Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 2.60 → restored 4.60
Use the player's Original switch to compare.How Diffio restores old speech recordings
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, sir, for your very kind words of warm welcome, and let me say what a delight it is to me to be here again in Knockbracken, to see your kindly faces again, and to see also some faces that, uh, in my ignorance I didn't always associate with Knockbracken, and perhaps you belong and perhaps you don't, but whichever is true, uh, it's a delight to see you, one and all. Thank you for the peace and the sense of strength and calm that pervades whenever one comes here to Knockbracken. Now let us begin our study by reading some excerpts from the beginning of the Epistle to the Galatians.
Galatians chapter one and verse one: Paul, an apostle, not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, and all the brethren which are with me, unto the churches of Galatia, grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us out of this present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever.
Amen. I marvel that you are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel, which is not another gospel, only there are some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an angel from heaven should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so say I now again. If any man preaches unto you any gospel other than that which you received, let him be anathema.
For am I now persuading men or God? Or am I seeking to please men? If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ. In chapter two and verse eleven: But when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face because he stood condemned. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision.
And the rest of the Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation. When I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Cephas before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles and not as do the Jews, how compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? Being Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles, yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, save through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed on Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
But if, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor. For I, through the law, died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ. Yet I live, and no longer I, but Christ liveth in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.
I do not make void the grace of God, for if righteousness is through the law, Christ then died for naught. God give us good understanding of his word. I am aware that the epistle to the Galatians, the study of which we begin this evening, is not necessarily everybody's favorite epistle. It's none the worse for that, of course, and I'm not blaming people who do have their favorite parts of scripture.
And I have found, at least in my small experience, that Galatians is not normally the favorite passage of scripture of many believers. And perhaps the reason for that is that this small epistle by Paul is full of arguing from one end to the other. Now, I suppose there are some people that enjoy arguing, good many other people that don't enjoy arguing. There are indeed some people, are there not, who say that in the things of God you shouldn't argue at all. And if that were true, of course, the sooner we shut Galatians, the better, because it is not only full of arguing, it is argument from beginning to end, and there's scarce a comma in it that's not a part of an argument.
Of course, it's easy to see, isn't it, what people mean when they say that you shouldn't argue in the things of God. They have in mind some unprofitable Bible readings when brethren who ought to have known better have lost, uh, their patience, if not their tempers, and things have heated up somewhat. Or they have thought of those kinds of argument where it is evident that people are trying to win an argument for the sake of winning an argument and show everybody how clever they are and how much theology they know. And all such things, of course, are profitless and vain. And by God's help, we ought certainly to avoid that kind of argument.
But we shall not have to read far in the New Testament before we discover that there is another kind of argument and arguing that is exceedingly necessary in the cause of the gospel. Galatians is but one example of what Paul was doing nearly every day of his life as he went in his gospel work into the Jewish synagogues and opened the scriptures and had to argue with the Jews. He had to argue with the Jews the evidence of the Old Testament that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. And he had to argue with them that Jesus was indeed raised from the dead.
And he had to argue with them, how is a man saved according to the Old Testament scriptures? And our blessed Lord too, as we gather from many, many chapters in the Gospels, was constantly involved in arguing with the people of his day, notably with the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees. And therefore, we as the people of God will need to learn how to argue. Not for the sake of winning an argument, but for the sake of the gospel itself, and so that we may be used of God to help other people.
For if, uh, folks are going to be saved, they've got to know what the gospel is, haven't they? And there are many folks here in our beloved Ulster this evening that are religiously minded, but they are not yet saved, and the reason they're not saved is because they don't really understand what the gospel is. And their minds have been perverted from the start by listening to preaching that has purported to be Christianity and really isn't Christianity at all.
And they have been taught that in order to be justified by God, they have to do their merits, their good works, their confessions, their penances, and all sorts of things they have been taught they must do in order that they might have peace with God. And you and I, who know that that isn't so, must see that the very salvation of those people will depend upon God enlightening their minds to see that the gospel isn't what they thought it was. For that reason, we shall have to be prepared to argue.
And then, you know, it is not only that we must be prepared to argue in order to help our unconverted friends, but sometimes we shall find we have to argue to help our, our fellow believers. Sometimes you will come across a fellow believer who is rejoicing in the fact that he has eternal life and his sins are forgiven and he is right with God. But he has come under teaching that would tell him that his place in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ is not secure. And that it is possible for a believer to have eternal life and yet to lose his place in the coming kingdom of our Lord Jesus, and to be cast out into, out of that kingdom, and to be in the darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and that he will have to go through a kind of a purgatory.
Now, I'm not saying that you will find many believers of that kind, but you will find some. And therefore, if ever you would find some, you'd need to know, wouldn't you, just exactly where they've gone wrong and what kind of arguments you could bring to bear upon the situation to help, uh, show them where they've gone wrong and what is true. And so deliver your fellow believer from years of slavery and burden and enchainment. And then there are believers, of course, are there not, who have got it into their head that because salvation is by faith and it is by grace, that that means that it doesn't really matter at all how they behave.
Because in the last analysis, even though they've done wrong, they're justified and they're saved and they have eternal life. And therefore it doesn't really matter how they behave. And if ever we came across anybody like that, again, we should have to be ha- have to be ready, shouldn't we, to show them where exactly they have gone wrong and what is the truth of the gospel, that they might walk accordingly. So this book is full of arguments, and all sorts and kinds of different arguments. One of the things which we shall do in these three short studies is to notice the different kinds of arguments that the apostles uses in the course of this great exposition of the gospel to show us that we might be right with God.
Suppose tomorrow, my good dear sister, you were hanging out the sheets in the garden, if that's what you still do, or perhaps you put them in one of these modern affairs that goes puff, puff, puff in the kitchen a- a- a- and gets the the wet out of them that way round. But anyhow, suppose you were digging a garden then, and your neighbor and you got into conversation, and over the garden fence you fell to talking about the gospel, and you happened to say that you were sure you were saved, and your neighbor said, oh no, no, I don't think we ought to be sure we're saved, can't call him that. And you said, well, how how do you think we should are saved then? And she said, well, you have to be, uh, initiated into Christianity and baptized or something, and then, by God's grace, you do have to try and keep his law and do the best you can, and uh, and hope in the end, like Titus says, the hope of eternal life, that in the end God will grant us life everlasting.
And suppose your neighbor said that to you, what would you say? Where would you begin? And suppose he got interested enough to ask you next around next door, uh, one night in the week, have coffee, you see, after dinner and say, let's hear what you say. I have never heard of the funny things that you seem to say. You know your say. Well, where would you begin? And what arguments would you put first, and what arguments would you put second? And what arguments would, would you use to bring up the rear, so to speak? Well, I'm not going to suggest to you that if ever you get talking to your next door neighbor, that you'll use the arguments Paul uses in exactly the same order as he uses them.
Of course not. In each case, you will doubtless be led by the Holy Spirit which arguments to use on what occasion. But it is something to know what arguments are available, isn't it? And here we shall find all kinds of arguments available, like a veritable armory stored with ammunition and weapons, so that as the occasion demands, we shall know they're there, and we said, hi, hi, this is the weapon to use on this occasion. And if you don't know the weapons are there, you won't think of using them, will you? We shall get some, uh, instruction from Paul, perhaps in the order in which to use some arguments, for instance.
He tells us in the course of his epistle that the men who were teaching this false doctrine that you are justified by keeping the law, some of these men were not good men. They were not sound and sincere men. Their motives were highly questionable. I should say, I know a lot of chaps like that, making a lot of money out of religion, that's what they're doing. Yeah. Well, perhaps that is so on occasions. Whereabouts in the argument would you use that particular line of attack? Would you say to your, your good neighbor over the fence, your leaders and teachers are a whole lot of rotten men.
Well, I wouldn't say that at the opening, because you might never get asked into coffee. No, that's an argument to be used in its place. Paul uses it as the very last argument in the book. And not until he has proved that the doctrine of the false teachers is false, and proved it uphill and down dale, does he finally come round to exposing the motives, the evil motives of the false teachers. Or again, in the course of his arguments, Paul uses arguments, of course, from Holy Scripture, that is to say, from the Old Testament.
And in two notable parts of this epistle does he use a string of arguments from the Old Testament. Basically, those arguments from the Old Testament are of two kinds. The one kind of argument is drawn from the typology of the Old Testament. The story of Hagar and Ishmael, and how that God told Moses that he had to cast out the bondwoman and her son. And then Paul went on to say that Hagar represents Jerusalem that now is allegory, if you like, or typology of the Old Testament. Oh yes, it is valid to use the argument from typology, and we shouldn't be afraid to use it in its place.
But then we'd be wise to copy Paul, wouldn't we? Because when he comes to arguing from scripture, he doesn't put the argument from typology first. Puts that second. The first argument from scripture is formed by about seven different precise, literal, straightforward quotations of verses that put quite clearly and categorically the principles of salvation. And we shall notice when we come to it that Paul has these seven particular verses ready up his sleeve.
Ah. He's used them thousands of times, knew exactly where to put his finger on them, knew exactly in what order to quote them, and knew what things they were relevant to. So first he argued from scripture by using precise, explicit statements of fact, statements of doctrine, clear and incontrovertible. And when he proved the gospel was this way through those verses, then, and only then, did he bring in the argument from the typology of scripture.
So we shall learn, as I say, things about arguing for the gospel's sake from this epistle to the Galatians. Learning to argue, what arguments there are, we shall be doing it, I repeat, not in order to win arguments and show everybody how clever we are. We shall be doing it with a view to saving people. And there isn't an epistle in the New Testament that more than Galatians introduces us to the glorious riches of salvation and makes abundantly clear the wealth that we have in Jesus Christ our Lord.
And so while we shall be looking at these different kinds of argument, we shall of course be concentrating on aspects of salvation. We have three days to spend together, God willing, and so I'm going to divide this epistle into three parts and give a bird's eye view of each part on each occasion. And the first part, for the first part, I'm going to take chapters one and two. And for the second, God willing, I shall take chapter three. And for the third, we shall cover chapters, uh, four, five, and six. And we shall sum up what is the main message of each of those parts of the epistle.
Saying that, I'm not saying that this is the only summing up you could give. I'm merely using my privilege as preacher to draw out one at least of the main points of each of these three parts of Galatians. And so we shall find, I suggest, that in the first part tonight, we shall be thinking on the basic question, how may I live unto God? How may I live unto God? And I shall be borrowing the verse, chapter two and verse nineteen: for I through the law died unto the law in order that I might live unto God.
What is the proper way? How do I go about it? How may I rightly live unto God. Oh, what a lovely part of our gospel it is that tells us what provision God has made, what method it is we are to follow, that we might rightly live unto God. And in the second part of our study, get next week, God willing, chapter three, we shall be answering another question. How may I be sure of my inheritance?
And what is my inheritance anyway? We shall be summing up the argument there from the end of chapter three in verse twenty nine. And if you are Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. A verse that tells us very clearly that all who are in Christ are heirs. They are inheritance, inheritors. They are inheritance of a vast inheritance. And we shall be wanting to know, pray exactly, what is this inheritance that God has covenanted to us in Christ.
Then when we found out what it is, we shall, of course, want all the more to know and to be able to answer the question, how can I be sure of my inheritance? And then in the last study covering chapters four, five, and six, We shall be asking one more question. How may I know true freedom? We should be basing ourselves, of course, on the verse that begins chapter five: With freedom did Christ set us free.
Stand fast therefore and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage. Clarion call for every believer to stand up and be counted and to stick his toes in and stand on the battlefield for freedom. To resist all attempts to entangle us again in yokes of bondage. That will involve us, of course, in asking, what is freedom? What do you mean by freedom? It obviously isn't freedom to live exactly how you like, is it? And what is true freedom? So we shall ask that question and then ask, how may I know true freedom in my spiritual life.
How may I live unto God? How can I be sure of my inheritance? How may I know true freedom in my spiritual experience? And as we study those different topics, we shall be noting the different kinds of arguments that Paul uses in order to establish and explain the truth. And tonight, as we begin very, very briefly to cover that first section, we ought to notice perhaps what is the, one of the most important arguments of all.
When it comes to arguing for the gospel, we shall learn from this first part of Galatians that one of the most powerful arguments is the way I, as a believer, live. And we shall be reminded from this section that it is possible to know the gospel and to believe the gospel, and to be saved by the gospel, and then not live consistently with the gospel, and by the way I live, and by the way I behave, confuse the very gospel I suppose to support.
We're told in these chapters that even such an eminent Christian as Peter the Apostle once fell into that trap, and though he knew the gospel and believed the gospel, he was trapped into living into such a way as confused if he didn't obvious pos- positively deny the very gospel that he said he believed. So the argument that walks around in boots is still a very important argument. How may I then live unto God? How may I so live unto God that by my life I make the gospel message clear and do not confuse it.
How may I live unto God? Well, let's do what we did when we were schoolboys. You didn't, of course, you didn't need to, but guys like me had to. We had some glorious school books in the school I went to school at, uh, you'll see in the middle of the book you had the exercises that you had to do, you'll see, and at the end, uh, some kind publisher had gone and put the key. You see? So when you've got a difficult exercise to do, of course, it was against the rules, I know, but all you had to do was to look up the key at the back, and then you found the answer, and then hopefully, not always successfully, you tried to find a way of making it look as if you had found the answer yourself anyway, you see, and uh, try to get the answer right, but there it was, and it isn't always a bad thing to do to answer your question by looking at the end of the book first.
How may I live unto God? Well, when we come to the end of this first bit in chapter two, the answer is given us in those glorious words. I, through the law, died unto the law that I might live unto God. That's how it's done. Not by keeping the law do I live unto God, but rather I, through the law, died to the law that I might live unto God. And if you ask how it is I could have, could be said to have died to the law, then come those lovely verses. I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life that I now live, I live in faith of the Son, uh, uh, which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. Two things Christ did for us then. He once upon a time gave himself for us. Delivered up for us to the death of the cross, to pay and suffer the penalty of that broken law and to die the death we deserved. The Son of God loved me and gave himself up for me. He died for me. Secondly, he now lives for me.
And if I would learn to live unto God, the secret will be found here again in the Lord Jesus, who not only gave himself to death for my account, but now is alive and lives in me. So I'm going to sum it up by two phrases taken from chapter two. First of all, verse seventeen: If while we thought to be justified in Christ, that phrase tells us that we are in Christ, and our justification before God depends upon our being in Christ.
We are justified in Christ. Apart from Christ, there is no possibility of justification. Keep all the laws you can possibly keep, but if you are outside of Christ, there is no being right with God, and there is no living to God. The secret of living to God is first of all to be justified before God, and the key to that is being in Christ. Justified in Christ.
So that me in Christ, that's the first half of the secret. What's the other half of the secret? How can I live unto God? Well, we can put it in the words of verse twenty, can we not? I live no longer, but Christ lives in me. And that's the other way round, isn't it? The first phrase told us that we are in Christ, and the other phrase told us that Christ lives in us. I wish you knew both sides of the story. Sometimes we have so emphasized the first side of the story, the legal side of the gospel, that once we have trusted Christ, we are in Christ, and legally we are clear before God, we are justified before him, just as if we had never sinned, and that's delightfully true.
That alone wouldn't be enough, would it, to live under God? Now, if we're going to live unto God, we must not only be in Christ, justified in Christ, but the other thing has to be true as well, that Christ is in us, living in us. That is the whole story of how we might live unto God. But if that is the story, now let's look at some of the arguments with which Paul, uh, explains, maintains, and sustains that particular truth of the gospel.
What kind of arguments will you use? What kind of facts do I need to know in order to enjoy and then explain to others this gospel? Well, in chapter one, verses one to five, Paul feels it wise that we should know a fact about his status as an apostle. The status of the apostle Paul. Why do I need to know about him? Well, to start off with, he wrote Galatians. You'll see. Galatians is the Bible.
Well, yes, you believe it, so do I. Yes, you say, oh, come on, but but Galatians is inspired. Yes, I believe that one hundred percent. Galatians is inspired. There were a lot of people in the ancient world that didn't believe. And there were a lot of people in the ancient world that said, oh, but oh, that's only what Paul says. And of course, today, if you start preaching the gospel to some folks presently, they'll turn around on you and say, ah, but that's just what Paul did, you see. You know, what a pity. We always think it's rather pity that Paul came along. You see, Jesus Christ, all he did preach is a lovely gospel. He told us the story of the prodigal son and how the father welcomed the prodigal home, and there wasn't any nasty talk about law courts and penalties and condemnation and justification.
No talk of atonement and sacrifices and punishment and things. No, no, no, when the prodigal came home, the father just, uh, fell on his neck and kissed him, and, uh, there was none of this legal talk that you find in Romans and Galatians. And they say, what a pity it was, you know, that Paul came along and he spoiled it all. The lovely message of the love of God that the Lord Jesus preached, and then Paul came along with all these difficult concepts of justification and legal matters and condemnation and punishment and penalty and all those kind of contests, con- concepts. He kind of spoiled them. And if you try to press home what Paul says, they'll tell you all that only Paul says.
How would you help a person in that situation? Well, Paul was in it thousands of times, of course. When he entered the synagogues, they didn't all sort of stand up and, and, and take their hats off and say, oh, oh, here's the inspired apostle. Because in the Jewish synagogues, they didn't believe it anyway. And some of the false teachers in the church, they didn't believe it either. So what facts have we got to get hold of about the status of the Apostle Paul? Well, it is. He says he's an apostle, neither through men, not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.
Why describe God like that? Well, you see. If God had not raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, there would have been no gospel to preach, would there? If Christ is not raised, says Paul, then you're still in your sins. Now look, says Paul, I want you to get hold of this thing. The very God that raised Jesus Christ from the dead so that there could be a gospel appoints me as a model. It isn't that God preached the gospel, you know, and set the gospel going, and one day Paul happened to hear about it and said, that's a good story. I rather like that. I think I shall appoint myself as a preacher.
No, no, no. The same God, excuse the term, that invented the gospel, invented Paul to preach it. He was appointed an apostle by the very God that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. He was not from men or through men appointed an apostle by God directly appointed him. Fact number one. You cannot say, if you profess to be a Christian of any kind, you cannot say that's only Paul said that.
To reject Paul is to reject the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Then the next fact to get hold of is the status of the gospel. Says Paul in verses six to ten, Now do you know if anybody else comes along and preaches a different gospel, let him be anathema. And then he says, you know why, even if it were an angel from heaven, or even if it were I myself that preached a different gospel, let him be anathema. For the authority of the gospel is not dependent on the man who preached it.
Why make that point? Well, for this very practical reason, that there are, of course, a great many very pleasant, well-meaning, sincere, righteous living people in this world. And sometimes when people are trying to make up their minds about the gospel and whether this doctrine is true or that doctrine is true, they are inclined to say, well, Mr. So-and-so, you know, uh, he believes that if you're baptized, somehow or other it helps to save you. And Mr. Santo is a very nice man. You're not going to say he's wrong, are you?
Because he's a fine, sincere man, and his life is an example to us all, and his kindliness for people. Well, it's very true. It doesn't alter this, that if he has not the right gospel message, the fact that he is such a nice, kind, good man doesn't make the message he has right. Well, if I myself, Paul, says Paul, for some reason or other, were so far to forget myself as to go and preach a different gospel, I wouldn't make it right. And if an angel from heaven, in all his angelic splendor, were to come and preach a different gospel, you mustn't say, oh well, but look how marvelous a being he is, and this is an angel, you know.
No, no. An angel from heaven starts to preach a different gospel from what you find in your New Testament, then says, let him be a man. By deciding what the gospel is, therefore, we must decide it on the grounds of what says God, an inspired scripture. And then in the third place, Paul goes into a very long argument, and you can be afraid we're not going into all its details tonight. He goes into a very long argument now from chapter one verse eleven to the end of chapter two, and you might summarize it as an argument from church history.
You say, I, ah, I didn't think, you're not going to say I need to know a lot of church history, are you? I am. Uh, church history of one period, at any rate. Well, this is what this is. And it must be important, mustn't it, this argument from church history, because Paul spends half of chapter one and the whole of chapter two— it's one of the longest arguments in the whole book, it is an argument from church history. Why is it historically important to know about church history?
Why should I need to bother myself about history? You say, gooding man, forget about history, get on with the fact of preaching the gospel. Ah, but you're forgetting this, that there are certain chunks of history that are gospel. You can't preach the gospel without knowing about history. It is a historic fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It is an historic fact that he was born in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, and he suffered under Pontius Pilate. And if anybody could prove that that isn't history, well then exit the Christian gospel.
You see, the gospel we preach is not a fairy tale. It matters whether our gospel be historically true. It's no good trusting it just because it sounds nice, if it isn't true. The world outside us are not fools. Perhaps they weren't brought up in gospel halls. Perhaps they weren't brought up with Christian parents. Perhaps atheists were their parents and atheists their school teachers. They have been given to believe that the gospel is not historically true.
They think it intellectual suicide to listen to you. They think what you've got hold of are fairy stories like Red Riding Hood. And therefore, if you would present the gospel to them, you've got to say, like Paul said to Agrippa, gentlemen, this thing that wasn't done in a corner, this is historically true. And what's more, not merely the great thing, fact about Jesus Christ our Lord, how he was born, lived, and died, and rose again, but what happened in the early church is also an important bit of history.
If you read the details of this long argument that we shall be skipping tonight, we shan't read them tonight, you'll find the details are about, uh, Paul's life and his relationship with the other apostles. And divi- he divides, uh, this bit of history into three parts, and in each part he shows himself in relation to the other apostles, and in particular to Peter. And in the first great part of this history of lesson, he tells us that he was independent of Peter. And when he first got converted, he didn't go immediately to Peter, and he certainly didn't get converted through Peter.
When he got converted, he didn't go to Peter, but we went off into the desert, and it was only subsequently that he came and met Peter. And then in the second bit of this historical lesson, he tells us that when he went to Jerusalem, was all in his kindliness for people. Well, it's perfectly true. It doesn't alter this, that if he has not the right gospel message, the fact that he is such a nice, kind, good man doesn't make the message he has right. Well, if I myself, Paul, says Paul, for some reason or other, were so far to forget myself as to go and preach a different gospel, I wouldn't make it right.
And if an angel from heaven, in all his angelic splendor, were to come and preach a different gospel. You mustn't say, oh well, but look how marvelous a being he is, and this is an angel, you know. No, no. An angel from heaven starts to preach a different gospel from what you find in your New Testament, then says, for let him be. And then, by deciding what the gospel is, therefore, we must decide it on the grounds of what says God, an inspired scripture. And then in the third place, Paul goes into a very long argument.
You can be afraid we're not going into all its details tonight. He goes into a very long argument now from chapter one verse eleven to the end of chapter two, and you might summarize it as an argument from church history. You say I, ah, I didn't think, you're not going to say I need to know a lot of church history, are you? I am. Uh, church history of one period, at any rate. Well, this is what this is.
And it must be important, mustn't it, this argument from church history, because Paul spends half of chapter one and the whole of chapter two— it's one of the longest arguments in the whole book, it is an argument from church history. Why is it historically important to know about church history? Why should I need to bother myself about history? You say, gooding man, forget about history, get on with the fact of preaching the gospel. Ah, but you're forgetting this, that there are certain chunks of history that are gospel. You can't preach the gospel without knowing about history.
It is a historic fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It is an historic fact that he was born in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, and he suffered under Pontius Pilate. And if anybody could prove that that isn't history, well, then exit the Christian gospel. You see, the gospel we preach is not a fairy tale. It matters whether our gospel be historically true. It's no good trusting it just because it sounds nice if it isn't true.
The world outside us are not fools. Perhaps they weren't brought up in gospel halls. Perhaps they weren't brought up with Christian parents. Perhaps atheists were their parents and atheists their school teachers. They have been given to believe that the gospel is not historically true. They think it intellectual suicide to listen to you, they think what you've got hold of are fairy stories like Red Riding Hood. And therefore, if you would present the gospel to them, you've got to say, like Paul said to Agrippa, gentlemen, this thing that wasn't done in a corner, this is historically true.
And what's more, not merely the great thing, facts about Jesus Christ our Lord, how he was born, lived, and died, and rose again, but what happened in the early church is also an important bit of history. If you read the details of this long argument that we shall be skipping tonight, we shan't read them tonight, you will find the details are about, uh, Paul's life and his relationship with the other apostles. And divi- he divides, uh, this bit of history into three parts, and in each part he shows himself in relation to the other apostles, and in particular to Peter.
And in the first great part of this history of lesson, he tells us that he was independent of Peter. And when he first got converted, he didn't go immediately to Peter, and he certainly didn't get converted through Peter. When he got converted, he didn't go to Peter, but we went off into the desert, and it was only subsequently that he came and met Peter. And then in the second bit of this historical lesson, he tells us that when he went to Jerusalem to meet the apostles, the apostles agreed that he was the equal of Peter. That Peter was the apostle to the Jews and the circumcision, Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles.
And in the third great section, he shows us that on one occasion at least, he was in fact superior to Peter and had to rebuke Peter. Why make all of that? You know what I got to do with my practical living? Well, I can best illustrate it to you perhaps by telling you a story, and if I've told it to you before, forgive me. It's the manner of old, old men, you know, they keep on telling you the same stories time and time and time again, but have mercy upon me, you'll be as old as I am one of these days. Hmm. There came to me, brought and sent by some friends at one stage, a good man.
His friends were believers, and they were keen that he should come and talk to me, because the man was going in to become a monk. And before he became a monk, they thought he might, uh, find it profitable to come and talk, so he came and talked. When he came and sat down, he hadn't been sat down very many minutes, he said, you know, you evangelicals, uh, you've got it all wrong. He said he said so. Yeah, yeah, I've got it all wrong, he says. You see, you maintain that to be saved, you have to have some kind of emotional experience, this kind of being born again, he said, you know, some kind of emotional experience.
It's wrong, it's false. You don't need any kind of emotional experience like that at all. Salvation, he said, you see, is not by works, and it's not by your experience, it's by faith in Christ. All you need, he says, is to be baptized as an infant. I was baptized as an infant. It's the great objective fact, not my emotions and my response to it. The great objective fact, you see, I was baptized when I say. Well, he said, you've got it wrong. I said, oh, I see. So one thing borrowed another, and he told me, you see, that, uh, he was, uh, going into become a monk, change his church.
So I said, you know, that is something I could never do. He said, why is that? Well, I said, the church you're proposing to join curses me. Oh no, of course not. No, no, I said it does. No, no, it can't do, he said. I said it does indeed. For it declares that anybody who says that he's saved by faith alone, by trust in the Savior and not by works, let him be in the adamant. Oh, but he said, uh, yes, but you, you have to have the works, of course, my boy. I thought you told me just now that, uh, you were saved simply by faith in your baptism. Ah, but he says you have to work as well, you see, because you might lose it.
I said, well, now that's that, that's, that's curious, that. Why, you disappoint me somewhat. I, I thought you said you, you were saved by just believing the objective facts. Now you say, no, no, no, you, you, you, you, well, you become a Christian by being baptized, and then, of course, it all depends on your works. Well, of course it does, he said, my good friend, of course it does. If you don't work well enough, you'll lose it all. So I said then, oh, I see. So I'm wrong then. I thought I was saved simply by faith in Christ. And I could be sure of salvation. And you say no, oh no, you can't be sure. I said, that's curious.
I said, because you see, and then I quoted him what you would have quoted him anyway in that situation. Let me read you a verse in the New Testament. And I read him the famous words from, uh, Romans chapter four. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of death. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness. You say, I, no, no, no, I don't understand that. Well, it's just what it says, though.
To him that worketh not. Ah, but he said it can't mean that. Well, that's what it says, my good man, to him that worketh not. Ah, there you are, he says, you see, you're always doing that, you kind of folks, you see. You think you can come to the Bible and just interpret it yourself. And that's where you go wrong, you see. He said, you see, if you took that to a priest, you'll find out it didn't mean that, it meant something else. It is no good you're trying to interpret it yourself. That's where you go wrong. He said, I'd like to take it to a priest and ask the priest what it meant, you see. That's very curious you should say that. I said, why is that?
For instance, I said, Paul wrote this, yes, Paul wrote that, but he was a bit of a bounder, he said, you know, Paul said some funny things, difficult to understand. I said, oh. I said, anyway, Paul wrote that, he was an apostle, wasn't he? And, uh, you'll see, I said, now, suppose when he was in Arabia, all by himself, I had been, uh, troubled about my spiritual state and wondering how I could be right with God. And I had gone to Paul, and I said, Paul, I'll chat. I think you're an apostle. Yes. Look, I got a question. How can I be right with God?
Suppose Paul had said to me by word of mouth what he here says in the Bible. To him that worketh not gooding, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Suppose Paul had said that to me, and I had listened and understood it. Salvation free because, though I had broken God's law and deserved its penalty, I have accepted Christ, and Christ died for me, and so because I have trusted him, I died with him, and I have been crucified with Christ, and I died to the Lord.
And now Christ is risen, has given me eternal life, his own life, and he lives in me. And it's not according to my works, but simply through faith in Christ. I said, suppose I had understood that, I believed it, and I was right with God. I said, tell me, tell me, old boy, could I have believed it there and then on the spot when Paul was telling it to me and believed God then and been justified by faith there on the spot in Arabia? Or should I have had to copy down what he said and say, well, now I shall have to go and see, and gone up to Jerusalem and found Peter and James and the rest of the apostles and said, hey, hey, is this right or not? Oh, he said, you'd have to go to Jerusalem and ask the church.
Because he said, you see, it's the church that's given us the Bible. And therefore, this is your mistake, you see. You think you can understand the Bible yourself, but it isn't true. You see, it's the church that gave us the Bible, and we shall have to let the church say what it means. I said, we've got half of that wrong, because the church didn't give us the Old Testament, did it? It wasn't there when the Old Testament was written, that to start with. But you say it was the church that gave Paul the gospel? And therefore, when Paul tells me the gospel, I shall have to go to the church to see what it means. I said, half a minute, and then I did what you would have done. I turned, of course, to Galatians.
I was glad at the time I knew that little bit of church. I said, you know, when Paul wrote the, the epistle to the Galatians, he said, Paul, an apostle, uh, not, uh, from man. I said, that's clear, isn't it? It wasn't any man that, uh, he got his authority from. He got his authority from God. Yes, said my friend, he did. I said, well, what about that then? I said, perhaps, you see, he got his authority from God, but God gave it through the church. Yes, that's exactly it, he said. That's exactly it, you see.
He didn't get it, he didn't, uh, get it from man. Of course, he got it from God, the source of authority, but it had to come through man, he said, through the church, you see. I said, half a minute, I haven't read the whole verse. Give me time to read the whole verse. Paul, an apostle, not, uh... neither, not from men, neither through men, neither from nor through. Oh, but he said they did, they, ah, but they did. The church did give Paul the gospel. I said, no, they didn't. What he said they did, my good man?
I said, don't, I mean, half a minute, please pray. Just let me read the Bible to you. Paul tells us that eventually he went up to Jerusalem, and when he got to Jerusalem, the apostles added nothing. We said they must have done it. I said, no good you're talking or chat. That's what it says. This is the history. They that were pillars added nothing. All they said was that I should be careful to teach people who believe to, to be careful for the poor. That I'd done already anyway. For salvation by faith doesn't mean that you go out and live, uh, just as you like.
If it's true salvation, it will lead to good works. And salvation is not by works. But the point at issue is, did Paul get it straight from God, or did he get it through the church? Did the church give him the gospel? Because if the church gave him the gospel, we shall have to go to the church to let the church tell us what it meant. But if God gave the gospel straight to Paul, then I may go straight to Paul and get the gospel from his lips. And if I can't, uh, hear him speak it, then I can go myself direct to his writings and read what he has written and understanding believe and believing be saved.
If you were in Arabia too, and all you had was an epistle to the Galatians, and you wanted to know how to be saved, and you read it, understood it, and believed you could be saved there and then without going to ask anybody in the church. Do you begin to see why it's important for our personal salvation and our personal freedom? This bit of church history, how did we get this gospel? Where did it come from? Through whom did it come? The fact that it came from God to Paul direct, and the church added nothing, means that if I need to be saved, I can come to Paul direct myself, and he's sufficient to tell me, without my going to the rest of the church, how I can be right with God.
And it's not a bad thing to know and have up your sleeve that bit of church history if you're going to help folks find the Savior who have been brought up to believe that they mustn't try and understand the Bible for themselves, that they have to let the church interpret it for them. Finally, if I got that straight, that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law, then I shall have to avoid falling into the mistake that Peter made. Peter understood very well that salvation was by faith. Peter was not depending on the works of the law for salvation, neither circumcision nor nothing.
And Peter, in his heart of hearts, believed that the Gentiles were saved through faith in Christ, plus nothing. As you know, up at Jerusalem, there were some folks that hadn't got the gospel quite as clear in their binoculars as they ought to have had it, you know, they were out of focus of it. They weren't quite so sure whether Gentiles ought to be allowed into fellowship. And so one day, when Peter was at the conference at Antioch, and he had been merrily eating with the Gentile believers in the, you know, the scene of the book, when these fellows came down from Jerusalem, he suddenly found he didn't feel well, stomach ache or something.
So he withdrew and wouldn't eat with them. Mm-hmm. And you do with stomachache. Because these good brethren had come down from Jerusalem, and he's afraid of what they'd say. And he withdrew from the Gentiles as though it were not fit for him to eat with Gentiles. Why not? Weren't they saved? By the exact same salvation as Peter. And that's a big question, isn't it?
For if you refuse to eat with them, even though they are saved by the same salvation, you are contradicting the gospel that you preach, says Paul to people. Preaching one thing with your lip and denying it by the way you treat those fellow believers in Christ. Say, what is the basis of that? All of us must give heed by the way we live and by the way we treat fellow believers, that we treat fellow believers consistently with the gospel we preach.
Why is that important? Well, it's important for us to be truthful, but finally for this good reason. Let Paul himself quote another example when he was up in Jerusalem on one occasion talking to the apostles. There were some false brethren who demanded that Titus, one of Paul's companions, should be circumcised. And Titus was a Greek, and says, Paul, I would not give way. And I refused, and Titus was not circumcised. Why did I make all the fuss? Why? So that the truth of the gospel should remain for you.
You see, if Paul had fluffed it on that occasion and said, all right, for peace and so on. Yes, righto then, we'll have Titus circumcised. You and I sitting here tonight might have said to ourselves, well, now what in the end is the gospel? You see, Paul, uh, says in one place it's by faith and not by the works of the law, but you see, there was the other occasion when people said, look, you, you, you had to be circumcised because circumcision does contribute to salvation and is necessary for salvation. And when they urged it was necessary for salvation, you said, okay, then let their tithe be circumcised. Now, where is the gospel? That ball fucked you.
Nineteen years later in Knock Bracken, we might not have been quite clear as to how exactly is a man saved. Therefore, if we are saved ourselves, we must give heed to the way we behave, how we treat fellow believers, what we do about salvation, that by word and by behavior, we make it clear that God accepts men and women solely on the ground of faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Now, as you see, I have not gone into the detail of the passage. That would be impossible. What we've been trying to do is get a bird's eye view of what this epistle is about, and God use it to stimulate our study further, and above all, fill our hearts with love for our fellow men that we might help them to salvation and confirm them therein by a clear presentation of God. Our Father, we thank thee for thy holy word. We thank thee for appointing the Apostle Paul. We praise thee tonight for what thy word through him has meant to us, and the liberty and peace it has brought.
And we pray, Lord, that as many of us that have come to trust thee through his words, may ourselves in turn learn thy gospel clearly, that we may communicate it lovingly and faithfully and clearly, and that we ourselves in our behavior might stand firm for it, that we might be beacon lights in this troubled world, amidst all the confusing voices, that we in our day and generation might stand clear like beacon lights, that men might know through us too how they may be right with God. To this end, bless thy word and bless this church here we do beseech thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
