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It goes without saying, gentlemen, that it is a pleasure to be with you once more. The topic for this present series of studies today, and God willing, a fortnight's time, is to be the epistle of Paul to the Galatians. Now, it is commonly said that this epistle is the most argumentative of all Paul's epistles, and that perhaps is true. As we study this epistle, indeed, I wish to lay emphasis upon this fact, that here we have an inspired example of how to argue for the truth.
It is sometimes said that Christians should not argue. And it depends what you mean by arguing, of course. If by arguing you mean that Christians shouldn't lose their tempers and become aggressive and insulting and so forth, then of course Christians should not argue in that sense. The servant of the Lord must not fight, says Paul to Timothy, in the sense of slaughtering other people, aggressive, battle tough.
What we should argue, we should argue in meekness, though that may mean saying some solemn and severe things. Our prime example, of course, is our Lord Jesus Christ. As we read the Gospels, we shall find him constantly arguing. John Stott, at one stage in his career, wrote a book entitled The Controversial Christ. A great deal of our Lord's public ministry, as recorded in the Gospels, is taken up with his controversies, particularly with the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
So that arguing like Christ argued, arguing like Paul argued, for the sake of the truth of the gospel is a very, uh, necessary and good thing to do. So let us sum up for ourselves what the arguments of this epistle are about. And we can do that, uh, helpfully in the words of scripture itself, if we look at Acts chapter uh fifteen, Where the matter that Paul is discussing in Galatians came at one stage to its head and was debated by the apostles and teachers at Jerusalem.
So let's read from Acts fifteen verse one. And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, saying, unless you be circumcised after the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. There broke out, says verse two, tremendous dissension and questioning among the people, the believers, and Paul and Barnabas in particular, uh, in Antioch, when this novel doctrine was proposed.
The result was that the brothers appointed Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them to go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. They therefore, being brought on their way by the church, passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy unto all the brothers. And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church and the apostles and the elders, and they rehearsed all things that God had done with them. Let me pause at this moment to make the point that Paul and Barnabas were not going up to Jerusalem to inquire what the gospel was.
As we shall see Paul arguing very strongly in Galatians, that he didn't get the gospel from Jerusalem or from the apostles even that were apostles before him. So here he wasn't going up to Jerusalem, uh, you'll see, in order to find out more exactly what gospel he ought to be preaching. He was never in any doubt about that. But the certain men that came down f- came down from Judea, says verse one. coming from Judea, they made out that they came from James.
Uh, you see, and uh, uh, therefore they were maintaining that Paul and Barnabas were preaching a different gospel from what James and the other apostles said and taught. It was therefore very important that Paul and Barnabas and others should go to Jerusalem and get a statement from the other apostles, including Paul and Barnabas now, that all the apostles agreed on what the gospel was, and that they agreed with what Paul and Barnabas were teaching elsewhere among the Gentiles.
James makes this very important, of important, uh, uh, uh, fact clear in verse twenty four, When in the letter that they all sent around to the churches, they make the observation, verse twenty four, for as much as we have heard that certain would- which went out from us have troubled you with words subverting your souls, to whom we gave no commandment. In coming down from Jerusalem and making it out that they came from James and the other apostles with all their authority to teach this false gospel, except you be circumcised after the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved, they were in fact perverting the truth.
James and the other apostles at Jerusalem had not given them authority to say any such thing. Anyway, uh, because they came down from Judea and taught this, this supposed gospel, except you be circumcised after the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Paul and Barnabas and others, with the consent of the elders in Antioch, went up to Jerusalem to get a statement by all the apostles joined together that this supposed gospel was false.
Notice, therefore, verse five. Paul and Barnabas, in verses three and four, as they journeyed, had told the churches the wonderful news of the conversion of the Gentiles in many places where they had preached the gospel. That, of course, is one of the, uh, characteristics of the true gospel. It does lead to conversion to God. And now notice verse five, there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed.
Ah. So these Pharisees claimed to believe in the Lord Jesus for salvation. Perhaps they were genuine believers, but were muddled in their thinking about the relationship of the law of Moses in general, and circumcision in particular, to salvation. There are, a gentleman, many people in the broad acres of earth who profess faith in the Lord Jesus and may indeed be true believers as best they know how, who nonetheless, if pressed, would show themselves uncertain about this basic doctrine, uncertain as to whether circumcision or baptism, for that matter, or keeping of the law of Moses is necessary in the end for salvation.
So, at this, uh, gathering of the apostles and elders, first of all, Peter rose up and said unto them, Brethren, you know how that a good while ago God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. Point number one that Peter is making, he's not boasting, but he is saying to the believers in general and these particular Pharisees, but I was the one that God chose to take the gospels, the gospel to the Gentiles.
In the beginning, he's referring to the vision that God gave him, recorded in Acts ten And how God sent him to Cornelius, where he preached the gospel, and upon his preaching, without any further explanations or to do, the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and those who heard and believed. God authenticating the message that Peter was sent to proclaim. It is true that when he got back to Jerusalem, the elders at Jerusalem called him on the carpet, and they said, what is this, Peter, we hear of you?
We're hearing very grave things about you. Is it true that you went into a Gentile house and drank coffee with them or something? Is that true, Peter? For to them it was terrible. It contravened the laws of cleanliness that they had understood, the food laws and such like things from the Old Testament, and that Peter should go in a gent- to a Gentile house and eat with Gentiles. Unthinkable. And Peter stammered out his reply because he was always a bit nervous underneath, was Peter, you see.
And his defense was this, but I couldn't help it, uh, gentlemen, you know. I- all I did was I went there and um, and uh, as I preached, uh, the Holy Spirit fell on them. I couldn't ha- I couldn't help it. Who was I to withstand God? Which is a good uh, uh, uh, uh, pillar of defense to stand behind, isn't it? God did it. I couldn't stop God doing it, you see. Mm-hmm. Now he quotes this instance to the brothers at Jerusalem. God had chosen him. Uh, Peter, that is, to preach. And God, which knoweth the heart, gave them the Gentiles witness, giving them the holy Spirit, even as he did unto us.
And he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. God was not compromising with uncleanness, nor was Peter. God had cleansed their hearts, so clean that God could put his Holy Spirit in their hearts. And how had God managed to cleanse these Gentiles' hearts so they were fit to receive the Holy Spirit?
He had done it, says Peter, by faith. Not by the works of the law, not by circumcision. The purifying work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the believers that God has accomplished through faith. Keep your finger in the spot, and let me read you a verse from Peter's first letter, one Peter chapter one and verse twenty two. Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth, unto unfeigned love of the brethren.
Love one another from the heart fervently. Here comes the same concept, the purification of the heart through faith in Christ, through faith in and obedience to the gospel. So to come back to Acts fifteen, mhm Peter giving his testimony, because God had chosen him to go to the Gentiles initially, Acts chapter ten, uh, and told him that it was perfectly good and proper for him to go to a Gentile house and eat with Gentiles, and God had demonstrated that to him by the thrice repeated vision that God had sent down from heaven, and by God's own comment, call no man common or unclean.
That which God has cleansed, don't you start calling that common or unclean. But now look at verse ten of Acts fifteen for the doctrinal statement, verses ten and eleven. Or take eleven first, if you will. I'll read it first in the a- ancient English of the Revised Version. But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in like manner as they, which really doesn't, uh, get across what the Greek is saying at all, do you see?
Eh... The question is, where in this sentence does the emphasis lie? Is it that we believe we're going to be saved? How marvelous. So that's what you believe, is it, P- it Peter? You're going to be saved. Well, yes, of course he did, but that's not quite the emphasis of the Greek that, uh, uh, Luke writes here in this verse. So let me put the Greek into somewhat more modern English, such as I might manage by great effort to attain to, eh, but not really modern, of course, how could I? But then let's put the emphasis where it should be.
It is our belief. It is our conviction. This is Peter talking for himself and for all the apo- apostles. It i- i- it is our belief, it is our conviction that it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we are saved. The emphasis in the Greek sentence is altogether on that. We have to get it in English by putting some such phrase in as it is.
It is by the grace of the Lord Jesus. That we shall be saved. Of course they were going to be saved. The question is, how and on what terms should they be saved? Mm. In English, gentlemen, we sometimes get that kind of emphasis, uh, by, uh, uh, increasing the volume of sound, you see. I went downtown yesterday to buy a pair of shoes. Well, is that simply a statement of fact all the way along the line?
What are you saying? Listen to the difference in the intonation. I went downtown yesterday to buy a pair of shoes. I'm answering my, uh, uh, uh, critic, you see, is that why weren't you, uh, uh, uh, uh, we saw you in Belfast, you see, or something, or whatever he's saying, you see, and when we called, uh, you weren't there in your house. Well, I went downtown. Where did you go to buy those shoes? I went downtown to buy a pair of shoes, yes? It's a rather different statement from I went downtown yesterday to buy a pair of shoes.
When I met Eliza Johnson and I spent all my money, uh, o- o- on some idle o- o- object in Debenhams, you'll say, and and never did get the shoes. I went downtown yesterday to buy a pair of shoes. Now, in some languages, you can't do that. You can raise your voice and and and and and turn up the volume, uh, with a Japanese, and it doesn't fizzy, doesn't understand what on earth is happening, do you see? It's a feature of English speakers. Uh, in Greek, you get that kind of emphasis by rearrange, uh, by the order in which you put your words. It's this that, that, uh, uh, leads to, uh, a proper understanding of what's being said.
It's not we believe we're going to be saved. Well, of course they believe that. The argument is, on what terms are you going to be saved? The Pharisees had just said, you see, that except you be, uh, circumcised and keep the law of Moses, you can't be saved. And it's that that Peter is answering when he says, it is our conviction that it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we are to be saved. And then notice what he adds, that we are to be saved in like manner as they. You see the relevance.
We Jews, we Christian Jews, we believe that it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that, that we shall be saved. Not by our circumcision or keeping the food laws or anything of the sort. We Jews believe that it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we shall be saved, and we're going to be saved, so it is our belief, in exactly the same way and on the same condition as the Gentiles. So, yes, uh, there then is the center of the dispute. When that conference happened, relative to the history that's given us in the Epistle to the Galatians, that much I don't discuss at this moment.
I cite Acts fifteen to show what this basic contention was. It is put in a- a- in simple words, on what conditions are we saved? What are the conditions for salvation? Are we saved by faith, or do we have to add ceremonies like circumcision or the keeping of the food laws in order to gain salvation.
This is the great topic, therefore, about which Paul argues in the epistle to the Galatians. And gentlemen, learning how to argue the case for this is important because it affects people's salvation. If a doctor is treating a patient, or pretending to, by administering some drug or treatment that has, of course, long since been proved to be of no use whatsoever and positively harmful.
Now, medics are a very good tribe, you see. Their flag ought to be bright, bright colors. But there were times known to me as a s- as a a child, uh, from parents reporting what had happened in the past, that there was a condition in the human body called a twisted bowel. That's what they called it in those days. And the treatment for that was to get the child to swallow some mercury, because mercury is rather heaven, and the theory was that the mercury going down into the bowel would, uh, by its very pressure, twist the twisted thing straight, if you see what I mean. That the child's teeth all fell out and the hair came off and they died was an unfortunate consequence, you see.
But if somebody nowadays found a doctor prescribing the swallowing of mercury for a twisted bowel, they've a right to get up and protest, haven't they? And argue the case. Because a child's life depends on it. And if the doctor who is prescribing that antiquated method gets annoyed, well, that's too bad. What he is practicing must be denounced. So Paul argues, like our Lord argued, against doctrines that undermine salvation.
We should then notice, perhaps, that this letter is written not as a gospel sermon to be preached in the next, uh, marketplace that they came to. This is written to the, uh, believers who had made a profession of faith. Now they are being, uh, troubled by this false teaching. So these are not the methods that we necessarily use in evangelism. Now, of course, because there are many folks that have been brought up in a Christendom that teaches that infant baptism and, uh, and this and that and the other necessary for salvation.
Then, of course, in Bible studies and elsewhere, this kind of argument becomes exceedingly important. So first of all, I want to go through this epistle and point out to you the different kinds of argument that Paul uses in this short epistle. And having noticed the different kinds of argument that he uses, uh, to notice the order in which he applies them.
That doesn't necessarily mean that we must always ourselves copy that order, but the order in which Paul uses his various arguments is significant, as we shall see in a moment. So let me put them up here on the screen. And we can spend some time listing them and beginning to think about them.
The first argument he uses is from his apostolic authority. The argument based on Paul's own apostolic authority. Paul, an apostle, not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.
We'll come back to that later as we look at it in more detail. But the argument from the apostolic authority of Paul is basic to this question. I remember talking to a Roman Catholic at one stage, a priest, who wanted to say that it was by our works that we shall be saved. And I pointed to what Paul says in Romans chapter four, now to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness.
And the reply from the priest was, oh, I, I, I, I, I, I, I don't know what that means. I didn't know it was there in the Bible anyway, but, um, anyway, Paul was an old rascal. Many down church history have held that view, gentlemen. Paul is the least loved of all the apostles. The first thing that goes in many a church is Paul's teaching on justification by faith. And the next thing that goes is Paul's doctrine of the church. He is not liked on either account.
Here he will tell us about the basis of his apostolic authority that lies behind the gospel he preaches. And so he, he expounds it now from chapter one verse one to verse ten. From verse eleven. to the end of chapter two, he develops a long argument from church history.
If you will allow me that term, in referring to the early days of the gospel, of the gospel, from Pentecost onwards, as being a necessary fundamental part of church history. So very often church history, uh, is the term given to the post-apostolic period onward. I want to claim the term church history from the very, to cover from the very beginning. Church history. And that is concerned basically with the question, where did Paul get his gospel from?
Did he get it from the other apostles? Did he get it from the church? Where did Paul get his gospel from? Why is that important? Well, let me tell another story. Perhaps I told it to you before, but years ago, there was a good Protestant man who, for various reasons, good or otherwise Protestant man, uh, determined to join the Catholic Church.
And his colleagues in Queens, uh, had been pleading with him that before he took that step, he should, uh, come and talk to me for some reason or other, you see. So, uh, eventually he came and told me what his proposal was. He was a Church of Ireland man, but now he was convinced that the Church of Rome was right, and he was going to become a monk in the Roman Catholic Church. What did I think of that? I said it was very difficult for me because the church he was proposing to join anathematized me as a heretic, do you see, and worthy of damnation.
So it was very difficult. I was somewhat biased, do you see? Why do they say that? I say, well, the Council of Trent says that if anybody says he's sure of salvation, let him be anathema. Do you see? Oh, but then he says you shouldn't be sure of salvation, should you? I said, why not? Well, it all depends on your works, says he. So I read him that verse in Romans four, do you see? To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness. Well, he didn't know that was in the Bible, and he didn't know what it meant.
But then he said, of course, that was Paul. Of course, he was a bit of an old rascal. And, and you, you, you, and anyway, that's your trouble. You think you can just read the Bible like that and, uh, believe it and be saved. You can't do it like that, you see, because it was the church that gave us the Bible, and you must ask the church what it means. You can't make up your own mind as to what it means. You must consult the church, because it is the church that gave us the Bible. So I, uh, said to him, look here, old chap, uh, Paul says that he got the gospel, uh, you see, direct from God and not from the church.
So could I, when I wa- when he was in Arabia, could I have gone to Paul and said, sir, you're the Apostle Paul? Yes. Look, I would like to be saved. Do you see, how can I be saved? And he had told me by word of mouth what he has now written here in Romans chapter four. could I have listened to him, understood what he said, repented and believed, and been saved there and then? Or should I have to say, well, Paul, I hear what you say, interesting, thank you very much, but now, of course, I must take it to the church to find out, uh, uh, whether what what your words actually mean.
Do you see? He said, yes, of course you would have to take it to the church. You couldn't just listen to what he said and, uh, and believe it and be saved. You'd have to take it to the church. So I said, you mean the church that was in Jerusalem at the time? Yes, says he. To Peter and, and the others, do you see? Well, I said, Paul says that when he got to Jerusalem eventually, the apostles added nothing to him. Oh, they did, says he, they did, they told him what the gospel was. I said, no, they didn't. The Bible says they didn't add. There's a real point, isn't there? When we began our work in Russia, there came a gentleman, I can't p- p- press in the details, but he professed to be a believer, and he helped us in various things, and then he went and joined the r- uh, the Orthodox Church, and we raised the difficulties involved therein, you see.
And uh, in a letter to him, I laid out, as I understood it, the doctrines of the Orthodox Church and how they were not according to scripture. He wrote back saying that my letter was ridiculous. How can you use the Bible to criticize the church when it is the church that gave you the Bible in the first place? Do you see? So it is, of course, in Judaism. If you get a really orthodox Jew, he won't read the Old Testament and decide what it means himself. I think that's far too difficult.
He must apply to the rabbis, and they to the Talmud and to the Midrash. On what principle? Well, the rabbis will say that, uh, God gave, uh, to Moses the law, the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances. Moses wrote- wrote down the law, uh, that, sorry, the law was, um, uh, given to Moses orally, of course, but eventually the law was written down, and we have that in the Old Testament. But the statutes, the ordinances, and all the other things were not written down until the time of the Great Synagogue.
You see, so you can't just take the law. There's all the other tradition that was not written down, that is important for understanding the law. The Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches make the same claim. They will tell you that Paul writing to the Thessalonians says about, uh, uh, uh, his letters and what he told them orally when he was with them, and so forth. And the Orthodox Church will say, there you are, you see. Some of the apostolic tradition was written down, some wasn't written down, some was communicated orally, and that oral tradition has been carried along all down the centuries until the present.
You can't take just the written word of, uh, of the, of the Bible or Paul's letters and think you're going to understand them. It's the church that can tell you what they really were intended to mean because of the oral tradition. So we come back to the question as where does Paul's gospel come from? Was it the church who gave him the gospel, or not? That, of course, is basic to our Gosp- our gospel preaching and to our evangelism. Then when we come to, uh, argument three, to chapter three, one to six— to chapter two, sorry, one— uh, I sorry, chapter three, one to six.
The argument from the experience of conversion. Paul points out to these believers in Galatia that when they believed, they received the Holy Spirit. And asked them to ponder. How and on what conditions did they get the Holy Spirit originally? Was it by a hearing of faith, or was it by the works of the law?
It is valid, of course, to use an argument based on people's experience within certain limits. But the next argument, three seven to fourteen, the argument from explicit statements of Old Testament scripture. Notice that as you pass by, it is valid to argue from people's experience of conversion, but not as a, a, a argument that stands simply by itself.
It is immediately followed by an argument from the explicit statement of scripture. A whole list of quotations from the Old Testament now follow to cover a number of different points. Experience, yes, but it is experience that must be based and matched by and equate to state pre- straightforward, explicit statements of scripture. Argument five: An argument from sound legal practice.
What's that got to do with anything? From verse, uh, 7 onwards, as uh, uh, verse fifteen onwards, three fifteen to eighteen, Paul brings up what is absolutely basic to the Christian gospel, God's covenant with Abraham. Genesis fifteen. Genesis fifteen contains the fundamental statement, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.
But on that very same occasion, God made a covenant with Abraham and his seed. And therefore, it is important that we should interpret that covenant and its terms absolutely correctly and exactly. An argument, therefore, from sound legal practice in interpreting the covenant that God made with Abram and his seed were not founded on the law.
The covenant God made with Abraham and his seed was made four hundred years and more before the law was given. And sound legal practice, therefore, maintains that you cannot yourself add any other conditions which God didn't make and lay down when he made that covenant with Abraham. So man is justified, and not only justified, but the promises and the glorious inheritance promised according to that covenant do not depend on the keeping of the law.
For the great inheritance and the promises were made through that covenant four hundred years before the law was given. But now notice argument six. You'll say Paul knew by experience, because he'd argued the case in many a synagogue and many a forum. If you preach that salvation is not by the works of the law, you will eventually be met by a counter argument. Well, then what is the law then?
You can't deny that God gave the law, can you? And you're not going to say that God was wrong in giving people the law, are you? So if you're going to maintain that salvation is not by the law, you will eventually have to do what Paul now does in this next argument. He has to raise the question of what is the true function of the law? For what exact purpose was the law given? Verse nineteen. What then is the law? What was its function?
And Paul develops an argument that it was a temporary ploy of God, imposed on the nation in their childhood. But now that Christ is come, that temporary arrangement is done away with. His exposition of the true function of the law. Next, in chapter four, verses one to seven, he brings out an argument from analogy.
He had already used an analogy in the previous chapter, twenty three onwards. The analogy that in a Roman household, a boy would be put under a pedagogue. Pedagogue was a slave who was responsible for the boy's general behavior, and in particular for taking him to the school to be taught by a schoolmaster and then brought home again. So this slave was appointed over the boy, even though the boy was his father's heir.
That slave nonetheless would control the boy's behavior, if need be, by discipline, until the boy grew up and became a a an adult, whereupon he would no longer be under the slave. So in chapter four, in a Roman household, when a boy was born, perhaps he was the firstborn. It, uh, it, uh, then happened that the father would or would not recognize him as his son.
That was quite a formal ceremony. If the father said yes and picked up the son and owned him as his son. He was now the father's son, even though he was a baby. He wasn't yet a grown up son, but he was legally a son, even though he was a baby. But the father wouldn't immediately put into that son's hands the running of the father's great estate and wealth. Well, of course not. Though he was legally the father's son, in character he was still a baby and a little child, and would be so a youngster and an early teenager, not yet fit to be put in charge of the father's estate.
So the father would take this little boy, who was his son, legally his son, and put him under governors. They generally would be slaves as well, but in the Roman household, uh, slaves could be very high-powered officials, as in, uh, a palace of a king in our, in our, uh, country, you'll see, or a queen. Uh, in, um, in a big Roman, wealthy Roman household, eh, your personal private secretary would be a slave, though he knew several languages, and, uh, you would consult him on policy and all that kind of thing, uh, do you see? He would often be a slave.
And your doctor, excuse me, everybody, but your doctor would be a slave as well, do you see? Mm-hmm. Uh, so when the boy is put under the authority of these governors in various directions about his health and his education and everything else, he would be subject to slaves, very high-powered slaves, some of them, but would be nothing different from a slave, though he's a son. Until the time came when he reached his majority, as we call it, and he would be accepted by the father now to join with the father in the running of the estates.
Argument from analogy. When we come to investigate it in detail, we shall have to ask ourselves, uh, yes, but is it a valid analogy? Let me point out what I mean by that. Analogies are very useful things, but they prove nothing. Analogy only illustrates. So if I said to you, ah, ha ha ha ha, you keep telling me that salvation is by faith and without works. I disagree. Salvation, you know, is like the village pump. So, yes, how's that?
Well, a village pump, the old-fashioned sort, you couldn't come arrive at the pump and start pumping. You wouldn't get anything out. You had to prime the pumped pump, the pump. You first had to pour water into it to prime it and then start pumping. Do you see? I say salvation's like that old boy. You have to put the water in first before you get any water out. You have to put in your works before, by faith, you get out salvation, you see. Would my analogy prove the case? What you would say is, I'm sorry, but your analogy is quite invalid. Analogies don't prove anything, gentlemen.
But an analogy that is valid is very helpful for understanding and clarifying the situation. We must watch our analogies if we use them in presenting the gospel to people. Yes? Next argument. Another argument from the experience of the effects of conversion. Chapter four, verses eight to twenty. Here, the argument is that when you got converted, you were so grateful to me that you would have plucked out your very eyes and given them to me.
You're not so keen on me now, are you? Why is that? Now that's very important, you know, particularly coming from the Apostle Paul. Any doctrine that makes converts, uh, dislike Paul and shun him is thereby exposed as being false doctrine. The priest that said to me, Paul is an old rascal, shows the symptoms.
Doctrine of salvation by works will dampen people's enthusiasm for Paul. Then, uh, uh, argument nine, chapter four, twenty one to five one. an argument from an Old Testament prototype, or to put it in, in modern language, an argument from typology. Gentlemen, of course it is sound, Paul uses it, but notice where in that list it comes. It only comes in after Paul has established, by quoting literal, straightforward verses of scripture.
Does he eventually use the typology of scripture? To add to his argument. Look back to argument four. we shall eventually come round to that. A whole series of plain, straightforward statements of scripture. They come early. It's only later on that Paul, in argument nine, uses an argument from Old Testament typology. Then argument ten, five two to verse twelve.
The argument from the implication of the false doctrine which Paul now rebuts. What does that mean? Well, look at verse th- uh, verse two. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing. I testify again to every man that receiveth circumcision that he is indebted to do the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you are fallen away from grace. The serious implications.
Occasions. For those who receive this false doctrine. Argument eleven, Chapter five thirteen to six ten. The argument from the fact that the gospel of justification by faith does make provision for holy living, and from what that provision is and involves. Just briefly, let's look at chapter five, verse sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and, uh, see the flow of the argument.
five sixteen, but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are contrary, the one to the other, that you may not do the things that you would. The provision for our leading a holy life is the Holy Spirit and his leading. That is the fact. But Paul is adducing this fact as part of an argument. Look at verse eighteen. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
If you preach the gospel of salvation by faith, gentlemen, you will know it very well from your evangelistic work. If you preach the gospel of salvation by faith and not by works, very soon people will come back at you and say, oh, but that means then you can do as you like, and you can sin and it doesn't matter. And you, of course, come to say what Paul is saying here, that is not. Justification by faith leads on to a genuine, real, positive, actual provision for leading a holy life, which is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit's desires within us, the leading of the Holy Spirit.
But that is not the same as law. The authenticity of the gospel of justification by faith is shown by this, that it does make provision for leading a holy life that the law itself cannot make. That is part of the argument, then, in favor of the doctrine of justification by faith. And finally, chapter six verse eleven to eighteen, an argument which rests on the exposure of the unworthy motives of the false teachers, compared with the marks of true apostleship displayed by Paul.
Let's notice, gentlemen, that that is the last argument that Paul uses. It is a valid argument. If you're arguing with some dear soul that salvation is by faith and not by works. Uh, do you see? And that soul, uh, uh, uh, objects to this and says, um, mm-hmm, but, um, that would mean that you can live, uh, as loosely as you like and sin, and it doesn't matter. You say it isn't so.
No, but justification is by faith. And they say, no, no, our priest tells us it's by works. You say, your, excuse me, your priest told you? Isn't he the chap I saw walking down the street or waddling down the street absolutely drunk? And, uh, hasn't he been up before the courts for child molestation? Well, of course, that is a valid argument, isn't it? But it's the last one Paul uses. Because you see, while it is a genuine argument, you have to establish the conditions of salvation on scripture, not on people's behavior.
Because, gentlemen, do remember that sometimes when you say to somebody, salvation is by faith and not by works, and this is what you believe, and they say, is that so? Yes. You say, well, there's a man in our works, where I, I, you know, my daily job, you see. And he believes what you believe. He's run off with somebody else's wife. And now we found he's been cooking the income tax records and uh... Yes, that could happen too, couldn't it? We don't find that the great gospel of justification by faith on first of all pointing to people's behavior.
Exposing the false motives of the false teachers is an argument to be used, but as you see here, it is the last argument of the twelve. Now I'm aware that this kind of survey of Paul's epistle is hard, isn't it? Legalistic and all that. You'll say, gentlemen, you are being trained as soldiers. And we are to, to, to strive for the faith once delivered to the saints. Learning to do it properly may involve you in learning how to argue the case in true spiritual fashion, and to argue with sound.
So let's, uh, as we study today, seek the help of the Holy Spirit, that he may teach us how to be effective witnesses for the Lord, how effective in our gospel preaching, in our personal testimony, knowing how to argue the truth of the gospel of justification by faith, particularly when that, uh, uh, gospel is disputed by religious people who want to say that justification by faith is not enough, and you have to add thereto your effort to keep the food laws and the laws of Moses, circumcision, and the law.
So let's break off there and have a well-deserved snack.
