Radio Broadcast Tuesday 10/11/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P11 (10-11-22)

What is The Purpose of The Law? What is the Penalty of the Law? What is the Verdict?

~ “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23

~ “Now, so to whoever it, the law is speaking, it’s speaking to those who are under it. So if you’re under the law, then here’s the result of being under the law, every mouth will be silenced, and the whole world held accountable to God. So in other words, if you’re going to say, I am under God’s laws, then if you’re one of those, and that was certainly the Hebrew, and that would certainly be the case of a lot of modern day Christianity who are proclaiming and preaching the law. The law, then is for you, if I’m under it, then I’m under it. And it’s for you. And there, if you’re under it, there was one reason that you’re under it. And there’s one reason God allowed you to be under it. And that was to shut your mouth, and to make you accountable to God, meaning that if you violate the least of these my commandments in your entire life, you have violated all of them and you are under a curse. That’s what it means. If you’re under the law, folks, you’re under a curse. You’re accountable to God for every single action and thought that you have ever had from the day you were born to the day you die. And if the least of these has ever been committed, you are a goner, and you are dead, and you are under a curse.”

Listen in to today’s lesson with more in-depth teaching, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Law & Grace, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store.

Jesus asked how does God love and accept us? And how does he expect us to live the Christian life? To answer those questions, this insightful study explores a vital issue at the heart of the Christian experience, the biblical relationship between law and grace, understanding their role in our relationship to God will bring joy, freedom and spontaneity to your Christian life. Now, let’s take A Closer Look at Law & Grace.

Bob George 0:38
But as a matter of review, before we go ahead and pick up into the Roman seven passages that we’re going to be dealing with, hopefully, before the review gets over, I can’t promise that. But one of the things that I want us to do is because we’ve talked so many times that you cannot interpret scripture out of context. And so I what I would like to do is to take this particular program, to kind of bring us up to date contextually in regard to what these Romans seven passages are talking about. In order to do that, why I could start in the first chapter of Romans and bring us up to the seven chapters. But I’m just going to kind of read review this a little bit. In the third chapter, we have a very strong statement in regard to the law. We know that whatever the law says, this is chapter three, verse 19. We know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law. Now, why does it say that we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, because unless you are under the law, you wouldn’t know what the law says. There’s a world of difference. And this is going to tie in to knowing the 10 commandments, and realizing that the law was commanded for you to keep. In other words, I remember in school, that was back a long time ago, when Bible was taught in high school. Everybody’s fearful, that type of thing. I don’t know why, because if we don’t have any interest you don’t know what it says, anyway, any more than any other subject that you study. But the fact of the matter is, is you could study and memorize the 10 commandments. So you would say, Well, do you know the 10 commandments? Do you know the law? And you would look at that and say, oh, yeah, I know the law, I could I can quote them. And then you say, Well, do you know that the wages of a violation of that is death? And you kind of look in this blank stare and say, No, I didn’t know that, because that has never taught. In other words, here are the commandments. But no one ever teaches along with the commandments that the violation of the least of these my commandments produces death. In other words, the wages of sin is death. So I could I’ve memorized the 10 commandments as a as a high school student, or maybe it was junior high, I don’t even remember for sure. But for sure, I remember we had to memorize them. And it was laborious doing so. But it never entered my mind that that commandment was to me, those were God’s commandments up on this stone, but I didn’t know they had any reflection on me. And I for sure did not know that the wages of a violation of the least of these was death, I did not have a clue of that those things aren’t taught, they just taught, these are the commands, but were the results. Oh, well, who cares?

Now, so to whoever it, the law is speaking, it’s speaking to those who are under it. So if you’re under the law, then here’s the result of being under the law, every mouth will be silenced, and the whole world held accountable to God. So in other words, if you’re going to say, I am under God’s laws, then if you’re one of those, and that was certainly the Hebrew, and that would certainly be the case of a lot of modern day Christianity who are proclaiming and preaching the law. The law, then is for you, if I’m under it, then I’m under it. And it’s for you. And there, if you’re under it, there was one reason that you’re under it. And there’s one reason God allowed you to be under it. And that was to shut your mouth, and to make you accountable to God, meaning that if you violate the least of these my commandments in your entire life, you have violated all of them and you are under a curse. That’s what it means. If you’re under the law, folks, you’re under a curse. You’re accountable to God for every single action and thought that you have ever had from the day you were born to the day you die. And if the least of these has ever been committed, you are a goner, and you are dead, and you are under a curse. So it says that very definitely. That whatever The law says it can only say to those who are under it, because people are aren’t under it don’t even know what the law says. And in many instances don’t particularly care. They just they know they’re there, but I’m not under it. Do you get what I’m talking about? I know what that is. But I’m just not under it. I’m just not a part of it. I’ve never been a immersed into it.

We were talking Sunday in our Sunday tape series that we were doing, about the fact that baptism what that means it means to be at one with something when you’re placed in the water, you’re at one with the water. It’s a oneness. When it talked about the fact that the Israelites were baptized into Moses, well, they certainly weren’t dipped in it is the word baptism is a picture of being totally identified being at one with Moses, so they all ate, for of the same food, they all drank from the same rock. And that rock was Jesus, they were totally identified with Moses, at one with Moses. Now, that’s what baptism means is that we have been, it’s an outward visible outward deal, signifying the fact that you have been at one with Jesus. It’s like kissing the bride. It doesn’t make you married. It’s a nice thing to do, if you are married, but it is not a necessity for marriage. So it is merely a visual aid. For someone to visibly see, this transaction is taking place whereby we died to what killed is the law and had been raised in the newness of life. And that’s why if you are going to be involved in baptism, it has no meaning at all apart from submersion. Now, I’m not trying to promote Church of Christ or Baptist type of baptism, I’m just merely saying that if you’re going to take baptism, and to create the picture that it is trying to create, you’re not going to get that but sprinklin somebody on the head, you’re going to get that through a submersion type deal. That’s the picture of death, which is what baptism is supposed to represent a dying to what killed me the law, it was through the law, Paul said that I died to the law. So the law killed me, so that I could be raised again in the newness of life, and that water baptism is a picture of that. So again, I’m not dogmatic on that. And I’m not trying to tell people how to baptize people. Because again, I think that’s like kissing the bride. It’s, it’s, it is not a necessity for salvation at all. But now, when you’re talking about the law, if you want to be under the law, then you’re under a curse, it says, and it says that every mouth will be silenced and the whole world accountable to God in accordance with the law, if you want to be under the law, here are the righteous requirements of it. If you violate the least of these my commandments, you violated all of them. You want to be under that folks? Okay, therefore, no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law. This is verse 20. Rather, it’s through the law, that we become conscious of sin.

So folks, if you’re under the law, you are under a death penalty, you are under a curse, because no one will ever be declared righteous in the sight by observing the law. So if you are one of these who are under the law, you say, what is the purpose of this? What is this going to accomplish for me? Are you going to? Is it going to make me righteous in the sight of God? No, it tells us very clearly, you’re never going to be declared righteous in the sight of God through observing the law. Well, then what am I doing it for? And that’s God says that’s what I’d like to know, is because what the law is doing is showing you your sin, so that you will turn to the one who did fulfill the law, and that is Christ Jesus.

In verse 20, Chapter Three of the book of Romans, no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law. So in other words, for righteousness, to be imputed to a person that has to be declared so. In other words, there’s a declaration that you are righteous, someone has to determine that you’ve done okay. Someone has to make that determination. Well, it’s God, it’s not you and me. And so God is the one who’s going to declare you either unrighteous or declare you righteous. He’s the judge of that to say, he didn’t need the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He gave that to us to show us that we had no ability at all to determine good righteousness or evil. We can’t determine it. It’s all it’s all so self centered. It’s all so conditional when we are the determining factor of right and wrong And good and evil. And so righteousness has to be declared by somebody. If you are before a judge, a judge is ultimately going to declare you as a result of a jury, if it’s a jury trial declare you innocent or declare you guilty. Now all we have to do is to listen to the trials that are on TV. Now you take surveys, 50%, say innocent 50%, 40% say guilty 10% say I don’t know, probably I don’t care. But you see, that survey isn’t going to determine the outcome of the offender. What’s going to determine the outcome of the offender is what the jury has to say. And then the judge will make a declaration guilty or innocent one of the two, so you’re going to have to be declared that see by somebody else, we can’t do it on our own. So God is the one who does the declaring there. And what it says folks is this, therefore, no one will be declared righteous from God. In His sight, in other words, it clears it be declared righteous in His sight in God’s sight by observing the law, rather, it’s through the law, you’re going to become conscious of sin. So God who gave us the law, he’s the one who gave it to us. Moses didn’t give us the Law, God gave the law to Moses, Moses passed it on.

God gave the law for a purpose. And that’s what this whole chapter three is about is the purpose of the law. He gave the law for a purpose, its purpose was to make us cognizant of sin to become conscious of our condition, conscious of what’s wrong with me, conscious of the fact that I am dead spiritually. Now growing up studying the 10 commandments that you were talking about. Were you aware of the fact you were dead spiritually? Not at all. No, of course, no one ever talked about that. But did you know the 10 commandments? Well, of course I knew those 10 commandments to dead spiritually, never enter my mind. How could I be dead spiritually? Well, I go to church every Sunday, and I sing sweet little Jesus boy, solo. How can I be? How can I be dead spiritually? Well, I’m a very spiritual person. At Christmas time, I’d label for being fed on the radio with tears in my eyes, listening to the Christmas songs, had a very much an awareness of God and his present, how can I be hit spiritually? But I never realized that that law, that law, that commandment produced death in me. And we’ll study that in a little bit more depth in just a moment.

So no one will ever be declared righteous in the sight of God through obedience to the law, observing the law. So you say Well, folks, those of you who are under the law right now and are being taught the law and taught that, that you’re under it. What are you doing it for? Are you doing it to be declared righteous by God? You’re not gonna be I just got through telling you God says no one’s gonna be declared righteous in my sight through obedience to the law. So what are you doing it for? To be declared righteous by one another? Well that’s self righteousness to consider myself righteous because of what I’m doing. I’m such a wonderful, good person. That’s also self righteousness.

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Bob George 13:46
So what are we doing for him? What are you doing all of this for? righteousness, self righteousness is an abomination to God makes him sick of the stomach. Now, we get a lot of pats on the back from one another. But the people that we’re getting pats on the back from are going to end up in decaying in the ground someday that you could take their ashes and put it in a little jar and put it on the shelf. About like, crumbling up above that shell is left there, you know, she just crumble it up and it just falls into the dust. So we strive to get patted on the back by people who are fading away and ignore what God has to say about what righteousness is, is all about. So folks, what you’re what you’re dealing with here is we say, well, okay, so I’ll observe the law. I’ll certainly save myself from a lot of problems. That’s possibly so you might live a little bit better life here on this earth in some instances. On the other hand, the Pharisees were the ultimate in self obedience to the law. They were so obedient, they hung the King of Kings and the glory and the Lord of lords on a cross. So what did that produce in them? love. I don’t think so. So you say, Well, what am I? What is this purpose of this law for? Well, I just got through saying it’s make you conscious of sin so that you do what? turn to Christ, to live a new life, not a life under the bondage of the law, but to live a life led by the Spirit of God that is alive living in you, and is your only hope of glory, your only hope of ever revealing God in you is through the grace of God. It’s through the mercy that you show to others. And someone says that mercy has to come from God, through the forgiveness that we show through others, because people say that kind of forgiveness after what those people did to you, that has to be from God. As someone once said that, that sinning is is very human, but forgiving is divine. And so when you see a forgiving, merciful, loving person, you say, That’s God’s characteristic, you see a vindictive mean, person who wants to go out and to hurt people and expose people and you say, do you look at that and say, oh, there’s God’s glory shining right through? I don’t think so. You see, it’s very easy to spot the source of that type of a mindset. And so you’re dealing here, folks with the purpose of the law. Now, as we have done with everything else God gives us, we pervert it. We stand at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil and say, God, that’s not good enough. Is that unusual? What takes place today? I don’t again, think about it, folks. God comes along, and God comes along and gives a sugar man comes along says that sugar stuff that God gave His bad for you to try my sacrum. It’ll really help you a lot. And so what do people do? Why they give up on what God gave us and eat a bunch of chemicals and say, Praise the Lord. God comes along and and gives you parts of your body. And we come along and say, No man says, I can make a better part in that. So we take out the real and put in the artificial and say, Oh, praise God. We come along with all kinds of things along that line that that God said is good for you. And he gave to us. And we had to go into a chemical factory and make substitutions and then substitute that for the real thing. It’s crazy. And but that’s the way we do think about it, folks in your own life. How many things have you substituted a chemical for? And substituted that for what God literally gave you? Because somebody came along said that’ll put some weight on you? We come along and God says, I’ll bring you peace. And the cigarette people say no, no, you buy my cigarettes, it’ll just it’ll make you so peaceful, you won’t be able to stand it yourself. See, and we buy those things. God says I can bring you joy. The booze manufacturers come along, say no, no get get a little this Budweiser. It’ll make you joyful. And all of those things, and we buy all of the substitutes, and ignore the reality of the real thing. Now we do the same thing, God gave the law for a purpose. It wasn’t for us to look at and say I’ll do it Lord, like the Israelites did. And we’re having orgies before it ever got off the mountain. It was to show a man that these are what the minimum righteous standards of God would be. In other words, these are things that God said that God doesn’t do. These are my standards for my creation down here. And man looks at him and says, oh, we’ll do them or man looks at him said, Oh, that’s nice, but I can so I’m going to ignore it.

And God says, Wait a minute, you missed the purpose. I showed you these things in order to show you your total inability to ever live up to that law. And also to tell you very clearly, that even if you did, you’d never be declared righteous in my sight through obedience to the law, that righteousness is going to have to be imputed to you declared to you.

Now it says in verse 21, but now a righteousness from God, apart from the law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. So it’s saying, wait a minute, if I cannot be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law, from the law, how is an unrighteous person ever going to go into the presence of a righteous God? And so God says, I will make you righteous, I will declare you righteous, but it will be by faith and by faith alone in the righteous one, and that’s Jesus. See, there never was a righteous one, except Jesus. He’s the only righteous one that was ever here. None of us none of the righteous no, not one. All of sin all have fallen short of the glory of God. So he says, through your identification, and coming to the righteous one, I will declare you righteous. So now our righteousness from God, apart from the law, not from man, but from God has been known to which the law and the prophets testify and this righteousness from God again, comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, there is no difference. In other words, Hebrew or Gentile, slave or free doesn’t make a difference. Whether you are a Hebrew that is steeped in the law or a Gentile that even know what the law was, it doesn’t make an ounce of difference, both of you will come and be declared righteous in the sight of God through faith in the righteous one, and that’s Jesus. It doesn’t make any difference at God, that kind of declaration of righteousness is to the Catholic, to the Gentile, to the Hebrew, to the Gentile to any human being, who receives the Lord Jesus Christ by faith and accepts him into their hearts by faith will be declared righteous in the sight of God. All of these manmade handles we put on ourselves, God doesn’t even know what they are. He doesn’t save Catholics. He doesn’t save Baptists. He doesn’t save Methodist, Presbyterians. He just saves those who come to Him by faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. period.

As we pick up in chapter three and verse 21. But now our righteousness from God, apart from the law has been made known to it’s the law and the prophets testify and this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There’s no difference for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God. All have sinned and fall fall short of the glory of God and are justified, freely, no cost to it, freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. In other words, we were bought out of the slave market by Christ Jesus, the risen Christ, who came that justify the ungodly. All of us of sin, everyone is put in the same category, it makes no difference where you are who you are, we were born into this world dead spiritually. And all people who are dead have no need except life. To those who refuse the life they remain dead, the wrath of God remains upon you, it does not come upon you, it remains upon you. Not once again, with the teaching, that legalists teach whether it was a Hebrew Legalist or a Christian legalist is irrelevant doesn’t make a difference. Both of them are legalists in the teaching of the law, and you grew up under that I did not I grew up, I probably learned more about the 10 commandments in school than I did in church, because I never heard much about that in the church that I went to because it’s very liberal, but you went to and evangelical. When you saw the law, did anyone ever tell you that the wages of sin was death that the violation of that was death? Not at all? What were we taught? What what what were we kind of taught you in the evangelical world which is where legalism is the legalism isn’t in the liberal church. You know, there’s there’s another heresy there. I mean, they just don’t believe in anything or they believe in everything, which in essence is believing in nothing. But in the evangelical church like you grew up in, man, God’s laws are there. And Jesus is also there. Right? Don’t know why but he’s there. Now, what under the law when you violate it, were you taught God was going to do? get you out of fellowship with God. So all of those things, were what was taught that when you messed up with that law, God’s gonna get you. God’s gonna zap you, God’s gonna take to the woodshed, God’s gonna punish you some way. And if you keep doing that for long enough, you’re gonna die one of these days when you do you’re gonna go directly to hell, and that now that’s what the law now is there anything in the scripture that deals with that? No, in the Scripture, it says that if you violated the least of these my commandments, in other words, any of them in your entire lifetime, so whenever you did one, you’re a goner, that the wages of that sin is death is not a paddling. It’s not out of fellowship. It’s not Him turned his back on you. It’s not taking you to the woodshed. It’s not beaten the daylights out of you. It’s not ignoring it. It’s not sending you to hell is death. And he can’t send you to where you already are. So until we have come to Christ for when he came to give you life, we’re already under the death penalty. And when you’re dead, you can’t be made dead. You’re already dead. So that is the perversion that has taken place in the Christian world, not only the perversion as to annihilating and minimizing what Christ did at the cross, but literally annihilating the meaning and the purpose of the law. So we’re messing both of those who were messing up what the purpose of the law was, and we are pooh poohing the purpose of what the cross was. And in both of them, instead of the wages of sin being death, it’s out of fellowship, or the wages sin as a paddling or the wages of sin as a woodshed. And the gift of God is not life, the gift of God is in fellowship, or the gift of God is God is approving you, not life. And because we don’t deal with those constants, then we deal with all of the manmade things that come up. But from God’s vantage point, the wages of sin is death, and the gift of God, His life, not a temporal life, like some people teach or that you can choose to walk back into darkness. Folks, think about this for a minute. If you’re in the light of Christ, Jesus has delivered you from darkness into the light and you are in the light as He is in the light, that you are in Christ. And God is light and in him is no darkness at all. And Christ lives in you and you live in him. How are you going to get in darkness unless he gets in darkness? Is he going to walk over in the darkness? No, he’s all light he had made there anything dark about him. So how you gonna get there if you’re in him, and he is in you? And where you are was dependent upon what he did not what you did. You were transferred. You were bought, you redeemed you were bought out of darkness into life you’ve been bought with a price. You’re a brand new child of God, you’re an adopted child that call it’s called. And it’s interesting under Hebrew law that an adopted child was prohibited from ever being disowned.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity, with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord, find more information online at shop.BobGeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs, and bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.