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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Matthew 5:17-18
Well, this morning we are really beginning part 2 of what we said is one of the more controversial passages, not just in Matthew's Gospel, but really in the entire New Testament. Matthew 5, verse 17. We're looking at verses 17 and 18.
We began that last week as we introduced the passage and then had some more practical application talking about the difference between legal obedience and Gospel obedience or evangelical obedience. And I put that up front in part because it'll be a little while before we see something like that again in this passage.
We'll have probably another five or six weeks and then we'll go back into it. Hopefully it'll be a little more familiar and as we press on from verses 21 through 48, we'll be able to draw a lot of application back to that.
Now, this morning it's perhaps more of an atypical sermon and in fact the next several weeks will be a little atypical as we're looking at the law more topically, building a foundation from which we can work our way through not only Matthew 5, 17 through 20, but indeed through the very end, through verse 48.
For that reason, there's a lot of pressure put on this foundation. This week, next week and the week after is laying a foundation and when you lay a foundation and you build upon it, that foundation is carrying a lot of weight.
So if you sort of let me become Charlie Brown's teacher and tune out, you may find yourself floating on a second floor and you'll have no idea why we're there or how you got there. You need to see how this is all being built upon this foundation.
So this morning would be a triumph for note takers if you are a note taker. If you're not a note taker, today's your day to become a note taker. Anything you jot down may be very helpful to you. And again, it may be helpful because the things that we're going to talk about this morning are not entirely new.
If you've been among us for some years now, you would have heard perhaps a lot of the language, maybe even some of the concept will become a little more clear. But every time you take something rather difficult, perhaps new, perhaps something you haven't really thought about or worked through, as you keep hearing it again and again in different ways at different times over the years, that fuzzy concept becomes 8K, high resolution, and then there's a lot of fruit that flows from that.
It becomes a great window in which you can see a lot of how scripture fits together. So it may seem a little daunting this morning. Well, that's okay. I hope it will become clear as we continue on in the weeks to come.
Speaking of, let me give you a little roadmap of where we're going in the next few weeks. So part one was last week. We introduced the passage, talked about the gospel law contrast in terms of our obedience.
This morning, we're going to look at the law and how it relates to the covenant of works. The covenant of works. Very important. And this is actually going to reflect a lot of the biblical passages and teaching behind our own confession of faith.
Chapter 19, we have a teaching on the law of God in scripture and a whole host of passages that go along with that, and the first two paragraphs of our confessional chapter on the law really point us to consider the covenant of works.
Next week, we're going to talk about the threefold division of the law, and that's really reflecting our confession in paragraphs three through five in chapter 19. Three different divisions that we have in the law of God.
And then our conclusion, part four will be the week after that, we'll consider the three uses of God's law. Three uses. Three ways, fundamental ways that we are to apply the law to our lives and our experience.
As believers.
And that corresponds to the last two paragraphs of our confessions chapter on the law. And as I say, all of this is a very important foundation to understand rightly Matthew 5, as well as any other biblical teaching that deals with the law of God.
Okay? So this morning, part two of our series, the law and the covenant of works. In the beginning, Adam was created with original righteousness. In other words, God created man, endued with the power, the ability to obey the law that had been written upon his heart.
In the beginning, Adam was created with original righteousness. What that meant for Adam was the law of God had been indeed written on his heart by God. And the perfection of that law in Adam's heart reflected the perfection of the holy character of God.
It reflected the character of God. And it corresponded to Adam's life, therefore, as an image of God. Because man was made in the image of God, the law of God was put upon man's heart. Where man once stood in original righteousness, there was a perfect correspondence between the character of humanity and the character of God.
And that was all according to the moral law written upon his heart. Adam, in his state of innocence, was to merit eternal life through obedience to God's law. And that's a big claim. It's a big claim.
We're not going to entirely unpack that, but we will get around to it. Adam, in his state of innocence, was to merit eternal life through obedience to God's law. It doesn't become as evident in Genesis 2.
It becomes very clear as you start to work your way through the gospel storyline in passages like Romans 5. Adam, in his state of innocence, was to merit eternal life through obedience to God's law. And this law is the moral law.
Bookmark that for next week when we consider three divisions of the law, one of which is the moral law. Anything short of perfect obedience would result in death. Now God also gave a precept. Not only was the law written on man's heart, God also gave a precept or a command.
Genesis 2, verse 16 and 17. The Lord God commanded the man saying, of the tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. What does that you shall not sound a lot like?
The commands of God. For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. So here in Genesis 2, in light of what we've just discussed, we have the covenant of works. For some authors, some writers, they call this the creation covenant or the covenant of life.
The idea is they're trying to capture something about its origin in the very creation of humanity. Something about its universal requirement of obedience to the law and the fact that there's no hint of mercy in this covenant whatsoever.
It's a covenant of works.
Do this, you live.
Don't do this, you die. That's a covenant of works. Earn this. Now the covenant of works establishes God's law not only with Adam, but as a covenant it establishes God's law as the requirement of God and his condemnation as the result of disobedience through Adam to all humanity.
Adam being the representative of all those born to him. So the covenant of works establishes God's law with all of humanity. There is a complete solidarity of humanity under the headship, the federal headship, the covenantal headship of Adam, the first man.
This is why David, so many centuries later, can say, in sin my mother conceived me. How could David say that? Because David understood that he was under the headship of Adam, that he was born to.
Adam.
And as we'll see, very importantly, in Adam all die. In Adam all die. Here is why the covenant of works is so important. We cannot rightly understand the good news of the gospel without the bad news of the.
Law.
And we cannot understand the bad news of the law without rightly viewing its relationship to man in the garden of Eden as a covenant of works. Let me say that one more time. We cannot rightly understand the good news of the gospel without the bad news of the.
And we cannot understand the bad news of the law without rightly viewing its relationship to man in the garden of Eden as a covenant of works. This is where our confession is so helpful, bringing together so much scripture to make the point.
Let me read to you. This is chapter 19, paragraph 1. God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart. So there's the law, the moral law written in the heart. And a particular precept, a command of not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, by which he bound him in all of his posterity to personal, entire, exact and perpetual obedience.
Notice it, bound him and all his posterity. All those born are born to Adam. And what are they born bound to? Entire, personal, exact and non-stop obedience. And what are they granted as a promise upon fulfilling it?
Life. What's the threat if they fail?
Death.
Now again, as we've said, this is the covenant of works we're talking about, paragraph 2. The same law.
What law?
What law have we just been talking about? The law written on the heart, the moral law. That same law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall.
Man fell from his ability to obey God's law. God didn't begin grading on a curve. God didn't say, well, let me try to make it a little bit easier for you and maybe get rid of that command, get rid of that requirement, you know, just try to make it a little bit.
Easier for you.
No.
It's still the same perfect rule of righteousness even after the fall. Just because man is unable to obey it as a result of the fall doesn't mean that the requirement or the penalty has changed whatsoever.
This is a law that reflects the holiness of God as we've established. Now listen to the logic here. The same law that was written first in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in the Ten Commandments.
Written in two tables, the four first containing duty toward God, the other six duty toward.
Man.
So you have the two tables of the law, the first and greatest commandment and the second which is like it, the law being fulfilled by love.
All of this is held together here.
So what is written upon the heart of man, this moral law, is the very thing written by the finger of God into the two tables of the law upon Mount Sinai, okay? Hold that all together. God's moral law was engraved upon Adam's heart along with this precept, not to eat of the fruit of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil.
And then, after the fall, God brought forth his law again, not internally but externally toward his people Israel in the covenant he made with them at Mount Sinai. Though much of the law was given through Moses the prophet, the Ten Commandments alone, what we call the Decalogue, was written by the finger of God upon the tables of stone.
And that, in a very important way, sets apart those Ten Commandments from everything else that flows out of God's law upon Mount Sinai. Adam had one command. Adam had one, thou shalt not, and yet the whole law was in it.
Let me say that again. Adam had one command. Adam had one, thou shalt not, and yet the whole law, all of the moral law, was contained within it. Now, I've lost you.
What?
The command was simply not to eat of the fruit. The law that was written on his heart is the law that corresponds to the Ten Commandments, and we see the universal scope of that, but no, no, no, the Ten Commandments weren't contained in the thou shalt not of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
It reminds me of a joke Norm MacDonald once made. He said, you know, I'm trying to be a Christian, but I just can't stop eating apples. And that's on page two of the good book, right? Of course, he's playing a man who doesn't quite understand God or the biblical storyline, and his big takeaway from Genesis 3 is don't eat apples, right?
Don't eat fruit. Of course, he doesn't even know enough of scripture to know it's not an apple, it's.
Just fruit.
That's okay.
But the point is, no, it's far more than that, right? If you're thinking that God is saying death will be a result of partaking of the fruit, you missed this deeper point about the law written in the heart, about what it means for Adam to image God, to be an image bearer, and the only way you can begin to understand that is by looking at Sinai, looking at the Mosaic law, and then looking also at Jesus, the last Adam, the fulfillment of all of this, okay?
So in some ways, you have to begin with the fullest light and work your way back to the garden, and now you can be able to understand the things that we're discussing. This is a point made, for example, in a wonderful book that was definitive in the 17th, or sorry, 18th century, The Mirror of Modern Divinity, most likely written eponymously by Edward.
Fisher.
And in that, he has a dialogue between the one who's rightly trying to preach the gospel and one who's trying to work through the law, maybe perhaps someone legalistic. They don't have a right understanding of the law, and in fact, this idea of a covenant of works and how this relates to mankind and how this relates to Jesus Christ, all of this is being discussed.
And this is the point that's brought up. When Adam disobeyed the one command given him to Eden, he disobeyed the law entire, all 10 commandments. And so this is from The Mirror of Modern Divinity, again, the evangelist, evangelista.
He says this, though at first glance, it seems to be such a small offense, yet how could there be greater sin committed than that when Adam, in one act, broke all 10 commandments? Now perhaps you, like Nomist, ask the question, but did he break all 10 commandments?
Please show me. And so evangelist says, well, first, you shall have no other god. He chose himself another god when he followed the devil. Second, you shall not make an idol, but he idolized and deified his own belly.
As the apostles phrase, he made his belly his god. Oh, three, you shall not take the Lord's name in vain, but he took the name of God in vain when he believed him not. Fourth, you shall remember the Sabbath, but he kept not the rest in a state where God had placed him.
Fifth, you shall honor your father and your mother. He dishonored his father who is in heaven, and therefore his days were not prolonged in that land which God had given him. Six, you shall not murder, but he massacred not only himself, but all of his posterity.
Seventh, you shall not commit adultery. Well, from Eve he was a virgin, but in eyes and mind he committed spiritual fornication, a point Jesus will be coming to in Matthew 5. Eight, you shall not steal, but he stole.
Like Achan, that which God had set aside not to be meddled with, he stole that which troubled all of Israel, indeed the whole world. Ninth, you shall not bear false witness, but he bore false witness against God when he believed the witness of the devil before him.
And then tenth, you shall not covet, but his coveting was an evil coveting like Amnon, which cost him his life and all of his progeny.". Do you see how he's working this through? Adam failed at every point to uphold the perfection of obedience required.
As he was the head of all humanity, all humanity fell in him. He broke God's law and we're born into a condition of rebellion and brokenness and sinful depravity as a result. Now part of this fallen state, as Paul explains in Romans 1, is that we suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness.
This is a result of the fall. This is a result of being born in Adam. We no longer can rationally apprehend the truth, rather we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And therefore, Paul says, we're left without excuse.
Why? Because like Adam, the law is written on our hearts. It's inescapable. Man's not left without excuse because he didn't know. Man is not left without excuse because he wasn't told. Paul's argument is man is left without excuse before God, the creator, because the law of the holy God, which reflects what it means to be an image of that God, is written on the very heart of man.
Israel received that law. That internal heart-engraved law at creation was, as we said, carved into the stone on Mount Sinai. And I think the significance there is these stone tablets were as stony as the hearts of these fallen people.
God's saying, it's not like I've crafted this heart that is just effortlessly and instinctively able to delight in my commandments like we read from Psalm 119 earlier this morning. But now it's like carving it into granite, unfeeling, unmoved, unable to respond to it.
That's the idea. Israel received that internal heart-engraved law at Mount Sinai, engraved by the finger of God, but they too, as God's son, think of the language of Hosea, I've called my son out of Egypt, applied more fully to Christ according to Matthew.
God's son, Israel in that sense, was the next Adam. It was the next son of God, though corporately considered. And in that sense, Jesus, the true son of God, is also the true Israel, is also the true Adam.
The point is God's son Adam, God's son corporate Israel, broke the law and broke every point of the law and broke the covenant that God had made with them. I think we have to read a lot into Hosea 6 -7, like Adam they transgressed the covenant.
Now not all commentators would actually make that name proper, it would be simply like a man they transgressed the covenant. But I think we're on good footing to see Hosea connecting the dots all the way back to Eden.
Both Adam and the nation of Israel broke the covenant that God had given to them. Both covenants contained blessings and curses. The hope of blessing was utterly lost in Adam's failure. Again, in Adam all die.
This is the point Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 22. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. And so if we're going to understand the work of Christ, if we're going to understand the covenant of grace that's been now fully revealed in this covenant written, established by His blood, then we have to connect it through this storyline of Adam, Adam's headship, how death entered upon humanity, Christ, His identity as the last Adam, therefore how life has come upon those who repent and believe Him.
And that brings us to the second part, and the only part, just two parts this morning, which is to consider not the covenant of works and the law, but now the covenant of works and the gospel. This is a very important structure.
Reformed theology is established by a right understanding of how the covenants fit together. And when we understand rightly the covenant of works and how it relates to the gospel, to the covenant of grace, then we're able to see the beauty of God's plan for redemption.
The beauty of how Christ really is the yes and amen of all that God had promised. Going way back to our Confessions presentation of the covenants in chapter 7, again, a marvelous summation of a host of Scriptures so well thought through in order to present a little distillation of help.
This is chapter 7, paragraph 2, and again, listen to how the law, which we've established its relation to the covenant of works, listen to how then the law relates to Christ. Moreover, man having brought himself under the curse of the law, where did that take.
Place?
In Eden, as a covenant of works. Moreover, man having brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace, wherein he freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ.
And then chapter 20, paragraph 1, the covenant of works being broken by sin, made unprofitable unto life, God was pleased, notice that repetition of language, to give forth the promise of Christ. So Adam fell from original righteousness as God's image.
He could not enter into his reward, enter into confirmed glory because of his sin. But here comes the last Adam, channeling down through the millennia, the one who was just a whelp in the days of Judah, but now is the mighty conquering lion who looks like a slain and crucified lamb.
He comes down, the annals of redemptive history, the last Adam taking his progeny, his seed, into the glory where the first Adam could never enter. That's the glory of humanity as it is redeemed by the God-man, Jesus Christ.
Now how does Jesus do that? How does Jesus take his own into the glory that Adam could not enter? Well, in part, he does that because the gospel turns upon the covenant of works. The gospel turns upon the covenant of works.
Again, I'm making a big claim here. I'm saying that we cannot rightly articulate our justification, our redemption, writ large, if we don't understand how the gospel relates to the covenant of works. That's a big claim.
Adam, a sinless image-bearer, a son of God, who was given God's Word as a prophet, and he was given the law to obey, corresponding to what was written on his heart. He was put in the garden to work as a priest, as it were, mediating the presence of God to Eve, to the children that they may have, indeed, to the world all around them.
He was called to subdue the earth, rule over all of its creatures as a king, starting in the garden of Eden, expanding the beauty and order of God by his Spirit through all creation. He was in covenant with God, but he broke that covenant.
What was the covenant?
The covenant of works. He transgressed God's law, he sinned. He plunged his posterity under the curse. He was exiled from the presence of God, just as Israel, as Adam, again, is exiled from the presence of God because of their disobedience.
And being exiled from the temple presence of God in Eden, now a corrupted image-bearer of God, he became disobedient to the law, a covenant breaker. But here comes, not just an image-bearer, the express image of God.
Here comes not just a son of God, but the son of God. Here comes the prophet, the priest, the king, who's destined to rule and exercise dominion over all of the cosmos. He enters in, in the fullness of time, Galatians 4 .4, born under the law, born by a virgin so that he didn't inherit that sin, and yet burn under the law.
He who, being in the form of God, did not grasp at equality with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a slave, coming in the likeness of man, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient.
Do you see?
Obedient to what? Obedient to what? Under the law he was born, and he became obedient.
To what?
To the law.
The laws that was given at Sinai. Well, what law is that? It was the law that was given in Eden, when it was written upon man's heart. He became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
You cannot understand the cross if you don't see all of the shining weight behind those two phrases, born under the law, became obedient. This is the difference between Adam and Christ. We have not, indeed we cannot, keep the demands of God's law as they're given, as they're required, and that's why we put our faith, our hope, in Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the righteous demands of the law with the perfection that God required.
And even though he was perfectly obedient, and therefore merited the life that was held out by the covenant of works, he received the curse.
He received the penalty.
Cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree. And so, he received the curse upon his body, upon that flesh that was constituted as our own sin, as our own rebellion, and though he was obedient to the point of death, he.
Died.
He was obedient to the point of death and he still died. Don't you see him on that tree in between flits of gasping for a breath? He's still trying to fulfill the law with every fiber and sinew he can muster from his own bodily strength.
If ever there was a man that could agree with the psalmist, I delight to do thy will. If ever there was one who said, your law is my whole delight, it was Christ who, in between perhaps losing consciousness and finding some strength, he uses even just that glimmer of a moment to obey the commandments.
Fifth commandment, mother, here is your son, son, here's your mother. Do you see everything he's doing? He's seeking to fulfill and delight in the law. And though he was obedient to the point of death, he still died.
And this is why believers are justified. By the work of Christ, we're very particular about how we understand that as reformed folk. This isn't something arbitrary, this isn't something vague. It's as particular, as concrete as the covenant of works was particular in concrete.
The gospel turns on the covenant of works. When we say that we're justified by the work of Christ, we imply by that work something.
Active.
But it wasn't merely the atoning death that canceled our guilt, but our justification requires a righteous standing before God, something counted to us that's not true of us in and of ourselves, but can only be true of us as we are in Christ.
And so what's counted to us, what's imputed to us or reckoned as our righteousness isn't just some vague sense of the work of Christ. It's the active obedience of Christ, Christ actively fulfilling and obeying to the perfection of all that God required according to his law, perfect obedience to the law as a covenant of works.
And instead of receiving the reward, the merit that was held out to Adam and Eden. He took the curse. So that the curse would be removed from his people and his people would receive the.
Reward. Therefore, the whole earth, look, look around the room this morning, look.
Around. It's a lot of different people, a lot of different faces, a lot of different backgrounds, personalities, different colored garments, different colored cars that we drive, different homes that we live, different aspirations and dreams that we share.
Every single one is so different. But you know what? Let me divide the whole room down into two groups and in fact, make the room a hundred times bigger, put the whole world together. I'll help you divide it into two groups because truly humanity is divided into two groups.
Those who are born in Adam. And those who are born again in Jesus Christ. That's it. There is no middle ground. There is no in between. There is no no man's land. You're either born in Adam and like Adam, you're under this covenant of works.
You're already born crooked, estranged from God, hating God, suppressing his truth and unrighteousness. That's just how you're born. Hypothetically, if you weren't born that way and you never failed to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength.
And at any moment, a nanosecond of a moment, you loved him with all of the fiber of your being in that way, comprehended by the law. And perhaps you could enter into glory with him and receive eternal life as your reward.
But you, the hypothetical can never enter into reality. You're born in sin. You're born in rebellion. You're born disobedient. You're born suppressing his truth and unrighteousness. You're in Adam. And what did we say in Adam?
All die. But the other group, I hope most of the people in this group before me this morning. Are those who have a second birth, though they were born in Adam, they've been born again in Christ Jesus, no longer under the covenant of works, but rather the sting of death.
The curse of the law has been removed from them. No longer are they under the law as a curse, but rather they're under the grace of Christ, established in a covenant by his own blood. All those in Christ shall be made alive.
And so the covenant of works, it continues even after the fall, man's moral inability doesn't take away man's responsibility, though man is now fallen and unable to keep the demands of the law. All of the terms, all of the weight, all of the curse yet remain.
In Adam, all die.
But listen to this. Romans 5, 12 through 20, covenant of works, covenant of grace coming together, law, gospel coming together, first Adam, last Adam coming together, all of humanity in one of these two groups being contrasted.
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin and thus death spread to all men because all sinned, verse 15 and following, for if by one man's offense, many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ abounded to many.
And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, for the judgment which came from the one offense resulted in condemnation. But the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.
It's giving you the biggest contours of the gospel. Here's the widest I can stretch the framework of the gospel. And now look what he's going to do. He's going to zoom in. If you ever have a, I mean, now everyone has smartphones, right?
I grew up and loved the little digital cameras and you had a little pull tab and you'd pull your little pull tab and it would take about 30 seconds. But slowly that little lens would zoom its way forward.
It would be holding this little four inch camera going, wait, wait, wait. And all of a sudden, this little camera zooming in, that's what Paul's doing here. He's saying, OK, we've begun with the widest frame of reference.
Let's let's zoom in on how this connects to the gospel. For if by one man's offense, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.
Pull that tab, zoom in a little bit more. Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation. Even so, through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.
Pull that tab all the way.
Keep going.
For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So also. By one man's obedience. There's the covenant of works. And there's the gospel. The gospel turns on the covenant of works, as by one man's disobedience, he broke the covenant of works.
Many were made sinners. So also by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous as sin reigned in death. Even so, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life.
There's the reward.
But it's only through Jesus Christ, our Lord. The only way Paul makes crystal clear in Romans five, the only way to be free from the demands of the law as a covenant of works, you must say that a born again Christian doesn't want to be estranged from the law.
He wants to be free from the curse of the law. He wants to learn how to delight in the law like the psalmist, he doesn't want to unhitch from the Old Testament or unhitch from the law. God forbid, what does Paul say in Romans seven?
The law is holy, just, good. This is what sanctification means. This is the track you're on. What does it mean for Christ to be the last Adam? What does it mean for him to become obedient? What does it mean for you to be an image of him sanctified onto his image?
The only way to be free from the demands of the law as a covenant of work is to be born again in Christ, brought into the covenant of grace established by his blood. Adam's disobedience brings death. Christ's obedience brings life.
You cannot articulate the gospel if you in some vague way say, well, Adam brought death, but Christ brings life.
OK, how?
How does Christ bring life?
How?
Covenant of works. The covenant of works. If you're an Adam, here is the terror of it all. You are born under this law that you cannot keep, and however your life goes and whatever you try to do between now and that moment when you draw your last breath, all that lies ahead of you is the certain and unavoidable terror of a judgment of God that you cannot.
Withstand.
All in Adam die. You are born into a law that you cannot possibly keep. God, who sees all and knows all, knows the very thoughts, discerns the very motives of your heart. In more comprehensive and accurate ways than even you yourself can fathom, you appear before him, and though you're unable to keep the least iota of his law, you are directly responsible for all of it.
You're not self-made, you're made in his image. To him you give an account. But if you're in Christ, here's the beauty of it all. If you're in Christ, here's the beauty of it all. Though it is impossible to keep the fullness of what the law has required, there's something even far more impossible for you who have trusted in Jesus Christ for your.
Salvation.
It is impossible for you to lose the salvation that he has purchased by his own blood. Though you are directly responsible for your trust in this salvation, having received it as a gift, you press on by faith and not by sight.
You are directly responsible for nothing, nothing that is given to you in the covenant of grace. It is all purchased through the merit of the Son of God. You are directly responsible for none of the grace in which you stand, and it is impossible for you to lose the grace in which you stand.
And if you've repented of your sins and trusted in him for salvation, the work that he has begun, he will continue. This is why we stand not under the law, but under grace.
Let me just preview this.
We're not going to get this until three weeks from now, but let me just preview this just for a moment. This is from the second to last paragraph in our confession. Listen, he's simply making this point.
Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works. Very important, right? We talk about how we do relate to the law, but here's a way that we don't. We're not under the curse of the law.
We don't relate to the law as a covenant of works. There's nothing to be gained or merited. Christ has done that on our behalf. Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works to be thereby justified or condemned.
Yet it is of great use to them. I'm going to list all sorts of reasons that the law becomes a rule and a source in a wellspring of life in the walk of the believer. But here's where they land. One of the great uses is this, through the law, believers gain a clearer sight, a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ and.
The perfection of his obedience, you know, under the law as a covenant of works, how do you reinforce that? Well, you look to the law and under this covenant of grace and all the ways that it's beneficial, you've been freed from the curse and now, as it were, you're free to walk in sanctification and the righteous requirements of the law as you're led by the spirit.
And what happens as you're doing that? Well, if you're doing that, if you're being led by the spirit, you're having a clearer sight. And what do you have a clearer sight of Christ? OK, but be more specific.
Christ and the perfection of his obedience. His obedience. This is why the gospel turns on the covenant of works. This is why you can't even begin to understand the person and work of Jesus Christ if you don't situate all of that in Genesis 1, 2 and 3.
This is why you cannot know what Paul is saying in Romans 3, 31 when he says, do we then make void the law through faith?
No, we establish the law.
He understands that the gospel turns upon these very things as well. We already saw it, the widest frame of reference in Romans 5. That's a very Matthew 5, 17 like statement in the book of Romans. And let me land this a little more as we as we move toward a close.
If it's true that the gospel turns on the law, particularly the law as a covenant of works, then it's true that you'll never have power, you'll never have peace, you'll never have strength, you'll never have comfort, you'll never have fruitfulness unless you understand the gospel in light of the law.
And I would say that if you unhitch those two, if you try to get at the gospel apart from the law or the covenant of works, if you try to comprehend the work of Christ that has brought you into this grace in which you stand and you don't tie it to the perfection of his obedience, the one who is born under the law.
Then you will have no power and you will have no peace, you will have no sanctification, you'll have no motivation. You'll have no glimpse that causes your your heart to melt. And your arms and your legs to to groan.
I want to press forward. I want more of him who loved me and gave himself for me. You get this beauty, for instance, the hymn by Kenneth Paul. Listen to this law, gospel, covenant of works, covenant of grace.
You always are holding these two things together. Look at send the law before the gospel. This is a hymn. Send the law before the gospel as a believer. Begin at the law, go to the gospel and go back to the law and go back to the gospel.
Send the law before the gospel. It's talking about the norm of evangelization. How do you witness to people? You take into the law, don't you? First, you know, instinctively, it's not good news until you know what's bad.
You're hell bound.
There's nothing you can do to stop that. But you can throw yourself in repentance and faith upon one who can save you, utterly save you and will save you. In fact, promises that all who come to him, they'll never cast away.
Instinctively, you know, you begin at the law in order to go to the gospel. Send the law before the gospel. Shine the light that reveals sin. If you do that with other people, don't you do that with yourself?
Are you like me, sometimes you might as well have two hands with all thumbs, you just I need some comfort, I need some peace, I need some power, I need some soul thirst, I want some zeal. Let me just go to the gospel.
But you haven't started with the law. So so you're looking at the gospel, but you're not tying it to your own imperfection and sinfulness and therefore the perfection and sinlessness of Christ, your savior.
Shine the light revealing sin. We're going to talk about this in the third week, the three uses of the law. The law, a schoolmaster that takes us to Christ, men will see they need a savior. As their hearts are bared within, weep you sinners under judgment, see yourselves before God's law, full, deserving condemnation, dread the wrath of God in awe.
Here's the very next stanza, come you sinners. You've been dragged by the schoolmaster now, you're you're so defeated, you're so guilty, you're so ashamed, the schoolmaster keeps dragging you, you want to run, you're kicking against it, you're weeping, saying no.
Finally, he brings you in the next day to come you sinners.
What's it going to be?
A punishment I can't bear. Listen, come you sinners, take comfort. You convicted, you dismayed. God's love is only sown in furrows the law has made.
Come you sinners, look to Jesus.
He's fulfilled the law's demands. Christ will turn your dread and sorrow into love for God's commands. What a marvelous presentation of the three uses of the law, just where you think you're about to be crushed, you're embraced, just where you think you're doomed, you're saved, just where you thought you're hopeless, now you have comfort.
Now, what stands in between these two stanzas? We simply go send the law, send the light that reveals the sin, feel the burn, feel the condemnation, dread the wrath. And the very next line is comfort.
Find that peace over your conviction. Look at what what deep furrows the law has carved out so that God's love could be sown into it. And from that place, look to Christ, look to how he met through his own obedience to the point of death, all the law required and how looking to him you can actually love the very commandments that you once dreaded.
Just a stanza prior. But what stands between them? How did we get from there to there? How do we get from dread to comfort? What's in between? What stands between seeing yourself before God's law, fully deserving condemnation, dreading wrath and taking comfort, turning toward delight to his commands, what stands in between those two?
Golgotha, Golgotha. Oh, that we could fix our eyes.
And stake our hearts and anchor our hands and our feet. Upon this truth that the love of God is only sown. In the furrows that his law has made, listen, the gospel turns on the covenant of works. Do you know that in the marrow of your bones?
Do you know it?
Do you fully grasp what Paul means when he says by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. Not your obedience, one man's obedience. One man's covenant of works, one man's sky darkened, cursed, ignominious death on a God forsaken stump.
Of Golgotha, why do you need to understand the law as a covenant of works? So that you can have a clearer sight, just quoting us, LBC, if you can have a clearer sight of the need you have of Christ and the perfection of his obedience.
So let me ask you, as we close this morning, do you have that clearer sight? Do you have a clearer sight this morning than you did when you came in at nine forty seven? Do you have a clear sight? Of the perfection of Christ's obedience, do you have a clearer sight or is it not so clear?
Not so moving, not so melting. Remember that line from Cooper's hymn, Where is the blessedness I knew when I first saw the Lord? Where is the soul refreshing view of Jesus and his word? And if you know the life of Cooper, you know, he he's more just feigned words.
He was looking. He's a very troubled man, bright moments of real assurance and power and it flows into the poetry of his hymns and then decades of darkness where he's sort of the man hidden away in John Newton's house.
Man locked away in an iron cage of doubt and depression. So read these words as coming from that place. Maybe that's reflective of somewhere you are this morning. Listen. Where is the blessedness you knew?
Where's the soul refreshing view of Jesus and his word? Where is it? You once had it, didn't you? But where is it now? Well, there's many views of Jesus, many glimpses you have, many reflections. Many encourage you, many inspire you, many amaze you, many may even convict you.
But what Cooper's talking about is this, that soul refreshing view, that blessed view, the kind of view that's so powerful. It's like the first time you saw it, the first time you had it, the first time you knew him, the first time you came to him.
Where's that soul refreshing view of Jesus and his word? Well, it's here. It's right here.
And everything we've been talking about this morning, it's on a blood soaked tree under the holy wrath of the holy law of the thrice holy God. That's where the soul refreshing view of Jesus is. And there's a reason, brothers and sisters, there's a reason that when Jesus asked us to remember him, when he says, remember me, he doesn't just say, well, you know, gospels will be written, people will share their testimonies and all these ways.
You know, when he asked us, he says, listen, remember, look for me, look for me. I want to refresh your soul, too. Look for me. Remember me. And you know what he asked us to remember him in? He says, when you remember me, remember my broken body.
When you remember me, remember my poured out blood. When you remember me, remember my cross. When you remember me, remember the curse. Remember me, remember that dark sky. When you remember me, remember my cry of forsaken abandonment.
When you remember me, remember your sins that clothed and framed my body, flayed, suffocating on that tree. When you remember me, remember that I came freely to give my life for yours. To bear your curse and give you my reward.
To make you one with me, brothers and sisters, is that not the soul refreshing view? What the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh. God did by sending his own son in the likeness of our sinful flesh on account of sin.
He condemned sin.
He sent his own son, made him to be sin. He condemned sin so that the righteous requirement of the law. All that the covenant of works held forth to Adam, as well as the last Adam, so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.
Do not think Jesus came to destroy the law or the prophets. Jesus did not come to destroy them, but to fulfill them.
Amen. Let's pray.
Father, bless us. Refresh our hearts, Lord. Give each one here that blessed view. Break off those leather like layers of ignorance, of neglect. Lord, let us walk in the power and the freedom. Of the tree, the very place we're gathered here today to in a special way, remember.
Not as something quaint and distant, but as a prospect that we proclaim until you return. Father, bless us in these ways, bless those here who perhaps. Are in Adam even now and not in Christ, convict them with that law that shines a light on their lives, on their thoughts, on their motives, on their acts, on their sinful rebellion and all of the guilt and shame.
But if it's the spirit shining that light, may a greater light come that almost makes that light seem faint. And may it be the light of the mercy and grace of Christ, in whose name we pray.
Amen. Amen.