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Very careful with analogies, don't we? Analogies don't prove anything. And analogies are only useful when they illustrate what is true. Analogies are useful if they help people to see the distinction between two things that hitherto they are confusing. But analogies don't prove anything. You always have to ask, therefore, but who said that this analogy was appropriate? Somebody says to you, ah, you say salvation is by faith. No, well, you see, it isn't like that, you know.
We have to do our part, and God does his, and and if we do our part, God will do his, you see. Salvation is like the village pump. You know, if you go to a village pump, you can't get water out of it directly. You have to prime the pump. You have to put some water in, and then you'll get a lot more water out. And that's how it is with us. Uh, salvation is like the village pump. You have to put your side in as hard and be as good as you can be, and then God will do his bit. Very nice analogy of the pump. But who said salvation was like the village pump to start with. The analogy doesn't prove anything.
It may illustrate what that man is arguing for, doesn't prove it's true. We need to be aware of that when we're arguing. Analogies don't prove anything. They can illustrate, do they? And is it a good analogy? Well, the analogy of child and father, of course, is a biblical analogy everywhere used by Bible itself. And here Paul is, uh, uh, illustrating the point in a big household where they had slaves. Among the slaves would be a pedagogos who was in charge of the children of a certain age onwards. He took them to school, and he saw after their behavior when they were there, and he brought them back from school, he protected them, if he need be, chastised them, uh, he, he, uh, the children were under him.
And the child, in that sense, was little more than a slave, but put under that regime by the father, an external pedagogos controlling him and seeing he learned his lessons, and I don't know what have you. Of course, when the child grew up and became a full-grown son, then that system was stopped. He was no longer under pedagogos. He's a grown-up son. And that is the point that Paul is making. In Judaism, God treated Israel as little children. Though heir of all, he put them in the position of slaves under a pedagogos. That was the law. To chastise them where need be, to guide them, to take them to school, to make them learn their lessons, to show them how naughty they were.
Yes? But now there's been a vast change. You needn't be afraid of dispensationalism in this aspect if you are afraid of it in others, and rightly so. But here, you'll see, uh, um, this is a difference. Pentecost has made a world of difference. Now that God has sent forth his spirit into our hearts, you're no more slaves, you're grown up sons and daughters of the living God, moved by God's own spirit. You see, when I was a child, I had to be warned not to run in from the garden with mud all over my shoes across the carpet, and I had to be told what appropriate action would be taken if I forgot that and committed this offense, you see.
I got any notion of how much carpets cost and, uh, the aesthetic beauty of carpets and things like that, you see. And football to me was much more important. Mm, I was promised six of the best, therefore, if I forgot the rules. Now I'm grown up, I don't have to be threatened with six of the best. Why not? Well, I've grown up. I have the spirit of my father in me, anyway. That's a different principle. That's how it is with a believer now, a son of God, in- indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. A different guiding principle in life, and as well as a different power, different relationship with the Father.
Yes? So Paul is answering then, what serves the law? He's got to have an answer for that. He can't just neglect it. And we who are Christians have got to watch that, haven't we? Sometimes in stressing that salvation is by faith and not by the law, we give the impression it doesn't matter how you behave. And alas, sometimes our behavior in business seems to suggest that's what we believe. That wouldn't be true, would it? We've got to come to a positive, uh, explanation of why God gave the law. But nonetheless, it's consistent with the fact that nowadays we're not saved by the law, but through faith in Christ. And with that, he turns once more to an argument from experience.
Verses eight, nine, uh, down, uh, to, uh, verse, um, twenty. Pointing out to them now that instead of making progress, they're going backwards, going back to bondage, observing days and months and seasons and years, the old external trappings of religion. How folks do tend to go backwards on it. Do you see? Uh, and then another test of experience.
One they're going back to enslaveish, uh, slavish things. Two, this supposed new doctrine that they are imbibing has grievously affected their attitude to the Apostle Paul. You know that because, uh, of an infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you the first time, and that which was a temptation to you in my flesh you despised not nor rejected, but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where then is that gratulation of yourselves? For I bear you witness that if possible you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. So then am I become your enemy because I tell you the truth.
They zealously seek you in no good way, nay, they desire to shut you out that you may seek them. But it is good to be zealously sought in a good matter at all times, not only when I'm present with you, my little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you. Yea, I could wish to be present with you now and to change my voice, for I am perplexed about you. The mark of this wrong doctrine is that it grievously changed their at personal attitude to the Apostle Paul. Ladies and gentlemen, I would want to generalize from that. Find me a doctrine that makes you appreciate Paul less than you once did.
Find a doctrine that says, oh well, as some people used to say, Paul is a bit of an old rogue. We don't know what to make of him. We don't like Paul. There's a mark that your doctrine is very Christianable. Actually, if you got hold of the right gospel, you'll be over the moon with Paul. Mm. Granted, he was the least popular apostle in his own days. He's the man to whom we owe our Christian liberty, and I. The great proponent of justification by faith. The man not only revolutionized the world in his day, but revolutionized it again at the Great Reformation, didn't he?
It was his writings that did it. Look at the wealth and the wonder of peace with God, of justification by faith, of the promise of the inheritance, of the covenant. Magnificent stuff. We owe that to Paul, you know. If you find a doctrine that makes you less keen on Paul than you were, it's a token's very poor. Mm. Good stuff. Mm-hmm. Mark how many sermons you get in church over the course of ten years, won't you?
And how many come from Peter and James and John, and how many come from Paul? But now then, Ten twenty one uh, to thirty one, A most interesting argument, but a little difficult to put across now to folks, easier to people who took the Old Testament seriously, I suppose. Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid and one by the free woman. How be it the son by the handmaid is born after the flesh, but the son by the free woman is born through promise. Which things contain an allegory, says the Revised Version. I don't know what your, what, what, what, what do your versions say about that verse?
Which things what? It must be taken figuratively. You must pay a, a lot of money to get that translation, yes? Are sym- are symbolic. There's a genius sort of thing. Anybody else? Are symbolic, are to be taken figuratively. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Anything else? Allegory. Allegory, you see. Terrible. Allegaruma now says the Greek, but what that means, you have to decide from what you find Paul now doing. For these two women are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to the Jerusalem that now is, for she is in bondage with her children.
But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not, break forth and cry, thou that travellest not, for more are the children of the desolate than of her which hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise, but as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, even so it is now. How be it what says the scripture, cast out the handmaid and her son, for the son of the handmaid shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. Wherefore, brethren, we are not children of a handmaid, but of a free woman. With freedom did Christ set us free. Stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage.
It's a very interesting passage. It shows the first that Paul believed Genesis. It's not bad going, is it? And he believed it so strongly that the command of God to Abraham to cast out the bondwoman and her son, Paul quotes it now as an exhortation that we should give ear to cast out the bondwoman and her son. How shall we make all of this, you see? Some commentaries will tell you, ah, well, this was Paul using allegory, and you know, really, oh dear, dear. Well, I mean, some of the Jewish rabbis used allegory, and therefore they would have been convinced by this kind of argument.
Well, we today, wait a minute, we today what? We wouldn't be convinced, is that the idea? So Paul used an argument that wasn't really sound, only it worked with the rabbis because they didn't see it wasn't sound. They used allegory, so Paul used allegory. That's not a sound method of interpreting scripture, but Paul used it and got away with it because the rabbis didn't see that was no good, not valid. We wouldn't use it today because it... Oh, so scripture is this argument in inspired scripture is invalid? Come, come, come, come, come, come.
That's what is taught in some places. That cannot be true, can it? How shall we understand this use of Old Testament? Now, let us notice a- as a method of arguing. When it comes to arguing from scripture, first Paul used those explicit verses, a half a dozen of them, weren't there? We noticed that earlier this morning. Do you see? Actual explicit statements of Old Testament. That's he used first. Not this figurative story first, but the explicit statements first. You see, some people, uh, when they try to prove the thing, they they'll go to Old Testament pictures first. No, you better establish the truth of your doctrine by the explicit statements, clear, straightforward statements of scripture.
That was the first lot. And then there followed the legal argument from the Old Testament. That wasn't a type or a figure or a symbol. That was a literal fellow who stood on two legs on earth, do you see? And God made him a promise and a covenant. He was justified by faith. He was given this literal covenant that he should be heir. That was interpreting the Old Testament literally and legally. Yes? It's only now, then, he comes to the other method that is rightly used in Old Testament, to interpret Old Testament as a prototype. What do we mean by prototype?
Well, let's take an example that we shall all be familiar with, the way the New Testament expounds the Passover. The Passover in Israel was not a prophecy, was it? The Passover was an annual festival in which the Israelites were reminded of past history. It was a remembrance, therefore, of past history. It wasn't a prophecy. It was the history how the people had been slaves in Egypt, and God had redeemed them through the blood of the Passover lamb.
Yet when our Lord came to the Last Supper and sat with his apostles, he said, with desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I say unto you, I shall not eat of the Passover until it be, again, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. What do you mean by fulfilled? Passover wasn't a prediction. If you predict that Messiah is going to be be- born in Bethlehem, well, then that can be fill- fulfilled by Messiah is born in Bethlehem, yeah? That's fulfilling a prediction. But Passover wasn't a prediction.
It was the memorial of that ancient history, what happened in Egypt. They were redeemed out of bondage, they were redeemed from the, uh, uh, destroying angel by the blood of the Passover lamb. How can Christ say that the Passover is going to be fulfilled? Fulfilled in what sense? And the answer to that is, it's fulfilled, eh, eh, eh, in one of the senses that that word is used in the, in the Bible, because Israel's deliverance out of Egypt years and years ago involved certain principles of redemption at that lowly level. There was the wrath of God expressed through the destroying angel.
There was the bondage of Pharaoh. And when the judgment came, they were delivered from the judgment by the blood of a Passover lamb, yes? There, at that very lowly level, was that basic principle of redemption expressed. Now in Christ, that so same principles are going to be expressed at an infinitely higher level. And now we are under the wrath of God and in danger of his judgment. We are in the grip of not a Pharaoh, but of Satan. We are redeemed not with the blood of a lamb, but with the precious blood of Christ.
Do you see the principle is the same? It is at the infinitely higher level. And in that sense, when Jesus died, it was a fulfillment of the Passover, the expression of those principles at the higher level, you see. Now we shall see that in Abraham's own historical experience. He was literally justified by faith, giving a literal promise of the inheritance. But now watch what happens in his history, and if you can grasp what is happening in his history, you will see certain principle at work, principles at work then. And when you've mastered them and you come to what Christ has done for us and is doing for us now, you will see those same principles illustrated at an infinitely higher level.
So let's go back a verse or two to Galatians, and it's chapter two, verse nineteen. What then is the law? It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made. What was the law? It was added because of transgressions till the seed shall come to whom the promise hath been made. Get that? So now we go down to Master Abraham, and if you care to turn to Genesis to actually see the layout of Genesis.
Genesis fifteen. Here is God, Abraham saying to God at the beginning of the chapter, I go childless, verse two. That to behold, to me thou hast given no seed, one born in my house is mine heir, my steward. And the Lord's word came to him, this man shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. He brought him forth abroad and said, look now toward heaven, tell the stars if they'll be able to tell them. And he said unto him, so shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness. And then God went on to give him the covenant that promised the inheritance.
So he was promised the seed, then he was promised the inheritance, but the seed wasn't given yet. Yes? So this is Genesis, you'll say fifteen. Inheritance. And PS is the promised seed. Mm-hmm. The seed promised, not yet come. What does chapter sixteen tell us? Well, that's an interesting little story. If you read it through, you'll find out it went like this.
God had promised Abraham and Sarah, uh, a child. And one morning, was it at breakfast or tea, was it? I don't know, I can't tell you. Sarah suddenly said to Abram, Abram dear, I've been thinking. And Abram said, have you, my dear? What have you been thinking about? And she said, well, you know, Abram, that promise that, uh, God made us, that we're going to have a son and seed. Yes, my dear, he said, isn't that wonderful? And she said, well, I don't know about that, Abram, because, you know, God is acting rather funnily. Uh, uh, God says he's going to give us the seed, but he's overlooked something, Abram. Well, what is that, said Abram? Well, I'm barren, Abram, my dear. Can't have any children. Oh, said Abram, I hadn't thought about that.
Oh. Well, that's what I say, says Sarah. And what's more, God is being a little bit contradictious. One minute he tells us I'm going to give you a child, and the next minute he shut up my womb so I can't have a child, you see, Abram. I mean to say, we've got to be realist, Abram, and you know. Well, oh, well, how, how, what do you think then, Sarah? Well, she said, what I think is this, you see. When God promised us a seed, he's going to give us a say a seed, he didn't mean he's going to give us a seed just like that, Abram. No, God helps those that help themselves. What he meant when he said, I'm going to give you a seed, is he meant you do as best you can to do it, you see. And use your wits and use your resources, and uh, uh, you get about it, and I mean, see, that's what I meant by a promise.
I, that was really an exhortation to us that we've got to produce the seed, Abram, and use our resources. Well, said Abram, I thought of it like that. I thought that was God was going to give. Well, well, in a sense that is, but you see, what he means is you do the best you can. That's what it means. And use your own resources. Well, Abraham said, we haven't got any resources, Sarah dear. Oh, yes, we have, she said. What resources? Well, we've got Hagar. Oh. Well, who was Hagar? She was an Egyptian slave girl. And like they did in that part of the world in those days, the chief wife could, if she pleased, give her husband one of the slave girls, and the slave girl would, um, produce a child, and the child would count as the chief wife's child.
I thought that would be a good thing. Everybody does it, Abram. All do it, any sensible people, and ask any agony column in the paper what you do, do you see, uh, and they'll tell you this is a very good idea to have a surrogate mother, and you see, uh, yes, righto. So there was this scheme, and uh, Abram took Hagar. Well, then Hagar became pregnant, you'll see, and lo and behold, the way slaves will do sometimes, uh, you'll see, they get a bit uppish. And when she saw she was carrying Abram's child and her mistress couldn't, well, she began to give herself airs and graces. And when the mistress said, do this, she said, no, I'm carrying Abram's child, you see. You do it.
Well, that didn't suit Sarah. She wasn't going to have slave girls getting up just like that. She certainly wasn't, and she made life so difficult that, um, um, Hagar ran away. And the angel of the Lord came and met Hagar, and he said, now, my dear, what are you doing here? And she said, Hagar's chasing me off. He said, bless, there's no place for you, for a girl to be in your condition. Hagar, dear, you better go back, do you see? And the angel of the Lord sent Hagar back with wonderful words ringing in his ear, do you see, in her ear. The angel of the Lord said unto her, behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction, and he shall be a wild ass among men.
His hand shall be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. He sent her back. Sixteen. Uh, Hagar, plus eventually Ishmael, sent back into A and Sarah's home. And Ishmael was born.
Mm-hmm. And he lived in the home and was brought up. Now watch the progress of the story. Grew up, and chapter eighteen, God came to Abram and, uh, said, uh, uh, you're going to have a son, you see, and, uh, uh, sorry, seventeen. and, uh, Abram said, yes, I know, Lord, but isn't- didn't you mean Ishmael? I mean, Ishmael's a very nice chap. You meant Ishmael, didn't you, God? As God said, thank you, Abram, but not Ishmael. No, I will bless him, but not Ishmael. I don't mean Ishmael. I never did mean Ishmael. Abram, my boy, when I promised you a son, I meant I promised you a son, and that was a word of promise.
When I promised I was going to give you a son, that didn't mean that you had to do the best you can. But that would take a miracle. I'm prepared to do a miracle, says God. In fact, I'm waiting, Abram, till you're at to such a state that you can't do your very best, won't do anything, and you'll have to depend on me, and that I meant what I said, and it was a promise, not an exhortation. I'm going to let you wait, Abram, until you're hopelessly dependent on me, and then I shall give you a son. Thank you for Ishmael, but I don't want him. Oh, bless the man. That's not what I meant. And Sarah got it all the wrong way round.
When I said I was going to give you a son, I didn't mean you had to do your best, and God helps those that help themselves. It was a sheer promise, a gift to be taken from my hand. That's what I meant, and that's what it will be. So God left him. Sarah had always been barren, but now Abram was positively decrepit. Body as good as dead, absolutely helpless. And he was a sensible chap. He could see the point, as Romans four points out. He saw that he was now as good as dead, and if God would ever fulfill his promise, it would be bringing life out of death, a veritable resurrection. And it happened.
Chapter twenty one. The Lord visited Sarah. Promised seed born. Chapter twenty one, chapter uh twenty one eight, He was weaned, be about four years old. Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she'd borne unto Abram mocking, and she said, cast out the bondwoman and her son. And this time God agreed with Abram, son of bondwoman cast out.
So that Hagar and Ishmael were put in until... until the promised seed came. And then they were cast out. That's what happened at that story. Now you see what Paul is doing. This is Galatians. He starts with Abram. This is not an allegory. This is Abram, the real old physical Abram. Promise of seed equals, the seed equals Christ.
And that's literally true, isn't it? In the first instance, Abraham's son was Isaac. If there had been no Isaac, there would have been no Jesus. But the promise meant more than just Isaac. It meant Christ, of course. So the promise was actually given to Abraham. This is literal history. And the promise eventually meant Christ. And then... Hmm.
Do you see the parallel? That just as on the smaller scale, Hagar and Ishmael were put in, in the story of Genesis, and the very ti- moment Isaac is born, the promised seed is born, the very next thing in the story is Ishmael is cast out. So, says Paul, that provides us with a pattern that was fulfilled at the bigger level. God's promise to Abraham of a child, Isaac, yes, but it contained more than that. It was a promise eventually of Christ. And presently the law was added, but it was added only until the promised seed actually came.
Yes? Hm. Tell you one or two other things. It's getting near uh one o'clock, and when it gets near one o'clock, I warned you the other day, I tend to go into trances, and uh, get to be all fanciful and that kind of thing, you see. It's dangerous, isn't it? Uh, but you're there to check me. Um, the promised seed came, was born, Hagar and the bondwoman were cast out. Twenty two, promised seed was sacrificed. I say, fancy that. Genesis twenty two. This is Genesis twenty one, Promised seed born, bond woman and her son Ishmael cast out.
twenty two, the true promised seed sacrificed on Mount Moriah. Who fancy that? And the law was added until the promised seed would come. And what happened to the promised seed, did you happen to know? The sacrifice, wasn't it? Yeah. That's a wonderful story. And if you really get, uh, trance-like, you've noticed that here in twenty four, Abraham decided it's time the promised seed had a wife, and she wasn't to be of the Canaanites, so go back to the Gentiles from which I came out, says Abram.
So the servant was sent all the way down to the Gentiles, from whom Abram had been called out, and took the message that my master is rich and he has one son that he loves, and he's given him all things that he had. He said to this girl, would you care to be the bride of my master's son? And you know, the gospel worked, and the good lady, being a Gentile, became the second big move from the Gentiles. Abraham had come out of the Gentiles, but now the promised seed was born. Another came out of the Gentiles. The name was Rebecca. And he came all the way and, uh, joined the promised seed as his bride.
Do you know anything about Christian history? That the law was given, and Israel was under the law until the promised seed came, and then he was sacrificed, and then there began this next big move out of the Gentiles. Thousands upon thousands coming out of the Gentiles to form with the believing in Israel a bride for the promised seed. Extraordinary story. You could get very fanciful if you even get a corrective of dinner or something to stop you doing such things, couldn't you? What is the point of it, however? The point of this similarity, as you hear Paul saying, is, look, brethren, Christ set you free.
Seeing that justification is by faith will set you free. Seeing that the inheritance is by faith will set you free. Why do you go back to beggarly elements and teaching people they've got to keep the law to be saved, or they've got to go through some ceremony like circumcision to be saved? That will take them back into slavery. See what happens when people get it into their heads. Instead of accepting the promise of God as meaning a promise of God and believing it and rejoicing in it, they get it into their heads that they've got to produce it by their own power. That's what Ha- Ha- uh, Sarah did. It's no accident that the woman was a slave, and the boy who was produced was a son of a slave.
God doesn't want slaves. The slave abides not in the house forever, says Christ. No, he didn't indeed. He got thrown out. God, with his tremendous purposes for this universe and for his redeemed people, is not intending to fill heaven with a whole host of slaves. Goodness me, if you get to heaven one of these days and God sets you to c- control a galaxy of stars, that'll be some sizable effort, won't it? And you're going to do that thinking that it all depends on how well you do it, and if you don't do it well enough, you'll get thrown out of heaven? Well, heaven would become slavery, wouldn't it? God doesn't want slaves.
The son abid- the slave abides not in the house forever. The son abides, and if the son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Oh, what a gospel this is. We have the very spirit of God's Son in our hearts, sons of God, not slaves, in the family because we're born by the spirit of God in the family, and all the inheritance of God is ours because we are sons of God. They're magnificent stuff, isn't it? Why go back, says Paul, to these beggarly bits of religion and turn yourself into slaves?
Mm-hmm. That's a Paul arguing. You can feel his very heart are coming through, can't you? But I say, how does scripture ca- manage to get such, um, vivid and exact pictures? It's a prototype, is this, of that. Well, because of things inspired, of course. The same God who knew what he was going to do with Christ, the raising up of Abraham and the Jewish nation, and the bringing in of Christ, and the same God who saw it was necessary in the interval between Abraham and the birth of his son to put Israel under the law, and why he did it, pro tem, until the promised siege would come.
The God who knew that in advance organized this, so that this would be a thought pattern. But when we see this, it should be a thought pattern to help us understand this. That isn't what you preached to your atheist friend, the first course of evangelism that you ever went into. It might help to establish us in our faith, and to your advanced students. Now, this is true biblical exposition that Paul is giving, not some narrow-minded little idea.
Yeah? Yeah. It's now five to, um, uh, uh five two. so in these last five minutes, I'm going to be really serious, silly, and I just want to, uh, put in, uh, uh, skip over the last set of arguments. You will know their detail, because tomorrow I would like to, um, go on to something else. The next argument, after the argument from prototype, chapter five verse two following, the serious argument is the implications that follow if you adopt that false doctrine.
Paul, I Paul say unto you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing. You cannot mix the two. Of course, some people try to do it and are inconsistent, but that inconsistency cannot be allowed to continue. You can't mix grace and works. They are contradictory. So the serious implications that would follow if you were to adopt that false doctrine. Then another very big argument from thirteen to, uh, uh, over into, um, uh, perhaps down to twenty six, you might say.
The argument that justification by faith, the inheritance by faith, does not mean that believers are free to live carelessly. It does not mean that. Romans will put it that the righteousness, the righteous demand of the law is in fact fulfilled in those that walk up after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Paul is saying the same here. Those who are heirs, are justified, are children of God, are indwelt by the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, of course, will lead them and guide them and strive with them to see that they produce the fruits of the Spirit.
That is the secret, that is the power. But then Paul points out, verse eighteen, if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under law. They are two different principles of producing holiness. So though we are not under law, the letter of the law, we do have the Holy Spirit. And he is not just a command, he is a person, living, vigorous, vibrant within the believer. If we are led by the Spirit, we are to walk in the Spirit, therefore.
And then from, uh, twenty in, uh, verse 26 onwards into, uh, verse ten of chapter six, Other warnings and encouragement. There is no penalty to them that are in Christ, no condemnation. Salvation is actually by grace through faith. There is therefore no condemnation. There's no penalty. But wait a minute, there are consequences. And we do well to notice as evangelicals the difference between penalty and consequences. If, as a believer, genuine believer, you fall away from the Lord and you give way to alcoholism, and you get so bad that you're taking methylated spirits before breakfast every morning, you see, uh, and you're a true believer.
Well, the Lord will bring you back, like he brought Peter back. There's no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, but why there'll be consequences. And from drinking methylated spirits like that, don't, don't be surprised if you end up with ruining your stomach and your health, and maybe go home to glory prematurely. There are consequences, not a penalty. Father is going away, and he says to his boy, I'm going away for some weeks now, two or three months, and see that apple tree there, it's got some little apples coming now in bud, my boy.
Now, when they grow bigger, I don't want you to pluck them because they won't be ripe. You pluck them when they're green, you won't be able to eat them. If you eat them, I'll give you a stomach ache. And then you'll spoil it, you see. There won't be any nice rosy, rosy red apples later on. So I'm telling you now, don't you be tempted to eat those apples. If you do, I'll give you a stomach ache. And what is more, my boy, if when I come home you've eaten the apples, I shall give you six of the best on that part of your anatomy built for the purpose. And he comes home eventually, and lo and behold, he comes home and he says, where's Tommy? Oh, he's gone to bed, says Mum.
Oh, really? What's wrong? He's got the stomach ache. Oh. The father goes up to see Tommy. Tommy, you're not feeling well, Tommy? No, I got a stomach ache. Oh, you haven't been eating any of those green apples, have you, Tommy? Yes. Oh. Now you've got the stomach ache, like I said, haven't you, Tommy? Yes. What else did I say you'd get? And Tommy collapses in tears. No, I'm ever so sorry, Dad, and I won't do it again, and and all that kind of thing, you see, you see. He doesn't want six of the best.
Six of the best was the penalty, wasn't it? So Dad, in his mercy, says, all right, Tommy, this time, now I forgive you, and I won't give you six of the best. Lovely. Does that get rid of the stomach ache immediately? Doesn't, does it? No penalty for those that are in Christ. Consequences, yes. You sow to the spirit, you will of the spirit reap eternal life. For eternal life is not the thing you can put in a box, it's a thing to be enjoyed and developed on all its potentials. Sow to the spirit, you shall of the spirit reap eternal life.
Sow to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption, and eventually oodles and oceans of tears, disappointments, and in a sense, eternal loss. We shall be lesser people in eternity than otherwise we could have been. Simply as consequence. Just because you are believers and there's no condemnation, don't start devouring and biting one another in your church, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen. If you do, you'll be consumed one of another. There are consequences, aren't there? And that's the thing we ought to remember too.
One Corinthians three reminds us, yes, we're saved, yes. We are now to build. If we build on the foundation, gold, silver, and precious stone, the judgment seat of Christ, it passes his judgment. Well, not only will our work abide, but we shall get a reward. But suppose we build shoddy stuff, wood, hay, and stubble. It will disappear under his criticism at his judgment seat. It'll be burned up. We ourselves will be saved because salvation never did depend on our works, but we shall suffer loss, and a loss eternal, of course. No reward, and our works burned up.
That also is a powerful argument in favor of the gospel of justification by faith. It does not mean that our wrong, our wrong behavior doesn't matter. There are consequences, even if there's no penalty. And final argument is the exposure of the false motives of those that preached salvation by the works of the law, verses eleven to sixteen. That is to be said, that is obvious, notoriously obvious in some countries.
One doesn't have to be super critical, but you go to many countries, uh, where, for instance, Rome, dark Rome, has reigned for centuries. They are against the doctrine of justification by faith, but they are countries that are notorious, some of them, for their immorality. Wow. Nowadays, if we're not careful with superficial evangelicalism, we should have the same result. People who profess salvation by faith, and now the ministers themselves divorced and on their third or fourth wife.
And when I have to play the lawyer, and that is very severe stuff, do you see? Eh, but it's free of charge. Uh, in order to demonstrate that according to scripture, justification is by faith, Paul now proceeds to argue that certain other things likewise are by faith and not by the works of the law, namely the blessings of Abraham, the promises, and the covenant. You see it there in verse fifteen onwards. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet when it has been confirmed, no one maketh it void or addeth thereto.
Now to Abraham were the promises spoken unto his seed. He saith not unto seeds as of many, but as of one, unto thy seed, which is Christ. Now this I say, a covenant confirmed by beforehand by God. The law which came four hundred and thirty years afterwards doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more a promise, but God had granted it to Abram by promise. A legal argument then. Uh, and we shouldn't allow people to make us ashamed of that. They say God is love, we don't need to know about legal things, we jolly well do.
When it comes to an inheritance, even in ordinary daily life, it has to be tied down by the law. And so with God, when it comes to the great inheritance, it is tied down by legal, uh, instruments in the Bible itself. And we start by this covenant made with Abraham. And the argument is that when a covenant has been made, duly signed, sealed, and settled, you cannot add conditions to it. And Paul is about to argue that the covenant that God made with Abraham was four hundred and fifty years before the law of Moses.
And therefore, the covenant having been given to Abraham, signed, sealed, and settled, and made no mention whatever of the, of the law and all its terms. You cannot therefore add the law of Moses to that covenant as conditions that have to be fulfilled before the blessings of the covenant can be received. That is the argument. Now, let me therefore start with the no- very notion of covenant itself. In the Bible, there are a number of covenants, and the question is, uh, as follows.
The question you have to ask about each one is as follows: is this particular covenant a one-party covenant or a two-party covenant. What is the difference, you say? Well, in modern, uh, law, uh, a a two-party covenant is a covenant between two parties when both have conditions that they must fulfill. If you want a new house and you go along to the builder McCormick, you say, I want a ten-bedroomed house, en suite, uh, bedrooms, garage, five reception rooms, table, all the rest of it.
I want this house built with the very finest material. McCormick, oh boy, will you build me the house? And McCormick says, yes, at a price, old chap. So, you specify all the conditions and the rooms and the quality of the material and everything that is, that is put down in the covenant. You say it's got to be that. It's you saying it's got to be that. You see. Uh, McCormick says, righto, if that's what I've got to fulfill, now what you've got to fulfill is this, your house will cost you ten million. It's a two-party covenant. It's all the details specified, and you sign, seal, and settle it. He has to build you the house, you have to pay him the ten million.
If he doesn't fulfill all the conditions and skimps on the materials or this, that, and the other, you don't pay him the ten million. If he builds the house to the proper specifications and you don't pay the ten million, you don't get the house. It is a two-party covenant. Yes? Now, in the ancient world, when you had a two-party covenant, one of the ways, not the only way, of of signing and sealing a covenant was that you had a sacrifice, and you got some animals and birds and things, and the animals you cut up into pieces, so you didn't cut the birds in pieces, and you put, uh, rows of animals and legs and things, uh, in two rows, you see, like that, uh, uh, of sacrifices.
And then the parties to the covenant, that is the people that had conditions to fulfill, walked through the pieces. Yes? If both parties had something to fulfill, they both walked between the pieces. If only one party had something to fulfill, then only that party walked between the pieces. You see, to put it again, if it were a two-party covenant, both parties walked. If it was a one-party covenant, only one party walked, because there were then, as now, not only covenants that were two-party covenants, there were covenants that were one-party covenants.
What kind of a covenant is a one-party covenant? Well, normally, very generally, in our land, a will is a one-party covenant. We don't call them covenant, we call them testaments. Last will and testament. Why our new Testament is called a New Testament. You'll see, uh, in Greek, the word diatheke is used in both sense of a covenant and a testament. For a testament is a covenant, but it's a one-party covenant. Uh, do you see your Uncle Samuel O'Flacety in America, second uncle, twice removed, uh, uh, dies, and you get summoned to the solicitor, and he says he has got the will of the aforesaid uncle, you see, and he reads it out, and there's all the details, all his stocks and shares, and his ranch, and his three or four helicopters, and personal private jet, three or four ocean-going yachts, do you see a number of horses, and this, that, and the other, and he's left it to you.
And you say to the solicitor, what have I got to do for it? Nothing. You mean to say he's just left it like that? Yes, he's left it to you. Ah, oh. Uh, what conditions? He hasn't put any conditions in. You mean to say I can get the lot? Yes. How can I be sure? Well, it's in the, in the will, you see. It's signed and sealed and settled and witnessed by witnesses. It's signed, sealed, and settled, but it's a one-party covenant. You haven't anything to fulfill. You don't want to have it, says the solicitor, you could let me have it. I, I'd take it for you if it's a, if it's a, you know, embarrasses you. I, I'd take it off your hands.
Or you'd like to give it to me, I'll take it. But, um, if you want it, all you have to do is to take it. There's nothing for you to fulfill. It's a one-party covenant. Now, in the book of Jeremiah, you see uh, Israelites made a covenant with God. The passage is Jeremiah thirty four. Jeremiah thirty four. And the situation was that the princes of I- Judah made a covenant that they would let their Hebrew slaves go free.
Uh, do you see? And then they broke it. Having let them go free, they clawed them back again, contrary to the covenant they had made. They made this covenant with God. But of course, it was a one-party covenant. God had no conditions to fulfill. It was the men of Judah, you'll see, that made the covenant and bound themselves by this covenant to let the slaves go free. Look how the thing is expressed. Jeremiah thirty four eighteen: I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts thereof.
That is, these men of Judah passed between the parts. Thus they made the covenant. God didn't pass between the parts. He had nothing to fulfill. That was just these fellows making a covenant that bound them before God to let their slaves go free. So they, in making a covenant, they put the things in the two pieces of the sacrifice in two rows. This time it was a calf, and put in, um, cut it up in pieces and put them in two rows, and they walked between the pieces. Thus signing and sealing the covenant that they made. That was a one-party covenant. They were the only ones that had anything to fulfill. Let's look at the law and the covenant made on Sinai, just for a moment, see what kind of a covenant that was.
Exodus twenty four. Exodus twenty four three, this is the covenant of the law of Moses, commonly called the old covenant to contrast it with the new covenant that Christ has made for us. This is Exodus twenty four and the actual making of the covenant. Now watch what happens. Twenty four three, and Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments, and all the people answered with one voice and said, all the words which the Lord has spoken we will do.
And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord and rose up early in the morning and built an altar under the mountain, the twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men, other children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant and read in the audience of the people, and they said, all that the Lord has spoken will we do and be obedient. And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you concerning all these words. So here was the covenant they made.
What did they get out of it? On God's side, chapter nineteen said that, um, this is it, nineteen five: Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me from among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which I shall speak unto the children of Israel. So these great blessings offered to Israel on condition that they kept the covenant. And the covenant being proposed to them and the terms attached, Moses recited the terms orally, and they said, yes, all that the Lord says we will do.
Then Moses had the wisdom to write it in a book so that thereafter nobody could say they didn't understand and they didn't realize that was involved. He wrote all the words in the book and read it out of a book. And they replied again, all that the Lord has spoken we will do. So they offered the sacrifices and sprinkled the blood. It was a two-party covenant. God saying, I'll bless you on these terms if you, on your part, keep the terms of the covenant. Hebrews eight in the New Testament tells us what happened. Hebrews eight. Verse six.
Hebrews 8:6. But now hath he, that is Jesus, obtained a ministry the more excellent, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth out of the land of Egypt. Why not? What was wrong with the first one?
Why was it unsatisfactory? Why will God change it? Why is the new covenant not to be like the old covenant? Well, this in particular, you'll see, for they continued not in my covenant. That was its weakness. They didn't keep the terms. They didn't continue. Therefore, the covenant broke down. That is the difference between the old covenant of Moses and the new covenant, explicitly said, ladies and gentlemen. I'm not making this bit up. That is the difference, explicitly said.
What was wrong with the old covenant, the people didn't continue in it, and we know all the reasons, of course, because of their weakness and sinfulness and everything else, do you see? They couldn't persist in keeping the terms of the covenant, and they didn't. That ruined the covenant. So there has to be a new covenant. What kind of a covenant is the new covenant. Well, here are the terms written down. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind, and on their heart also will I write them.
That's what I shall do, says God. And second, I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. That's what God will do. Verse eleven, they shall not teach every man his fellow citizen and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest of them. That is, all will have direct and personal knowledge of me and won't need to come to me through a priest or a prophet. And fourthly, I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins will I remember no more. These are the terms of the New Covenant. What have they got to do?
The New Covenant, all the terms are about what God will do. The New Covenant is a one-party covenant, which is why we call it a testament. And the second half of the Bible, the Christian bit, is called the new, in Greek, the new Deatheke, and Deatheke is the word for covenant and for testament. It is the New Testament. And when our Lord at the Last Supper took the cup and handed it to the apostles, he said, this cu- is cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you for the remission of sins.
So the new covenant is a one-party covenant, as distinct from the law, which was a two-party covenant. And therein is the difference. The two-party covenant had this weakness that the Israelites couldn't keep the terms, and they didn't persist in it. The new covenant is precisely different at that particular. And what is more, look at the Hebrews, uh, seven and verse twenty: In as much as it is not without the taking of an oath, for they indeed have been made priests with an oath, that is Jewish priests, uh, were made priests without an oath. There was no oath in the ceremony. But he with an oath, by him that saith of him, the Lord swear and will not repent himself, thou art a priest forever.
That is, when Israelite priests were appointed, there was no oath in the ceremony. But when our Lord was appointed priest, there was an oath. For it, uh, uh, the Lord swear and will not repent, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. See the superiority of Christ's priesthood. He was made priest, and in the ceremony, God swore this oath. From that the writer deduces this, verse twenty two: By so much also hath Jesus become the surety of a better, of the better covenant, of a better covenant.
Not only the mediator. Watch that, ladies and gentlemen. He's not only a mediator that set the covenant up. He is the guarantor of it. Oh, I do like that bit. All those great promises that God has made, I will write my laws on their hearts, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more, and I will give myself to thy people so that all can know me in direct. Um, who guarantees it shall be done? Christ is the guarantor. Do you see? I go to the bank man and say, now, dear bank manager, I have a business scheme to you, yeah?
I'm going to buy, uh, you know, I'm going to buy fifty acres. I got the chance fact of a hundred acres just outside Glengormley, and I can buy this at a good price, and I've got the planning, and I'm going to put up a whole range of super duper houses, you see, and I'd like you to put up the money. He says, how much is it going to cost? Oh, I say a hundred and fifty million. Ah, yes. Well, can you offer me any security, says the, uh, the chap, that you will do this and you'll put up these houses and that'll be a success? Oh, you say you're, you stand to make a lot of profit, bank manager, out of it, you see. It's a good scheme, copper bottom. Yes, he said, but I want some security.
What security have you got? Well, I say I've got some little cash. How much? Well, my granny left me a hundred and fifty, gave me a hundred and fifty at Christmas, pounds. I'm sorry, that ain't security enough. You got any collateral? I don't know what you mean, I say. Well, it's, you've got a skyscraper or two that if the worst comes to the worst, you could sell them and... No, I haven't got any collateral. Well, I'm sorry, we can't proceed, says the bank manager. You, yes, I shall want someone to, you'll have to get someone then to come and guarantee you. You say, have you got any wealthy businessman that's prepared to go guarantor that your scheme will be fulfilled.
So it is with the new covenant. Who goes guarantor that it should be fulfilled? Oh, magnificent, isn't it? By so much more is Jesus the, the guarantor of the better covenant. Righto, we've established the difference between, uh, a two-party covenant like the one at Sinai and a one-party covenant, like the men of Jeremiah's day, or our blessed Lord in his new covenant. Can I ask you just, with that new covenant, where it says that it's, uh, with the house of Israel there. Yes. Mm-hmm. I assume that that would be the church, or... Uh, well.
That expression used. No, it, when, when Jeremiah said it would be made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, he meant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Now it has been enacted, not it will be, it has been. When Christ died, the new covenant was enacted. Covenants in the Bible are enacted when the sacrifice is made. Yes? The new covenant was enacted when the great covenant sacrifice was made. That's at Calvary. It's made with Israel and Judah. How do we come into it? Well, Ephesians will tell us that once you old Gentiles, called the uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision, in those days you were not only children of wrath and all the rest of it and disobedient, but you were aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise.
That's what you were. But now? Well, you're not that anymore, are you? You're no longer strangers from the covenants of promise. Do you see? You are a part in them because what Christ has done is come and preach peace to those that were near, that is the Jew, and those that were far off. And of those two groups, he has taken out folks from each group and joined them together of the two to make one, so that in Christ we inherit, likewise as the Jew did, all those covenants of promise, yes? But now to go back to the one that the, the, the particular covenant that Paul is speaking about in Galatians.
The, uh, um, the covenant, uh, made with Abraham. You'll see, when is that? Well, that was the covenant of Genesis fifteen. So just have a look at that, you'll see, to see what it says. Genesis fifteen. And God made his promise to Abraham, verse five, he brought him forth abroad and said, look now toward heaven and tell the stars if they'll be able to tell them. And he said unto him, so shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness. Abraham was justified then.
But now look what happened next. And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit it. And Abraham, being a good old boy and a real believer, he said, thank you very much, Lord, but um, how shall I know that I shall inherit it? I like Abram for that, don't you? He didn't let it wash over his head as some vague, nice sounding thing that didn't mean a lot. Here was a promise of inheritance. Abram wanted to know how and on what grounds he could be absolutely sure that he would inherit it. You'll say, how shall I know I shall inherit it?
And God's answer was this covenant sacrifice. Take me in heifer and so on, and put them in pieces, you'll see. So there's going to be a covenant sacrifice, and the, the victims were cut in pieces and laid in two rows, you see. And now, on the basis of the covenant, he said unto Abram, know of a surety, verse thirteen, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. Also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterwards they shall come out with great substance, but thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace.
Thou shalt be buried in a good old age, and in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full. Verse eighteen: in that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, unto thy seed have I given this land, and he now specifies the extent of it. How will you know? Because of the covenant that is now made. That's how you'll know. The inheritance secured by a covenant. Ah, but now we need to be lawyers. The sacrificial victims were cut in pieces. Who walked between the pieces?
Did God walk between the pieces? Or did both of them walk between the pieces? And what we're at is to discover whether it's a one-party covenant or a two-party covenant. If it's a two-party covenant, both must walk between the pieces. If it's a one-party covenant, only one has to walk, and the one that walks is the one that has the conditions to fulfill. How many walked? One, according to this man over here, are all agreed. You don't know? This chap over here doesn't know? Take a vote on it. It's described as a flaming torch and, and as it's looking on the flaming torch which passed between.
Yes. God. That wasn't a sim- symbol of Abram, was it? Not the flaming torch. What was Abram a doing? Well, he cut the birds in pieces and things, or the birds he divided not, the animals he he cut in pieces, put them in two rows. The birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and Abram drove them away, waiting, of course. Here was the sacrifice ready. Now he's waiting for the ceremony. For the thing to be decided. It wasn't decided by just the animals being sacrificed. The ceremony had to be, someone had to walk, or someones. Well, Abram didn't walk, because look what happened. Verse twelve, he fell asleep.
Mm, deep sleep fell upon him, so he didn't walk. How about perhaps he walked in his vision? Did he see himself walking in the vision? No. It came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a flaming torch that passed between those pieces. Not Abram. A one-party covenant. Shout hallelujah, gentlemen. Amen. Mm. Now then, verse, come back to, uh, uh, Galatians three. It's a legal argument, but thank God for God's sense of legality and legal things.
He wants to not only give you an inheritance, but tie it up legally. So if you ask God, like Abram had the sense to ask him, how shall I know I shall inherit it? This will be God's reply. I want you to be sure, of course. Didn't rebuke Abram for wanting to know how he could be sure, but responded by giving him the covenant. So verse fifteen says, though it be but a man's covenant, yet when it has been confirmed, no one maketh it void or addeth thereto. And therefore, verse seventeen, now this I say, a covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law which came four hundred and thirty years after, doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of none effect.
God having made the covenant with Abraham with no mention of the law at all or its conditions, and the thing was signed, sealed, and settled. You can't take the law given four hundred and thirty years afterwards and add it as a condition that has to be fulfilled. That wouldn't be allowed in, in our law or any law. That's a legal argument, isn't it? The keeping of the law, then, has nothing to do with the fulfillment of this particular covenant. As you now see, that is Paul's argument. Now there is another thing, therefore. How do we get into it then?
Because once a covenant has been, uh, confirmed, no one maketh it void or addeth thereto. Now you have a problem. For to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. And who is the seed? The seed is Christ. Now, now you have a problem. In the covenant document, this inheritance isn't given just to anybody, it's given to Abraham and to his seed. You can't add anything to it. Can't add any names to it. If your Aunt Fanny dies, you see, and and leaves her will, and you go with the rest of the family to hear the will read after the funeral, and the house goes to George, and the car goes to Elizabeth, and the pearl necklace goes to Sandra, uh, uh, uh, and uh, the furniture goes to Bill, and that's that, as you'll see.
And the solicitor comes to the end, and you say, go on, old boy. You're, well, he says there's nothing more. That must be. Why? Well, my name is Alexander. What has she left me? Uh, he said, I'm sorry, there's nothing about Alexander in here. Well, yes, there must be, because I know my aunt loved me as well as he loved them, more perhaps, so there must be something about. Well, I'm sorry, there isn't. Well, yes, he says you'll have to put my name in then. Well, I can't, says the solicitor. You can't add it afterwards, can you? And I'm afraid the inheritance is promised to Abraham and his seed. Can't add your name in, Margaret and Lily and Thomas, to Abraham and his seed, and Lily and Thomas and Fanny.
You can't add, can you? So what now then? Well, the answer is given at the end of the chapter, isn't it? Verse twenty six, for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, if you are of Christ, if you've been baptized into Christ, if you have put on Christ like a man would put on a big robe that covered him from head to foot, and you are in Christ, and the inheritance is promised to Christ, then are you Abram's seed and heirs according to the promise?
If you're in Christ, everything that comes to Christ comes to you. Marvelous, isn't it? Yeah. The question is, how did you get into Christ? And that's a big thing, isn't it? And of course, everywhere the answer is, and you see it throughout this epistle and throughout the New Testament, it's not by keeping the works of the law that you get into Christ. By simply through true repentance and faith, yeah? You ought to be dancing for joy, actually. And the next bit I'm going to tell you is tremendous. You mustn't add anything to a covenant once it's signed, sealed, and settled, may you?
So if your Uncle Sam dies, do you see? Well, sorry, if your Uncle Sam, uh, leaves, uh, uh, says to you, I'm going to put you in my will. Look, I've written it down here, and there it is, do you see? Uh, and he dies, and that's that, well, that's finished, that's finished it, do you see? But suppose we come back to the other situation, you had this house built, and you promised to give the old builder ten million, was it, for this house. And when you go to to take possession of the house, you find his, uh, further up the estate, he's built you a hunting lodge and a boat marina, uh, uh, and various other things as well.
And you say, what are you doing, old boy? I'm not prepared to pay you for that. He says, I don't want you to. I thought I'd just like to do it, just in goodness of my heart, you'll see. A big house like this has to have those things anyway, so I thought I'd just add them in. Well, lovely, wouldn't it? Now, God promised to give Abram and to his seed this inheritance, some two thousand acres in the Middle East. Is that all? You say, well, if that's what it means, I don't interested in that. You see, I belong to the church, and uh, in the church we're very spiritually minded, and my, my inheritance is in heaven. I don't want anything to do with the earth.
Ooh, no. Don't you really? You are so spiritually minded. Oh, great stuff. Do you think Christ is interested in the world? He's been crucified and slung out of it. Is he said, well, I don't want it anyway. Or is Christ going to inherit the earth? Ask of me, and I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Oh, sure, Jesus will reign wherever the sun, you know. And if Christ is going to inherit it, I want to inherit it with him. There's no shame in that, is there? If he claims the Middle East, should he claim the whole world?
Well, half a minute. Romans four, just have a look at Romans four. And verse thirteen. where Paul is at his same technique, he's arguing that justification is by faith and not by the works of the law. But to reinforce that argument in Romans four thirteen, not through the law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he should be heir of the world. He's got piling it on. Heir of the world, through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void and the promise is made of none effect, for the law worketh wrath.
But where there is no law, neither is there transgression. For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that which is of faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. What magnificent words they are. Is God adding to the original benefits. He doesn't add any further conditions, of course, but to the benefits. Heir of the world. And you know why it is by faith and not by the law, says Paul. It is so that this promise, this glorious promise of inheritance, might be absolutely sure to all the seed.
Amen and amen. You'll see, absolutely sure. This business of covenant, therefore, is exceedingly important, isn't it? Tied down legally. It isn't just a, an odd, curious argument that we can afford to neglect. It is, goes throughout the New Testament. This whole idea of inheritance is one of the major concepts of the New Testament. And, ladies and gentlemen, of course, it's nothing, nothing that we can forget because, and that central ceremony by which we remember our Lord at his request, it is a covenant, isn't it?
This cup is the covenant in my blood, the new covenant. So this is one of the major things of Christianity, and right from the start, as you observe. And sooner or later, it should come out in our teaching, shouldn't it? Glorious business. And trying to convince believers that they are endlessly more wealthy than they know they are. And the terms upon which it is given, and the way God has been careful to tie it down legally. And why that is deliberate. It is not of law, but of grace through faith. Why? God wants it to be sure to all the seed.
Magnificent stuff. And you can think of Paul's frustration of those that want to take believers back under the law. La la. They're not going to see believers robbed of their, uh, assurance and their, the reveling in the promise of the glory of the inheritance. He's not going to see that filched away from them by putting them back under the law, for the law cannot give you assurance of the inheritance. Yes? But now notice the, the, the, the development of the argument then. If he's proved that the inheritance then, and thus the promises and the blessings, are, uh, not by the law.
Watch how he next moves in the course of his argument. Chapter three, verse nineteen, What then is the law? Now there's the mark of a very skillful and mature and experienced, uh, controversialist. He has proved that justification and the inheritance are not by the law. Now, what will his opponents say? Oh, well, Paul, I, I, I, I, I can't, I can't say anything about this inheritance. I hadn't noticed that. I mean, I haven't studied that, uh, so I can't say anything about that, Paul. Uh, uh, but this I can say, Paul, and there's no doubt that whatever you say, God did give the law, didn't he? I mean, you're not saying that Sinai was for no purpose.
God did give it, Paul, and uh, uh, uh, and I don't know what you're talking about. You say the inheritance is not of the law. I don't understand that. I, I, I, no. But that doesn't alter this. The law was given, Paul, and it's no good you're saying that we're not under it. God gave the law, meant it to be kept, didn't he? Huh. What would you say to that? Paul has got to have an answer to that, hasn't he? It's not enough for him to take one set of scriptures that say the inheritance is not the law. If he can't answer the other set, why on earth did God give the law then? You have to answer both. And if you are really concerned to get the truth of God's word, you can't just fasten on one passage and leave all the others, can you?
In order to establish your case. We do believe in the lot. We're not content to establish a case by forgetting half of the Bible or something. So we've got to turn around and answer the question then, what is the law? And here in verses nineteen following, eh, uh, Paul expounds the purpose of the law. Do you see? What then is the law? It was added because of transgressions till the promised seed should come, to whom the promise hath been made, and it was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.
Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid. For if there had been a law given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have been of the law. Howbeit the scripture hath set shut up all things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. The law could never bring you righteousness, but it had a very positive function. It was there to convict you of sin. Why do you have to convict people of sin? Well, until they're convicted of their sin and they need to be saved, until they see that they cannot earn salvation by keeping the law because the law itself proves to them they're sinners. Until they come there, they're not likely to believe, are they?
So the law is given in God's heart in the kindness to show people how desperately sick they are, how guilty, how liable to God's wrath, that then the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them who believe. What the law was given for. Myself, I use the crude illustration of a thermometer. You see. We all know what thermometers are, don't we? They're given you to take your temperature if you feel a bit groggy. So the dear lady, he she's feeling very groggy when the husband goes off to work on Monday, and when he comes home, she's really looking terrible. And, uh, the next morning she's scared to get out of bed, so he says, my dear, I call the doctor.
No, no, you're not going to call the doctor. I got to keep going to get the children to school, and Aunt Fanny is coming and all, all these things. Yes, he said, I'm afraid you have to take the doctor. You must go to bed. No, I'm not. I'm not as bad as you say. So he goes and has a word with the doctor, and the doctor turns up, and he gets out his thermometer and puts it wherever he puts it, you see, and he reads his thing. You've got a temperature of one hundred and ten. you better go to bed. If you go on like this, you'll be dead. To say that the thermometer shows how ill the lady is. Proper use of the thermometer. And the law's like the thermometer. It's given to show us how bad we were. Hmm. Suppose you come to me one day, and I'm in bed, and I've got my nightcap on, a scarf around my neck, and my trousers on, my boots on, and I'm in bed.
And, and he said, what's wrong with you? Uh, he said, I'm ill. Yes, I know you're ill, but what are you doing sucking that thermometer? Well, I said, oh, Mr. Daft, I'm ill. Well, what are you sucking the thermometer for? Well, the doctor took my temperatures and says that unless I can get my temperature down to ordinary normal level of temperature, this is very dangerous. I- I'm doing my best to get the temperature down. You say, mm, sucking his thermometer in the hope of getting the temperature down. Well, they say, Gooding, you are ill. You're more ill than you thought you were. The thermometer is there to show you how ill you are, but you don't get better by sucking it.
Getting better, you'll need something absolutely different. God's law is given to shut up all under sin, to show us how bad we are, to drive us for the Savior, that we might be saved, be justified, and made inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, um, through faith in Christ. That's what the law is for. We know what things soever the law says, the equivalent passage in Romans. It says to them that are under the law, what for? That every mouth may be stopped and the whole world be brought in guilty before God. Good stuff. And now he, uh, uses an analogy.
Notice the, uh, uh, the, um, second use of analogy, verses, uh, twenty three following. But before faith came, we were kept in ward under the law, shut up as a faith which should afterwards be revealed, so that the law has been our tutor, our slave driver, if you, a slave master, to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we're no longer under a tutor, for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Another analogy. This time it is on how to educate children, how to bring up children. And, uh, he goes on in chapter four to explain that.
Say that so long as an heir is a child, he differs nothing from a bondservant, though he is lord of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appoint- term appointed of the Father. So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the rudiments of this world. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba Father, so that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. An analogy, uh, drawn from bringing up.
Doesn't lead to sanctification. The law doesn't sanctify. It is personal relationship with Christ and being indwelt by his spirit that sanctifies us. And they who, with strong religious determination, preach the law and circumcision and things like that for salvation. They don't keep the law themselves, says Paul. No, no. But notice that that argument from the motives and behavior of the false teachers is the very last argument he uses. That is not the first. It may be an argument that sometimes we shall be obliged to make, but it isn't the first argument you would make, is it?
To question the motives of those that hold the other view. That might be the last, but not the first. All those other arguments. That's dear old Paul, now gone to glory these many years. We owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude, don't we? He's the man that stood, with all the unpopularity that that involved, not only outside the church, but I'm afraid very often inside the churches, with all the unpopularity that that involved, standing for the gospel and standing for our freedom, wanting us to see us standing upright, facing the world, facing eternity with joy in our hearts and confidence, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, no longer slaves, but God's freeborn men and women.
Good, and it's one o'clock.
