Galatians 1:18-2:10

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Pastor John and Pastor Jeff teach the book of Galatians

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Lord, we come to you this morning, this afternoon, just excited about your truth, about your word, and realizing,
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Lord, that the gospel is the gospel of faithfulness and fruitfulness. What you have given, what you gave to Paul was received by a revelation of Christ.
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It is not man's gospel. And as we study this, as Jeff brings us these truths, we pray that your spirit would work in our hearts.
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In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. The year was 2018.
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You guys remember that year? It feels like an eternity ago, and a lot of things have changed since then, prior to COVID.
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But there was a movement in evangelicalism already sweeping the nation called social justice.
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This was the time of the gospel coalition and a number of conferences surrounding the
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Martin Luther King holiday, where the idea of social justice just swept through all of evangelicalism like a flood.
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One of those who wrote an article at that time was Paul Tripp. Paul Tripp is a man that I greatly respected, and in still many ways do respect him, as a human, as a
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Christian brother, but he himself got swept up in this movement. Paul Tripp wrote this article in April, April 5th, 2018, called
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My Confession Toward a More Balanced Gospel. As I read a few quotes,
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I want you to think about why would I respond to this severely, meaning why would
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I take it seriously, and why did I write an open letter to Paul Tripp, publish it on our church website, and also by certified mail, send him a copy to make sure that he read the critique?
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Why was this such a big deal to me? And hint, it isn't per se the social justice ethics.
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It's something even deeper. My Confession Toward a More Balanced Gospel. I am writing today on the day following the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
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because I have a humbling confession to make. For all of my passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has been accurate and faithful to the best of my ability, the gospel that I have held so dear has been, in reality, a truncated and incomplete gospel.
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He goes on to describe what he calls the gospel of justice. Now if you recall something
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I preached two weeks ago in describing the gospel of grace, I say that there are certain things that summarize the gospel in biblical language, namely the gospel of grace, or the gospel of God, or the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that is strategic biblically because these words can summarize the gospel.
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However, you will not see the gospel of love, the gospel of hope, the gospel of justice, because those words would be like saying the gospel of law.
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The gospel of law is the Ten Commandments, and love summarizes the
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Ten Commandments. The first table of the law is love towards God. The second table of the law is love towards man.
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The Ten Commandments cannot be described as gospel because no man will be justified in God's sight by the law.
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In the same way, no man will be justified in God's sight by love. We all fall short of the glory of God.
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We all fail to love one another, and therefore we need gospel. We need, what's our word? Grace.
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You said it Barbara. Grace is the gospel. The gospel is not law, it is not justice, but sadly,
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Paul Tripp describes the gospel as the gospel of justice. He then rightly expounds upon how justice is integral to the gospel in the vertical, as in when the gospel is displayed at the cross, love and justice kiss.
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You have a perfect display of justice in the cross, just like you have a perfect display of love.
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This is true gospel preaching, and that's what Paul Tripp had always preached. That is the gospel, and he preached it well.
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The problem here then is that he begins from this point on in his article to conflate categories and looking at horizontal justice, make that a part of the gospel, such that he could say that what he had been preaching was only truncated and incomplete.
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And what comes from this is a description of his own development as a human being, which
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I think was sadly him being deceived. He writes, let me give you a little context about how
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God has opened my eyes and convicted my heart. About five years ago,
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Luella and I began attending Epiphany Fellowship Church in Philadelphia. Epiphany is a multicultural, but largely
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African -American congregation. We have been blessed to sit under the ministry of Dr. Eric Mason, now this guy is the one who wrote
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Woke Church, the book Woke Church, and the young black man he has discipled. Every Sunday we get the gospel of Jesus Christ up one side and down the other, but there is something else for which we are grateful.
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As we have gotten to know and love our black brothers and sisters, we have had our eyes opened and our hearts broken by the things they regularly have to deal with that we will never have to deal with just because of the color of our skin.
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So what he's doing here is separating the body of Christ into a they and a we, and what comes from that is an oppressor -victim class, whereas in Colossians 311, there is no
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Jew or Greek, slave or free, barbarian, Scythian, but we are all in Christ and Christ in all.
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Now this is what I call the social justice deception or the particular error of social justice ethics.
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It has Marxism at the root, but I open this talk by saying that is not what troubled me so much about this article.
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On the one hand, it errors because it listens to stories of oppression, fully affirming without due process, and so he'll criticize the police as systemically unjust without ever proving any systematic racism in the police department.
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It is biblically unjust. Social justice is biblical injustice. We've all talked at length about that, and you know,
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I think everybody here understands it now. In fact, in 2018, when we were making these criticisms, very few evangelicals understood it because they were under the sway of David Platt and the
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Gospel Coalition and a particular book called Divided by Faith by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith.
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It was holding sway, and those of us who were criticizing social justice were looked at as rabble -rousers or Pharisees, fundamentalists, who just don't want to get with the times.
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But since then, since 2020, the tables actually turned. John MacArthur was very instrumental in that in the
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Dallas statement, and then really the seismic shift came with the book Fault Lines that was written by Vodie Bachelor.
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That book really peeled back the layers of the onion and showed what was underneath, and so people realized that social justice is not justice, and what's being advocated for here is against biblical categories of justice, but that's not what disturbs me most about this article.
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Turn with me to Galatians 1, and John, would you just read for us Galatians 1, 6 -9, before we get into today's passage?
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So, starting in verse 6, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him who called you into the grace of Christ to another gospel, and so the discussion is a true gospel, which
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Paul is going to advocate, is being countered by a false gospel, and that there appears to be an acceptance within the churches of Galatia for this falsehood, and then
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Paul, in establishing the credibility and the credence of his, he says, do
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I persuade men, or God, do I seek to please men, and that it has nothing to do with wanting to be a preacher who finds approval and acceptance, no, he wants to be a person who pleases
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God, who seeks after God, and so the false gospel must be opposed so that the true gospel remains.
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Amen, and so our brother here is hinting at the answer, why do you think I wrote that letter to Paul Tripp?
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What do you think was so concerning, if it's not just the ethics of social justice, what is it?
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The gospel, the gospel is the gospel of grace, and where the gospel is at stake, we must address any other gospel in the same way that Paul addresses the
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Judaized gospel. What you have here in the article by Paul Tripp, My Confession Toward a
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More Balanced Gospel, is precisely what we have here, the
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Judaizing of the gospel, if you add one thing to the gospel, you are not only diluting it, you're losing it.
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Revelation 22, 22. Amen, amen, and would you like to read that for us,
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John? Sure, I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them,
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God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And it's so severe because the gospel itself is what justifies, what makes a person at peace with God when they were enemies and they were destined for hell, for the lake of fire, but the gospel brings us out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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When Paul has this severity in his tone, I am astonished that you are deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ, and are turning to a different gospel.
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He is referring to Judaizers who are adding one thing, you must be circumcised in order to be saved.
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Acts 15, verse one, there were certain false teachers who had come into the church and said, you must be circumcised in order to be saved.
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And by adding that one thing, the gospel was lost. A Roman Catholic who says, you must maintain your justification by the ordinances of the church, by participating in mass, by confession to a priest who will offer you indulgences to perform in order to maintain your justification.
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By adding something, they lose grace. There's no gospel if you have to go to purgatory.
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If you have to go to purgatory and suffer and burn for a period of time to make up for what was lacking in Christ's atonement, you've lost the atonement.
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If grace isn't sufficient, it is no more grace. Romans 11,
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Paul will expound greatly on this subject, and all of the book of Romans is an exposition of justification by faith alone, that you can't add anything to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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So, Paul is very severe, and you cannot imagine a greater severity than Galatians 1, 8 and 9, where he says something and then he repeats himself.
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He says, let him be accursed, then he restates it, let him be accursed. It sounds harsh, it sounds pharisaical or judgmental or intolerant, but the point is, the gospel is at stake.
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And as John taught last week, Paul will then say, he received this gospel by direct divine revelation.
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He didn't get it from man, and he's not seeking the approval of man. He got this from God, and he will die for this gospel.
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Now, interestingly, you would think, okay, well, is his gospel at odds with Peter's?
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Is he bringing some new revelation that he just, between him and God alone? No, we will address that now.
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So John, I'm just gonna ask if you don't mind, would you read the whole swoop of the passage for us, and then we'll take it verse by verse.
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But Rick has a question. Yeah, in the ESV note, I read in conjunction with what you've said,
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God has called the Galatians in grace, but they are distorting the gospel of grace by placing works as a requirement for salvation upon Gentile converts.
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Amen. So if you say the gospel is truncated and incomplete, and you have to add works, whether they be social justice or abortion advocacy or whatever you're gonna say is required to be part of the gospel, that language of the gospel of justice, truncated gospel, incomplete gospel, this is against the gospel of grace, because you're adding to the sufficiency of grace.
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The word gospel itself is too precious to throw around like that. The good news is a saving message, and the opposite of it, to lose that, is a damning message.
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That's why this is so important. So thank you, Rick. And Paul even rebukes Peter and Barnabas in that.
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He does, and that's coming next. Next week, John, we'll get to that. But we're only going up to chapter 2, verse 10.
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So today, we cover Galatians 1, 18 to 2, 10. So Rick, I think it ends at a sentence break.
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Yeah, last week, we were comfortable with this. Then after three years,
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I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him 15 days. But the other of the apostles,
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I saw none save James, the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not.
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Afterwards, I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia and was unknown by face under the churches of Judea, which were in Christ.
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But they had heard only that he which persecuted us in times past now preaches the faith, which once he destroyed.
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And they glorified God in me. Then 14 years after, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took
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Titus with me also. I went out by revelation and communicated unto them that gospel which
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I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means
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I should run or had run in vain. But neither Titus, who was with me being a
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Greek, was compelled to be circumcised, and that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.
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To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
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But of these who seemed to be somewhat, whether so they were, it maketh no matter to me.
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God accepteth no man's person. For they who seemed to be somewhat in confidence added nothing to me.
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But contrarywise, when they saw that the gospel of uncircumcision was committed unto me, the gospel of the circumcision was unto
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Peter. For he that wrought effectively in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty to me toward the
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Gentiles. And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go into the heathen, and that they under the circumcision.
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Only they would that we should remember the poor, the same which I also was forward to do.
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You would understand that once Paul has been at length describing his revelation from God directly, not involving man, he would now have concern that some would think, well, wait a minute, is
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Paul's gospel somehow different than Peter's?
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And so he goes to great lengths in this passage to retell what almost seems like, well, why is he telling us all these details about who he went to see here or there?
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And doesn't it almost seem like he's not all that respectful of Peter, James, and John, those reputed to be pillars?
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Whoever they are makes no difference to me. He's almost dismissive of their authority, or is he?
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What he's showing here is that the witness that he has direct from God is in no way contradicted by the witness of others.
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And he minimizes the role of men, whether himself, because he says earlier, even if I or an angel from heaven preach something, he minimizes himself, he minimizes them to make this overarching point.
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This gospel of grace comes from God. What I got direct was confirmed when
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I spent time with Peter. And then 14 years later, when I spent time with all the apostles, and especially he mentions
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Peter, James, and John, all of them at that time gave their testimony that we're preaching the same gospel.
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And to prove it, they let Titus into the room to welcome him, even though he is uncircumcised, his father being a
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Greek. So all of these points of evidence are just witnesses. He's gathering witnesses to say the gospel of grace, apart from works of any sort, this gospel of grace comes from God.
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It's direct revelation, it's confirmed by these other points of contact with the divine through Peter and all the apostles.
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It's one and the same gospel. Let's look at it piece by piece. Barb, would you read again chapter 1, verses 18 to 21?
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Then after three years, I went up to him and stayed with him with only
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James, the Lord's brother. I assure you, it's no lie.
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Later, I went to Syria and Cilicia, I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.
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You can stop there. Thank you. Just in this first visit, how many days is he down there in Jerusalem?
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15 days. Who was he with? Peter and a little bit of James.
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Yes, James was there as well, except that James, the Lord's brother, saw him. But he was particularly with Peter, with him for 15 days.
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And now some people would say, yeah, I don't know. Did that really happen? Because the
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Judaizers and Paul are in a major dispute up in Galatia. So these guys are saying, we've come from Jerusalem.
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We know that Jerusalem would like to see the Gentiles obey the law in order to become
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Christians. And Paul is at loggerheads in the church up in Galatia. He's arguing to say,
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I'm telling you the truth. When I first got saved and I first started preaching the gospel,
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I went to Jerusalem right away. And I spent 15 days with Peter.
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And I'm sure there's some people saying, yeah, right. He's trying to strengthen his argument. That never happened. I doubt it.
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I don't believe he actually. He's just trying to make it sound like he's got the true gospel. He's trying to use
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Peter's name. And so he interjects, in what I'm writing to you, be for God. I do not lie.
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I made that trip. James saw it. You can ask him. He was there for a little bit of it. I stayed at Peter's house and I was with him for 15 days.
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So that's his first marshalling of evidence, the first witness. Let's read now
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John, if you would, verses 22 to 24. And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.
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They only were hearing it said, he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.
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And they glorified God because of me. What's he appealing to here as the second evidence?
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These people in Jerusalem, the majority of Christians never saw him on that trip. This was just a private trip between him and Peter, a little bit of James.
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But the Christians in Jerusalem and broadly, they had never met him. But what is he appealing to here?
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Well, they, uh, they go back. He nailed it.
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What they had on him, he was a killer of the Christians. That's right.
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Perfect, Sam. That's what he's appealing to. His own testimony saying, look, I'm uniquely called and gifted to this role as an apostle.
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I was the one who tried to kill Christians. I was trained under Gamaliel, raised up within the knowledge of the law of God.
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But grace, but God. He interposed and made me a preacher.
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And everybody has known this testimony. So he's reminding them of his testimony of who he was,
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B .C. and A .D. Who he became, A .D. So he's his second line of evidence is his own testimony that grace rescued him.
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Yeah, verse 24 just absolutely amplifies it because, okay, he did see
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Peter and he and he spent time there. He was taught. And then he goes to your point to these people who would have known he was.
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He was horrible to us. And the testimony is because of the gospel and because of this and everything else,
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God is glorified through him as opposed to being an enemy.
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He is now purveyor of God's glory. That's right. All right, Rick, would you read for us
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Galatians 2, 1 and 2. Then after 14 years,
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I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them, though privately before those who seemed influential.
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The gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.
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Second visit to Jerusalem. Now, there is a difference in the commentaries.
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If you picked up the one from Dallas Seminary, you would read them and they point to Acts chapter 11.
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If you were to read some of the older commentaries like Matthew Henry, he assumes this is Acts 15, the
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Jerusalem Council. Just reading it, most people default to Acts 15 because we're so familiar with the
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Jerusalem Council. Do you remember Acts 15? When the question of circumcision came up, the Judaizers were pressing their point.
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They call a council. Paul comes down. They debate these things. The apostles side with Paul.
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They only give them four minor regulations, but not rules or gospel requirements.
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Things about eating blood or things offered to idols or strangulation and sexual immorality.
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These are guidelines for Christian behavior, but they're not gospel requirements. That's the
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Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. Many people assume that that's what's being spoken of here. I'll tell you why
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I think it's actually the Acts 11 visit that is in view here.
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First of all, John, would you read for me from the notes the visit from Acts 11 and what happened at that particular point in time?
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Now, these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of the Agabus stood up and foretold by the spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world.
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This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.
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And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. On this trip,
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Barnabas and Saul, that's Paul, go together to Jerusalem. Here's why
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I think this is the visit in view. Number one, the absence of mention of this visit when
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Paul is explicitly telling when he went to Jerusalem.
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If verses 1 and 2 refer to Acts 15, he's simply skipping Acts 11, which is kind of counterintuitive when the whole point that he's making is, this is when
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I went. So you would think logically that the second visit would be the second visit.
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So already at the outset, second visit has an advantage, right? Because it's the second time he went.
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So he's probably talking about Acts 11, just in that sense. But there's a second reason in verse 2.
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He doesn't say, I went up because my theology was challenged by the Judaizers. He interestingly says,
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I went up because of a revelation. I went up because of a revelation.
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What was the revelation? Well, as John just read, the precipitating factor in Acts 11 was a prophet who brings a revelation.
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This prophet named Agabus reveals that there is going to be a famine, and this is going to be particularly devastating in Jerusalem.
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The disciples decide, hey, let's get together some relief and send that down to Jerusalem.
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So if you think of that context, look at verse 2. I went up because of a revelation, namely
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Agabus' prophecy, and set before them, though privately before those who seem to be influential.
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Now that's my third point of evidence. This is a private meeting, not a public council. This is him while he happens to be in town saying, hey guys,
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Peter, we need to talk. I really want to ask you. Do you see this the same way
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I do? That the gospel is grace alone, and that with any works added, including circumcision, you lose the gospel.
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And this private meeting, as he says here, confirms the gospel he preached.
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I think this happened at that point in time. And the Jerusalem council is yet another point of evidence later down the road.
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Make sense? That's where I'm at with it. So Paul's concern was for gospel faithfulness and fruitfulness.
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Why do you think he said, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain? Do you think he was questioning the gospel of grace?
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You're right to say no. He's worried about fruitfulness there. To be in vain would be,
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I'm preaching this, and now you guys are undermining it here. He's not doubting. And he made this very clear in the passage
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John taught. He didn't need the approval of men. He wasn't looking for the approval of men. He knew that God himself gave him the gospel of grace.
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So to run in vain would be working against, being at loggerheads or against one another.
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If the apostles in Jerusalem or any angel in heaven was preaching something else, that will cause a vain fruitfulness.
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You're going to be working against each other. It's going to come to nothing. We're going to hurt each other, and we're going to mess up the gospel here.
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But he's not doubting the gospel of grace. He knows that. He's saying that it could have been that maybe they had it wrong.
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Yes. Back to the thing about Jerusalem Council. Yes. Is he writing this before the
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Jerusalem Council, you think? Well, the book of Galatians is likely written before the
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Jerusalem Council, in my mind. But it's hard to date. It could be earlier than that. So the book of Acts is written in the 60s,
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Luke -Acts, as that's recounting the council. When did the council happen? And scholars differ on that at which point.
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Maybe as early as like 48. Yeah. But it could have been as late as 51. So the point in time where he writes is questionable.
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Yeah. May I get some thoughts real quick? Yes, Dominic. Okay. So with respect to the gospel and my thoughts,
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I'm driven to some things. For example, Paul, to me, looking at Paul, he fulfilled the calling of the nation of Israel in a sense.
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Yeah. Because he was the apostle to the Gentiles. Okay. So he didn't go to the
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Gentiles to create the Gentiles to be something other than. Right. And that takes me to Acts 7 because my belief is that Stephen preached the gospel.
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It goes back to when Christ was on the road to Emmaus and said to them, starting with Moses. Yep.
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And the prophets, he told them that was the gospel. And then also too, and we know that in Acts 10 with Cornelius, Peter left
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Jerusalem to go to Caesarea, but that was north. So that was like the tip. He didn't leave
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Judea and Samaria, you know, he didn't go beyond that point because the gospel was going to the Jews first,
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Gentiles then, you know, all other parts of the world. This is what Paul was taking.
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So the only thought that I have is that to keep in mind that the gospel is not just a word or one thing.
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It's this story of God's redemption and his salvation and redemption of the entire cosmos.
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Yeah, that's a larger discussion. Here, what Paul is concerned about in Galatians 1, 6 to 9 is the gospel of grace over against a
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Judaized gospel, what he calls another gospel. So this is an apologetic epistle where he's fighting against what's called
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Judaizers. Judaizers are those who add something to the way of salvation.
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So if you want to say that there are cosmic implications to the gospel, Romans 8, one day the sons of God will see the glory of God in all creation.
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Absolutely. Cosmic implications, eternal, the eschaton will be changed and the world will be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.
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And there is something of the gospel pointing to that. But I want you to focus on what this letter is doing.
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And what it's doing here is it's an apologetic work fighting against a
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Judaizer who would add something to the way of salvation. And that's why we stress here, the gospel of grace is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin and eternal life to those who repent and believe.
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That's what Paul is advocating here over against the Judaized gospel. Okay, let's go on. Yes. I was just going to say, along with that, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest we be banished from both.
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So that emphasizes the grace. That's it. And he'll spell that out in Romans 3, 21 to 5, 21.
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It's against boasting because it is only a gift. Grace, by definition, is a gift.
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And that is what he's guarding here. Well said. All right, John, could you take us to verse 3?
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Okay. Why does Paul throw this in? And what witness is he offering to his larger point to defeat the
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Judaizers? Not of works.
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How does Titus prove that? Well, he was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a
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Greek. He was not compelled. Right. So I call him
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Titus the test case. Just like we had Abishag the heating pad hanging out with King David, keeping him warm.
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This is Titus the test case. Hey, Titus, you're coming with us to Jerusalem. Well, why do I got to go?
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He's probably eager to go. But Paul, why do you want me? You're our test case because you're not circumcised.
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We want to see how Peter and James and the apostles welcome you.
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Will they be with the Judaizers who won't sit down with you or eat with you or in any way fraternize with you because you're a
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Greek? Or will they treat you as a brother? And sure enough,
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Paul's saying, in case you doubt me, here's Titus the test case. He was with me and they welcomed him, which proves they agree with us and not you
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Judaizers. He's Titus the test case. Verse four and five. If we go on,
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Janet. And this occurred because of false brothers secretly brought in who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.
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To whom we did not yield submission, even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
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There will be spies. There will be opponents of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And they will be sneaky. When they introduce a destructive heresy, some form of works that you must do in order to be saved, they won't look like a heretic.
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They will look like the nicest guy you ever know. They might have a big, awesome mustache. And I have to be careful here, because I don't know
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Paul Tripp or where he's gone since then. I'm sad that he never repented publicly.
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He's kind of faded from the scene. I'm sad that he never answered, not just me, but John MacArthur and all the other pastors that said, look, it's not a truncated gospel.
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That's Judaizing language. But I will say this, Paul in this passage is no respecter of persons.
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If he's not a respecter of Paul Tripp, or of Peter, or James, or anyone,
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Paul would not countenance any gospel other than the gospel of grace undiluted. He doesn't care if it's
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Paul Tripp. He doesn't care if it's Peter. Do you notice this in his teaching? Because the very point is to say, church, be on guard.
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It's good to be discerning. And Paul will tell the Bereans, he says that they were more noble than the
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Thessalonians because they examined the scripture to see if these things were said. They didn't just take it because Paul the apostle was saying it.
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They looked at the word of God. So even if John one day preaches a false gospel, even if Jeff preaches a false gospel, even if any of you preach, there's no discrimination or respecters of persons.
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The idea here is you need to be on guard and you need to carefully guard the gospel of grace against any deception.
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Do you see this? Because the very point is they were sneaky. Verse four, false brothers secretly brought in, slipping in to spy out our freedom.
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They hate the gospel of grace. And you wouldn't have expected it because they're not, they're not announcing themselves.
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They're dressing themselves like sheep. Yeah, Paul. I mean, Stan. Wow. You just got upgraded.
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I'm referring to the apostle, not Trent. Oh, I'm saying the apostle.
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I was just in the opposition to Judaizers, how they were against Paul when he was preaching the true gospel, the grace.
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Right. They set up lies. They chased him. They stoned him.
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They didn't want him in their cities. Right. He was preaching the true gospel. Amen. So this opposition was mighty big.
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It was. This was the first great controversy of church history. The first opponent to the gospel came from the
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Jews Judaizing the gospel, claiming to be brothers, but they're false brothers. They're masquerading as one of us.
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But ultimately, they're still trying to bring people back under the law. Shortly thereafter will come the Gnosticism, which is the second great heresy.
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And then you have Arianism and all kinds. Every generation faces one heresy after another, but it always has that root, a departure from the gospel of grace.
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One question I just wanted to ask you. What is our liberty? Because they were spying out something.
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Yes. Our liberty. Yes. Very important question. So there is a freedom in Christ from the law of Moses with particular reference to the ceremonial aspects of law.
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So circumcision is no longer prescribed as a necessary obedience to God's moral law.
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It was it was ceremonial is what was distinguishing Abraham and his children from the pagan nations.
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In the same way, there were ceremonial sacrificing of animals that stopped with Christ. There were dietary laws, which in acts of the revelation of the sheep that came down ends.
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And Jesus also kind of ended that in his teaching. So there are certain ceremonial dietary aspects to the law that we are free from.
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Now, we have to be careful there, though, because the Christian being regenerate must now live according to the law of God.
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It's not that the law of God just becomes irrelevant. There is a general equity in the entire Old Testament, which still applies to us.
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So freedom or liberty does not mean, oh, ethics are just make your own ethics as long as you're sincere.
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No, there is a sexual ethic. There is an ethic with regard to private property. All kinds of ethics in the
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Ten Commandments still reign supreme in guiding our behavior. So by freedom or liberty, he doesn't mean that we're we just disregard the law.
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That's antinomianism. It means that there are certain aspects of the ceremonial law which are no longer a part of the church.
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So circumcision, in this case, is the one he has in view. And circumcision of the heart. Yes. Well, so much of that was pointing to the new covenant.
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So even Sabbath day rest finds its fulfillment in Christ as the Sabbath keeper, who is our rest.
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Hebrews 3 and 4. So, yeah, in the same way, circumcision of the heart is regeneration. It's to have that new heart to be changed.
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And the fleshliness of our old nature is cut away. That's the picture there in circumcision.
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Yes. I think it would include all of the ceremonial dietary aspects of the law.
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Yes, because the Judaizers, they're using circumcision as kind of like their test case. And beyond that, the fact is they're trying to reintroduce law as the means of salvation.
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Very good. Thank you for that. Okay. And then on to verses, just to do verse 6.
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Right. Again, and I said this earlier, so I'll just stress it one more point.
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Paul's not being disrespectful. What's happening here is he's putting God's gospel above persons.
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In Acts 10, 34 and 35, Peter opened his mouth and said, Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
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God is not a respecter of persons. That's what Paul is stressing here. He's not disrespecting the men and their personalities and their station.
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He's saying that it's God's gospel that reigns supreme. Verses 7 to 9.
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Very good. And this ESV translation at this point is preferable to the
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King James. This is one point where the King James version of KJV onlyness should answer because the
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King James says the gospel of the circumcised. And the gospel of the uncircumcised.
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Why would that be problematic? And it goes back to our original point. There is only one gospel.
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It's not the gospel of justice or the gospel of... There is one gospel, but here there are in view two distinct people groups.
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And the distinction is between Jew and Gentile. Now, the Jewish ethnicity is a distinct people group with which
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God still deals, which is why they came back into their homeland in 1948, which is why they're still the center of the world geopolitically.
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Yes, the Jewish people are distinctly ethnically identified as such, as a distinct people.
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And everybody else is just Gentile. That's how the Bible describes this particular distinction.
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It's not that we should say, well, white, black, Puerto Rican, Chinese, there's
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Jew and Gentile. Everybody's just Gentile. And then ultimately, both Jew and Gentile find their lineage in one man,
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Adam. So there's really only one race, but God distinctly called a people descendants of Abraham.
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And so there is a gospel to the circumcised, and the same gospel goes to the uncircumcised.
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That's the distinction here. Who was it that was supposed to take the gospel in Jerusalem to the Jews? Peter.
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And what was Paul's unique mission that he was on? To the Gentiles. That's the distinction here.
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Not two separate gospels. And then lastly, in chapter two, verse 10, I'll just read it and finish it up.
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Only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.
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It's interesting because why was Paul in Jerusalem? If the
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Acts 11 theory is right, he was there eagerly helping the poor.
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The very thing he was there to do and eager to do was delivering aid because of a coming famine.
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So that, again, is a fourth line of evidence that it was the Acts 11 council that brought him there at that particular point in time.
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That's what they told him to do, to remember the poor. But there's a second dynamic to why Paul is bringing aid from the
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Gentiles to the Jews. What would be a better builder of unity than for Gentile Christians to send an offering and hear the
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Jewish believers who have been skeptical of accepting the Gentiles would receive help in their time of need from Gentile brothers.
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And so even later in Paul's ministry, remember this third missionary journey? He's going through Corinth and he's taking a gift.
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Remember that, 2 Corinthians 8 -9? For deliverance and help to the
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Jewish people in Jerusalem. He's trying to bring unity in the church between Jewish and Gentile background believers.
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So it's, first of all, out of concern for the suffering brother. There's a famine, there's need.
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And the Jewish people in particularly suffer, the Christian in Jerusalem, because there they are most likely to be put out of the marketplace.
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They lose their business. How can you work when you're a Christian and everybody else is looking down on you?
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You might have a little more shelter up in Galatia, but Jerusalem, you're in the thick of it, okay?
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So they have the great financial need. In the same way, church, you don't need to be told to remember the poor in Malawi.
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Because that's the very thing that you showed yourself eager to do in funding an orphanage to be built in Malawi.
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We need to, from this verse, remember the orphan, the widow, those who are most defenseless and need help.
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We, our hearts of compassion should be towards the poor. And Paul can very sincerely say, because he was on a journey proving it, and he proved it for the rest of his life, that he did care about the poor.
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Remember the poor. So this, again, confirms his gospel.
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This is the point. Continue to remember the poor in places like Malawi. Not that we need to be reminded of this.
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We've shown our eagerness to do it. But remember also the place of works in the train of saving faith.
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These works, anything that we do for the poor, any kind of justice work that we do, biblical justice, to deliver the unborn from those who are slaughtering them in the womb, anything we do like that is not conflated with the gospel.
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In the train of salvation, works follow saving faith. They don't precipitate it to contribute to it.
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Acts 15 .1 is a lie that you must be circumcised in order to be saved. Our gospel is complete and stands alone.
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It is not truncated. It is fully described in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4, that Christ died according to the scriptures for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he rose on the third day according to the scriptures.
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John, could you close us in prayer? Lord God, we are reminded that you are
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Lord God over all. We are reminded that on the sixth day you created man.
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You did not create differences. You created man. We're reminded of the teaching of Paul in the letter to Ephesians that the middle wall of partition has been broken down, that we are now one in Christ.
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He is our peace who has made both one. Any attempts to differentiate between social groups, whether it's the
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Judaizers or things of social justice today, are just an anathema.
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We know your gospel is true and it is true to all. Lord, we take this gospel to a world that needs it and then we take our love to a world that needs it in action as well.
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But Lord, we first of all thank you for the truth of your gospel to your glory and they glorify
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God in me as Paul said that as we bring the word, God is glorified and we pray this in Jesus' name.