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Now, last night we began to study together the second great objective that Joshua had before him when he brought the Israelites into the land of their inheritance. His first objective, of course, had been physically to get the Israelites through Jordan and to have their feet actually standing within the borders of their inheritance. But when once Israel were into their inheritance and stood within the land, then the next prime objective that Joshua pursued was to establish the law of God in the land of Canaan. We noticed this was an objective that Moses himself had commanded.
This was what Israel were to do so soon as they entered into the land. Moses himself, as we have observed now many times, commanded it, but was not able to achieve it. But what Moses was unable to achieve, that Joshua, the captain of Israel's salvation, did achieve. Demolishing all opposition that stood in the way, he took Israel triumphantly forward to Mount Ebal and Gerizim, and there in the presence of God, in the presence of the altar, in the presence of the ark and all God's people, he had the law established so that all the people gave their hearty amen to the recital of the blessings that would come from keeping the law, and all the people gave their hearty amen to the curses that must come if they fail to keep that law.
And of course, we immediately last night drew the lesson for ourselves, helped, of course, by the New Testament. It is the fact that our blessed Lord has made us qualified for our partaking of the inheritance of the saints in light. But at the same time, God's great objective in our salvation is that the righteous requirement of the law shall be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. It is the fact, of course, we noticed it, uh, and all of us know it anyway, that we are not saved by keeping the law.
But though we are not saved by keeping the law, that does not mean that God now is careless or indifferent as to whether we keep that law or not. Let us repeat again to our hearts, it is God's great objective that the righteous requirement of his law shall be fulfilled in us. And therefore our interest concentrates on the way God's great objective will be fulfilled. Naturally, last night we spent quite a deal of time asking ourselves a question and then answering it. If it was God's great objective for Israel that the r- the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled and the law established, what relationship did that have to Israel's actual entry to their inheritance?
In other words, was it so that first Israel had to establish that law and keep that law in order to qualify to enter their inheritance? Or was it the other way round, that God first brought them into their inheritance, and then in their gratitude and loyalty to God, they were led to keep that law. And we found, of course, that the answer to the question was the second. Even with Israel, their entry into the land was not conditionable, uh, conditional upon their keeping the law. And we cited to ourselves the test case mentioned at the beginning of chapter five, the question of their circumcision.
Joshua chapter five tells us that when Joshua got Israel across into the land, he made sharp knives of stone, and he circumcised the nation, the bulk of whom had not been circumcised all through the forty years of the wilderness journey, so that when they entered the land, they were still not circumcised. It was only after they entered their inheritance that Joshua circumcised them. That right of s- of circumcision becomes a test case, of course. As Paul, hundreds of years later, was to put it, if you make circumcision a condition of being justified, if you make circumcision a condition of entering into the inheritance, then you won't be able to stop short with circumcision.
For, says Paul, I testify to everybody who is circumcised, in the sense that you're circumcised now in order to be justified or in order to get your inheritance. I'm telling you straight, says Paul. If you say that you have to be circumcised to be justified or to inherit your inheritance, then you can't stop with circumcision. You are a debtor to do the whole law. You cannot just choose one commandment out of the law, satisfy that and say, look here, now I've qualified. Do you know, I've done one commandment in the law. No, no. If it's going to depend upon the law, you cannot rest content with one.
You must do the whole lot, says law Paul. I testify to you, everyone who is circumcised is a despot to the whole law. And therefore, it becomes a very great importance historically to ask ourselves, when was Israel circumcised? Was it before they entered the land, as a condition of their entry, or was it afterwards? And the answer is as clear as the proverbial pikestaff. They were circumcised after they got into the land.
And we notice that Paul explicitly makes the same point in the New Testament, Romans chapter four verse thirteen. in regard to the great promised inheritance that has been promised to us, as it was to Abram. He asks now, what was Abram's state when God made that promise to him? Was he circumcised, or was he still uncircumcised? When God made promise to Abram of inheriting the great inheritance, and the answer of Romans four is plain enough. Abram was still uncircumcised when God made him the promise. For to Abram in the Old Testament and to us in the New Testament, entry into our glorious inheritance is not conditional upon being circumcised or indeed upon keeping the law of God.
Oh, how we should praise God and never tire of having it repeated. My brother, my sister, if our entry into the great inheritance held out for us by our Lord depended upon our keeping the law, then none of us would ever get in. Not even Moses got in on those terms. The lawgiver himself broke the law and ended up at last still outside the inheritance. We made the point, of course, that when God tells us that nobody is justified by the law, you cannot inherit on the grounds and conditions of keeping the law. God is not disparaging his law, far from it.
And therefore, last night we pursued the lesson as we thought of the entry of Israel into the land and then subsequently their destruction of Jericho. And notice the great significance of the fact that when God's judgment fell upon the civilization of Canaan for its extreme wickedness, God made Israel come along with him, so to speak, and be his instrument in the execution of his judgment upon the land. In other words, God made Israel agree with God over God's sentence of judgment upon the sin of the Canaanites.
And reluctant as o- reluctant as often they were to do it, compromising as often they did, nevertheless God insisted. Through Joshua and through the subsequent elders and through the judges recorded in the book of Judges, insisted that Israel would come ever round to the point of view that God's judgment upon the sinfulness of Canaan was absolutely just. And therefore, last night, when we read how that under God, Israel were commanded to not only to take Jericho City and destroy the buildings, but he was, they were commanded to destroy every man, woman, boy, and girl in Jericho.
And our hearts quailed before the severity of that judgment. And yet... it drove us to think of what the New Testament says about ourselves and everybody else nowadays too. This is not some savage, antiquated notion that God had, which he has subse- subsequently given up in the New Testament. The very basic first condition of being justified, the very first step towards enjoying our great inheritance is precisely this for us as well, that we come to agree with God in his judgment and the judgment of his holy law against sin. For we know that what things soever the law says, it says to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world come and stand guilty, liable to the judgment of God.
Of course, when the judgments of God descended upon Jericho, it was not unrelieved judgment. For we read that the great sinner Rahab the harlot, having turned to God from her idols and put her faith in the true God, Rahab was delivered from the judgment, and not only saved from the penalty of her sin, but incorporated into the people of God, and became subsequently an heiress along with the Israelite, fellow member of the covenant, fellow heir of all the promises, and to boot, became an ancestress of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And on what ground? Why, not on the ground of her having kept the very sorry job of doing that. She inherited, she was spared the judgment on the ground, as the New Testament comments, of her faith in God, and her faith demonstrated to be real by her taking her stand with the spies and with the people of God, turning to God from idols and demonstrating by her behavior that she meant what she said. So was she justified, saved, and brought to inherit the inheritance along with Israel.
You say, how could God, uh, receive a once-time harlot like Rahab of Jericho and pardon her and save her from judgment and incorporate her into his people and make her an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ? How could God do it and do it justly? The Epistle to the Roman explains, of course, in its chapter three, how God has now been vindicated by the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to show God's righteousness. His righteousness in what? Oh, first of all, in this, in his passing over of the sins done aforetime.
I hope Rahab can hear, because she's smiling all over her face tonight as she hears it. How was I justified? How was I spared the judgment that fell upon Jericho? How was I, desperate sinner that I was, incorporated into the people of God and made an ancen- ancestress of Christ? How could God do it and remain just? And the answer she now knows is this. Centuries later, our blessed Lord came and died at Calvary. His precious propitiation has its benefit backward to her as well as forward to us, and shows that God was just in forgiving her and passing over her transgressions, even though she herself never personally heard of the personal name of Jesus.
As she was saved and forgiven and became an heiress, so we too, we who, by God's grace, have not only heard the name Jesus, but have put our faith in Jesus because we have heard of him. His blessed propitiation covers the guilt of our sin, has paid the penalty, and solely on the ground of that sacrifice do we enter our inheritance. Yes, that's good. But then you say, while it is so, what about your objective? Have you lost sight of the objective? We don't inherit on the grounds of the law.
But is it not still true that God's great objective was that eventually the law should be established in Canaan? And is it not true that with us too, though we are saved by grace, not by the deeds of the law, yet God's objective still remains that the righteousness of the law shall be fulfilled in us? What about that objective? And how is it to be done? We turn, therefore, tonight to look at the second story in this particular part of Joshua. In order for the law to be established in the land of Canaan, not one city, but two had to be conquered.
First, there stood Jericho with its age-old, hoary old, terrible old walls that had to be breached and the city destroyed, that obstacle number one might be removed, that the people of God might be free to go forward and establish the law. But not just one city. After Jericho, there stood Ai. And when Israel first caught sight of it, it seemed, by comparison, a very little city. They said to themselves, in fact, at the morning military session for planning, they said, is it not a very little city? Joshua, my boy, said they, sir, uh, uh, captain, um, we may suggest, if we may, uh, that you don't come up with all the army.
I mean, it's a piffling little city, really. Just send a few of the men up, and we'll take it easily and come back for dinner, do you see? But it didn't prove quite so easy. Perhaps overconfident from their recent victory, and not realizing the depth of the danger that was in front of them, and completely innocent as a nation of the fact that they had just themselves come under the judgment of God, and deserved the same curse that had come upon Jericho should come upon them.
Ignorant of the fact they went up to try and take Ai, and the king of Ai came out against them and beat them away, and they ran as fast as their hairy little legs would take them down from Ai, running as hard as they could go. And of course, it caused panic in the camp. Joshua, as a commander in chief, saw the implication at once. When the nations around had heard that the ark had come through Jordan and a great miracle had been done, their hearts melted for very fear. When they heard that God himself had brought the walls of Jericho down, the hearts of the kings melted for very fear. But now, if they should hear or read it in the newsletter or something, that AI, little AI, had managed to rout the Israelite attackers.
And of course, the confidence of the Canaanite kings would revive. And if they should assemble and attack Israel so recently come over, that could have ended in utter disaster. And Joshua, in his fear and panic, fell flat on his face before God and remained there a whole day long until he heard from God the reason why God was no longer with them. Achan, a certain Achan, private in the army, had committed a fearful sin. When the troops were about to invade Jericho, Joshua, in God's name, had told them very clearly that the whole city had to be devoted to God.
Every living thing destroyed, the gold and the silver set aside into the treasury of the house of the Lord. No one was to take anything from the spoil of Jericho. Ah, but Achan, going here and there in his military duties and in the heat of the rout, he saw some gold and silver and some beautiful vestments. And do remember he'd been a, he'd been a wanderer in the wilderness for I don't know how many years. And they looked so beautiful. And he said to himself, well, what's wrong with a little bit, you know? Sure, they got up to some funny practices in Jericho, but, uh, I don't need to get involved in all that, but this can't be all that bad, can it?
Nice, beautiful new suit, the ra- latest material, and a gold wedge and silver, and he took them and hid them in his tent. He thus broke the curse that God had placed upon the city, and brought that curse both upon himself and upon Israel. To use the words of the history book, he troubled Israel, and in the end, Israel, uh, God troubled him. Not until his sin was discovered, exposed, confessed, and then the penalty paid and Achan executed, would God consent to travel with Israel again and give them the victory over Ai?
What a mockery it would have been, wouldn't it, to go up to Mount Gerizim and establish the law if all the time Achan's sin unconfessed had been in the camp of Israel. What lesson then shall we draw from this, uh, great story? If we were so disposed, I suppose we could take the simple line, could we not, and give an answer. It would be simplistic, but then it would be simple. We could say that the story of Ai and Achan tells us this, that if we would be efficient as believers in our spiritual warfare from the Lord, for the Lord, we must learn to be obedient and not to disobey the commandments of the Lord.
For if in our self-confidence we grow careless and disobey the Lord, then the enemy will be able to defeat us. And secondly, if from time to time we discover we have disobeyed the Lord, then we must confess it and seek the Lord's forgiveness. Otherwise we cannot be efficient soldiers in the army of the Lord. And you know, that simple lesson would be true, wouldn't it? Not, not to be despised. So if we wanted, we could learn that lesson and at this point shut our Bibles and go home. The difficulty would be not in, in learning the lesson, but putting it into practice.
And yet it seems to me, you know, we cannot really be consent with that con- content with that simplistic application of the story. It would hardly do justice, would it, to all the immense detail of those two very long chapters. Not to speak of the fact that when Achan's sin was discovered and confessed, there wasn't any forgiveness for it, was there? The man had to be executed. That's a very solemn story. And we shouldn't take the edge off God's holy word by treating it as though we were talking of a believer in the Lord Jesus.
So then how shall we interpret the story? We can make a beginning, it seems to be, by noticing a fact, at least I count it interesting. And that is this, if you carefully listen to the phrases and the ideas and the expressions that occur in the story of Achan and Ai, you will presently come to see that it has a tremendous amount in common with the language that Paul uses in his epistle to the Galatians. And by the good favor of our, our, our, our good brother Campbell, you have before you on your sheet a list of those correspondences.
If you have the sheet anywhere near you, you may care to take it in your hand and look at them as we briefly go through them. First of all, we observe the simple, straightforward fact. The list at the bottom of your page, look, if you will, at number three. This concerns the curse that God pronounced upon the city of Jericho. The Hebrew for it is the word Harem. It indicates the most sweeping judgment that divine justice could ever pronounce upon a city. In fact, these, this terrible judgment was applied to Jericho and nowhere else.
You'll not read in the whole of the rest, even of the book of Joshua, however many cities were destroyed, you will not read again of a judgment so severe and so sweeping passed upon any other city than Jericho. We better stop and examine what the judgment was. When a thing fell under this curse or this ban, Hebrew word kerem, it meant that everything had to be devoted to the Lord, as the authorized Version says. Then pray remember that the word devoted in your Authorized Version is an old Latin word, really, and doesn't mean what we mean by devoted nowadays.
When we talk about a devoted Christian, we mean a man or woman who loves the Lord and serves him as best they can, don't we? But in the old days, devoted meant that you were set apart to the Lord for his judgment and execution. A city that was devoted to the Lord meant that all the inhabitants of that city would be destroyed by the sword under the curse of God. The gold and silver and the clothes in the city could not be destroyed by the sword, but if they were devoted, it meant that nobody hereafter may touch them, save only that they must collect them and put them in the treasury of the Lord.
They were handed over to the Lord because they had fallen under his curse. It was an exceedingly solemn judgment, the cherem. And when a few months ago I was sitting reading that passage, I said to myself, you know, Gooding, your heart nearly quails when you read of it, doesn't it? What a severe judgment. Why was God so severe? And how would you begin to interpret it, I said to my little self. And then I suddenly thought, as I do occasionally, uh, I thought, well, is there anywhere in the New Testament that would talk of a judgment as severe as that.
For after all, the New Testament is the place where you would read of the love of God as expressed through Jesus Christ our Lord. How would a judgment so terribly severe be consonant with the mercy and love of God as expressed in Jesus Christ our Lord? And then I began to think, well, I said the He- Old Testament written in Hebrew, so the word is kerim. In the New Testament, the language is Greek. What would the Greek be for kerem? The Greek for kerem, ladies and gentlemen, as you probably know, and I put it on the sheet, is anathema. To put something under the curse in Greek is anathematizo, to anathematize.
And even I could then remember a couple of places in the New Testament where that solemn judgment is pronounced. Twice over in two verses in Galatians chapter one, Paul pronounces that selfsame sweeping judgment such as fell as on Jericho City. If I or any other, be it an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel, let him come under the anathema, under the curse, under the herem of God.
I began to pull up my spiritual socks then. I said, my goodness me, Gooding, there's something serious going on in Galatians. If the great Apostle Paul, author of that delightful hymn to love that is one Corinthians thirty, sees in the false doctrine that was being taught in Galatia something so serious as it must come under the selfsame curse of God as Jericho City suffered. I hadn't been thinking like that for two minutes when I noticed another thing. God warned the people of Israel that they were not to touch anything in Jericho for and take it for themselves, everything devoted for the Lord.
For if any of you touches it, says God, and takes it for yourself, you will yourselves become a curse. You will bring the curse down on Israel too, and you will trouble Israel. And I read a bit further. How when Achan's sin was, uh, found and exposed, Joshua solemnly faced Achan, and he said, Achan, why have you troubled Israel. God shall trouble you. And Israel took him and all he had and stoned him in the valley of Achor, which in Hebrew means the valley of troubling.
But then, of course, I couldn't help remembering what Paul says three times over in the Epistle to the Galatians. I marvel, says he, to his Galatian converts, I marvel that you are so soon departing from the gospel. Unless it is that there are some who trouble you. Whosoever he be that troubles you shall bear his own burden, says Paul. And then in desperation he adds, I would to God that they were cut off, those who trouble you.
That sent me saying, well, now this is so serious, I must try and understand what the epistle to the Galatians is saying. I said to myself, is there an- are there any other correspondences of phrase or idea in this part of Joshua that link with the Galatians? Why, of course. Were you listening last night when we, uh, we, uh, thought about the establishment of the law at Gerizim, how the Levites read out the blessings, and Israel said amen, and then they read out the cursing and said amen. Then I thought of what Galatians says, that Christ was made a curse for us.
The only place in the epistles where it is said, isn't it? He was made a curse for us that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles. And I said to myself, what is the blessing of Abraham, if it isn't justification and the promise of the great inheritance. And I read further how that, um, when Jericho City was destroyed, Joshua issued another curse, saying, cursed be anybody that turns round and rebuilds Jericho.
And I said to myself, you know, I think I've heard a phrase like that in the New Testament somewhere. Where is it that Paul had occasion to say to somebody, if I build again that which I have destroyed earlier, I show myself to be a transgressor. And I said, hey, presto, it's, it's, it's in Galatians, of course, isn't it? It's Paul rebuking Peter for his inconsistent behavior.
And so I came to the tentative conclusion, I hope you do too, that the similarities of phrase and idea, indeed of language, are not accidental. It must have come about for this reason, that the great principle, the underlying principle that was at stake with Achan's sin and the conquest of Jericho and Ai, that fundamental principle was the same principle that is at stake in Paul's discussion of the false teaching that was spreading among the Galatians. At least that's how I'm going to think about it, and I invite you to think about it with me for the rest of this lecture.
We ought to start then, didn't we, by, uh, considering and getting clear in our mind the nature of Achan's sin and its seriousness. What was it that he actually did? What he did was this. He tried to salvage something that was in fact under the curse of God. God had put pronounced his kerem, his curse upon that city, so that even the gold and the silver and the clothing had to be devoted to the Lord and put aside in the treasury, none may touch it.
And Achan moved with covetousness because it was so beautiful, took the gold and the silver and the garment that was under the curse of God and tried to salvage it for his own use, and thereby himself came under the curse and brought Israel under it too. What's that got to do with the matter in hand in the Epistle to the Galatians? Well, my brothers and my sisters, it's got everything to do for what the false teachers were doing and teaching, according to Paul in his epistle to the Galatians, was precisely that.
They were trying to salvage out of Judaism the right of circumcision and the keeping of the law as a means for salvation, and they were doing it when in fact God has pronounced his solemn curse on anybody that tries to do any such thing. And if that seems too sweeping to you, may I ask you to look with me?
Cast your eye quickly down chapter three of Galatians, would you be so kind? These people, I repeat, while you find the place, were telling the believers as follows. They were saying, yes, you Gentiles, yes, we don't dispute it, you have been justified through faith in the Lord Jesus. But now, you Gentiles, that isn't enough. In addition to faith in the Lord Jesus for salvation and for your inheritance, you must add the right of circumcision and the keeping of the law as a condition for your being saved, as a condition for your entry into the inheritance.
And Paul says, anybody who teaches that, let him be anathema. Why anathema? Because he's trying to salvage something that has come under God's own curse. You say, surely God hasn't cursed his own law, has he? No, he hasn't indeed. His law remains holy, spiritual, and good. But look what Paul says in chapter three of Galatians and verse ten: For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, cursed is everyone which continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.
The words are so solemn, we must stop and ponder them, mustn't we? What is the verse saying? Cursed are all those who take their stand upon doing the law, that is, as a means of salvation. Why is that? Well, because pray consider what you mean when you're talking about law in this context. You'll say, let's pause a moment and relax and think about it. What do we mean by law? You say the Ten Commandments. Well, yes, if you like, and all the others as well. The Hebrew word for law, you know, is the Hebrew word Torah.
It basically means instruction. But then God's holy law was more than instruction, and it's this next point about it that we have to grasp. God's law isn't just instruction, my friend. God's law doesn't come to you and say, now look here, do you know what a good way of living would be? Um, try this one that's quite useful, you know. Um, for instance, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Well, what about trying that for the next week or so? You'll find it's a reasonable way of living. I'd advise you to give it a try. No, indeed not.
To phrase it so would be almost a blasphemy, wouldn't it? God's law isn't just advice. God's holy law as a principle is command plus penalty. It is prohibition, thou shalt not, plus penalty. Listen to those Levites. You keep the law, God will bless you. You break it, and God's law will curse you to your face. And the curse of the law is eternal perdition.
This is law. You do the whole law. You continue in all that is written. The moment you come short, you have broken the law. The penalty is eternal death. Says Paul, it is obvious, isn't it, that everybody who says they take their stand on keeping the law for salvation, they stand under God's curse.
Why? Because they haven't kept all. He that keeps the whole law and offends in one point is guilty of all. We do well in our modern day to ponder the holiness of God and the seriousness of the divine. It's mere prattle. It is ignorant nonsense at the best when folks say they're doing their best to keep God's law, and on that ground they hope at last to be in God's great inheritance.
God is already pleading with us to notice that we have broken the law. We stand already under his curse. And you know, this is a message not only for the unconverted, isn't it? But it's a message for me who am converted. It is God's desired objective that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in me, who am a believer. Yes? But on what principle is that objective to be reached? You see, I agree with God. The objective is very good. Let's take the biggest one. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Who wouldn't agree with God? That's the objective. Don't you find yourself saying that many a time? My brother, my sister, in your prayers, you tell the Lord, yes, Lord, really, I'm not boasting, nobody is here to hear me sad, but Lord, that is what I want. I agree with you. I want to love you with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. And my neighbor as myself. Yes, we agree on the objective. The question is, how is it going to be achieved? Consider the situation that would be if I were under law as a principle, and I were trying to reach this objective of loving the Lord my God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, on the principle that here was the law telling me, you do it, you do it 100% well, or I shall curse you.
What do you think I should do? You just imagine me one Monday morning, and I wake up and rub my little eyes and try to be intelligent, and there I find the law of God standing before my bed. This is a Monday morning, and the law says solemnly, Gooding, get up. Now this is Monday. Get up. And today you will love the Lord your heart, Gooding. You love the Lord your God, Gooding, with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And if you don't do it, Gooding, you come short, I shall curse you to everlasting perdition. What do you suppose I would do?
You say you'd get up as quick as you can and have a real go at doing it. Well, you would, I dare say, because perhaps you might think you had a chance to succeed. I wouldn't. I just stay in bed. I should say, well, that's useless. I've been a Christian for fifty years. I hope I'm a little bit more like the Savior than I was. I don't make light of sin. I don't raise, I don't say it to make you smile. Woe is me. But scripture is true. I not only sinned in the past, but today, this, this very day, Wednesday in October, I have come short.
Oh, how miserably short. Measure, if you can, the distance between what I am now and what one day I must be, when I shall be like the Savior. Oh, today I've come short. Just you imagine the impossible situation I should be in. If as a believer today, seeking to reach the great objective of the law, it is righteous requirement being fulfilled in me, I were under the principle of law. I am to love the Lord one hundred percent today, and the moment I come short, I must be cursed. Well, I wouldn't bother to get out of bed, I tell you straight.
I would say, I know, but it's useless. And so has Paul. Christ has delivered us. Oh, shout hallelujah, my brother, my sister. Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law. How, you say? Tell us how, Mr. Preacher. Is it that he came into us and empowered us so that we were able at last to keep the law and thus escape his curse. No, ladies and gentlemen, no, indeed not.
Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law. How? By becoming a curse for us, facing the irreparable damage of our souls, how we lay when we'd done our very best under the curse of a broken law. He became a curse for us. You say, how can you say that? Well, because scripture does. For it is written in that same Old Testament law, cursed is he who hangs on a tree.
Oh, to think of it. My blessed sinless Lord Jesus Christ, who kept the law and made it honorable and loved the Lord his God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength, and his neighbor as himself, died for me. The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me, and they spiked him to that wooden tree, and he suffered the very curse of the law of God, the curse that was mine. He bore it for me. What for? That the curse of the law being removed, the blessing of Abraham might come upon us Gentiles.
Oh, staggering thing, whether you believe it or not, I stand before you as one upon whom God has not only had mercy. I've escaped the curse because Christ bore it, but now the way is open, and all the blessing promised to and through Abraham is mine in Jesus Christ, our Lord. But you see, if that be so, now perhaps you'll begin to see the seriousness of what these false teachers were saying. They were coming to believers like me who had owned their sin, their, their wretchedness, and had trusted the Savior.
And they were saying, yes, but to be saved and remain saved and to enter the inheritance, you must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Really? So the very thing that God had cursed, the very situation that the law itself cursed, they were now trying to salvage it and add it on. To Christian salvation. As a condition of salvation.
Well, friend, if you have any concept of what it meant to God to see his son bear the curse of the broken law for us at Calvary, that we might be saved, then you will perhaps begin to see the gravity of what these men were doing. The broken law had put into the tree for our sakes. Now they were taking a bit of that law, so that circumcision, trying to salvage it, and uh, lay it down as a condition that we have to fulfill in order to be. Why did they do it?
I don't know. Perhaps because it they thought it was, was a nice little ceremony to be formed upon a baby. I say it solemnly, not with any party spirit. There are those who in Christendom say that the Christian equivalent of circumcision is the baptism of infants. As I said last night, I say again, I'm not stopping now to discuss that proposition. Whether it be right or wrong, I leave. This I would say, that if you take infant baptism as the equivalent of circumcision, then pray.
Or as you love your soul, never say or think that that baptism contributes to your justification or is necessary for your justification and inheritance. For were you to dare to do it, you would be doing what these false teachers in Galatians did, saying that circumcision is necessary for justification and the inheritance. It goes for all the business of supposing we can earn salvation by keeping the law.
And so we come to the rebuke that Paul had to minister to Peter. I better moderate my speech now because I got to meet Peter one of these days. What a lovely brother. Like me, he had nonetheless a certain weakness, do I say. Physically, he had tremendous courage. He took on the whole squad of soldiers that came to arrest the Lord and fought them single-handed, didn't he, or tried to. Tremendous physical courage. But put Peter in a crowd and ask him to stand and openly confess what he really believed.
Then on times, poor old Peter found it difficult. He had early been taught by God that it was all right to eat with Gentiles, if they were believers, or even if they weren't. He'd already been taught that if Gentiles put their faith in the Lord Jesus, they were justified and heirs of God, quite without circumcision, and Peter had accepted it. But one day he was at a conference at Antioch, and there came down certain gentlemen from Jerusalem. They were of the Pharisaic party, and when Peter saw them, he felt funny goings on in his stomach. Then he withdrew from eating with the Gentile believers.
When they asked him what was wrong, he said he didn't like the cabbage and he got a stomach ache. Well, perhaps he had the stomach ache, but that wasn't through the cabbage. It was because he was afraid of what these, uh, uh, these other good men might say, you'll see, and he refused to eat with the Gentiles and was for leaving table. Oh no, you don't, says Paul. Oh no, you don't stay there, Peter, stomach ache or not. You stand there, my boy. We're not having this. Peter, you must not dissemble, meaning you must not pretend that you don't believe what you do believe. Your behavior must be consistent with what you say you believe, Peter.
Now, what do you believe, my good man? We Jews, says Paul to Peter, you know, we're not sinners of the Gentiles, are we? We never were. We Jews, even before we knew the Savior, were not sinners of the Gentiles. We tried to keep God's law. We were not like these abominable Gentiles, you know, Jerichoites and Aites. No, no, no, no. We weren't like them. They were sinners, yes, but respectable sinners. We tried to keep God's law. But even we, who weren't lawless people like those Jerichoites and Gentiles, we came to see that there is no salvation in keeping the law. You cannot find peace with God by keeping the law. Now, didn't we, Peter? And discovering that we can only be saved by, by faith in Jesus Christ, we actually put our faith in Jesus Christ.
We turned our back on our merit and put our faith in Christ. Didn't we, Peter? That we might be justified solely by faith. And of course, there's Peter standing there, well, yes, I, I, I suppose that is so, Paul. It is so, isn't it, Peter? Well, now if I build again, Peter, what I have destroyed. What does he mean? Why, if he now tells the believers that they've got to go back to the law and keep the law and be circumcised in order to be saved, he's building up again. The very thing he turned his back on when he abandoned faith in the law for salvation and put his faith in Christ, isn't he?
Building up that old thing again. When you do that, you'll show yourself a transgressor. Because by the standard of the law, you'll still come short, won't you? And the result will be that in spite of your faith in Christ, the law condemns you still. That is very solemn. You know, my brothers and my sisters, in a day of much confusion, we must not dissemble. We must not, under pressure, pretend that we don't believe what we do believe when it comes to the fundamental matter of salvation. I may not compromise with any ceremony that suggests that I think that salvation is partly through faith in Christ, but also helped on by some ceremony, Jewish or Christian.
For if I build again what I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. So now we have it in the clear. What is the way then forward to the objective that the righteousness of the law shall be fulfilled in us? Why, the first thing is here, says Paul. Have you got it, Peter? You do really believe it, don't you, Peter? And of course Peter did really. Of course he did. The first thing is this. I, through the law, have died to the law. In what sense? Why, the law condemned me, and I agreed with it.
And when I put my faith in Christ, I put my faith in Christ for this reason, I believe he was crucified to bear the penalty of the law for me. Do you see what that means? It means I then died to the law. Christ's death was mine, and I have been crucified with Christ. Oh, I must get that straight, not only as a be- unbeliever seeking salvation, I must get it straight as a believer. Witness Peter, I still need to get it straight. This is the first step. I have been crucified with Christ. Where shall I get the power then to live to God's glory?
Listen to it. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Ah, there's the nutshell, an altogether different principle. Christ lives in me by his spirit within me. I have a new life as a believer, a child of God, and the spirit within me, it lusts against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit. Praise God for those many times when God's Holy Spirit wins the victory, and little by little I learn more and more to overcome and lead a holy life.
Not on the principle of command plus penalty, but on the new principle of the living Lord Jesus living his life within me. One final story, and I've done, and that is the story how eventually Israel took Ai. You know what? When they first went out to Ai, they went in self-confidence, thinking at a little city, but winkling old king of Ai out of AI was a difficult thing, and a more difficult thing than they thought, you know. Uh. Winkling that wretched old self that I have inside here out of me is a more difficult thing than you might think, and Paul, I think, agrees with me on the same matter.
Oh, wretched man that I am. How did they do it? You will have noticed that, militarily speaking, the tactics, uh, for overcoming Ai were altogether different, the very opposite from the tactics of overcoming Jericho. In Jericho, God took the walls down, and they went in and destroyed the people inside. With Ai, the very opposite thing. They put an ambush, ambush behind the city, then Joshua came up as they did the first time with the troops, and when the king of Ai came out, they ran away in that as though they were defeated again. And the king of Ai came out to, uh, give them the coup de grâce. And then the ambush came up behind, and Joshua turned round and got them in between and slaughtered every one of them.
And the king of Ai, he hung upon a tree. That's how they did it. And you know what I like about the story more than anything else is this. There were the people that were put in the ambush behind the city. Then there was that part of the army that had to go up to those walls from which they had earlier run away in defeat, and they had to reenact their defeat, didn't they? They ran away again, as though once more defeated. You've never done that, have you? Cool, I have. I said I'm never going to make that mistake again. I am never going to make that mistake again.
That evil flesh that's in me, no, today I will. Oh, I said that thousands of times. And in myself, I'm still as liable to defeat as ever. I don't know about you. Ah, but this time there was a difference, for this time Joshua went with them. And you know, he wasn't with the ambush behind the city, he was with that crowd that ran away in defeat. Oh, marvelous grace of Joshua, that he should station himself with the people that reenacted the defeat. Oh, my brother, my sister, I'm not encouraging you to live in sin. I want to tell you this, God has a scheme to make you at last like his son, that the righteous requirement of the law shall be fulfilled in you.
How is it? Because we have become strong? No, indeed not. Liable to defeat as ever, we have with us the greater than Joshua, captain of our salvation. And in those days when once more you suffer defeat and you could cry your very heart out for shame, all pray remember this, that with you stands the blessed Lord Jesus. And what he's doing is luring out that old self out of you, that king of AI, wretched chap, bringing him out and exposing him. So that you may repent of the whole business, and trusting in Christ, find that Christ through you at last gets the victory.
Yes? He took the king of Ai, did Joshua, and hung him on a tree. And as I look at that corpse dangling on that tree, I say to myself, yes, and I think I begin to know what Paul meant. As a believer now, on my way to glory, being conformed to the Lord Jesus. The principle is this, not law, but the Holy Spirit, the living Lord, by his spirit living within me, empowering me against the flesh, and bringing me daily to see what a wretched, impossible, broken, weak, defeatable thing my flesh is, so that I learn not to trust it. And I agree with God, as Paul puts it, they that are Christ have.
