's the key too, the lawyer stands up seeking to justify himself, insertion according to what?

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The law, right? He asks, well, who's my neighbor? We're gonna litigate here. That's what we're doing.

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We're litigating. I wanna make sure, I want this clearly defined for me so that I can make sure that I cover all my bases and I'm good.

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And then Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. And here's how this parable is often preached.

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Basically, everybody is mowed down. Nobody's done this. That's true. But then what we're told is, you've not done this.

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Try harder, do better to prove that you're legitimate. That's how it's generally handled.

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When in reality, we should say, no one has ever done this. One, you've not kept the law.

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You've not loved neighbor as self, not for five minutes. And then secondarily, third use of the law, we encourage everyone, guys, look, consider everything that Christ has done for us.

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Consider the love of God for us. And now let's be sacrificial in how we love and serve each other. Amen. But that's not, the confusion is a plenty.

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I think if there's one passage to preach, give me the opportunity to preach on anything. I'm gonna preach on this text, right?

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Because you know, people don't get it. They don't understand. So guest preaching at places, man, go for it.

33:42

Do the pen. Set the grenade on the table, pull the pin. Well, because in one sense, there's not a lot of, how can you argue with it, right?

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Jesus says, do this and live. I mean, there you go, have a nice life. But it happens though, Pat, it happens.

33:56

People totally mistranslate this. Why, why do you think that is? Because we love, we're glory grubbers, right?

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We wanna get our hands on the glory is what we wanna do. And somehow it's somehow. Pat, do you think it has anything to do with the concern for nominalism?

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Sure. The way we interpret that text. Don't let the word get out that salvation is truly of the

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Lord. Because if you do, people won't obey, they won't behave. So it's just the wrong way of going about things.

34:25

No, that's right. We want people to know that they're safe so they'll obey. I mean, we, you guys use the illustration all the time.

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I use it as well. My kids aren't trying to somehow earn the right to be in my family. To be in Abedrog.

34:37

Yeah, they're in the family already. So there's that. That text you mentioned that is quoted in Leviticus 18.

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I mean, and then what you see is it's alluded to everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Throughout the

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Old Testament. And we know that it has to do with justification because of what

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Jesus says, but also Paul writing under the inspiration of the spirit in Romans 10 is referring to the very same text.

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It's about salvation. In Galatians three. And live, yes. And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

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And then in principle, even when it's not referred to, in principle, it's everywhere. You know, John chapter five, a day is coming when good people will go to heaven and bad people will go to hell.

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I mean, that's what Jesus teaches. And you're like, so I guess you better be good.

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No, keep reading. John chapter six, at least, you know, he's the one you must trust in.

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Eat my flesh, drink my blood, which is synonymous with believing. And if you would be doing the works of God, believe in the one in whom he sent.

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That's there too. So I think what often happens with Jesus even in the gospels, because there are places clearly, like we just said, he speaks words of law, do this and live.

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And then in other places, he speaks words of gospel. Like we just said, from John six. Believe in me, feed on me, right?

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So then what often happens, I find, is that we make Jesus sound schizophrenic. It's like, well, it's kind of both, you know?

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It's like, well, you know, it's faith in Jesus and it's law -keeping. That's that Romans 2 .13

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dilemma. That's the gospel. Yes, the gospel. The damning mixture of law and gospel.

36:12

That's right, it's kind of both. When in reality, what we need to realize is that one provides the other. Faith in Christ provides righteousness under the law because he is our representative and our law keeper.

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And he fulfills it all. What cost him dearly, right? What cost him dearly comes to us freely. Amen. That's why we call it good news.

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So when I do membership classes, we have a section that we teach law gospel distinction.

36:36

And so I say, all right, so here's the gospel and everybody agrees with it. And I'm like, the simplest way is to think about all that Christ has done for us, right?

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He forgave us and gave us, right? He just, it's done. And everybody's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And then

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I say, and here's the law. Think about do, do this and live. If you obey God perfectly, then you are acceptable in his sight and will receive glory.

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And everybody's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with that, I agree with that. And then we read this passage and it all goes out the window. I'm like, law or gospel?

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And they're like, oh, it's gospel. And I was like, okay, think about the question for a second, right? Hey, good teacher, what must

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I do to be acceptable in your kingdom? Because that's what he's asking. What must

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I do to be accepted there? You read it. Yeah, right. In the gospel, according to Luke, we have law from Jesus.

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And Jesus was the best law preacher of all, right? And he was the best gospel preacher of all. And it also relates to the fact that Jesus, his life was a life of law keeping.

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And so if you tell people that salvation is by following Jesus, you're telling people salvation is by law.

37:46

That's right. I mean, follow Jesus, have fun with that, right? I mean, can you imagine being James, his half brother?

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Gosh. Mom and dad are just saying, if you could just be more like your older brother, because he's always doing the right thing.

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So that's why we need to trust in him. That's right. So this man comes, and some people think he asked

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Jesus how to be saved. He didn't. He asked Jesus how to save himself. How can I enter into the kingdom?

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But then you have people who are trapped in sin, like the woman at the well, or even the woman at Jesus' feet.

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And they eventually come to the realization that, oh, I need this man. The living water.

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The woman who'd been bleeding for 12 years, et cetera. That's right. I need this man. And so everyone who comes to him by faith, then they have entrance into the kingdom.

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And so that's what people don't understand is that the distinction between the law and the gospel is that every time someone approaches Jesus, it's how they approach him.

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Those who approach him by means of self -righteousness, he gives them the law and says, hey, have fun with that.

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Be a good Samaritan, have fun with that one. But those who know they need him, he's compassionate, gentle, and lowly.

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Yes, yes. And that law is designed to show them their sin and misery so that they'll see their need for him.

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So unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, Matthew chapter five, let's be devastated by the law so that we can look to Christ, the law keeper, and then we want to follow and be obedient.

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We want to do righteous things, Romans chapter six, out of gratitude for him. Amen, yeah. Talking about the law and using it the way we should to drive people to Christ.

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It's Romans 3 .20, through the law comes knowledge of sin. Romans 5 .20, law was given to increase the trespass.

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The law didn't make it better. When God gave the law on Sinai, it did not make the condition of mankind better, it made it worse.

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It showed us the depth of our sin. I mean, Romans 7 .13, to show us that we're sinful beyond measure. Galatians 3 .19,

39:50

the law was given because of trespasses, because of transgression. I mean, that's exactly what you're saying, bro.

39:55

That's how we should use the law in its first and greatest application. All right, so Pat, we've got just a few minutes, and this is author of the book's choice here, okay?

40:05

We can either go down the appendix road of dispensationalism and Darby and those fun things, or we could talk a little bit about this thing called the covenant of works.

40:18

You get to choose in how it relates to this topic. Door one, door two, those are both hard. Those are good choices, brother. I don't know what

40:23

I would choose. Oh, man. But hey, can I say this? Don't feel too much pressure. I think they're connected, though, aren't they?

40:28

Okay, so I like, yeah, right? I like to bend the rules, right? Why do one when you can do both, right?

40:34

Exactly. One of, one, ha ha. That is funny.

40:40

One of the reasons that dispensationalists, you know, some of them at least, I'm thankful for dispensationalists who affirm the act of obedience of Christ, but dispensationalism has had a 200 year history by and large of denying it.

40:53

But one of the reasons would be because it's associated with covenant theology and covenant of works. And so I think we can talk about both of them, probably.

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But hey, in one sense, I like to say to dispensational friends, I don't mind if you stay a dispensationalist, just get soteriology right.

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So if you want to believe in a future for Israel, may the Lord bless you. Read Romans 11 and sure, the

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Jew should believe in Jesus and become part of the church. But God will take all of his elect. Yeah, there you go.

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So with that said, however, you know, this is not about that. And even the covenant of works is not about that.

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It's about what God requires, what he required of Adam, our federal head. And Adam, you know, drives the bus into the ditch and it goes poorly.

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Now we need a new federal head, Romans 5, who's Jesus Christ, to obey through his act of obedience, it says.

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It says one act, but Jesus did more than just die. He actually was raised and he lived, but capturing the whole, he calls it one act, complete.

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We need a new federal head and we have one in Christ. Amen. But that he's fulfilling the obligation.

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He has his covenant of works that he fulfills. And so if dispensationalists could just realize that we're talking about apples and oranges and maybe we could win them over,

42:13

I'm certainly trying to do that. I'm not trying to be the bully or mean guy. I'm just saying a lot of your guys have gotten it wrong,

42:21

Darby, Ironside, et cetera, because they're terrified, maybe of what I'm gonna call the boogeyman, which would be covenant theology, which really is not about whether or not

42:31

Israel has a future. It's about how to be saved, right? That's right. You do have to face, you know, whether you wanna call it a covenant,

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I always say this all the time, covenant of works is just a title. You know, like the

42:43

Trinity is just a title. The word itself is not inspired. Whatever you wanna call it, we don't care, but you have to believe that Jesus is the second

42:52

Adam. That's how Paul describes it, where the first Adam failed. Well, if you're making a comparison, what was

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Adam supposed to do the first time then? If Jesus is the second Adam, what is he supposed to do the first time?

43:03

And I think what's interesting for me when I started learning this was the verse that I had quoted my entire life as a little boy even.

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Jesus wept. Yeah, yeah, he definitely wept. But for all have sinned.

43:17

Shortest verse. Shortest verse, yeah. But for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

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And in that context, and even in the flow of thought, you know, Hebrews 2 .10, for God, for Jesus brought many sons to glory.

43:30

Why? He brought them on the wings of his righteousness, right? On the wings of his obedience. So good.

43:36

So if I can do this without getting us all blacklisted, the marrow of modern divinity.

43:43

So when Thomas Boston's expansive footnotes on the marrow are worth the price of admission, right?

43:49

And Boston says, pertaining to this topic, he says that we will most certainly make our way to God through a covenant of works.

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It's just that Jesus will carry us the entire way. And that's the way to put it.

44:06

Jesus gives us access to eat of the tree of life that shows up at the end of the whole thing in the book of Revelation.

44:13

And he does that because he is the one who has earned access to it. And where Adam failed to earn that access,

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Jesus did. And then he ushers us into eternal life based on what he has done.

44:27

Like you said, Jesus is better. He absolutely is. He can't improve, but he's better from our perspective, right?

44:34

And I'm encouraged by the fact that, okay, maybe we've kind of fallen asleep at the wheel on this one, and evangelicals have lost sight of this.

44:45

Sproul said that we should not call ourselves evangelical because of this. We should call ourselves imputationalists.

44:52

So he championed this cause. But I think I'm encouraged because since it is biblical and people, once they see it, it seems like they can't unsee it.

45:02

And I'm, you know, we're witnessing a great, I don't know if we should say resurgence, but we're witnessing a lot of people seeing

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Jesus the way they should see him. Pastors are seeing him the way they should see him, church members,

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Christians. And so I think these are great days for gospel because of this.

45:22

I mean, your phrase, he's better, is the summary of Hebrews, right? It is. Ah, okay.

45:28

I like that. Thank you for making me more spiritual, John. I can count greater than everything who came before and he's the fulfillment of it all.

45:36

He's the greater sacrifice, the greater everything. Anyways, well, this has been awesome.

45:41

For those of you, did you guys have any final thoughts? No, I was just gonna close it down. Rip this thing down. No, I was gonna close it down.

45:48

All right. Oh yeah, I guess you have the intro there. It's all fine, we're good. We're professionals here. Well, tell them how they can find,

45:53

Pat, tell them how they can find you. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Pat, tell people where they can find you, get more of your work.

45:59

If people are like, hey man, this was encouraging. Yes, so you can find the book, The Act of Obedience of Christ on Amazon.

46:06

You can also, there are study questions, discussion questions. There'll be a link in the back of the book and you can download the

46:12

PDF for free. I got my new Bible study from the church, awesome. Thank you, brother. So there is that also.

46:18

You can also, you know, I'm on the Packham every week. So you can go to thepackham .org. You can find us on Instagram.

46:25

You can find us on Twitter. Oh, wait a second. The platform formerly known as Twitter.

46:31

Twitter, yeah. Kind of like Prince, right? The artist formerly known as Prince, but we're on X.

46:36

Whatever we call it these days. Easy to find. Excellent. Well, Pat, thank you so much for your time, man. It's always encouraging to be with you.

46:44

And this was a good, I was encouraged by this conversation. I know John was as well. I trust the listeners will be too.

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And hey, if the Lord and his providence allows it, we may be back together soon for a little bit of talk on law and gospel.

46:56

Indeed, we need to be doing that very thing. And we'll have you guys on the Packham so we can talk about this pesky thing known as antinomianism.

47:03

Ooh, we'd love to do that. I'm super grateful for you, Justin, and for you, John, and for the way the

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Lord uses theocast. I'm thankful to be brothers in arms, so to speak. Amen. Well, as your brother says, that episode will be picey.

47:17

It will be picey. It's a spicey. All right, friends. Until next time,

47:23

I mean, maybe our Lord will return and this will be the last time that you hear us. That would be wonderful. But if not, we'll talk with you again next week.

47:29

Grace and peace. Hey, everyone, before you go, Justin and I first wanted to say thank you. And if this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it.

47:38

But we also need your support. And it's when you give that it really helps us financially reach more people.

47:44

So the next time you consider giving to a ministry, we hope that you would pray about theocast and partner with us as we share the gospel around the world.