Radio Broadcast Tuesday 11/29/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P31 (11-29-22)

If Righteousness Came Through the Law Then Christ Died For Nothing

~ “You’re never going to receive life. If you’re dead. Life cannot come from the law. Justification cannot come from the law. None of those things can come from the law. So there’s no reward. That’s what he’s saying. There’s no reward under the law, only condemnation. So why would you want to live under something that that the result of living under is a curse? And yet people want to and the other thing that I’ve noticed is when you have people who are objecting to the teaching of grace, it’s always why what you’re teaching is going to give them a license to sin. Have you ever noticed how it’s always them? Who’s going to have a license and never you but them that that by listen, and Bob Davis, I know him you take him under the law, and he just gonna go wild now me I’m wonderful. I’m never in a in an amazing how, how it’s always what how about them? Jesus said, Forget about them, you’re the problem, you are the problem. And so under the law, you cannot separate the law from the punishment of the law and the condemnation for violation. So then how could you as a Christian, then be under the law saying, God is helping me to obey the law? When if you didn’t allow him to help you to obey the law, then you violated the law, then what is your punishment? I know of no other passage of Scripture, no other teaching except the wages of sin is death. So are you saying therefore that every time you sin and course then people come up with this stuff? Well, that’s an accidental sin. God only punishes the only punishes is the one that you’re really we’re really planning. Yeah, the unintentional grace covers that it’s the intentional sins that that he’s really concerned about it folks that I’ve never had an intentional sin. All of mine that I know of are intentional. But I guess some people have unintentional ones. But the majority of the ones that I know of are intentional, because they all come from not trusting the Lord. And that is literally an act that you and I do intentionally. I am I know this is what I should be doing. But I’m going to do this otherwise, that’s pretty intentional, as far as I’m considered.”

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 0:39
First of all of these studies are dealing with this whole issue of looking at law and grace and contrasting the two because the average Christian today I quite frankly, doesn’t don’t know the difference between the two, we keep thinking that we’re under the law, but we’re under Grace at the same time. And I always say that it reminds me from a cartoon standpoint of this guy that swinging out on the trapeze and somebody says, Why don’t you let go because you can only go halfway out and then you’re going to end up back where you came from. And he keeps seeing this other trapeze bar coming toward him. And he realizes that if he let go of the one he’s on and grabbed a hold of the other one, it would take him to the other side. But He’s fearful of letting go. He doesn’t know that he’s supposed to let let go or people keep telling him no, no, you don’t let go that in order to grab on to the other. So the the only real intelligence solution is to grab hold of both of them. So here you are dangling out in in the middle of nowhere, not going back where you came from or forward to where you wanted to go. But just dangling holding on to both bars at the same time kind of a desert experience. I would say so, and saying man it praise the Lord isn’t this fantastic life that we live and, and that is the misery of the desert experience. You’re not in Egypt, you can’t go back to Egypt and you refuse to go into the Promised Land. So you just dangle out in the desert. And folks, we have to realize that that is not what God intended for you and me he has a purpose for everything. And what we do is pervert His purpose. We say I believe the Word of God is true. I was in denominations, where man I tell you, they would absolutely bruise the top of the pulpit beaten their Bible down on the thing, just telling people that this Bible is inerrant. And some of the most inerrant teachers that I know the people that are the most dogmatic in teaching the inerrancy of the Word of God are the most legalistic people that I know on the face of this earth. And that’s why they’re not very attractive is because there’s no love there. It’s just boy, I believe this Bible forward and backwards and upside down is I believe that you believe the Bible, there’s only one problem, you don’t know what it means. You certainly know what it says.

And there’s a lot of people that are so proud of their Greek training, that they sit there on the pulpit reading their Greek New Testament in order to impress people with that, and still don’t know what it means. Because they’re not teaching grace. They’re teaching law or at the very best commingling both law and grace. And the biggest thing is, oh, no, we teach salvation by grace. I know you teach salvation by grace. In other words, that’s the way you’re saved, whatever that means to you. But the issue is, how do you live? Do you live by grace? Are you saved by grace and then lived by law? Or are you saved by grace and live by grace as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him? How did you receive Him by faith in the grace of God? How do you walk any by faith in the grace of God? And you see, what we do is say, oh, no, we teach salvation by grace. Yeah, that’s right. You do teach that when you come to Christ, for that initial moment of salvation, the very thing that causes you to step out of darkness into life to step out of lostness into salvation, that that is by grace and grace alone. You can’t work for it. You can’t be baptized for it. You can’t anything it just by grace alone, but you leave Grace at the cross. And you don’t realize that the same grace that caused Jesus to hang on a cross, because grace and love you cannot separate those two and it was love that held Jesus to a cross, not Spike’s and that same grace that held him to a cross to take upon himself our sins is the same grace that caused him to be raised from the dead, and is the same grace that gave that life to you and me to raise us from the dead and the same grace that lives within us. Now to in order to live his life through us. It’s all by grace. All of it’s by grace.

Now, what’s the danger? And you’ve had people writing books dangerous grace, it makes you want to throw up when you hear that type of thing. What do you mean dangerous grace, there’s no such thing as dangerous grace. There’s a danger of misinterpreting grace, just like the huge danger of misinterpreting the law. Sure. I don’t know why no one ever writes a book called The dangerous law. You know, why would you be afraid of grace, if you understood what it was, any more than you should fear the law, if you understand what it was, I don’t need to fear the law, I need to get freed from it. If I’m ever going to walk into the presence of a living God and walk in a newness of life, in order to walk under grace, I have to die to the law. In order to walk in grace, I have to be in a situation where I am no longer under the condemnation of the law, the wages of sin being death, but I have been freed from that by the gift of God, which is life. And Bob, we just absolutely. We have perverted that and I’m when I’m saying that I’m just saying the theological community because that’s what we’re in. And if we’re responsible for supposedly teaching the Word of God, then we ought to be responsible for teaching the Word of God and it would help if we were responsible and learning what it meant before we teach it. But the fact of the matter is that we are commingling Law and Grace despite the warnings that Jesus gave you cannot put new wine into old wineskins. You cannot have if it’s if it’s by works if that, as Paul said in Romans 11, if by grace that no longer by works, if it were, Grace would no longer be grace. You cannot commingle those Paul’s admonishment in Galatians three, one through three. Did you receive the Spirit by believing the law or obeying the law or by receiving the Spirit? And after beginning in the Spirit why are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? And what he says is you have you have when he said, I’m astonished to that you are deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ, and you’re turning to a different gospel, which is a gospel of law.

So Bob, these things are not doctrinal. It’s not a doctrinal issue. To me, it’s an issue of truth. It’s not a doctrine, to be, to be a grasp on to it’s a life to be lived. Its truth, we cannot be under both at the same time, Christ died on a cross to free us from the demands of the law that we cannot live up to, and to free us from that, so that we can walk in the newness of life. He didn’t save you, so that he can help you to obey the law, which is what some people say, Man, you got to leave the law where it belongs in the grave, if you’re saved. And if you’re truly saved, then you are indwelt by the living Christ, and if you are indwelt by the living Christ, you do not need the law, you’ve got more than the law could ever give you. And that is a living God living inside of you, alive. And the Holy Spirit is your counselor, he is your teacher, he is your guide. He is your everything. And he it says will guide you into all truth. And that truth will set you free. You try to find a claim of that, in regard to the law, anyplace in the scripture, and I’ll eat your Bible. It’s the grace of God that comes about as a purse as a result of the person of God, Christ Jesus, you can’t separate grace from Jesus. And if Jesus is alive, living in you, you have everything that you need for life and godliness through your knowledge of Him. And the more you get to know him, the more you get to know about what you have received from him.

As we’re talking through this subject of of looking at the hopelessness of life under the law. If the wages of sin is death, and you can’t, and you’re never going to live in sinless perfection, that’s a pretty hopeless situation. It’s even more hopeless. When you when you come to the realization that isn’t even the issue that the issue is like we talked about last week that if you have violated the least of these my commandments, you violated all of them. Now that is hopelessness under the law. And then some people like I say, come into thing we said, Well, yeah, but that’s true when you’re lost, but now that you’re saved, now God will help you to obey the law. Well, if you’re under the law, which you I want you to think this through with me for a moment, folks. The law has no meaning to it at all unless there is a condemnation for the violation of the law. A law has no meaning if there’s not punishment for violation, there is really not a reward for keeping the law. If I’m driving 55, in a 50 mile five mile zone, I am not receiving rewards from the city of Dallas. Police Officer stuff ain’t no good going, Oh, buddy. No, there is no rewards for keeping the law. There’s just tickets for violating. So the only reward that you’re going to get under the law is the reward of a ticket for the violation, but never for the keeping of it. At the end of your life, if you’re having a beautiful service, funeral service, I don’t think you’re going to hear too many people getting up and saying, Man, this guy kept the law. He drove 55 all time and he never, this guy’s a real law keeper. And if that was said about somebody, you’d sit there and a few saying, so what? What’s that got to do with it? He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s he was up law abiding corpse. And so there’s no reward for that. There’s only condemnation, so the only thing that the law can do is condemn you. And therefore, life is hopeless under that, as far as you’re ever being able to achieve as it says righteousness. Because if righteousness came through the law, then Christ died for nothing. You’re never going to receive life. If you’re dead. Life cannot come from the law. Justification cannot come from the law. None of those things can come from the law. So there’s no reward. That’s what he’s saying. There’s no reward under the law, only condemnation. So why would you want to live under something that that the result of living under is a curse? And yet people want to and the other thing that I’ve noticed is when you have people who are objecting to the teaching of grace, it’s always why what you’re teaching is going to give them a license to sin. Have you ever noticed how it’s always them? Who’s going to have a license and never you but them that that by listen, and Bob Davis, I know him you take him under the law, and he just gonna go wild now me I’m wonderful. I’m never in a in an amazing how, how it’s always what how about them? Jesus said, Forget about them, you’re the problem, you are the problem. And so under the law, you cannot separate the law from the punishment of the law and the condemnation for violation. So then how could you as a Christian, then be under the law saying, God is helping me to obey the law? When if you didn’t allow him to help you to obey the law, then you violated the law, then what is your punishment? I know of no other passage of Scripture, no other teaching except the wages of sin is death. So are you saying therefore that every time you sin and course then people come up with this stuff? Well, that’s an accidental sin. God only punishes the only punishes is the one that you’re really we’re really planning. Yeah, the unintentional grace covers that it’s the intentional sins that that he’s really concerned about it folks that I’ve never had an intentional sin. All of mine that I know of are intentional. But I guess some people have unintentional ones. But the majority of the ones that I know of are intentional, because they all come from not trusting the Lord. And that is literally an act that you and I do intentionally. I am I know this is what I should be doing. But I’m going to do this otherwise, that’s pretty intentional, as far as I’m considered.

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Bob George 14:17
So you say what are you going to do under that? What are you going to do under the law? If as a Christian, you’re still under the Law, what are you going to do with the violation? So we’ve come up and said, Well, no, the wages of sin as a Christian is no longer under the law. It’s out of fellowship. All we come up with all kinds of things that God’s grace is positional, but experiential. You’re really getting whacked. There’s no punishment, up in heaven, but down here, he’s going to beat the daylights out of you. Folks, there’s no such thing in Scripture as positional truth and experiential truth. That is a doctrine that is absolutely contrary to anything the Scripture. It is taught in some of our leading seminars. There’s truth is truth. It is not truth that is positional, it is truth that is truth. So if, indeed, my sins have been taken away in heaven, that’s not positional, then they have been taken away in earth. God does not draw a cloud in between heaven and earth and says that’s true up here. But it’s not true down there. So Truth is truth, Jesus died for my sins, that is not a positional truth. That is a truth that I walked by faith in down here. If it talks about the fact that I had been seated in the heavenlies, with Christ Jesus, that is a truth that as far as God is concerned, that is truth. So as far as I am concerned, I might as well go ahead and just see myself seated there, because that is where I am from his standpoint, because he’s not limited by time and space. But I am limited by time and space. So I just realized that down here, I’m not realizing, but one day, that is where I am going to be. And as far as he’s concerned, I’ve been there already. They’re already there. So that is not positional and experiential. It is truth that we walk by faith in that I have eternal life that has not. In other words, I’m not absent from the body and present with the Lord yet, but do I have eternal life that’s not positional. That’s true. I have eternal life. And as a result of that, I walked by faith in that truth. And so the sooner that we can get away from these theological terms that they’ve laid upon these things, positional forensic forgiveness, instead of No, just forgiveness, you just taken away that’s not forensic. It’s not positional, it’s truth. And if it’s truth, what does he want me to do with it, walk in it, walk by faith in it.

Now religion, and we talked about last week in Matthew 23:25, Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites, and noticed he, he’s talking to the teachers, because we’re the ones that need to need to talk to. Because we’re the ones in many instances that are influencing people’s minds in regard to the Word of God. Woe to you teach us on the lawn Pharisees, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup of the dish, but on the inside, they’re full of greed and self indulgence. In Matthew 23:27, he goes on Woe to you, teachers of the law. And Pharisees, why would we think that that was for them way back then. But it doesn’t apply to us today, just because we don’t call ourselves Pharisees. But I want to tell you there are legalistic Christian churches called Christian churches that are more pharisaikal in their attitude than the Pharisees ever thought of being. So what is true back then is also true today. You have teachers of the law and Pharisees and they’re hypocrites. That’s what Jesus said, you’re all hypocrites. You’re like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones, and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside, you appear to people as righteous in other words, is it possible for a person to appear to people as righteous? Well, of course it is. But on the inside, you’re full of hypocrisy and wickedness. I can walk around in a robe and with a collar. And I can walk around and look looking very theological. I’m not sure I could. Even if I got dressed, I’m not sure I could. But people do and oh, you can play that part. And you can you can, you can just like an actor can you can learn to put expressions on your face. It just appeared to be so pious that you’re about ready to make your ascension into heaven. And so on the outside, you’re appearing to be righteous, but he said, your a hyprocyte that’s full of hypocrisy, There is none righteous, no, not one. There’s not a one of you that are righteous. And if a person is exemplifying righteousness, it’s because he’s in communion with the righteous one. And if any righteousness that comes out of me is because of what has given been given to me, then I don’t need to be walking around in my robes, or looking pious. I’m going to be looking what I am, humble over the fact that something is coming out of me that is not generated by me. How many times Bob, have you heard me say that I am never shocked when anything bad comes out of me? What I’m shocked at is when anything good comes out of me. Because that is not of Me. That is of God. What comes out of me in a fleshly means doesn’t shock me at all. It shocks me when love comes out of me. Unconditional love towards somebody that shocks the daylights out of me because it is another thing that’s of God. So he’s saying to us, if people are walking around acting pious on the outside and righteous on the outside, there’s one thing you could look at them and know for sure, based on the Word of God. They’re hypocrites. They’re wicked inside in their hearts. They’re full of greed and self indulgence, because that mostly is the motivation for that kind of behavior is I have achieved this part, this point of holiness. And if you will touch the hymns of My garment, and give me enough of your tithes, why that some of that goodness and righteousness will flow over to you. And you can at least say you’ve been around a righteous one. Yeah. And it’s full of self indulgence, self praise, greed, hypocrisy, in its ultimate form, and wickedness in its ultimate ultimate form. There is no room for a true born again, Christian, for pride, and ego, and all of the things that plague us. There is no room for strutting around on stages acting like King Kong in action. There’s no room for that, that is not of God, that is self indulgent pride in its ultimate form. That if any of us are outward actions are going to be a reflection of what is true, if we are truly born again. It is an outward reflection, of seeing myself as what I am weak. But in my weakness, I can take joy because his strength is made manifest in our weakness. It’s not walking around like we are somebody, somebody, the anointed ones walking around. We’re walking around in humility, as to the fact that Christ Jesus has done it all. And we have done nothing.

The only harsh words that you really ever heard Jesus talking, were the words to the self righteous, to the Pharisees, to the teachers of the law, to people who are practicing this type of hypocrisy. We sometimes think, well, this man who is a minister is a hypocrite because he sometimes says things or does things that maybe doesn’t seem quite appropriate. Well, you said that that depends on what is true, if he is preaching a doctrine of law. And if he’s teaching the fact that boy because I’m in Christ, I am one righteous dude. Why then if you saw them do something that was somewhat inconsistent with who they are, drive down the street and someone fall in front of them, roll your window down, just scream your your voice app trying to try annihilate somebody, you could say, and then look over and inside the car and say, hi, Pastor. Why, but But you see, if, if, if so if a person is teaching that boy, I, I’m just, I just walk in sinless perfection, when you’d say, Man, that’s a, that’s a hypocrite. But if if if a person is teaching what is truth that all of us have the capability of falling on our faces. Well, then how can that be hypocritical when we do? It’s just the fact of being of giving in to the desires of the flesh in some way or another. But that is not inconsistent with what the teaching of grace is all about. Because God never did expect you and me to live in sinless perfection and never said we would never thought we could. As a matter of fact, the only thing some people say that I’m a failure, somebody says, Oh, I’m a failure, say, Well, God never expected you in the face to be anything except to play a failure. That’s what you were designed to be is a failure. Someone who is designed to crumble up and fall into a grave doesn’t have a real exciting future ahead of them when you stop to think of a future being lasting forever. So your future at the very most is short lived, it’s pretty hopeless, when you stopped to think of what your destiny is, and that’s six feet under.

So, when when, when you’re teaching, when when you’re teaching is consistent with the Word of God. Do we really have a right to be judgmental toward one another? And the answer to that is no we don’t we we can certainly dislike what somebody does, we can even be disappointed but disappointment comes from an unrealistic expectation. Somebody someone asked me at the last seminar Do you think God is disappointed with us? Say that how could he be disappointed? He doesn’t have any unrealistic expectations toward you never expected anything out of you anyway. So how can he be disappointed? disappointment comes from an unrealistic expectation that I expect something out of you, but they didn’t behave the way that I expected. So I’m disappointed. Well, if you didn’t have any expectations, you wouldn’t be disappointed. And for sure, God has no unrealistic expectation towards you and me, so he’s never disappointed, he knows us, he knows what we’re capable of He knows us inside out. And that’s why extended to us the only thing he could, if he was going to retain a relationship with His created beings, and that was the extension of grace. And with the fact that in that grace where I don’t have to fear condemnation, that I’m very free now to be open, to communicate with God concerning my weaknesses, and my trials and tribulations, which he knows all already anyway, but to communicate those things without fear of condemnation, but to be able to be restored, that Lord, I need help.

It’s strange in it, Bob, how we substitute, you don’t go into and pay $100 an hour to some shrink to get condemned. I mean, if you walked into a psychiatrist and said, Here’s $100 An hour and he sat there, and he said, you little worm, she got a job. You know, you need to be beaten half to death with with what your why I don’t think you’d go back, probably not. But you see, he, he’s there at least gives the impression that he’s there to restore. And we’re willing to pay 1000s of dollars, to somebody that we think loves us and wants to restore us is not condemning us, because you’re not gonna make a living condemning people, as a psychiatrist, you’re gonna have to agree with them and try to shift the blame onto somebody else and to understand them and try to restore them. Now, you’ll pay any amount of money for that. And here’s a God that absolutely went to a cross, so that there will never be condemnation for you, only a spirit of restoration for you. And we say, I don’t want to go to you, I’d rather go to a shrink. Who’s having the same problems you are but just doesn’t tell you. There’s no psychiatrist or psychologist that is without problems. Most of them are having more problems than you are. And most of them, quite frankly, went into psychiatry to begin with, because they were so messed up that they’re trying to find out the solution to their problems. And that’s a true fact. And so, but we are so anxious to go to man instead of to God.

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.