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References: Galatians 1:6-9
We are in Galatians chapter 3 this morning, message number 12 from the book of Galatians. And I’ve titled this message today, Two Ways to Be Saved. I hope that when you read that, you say, isn’t there something wrong with saying it that way? And you’d be right. And yet, what I mean is, there are two ways that people are attempting to be saved. And so, you can try one way, or you can try the other way. And in that sense, there would be two ways to be saved, but the conclusion will be only one of them works….
Full Transcript
Thank you, Gordon and Barbara, for our music this morning. And welcome to those of you joining us on live stream. We are in Galatians chapter 3 this morning, message number 12 from the book of Galatians. And I’ve titled this message today, Two Ways to Be Saved. I hope that when you read that, you say, isn’t there something wrong with saying it that way?
And you’d be right. And yet, what I mean is, there are two ways that people are attempting to be saved. And so, you can try one way, or you can try the other way. And in that sense, there would be two ways to be saved, but the conclusion will be only one of them works. And Paul is going to tell us that in a no uncertain term. As a matter of fact, I want you to glance back to chapter 2 and verse 16 just for a second, because there, I identified that verse as really the proposition of the whole book.
This is the bottom line. This is the thesis that Paul is telling us here. And I want you to remember something that I pointed out when we looked at that verse. Three times in this verse, he will say, salvation is not by the works of the law. Well, when he says that, though we translate the law that way, in that original language, the article, T-H-E, is not there in any of those three statements. So in essence, he says, because salvation is not of law. You’re not justified by works of law.
So in other words, Paul broadens the picture quite a bit. Any law, whatever law you decide to try to live by to get yourself to heaven doesn’t work. And yes, the law of Moses is one of those ways. It’s the major way that was happening in the time of Paul, and that’s what he was writing about, of course, as these Judaizers were saying, the law of Moses. You have to keep the law of Moses. But in essence, you may be trying to keep the law of a church or the law of a denomination or the law of a cult or whatever law you want to write in that blank spot.
Justification will not come that way. So it’s not just the Mosaic law, as we would apply it to today. And maybe you know you have a Jewish friend, someone who’s still trying to earn their way to heaven through keeping the Old Testament law.
But more than likely, you have friends and you know people who are trying to be good and be accepted by God when they die for all of their good works. So these Judaizers in the first century, they were thinking Mosaic law, and that’s what basically we’re going to talk about today. Now as we come to chapter 3 and verse 10 through 14, it’s kind of interesting in chapter 3 that Paul is kind of laying out a timeline. In verses 6 through 9, we talked a lot about Abraham. And in verses 10 through 14, we’re going to talk more about Moses and the time of Moses when he writes that Old Testament law. And then in our verses 13 and 14, but especially verses 15 to 18, we’re going to talk about the time of Christ being the son and the heir of Abraham. And so it’s kind of interesting to me that Paul’s making this sweep of the Old Testament from Abraham to Moses up to Christ. And in all of this sweep of the Old Testament, he is telling us, you can’t work your way to heaven.
You can try to go that way, but it’s not going to work. So there are three periods. There’s the period of Abraham, the period of Moses, the period of Jesus. Or if we look at the dispensations, there’s the dispensation of promise with those patriarchs, the dispensation of law under the Mosaic law, and the dispensation of grace under Christ.
We have that flow. You have three of the Old Testament covenants here, the Abrahamic covenant with Abraham, the Mosaic covenant with Moses, and the New Covenant that comes with Christ. So I think it’s kind of interesting that he’s just giving us this broad sweep of history throughout the Old Testament.
We’re looking at that middle part that is specifically from the days of Moses when he writes the Old Testament law. Now, in the end, there have always been two ways that people try to get to heaven, as I’ve said. Whether you live back in the days of Abraham or you live in our day to day, there are people trying to work their way to heaven. As a matter of fact, anyone who is not trusting Christ as Savior is trying to work their way to heaven. And whatever they call it and however they’re trying to do it, it may be their own atheism. I’ve known atheists who think that they’re better than any Christians, and they’re basically trying to work their way through life also. But either you trust in your own works or you trust in the work of Christ.
And that is always Paul’s conclusion on what he’s going to say. As a matter of fact, I thought, you know, if each of us would think back to the time we got saved. If you can remember that time, that day, maybe you don’t know what date it was on the calendar or whatever, but you remember that time when you accepted Christ as Savior. You would also reflect and remember that what you were saying is, I’m lost. If I die, I will be in a Christless eternity. I need the righteousness of Jesus Christ to save me.
I mean, however you worded it and however you’re thinking was the time, that’s basically what you were saying. I can’t do it on my own. I need Jesus Christ. And you are coming to the same conclusion that Paul is coming to in our text today and in this chapter and in this whole book. So, if you will, let’s look at how I’ve divided this passage up into two parts. Because I say there are basically the two ways that people are trying to get to heaven. The first one is by keeping the law and the second one is by trusting Christ as Savior. And so by keeping the law, notice in verses 10 through 13, as you look at your own Bible, that there are three or excuse me, four quotations from the Old Testament. Do you see those?
You might have those marked off. My Bible, for example, has the quotation itself in italics. Some Bibles set them off totally. Or you might just have a footnote after each quotation with maybe the reference underneath it or the reference in the margin of your Bible. So you notice on the bulletin that you have or on the screen that you’re looking at, I gave you the four Old Testament references so you don’t have to rewrite them.
You might have them in your Bible. Now, why is that unique? And why am I pointing that out? Because basically, if you’re trying to keep the law to be saved, if you’re trying to be justified by the law, Paul is going to quote from the law four times where the law says itself, you’re not going to get saved this way.
That’s a pretty strong argument when you think about it. Here are these Judaizers saying, you got to keep the law to be saved. Paul says, well, let me tell you what the law says. And in four places, and he probably could have quoted a dozen more, four times the law says you can’t get saved this way. So that’s basically what we’re looking at in these four things.
But notice how I’ve worded them. In other words, if you want to be saved by keeping the law, number one, you must keep all of it. Number two, you must justify yourself. Number three, you must live all of your life by it and you must avoid the curse. So those are the things I want to look at with you as we look at these verses. So the first way, if you’re going to get saved by keeping the law, the first thing is you’ve got to keep all of it. Read it again, verse 10. As many as are of the works of the law, that is, you’re not trusting Christ to save you.
You’re trying to work your way to heaven. Are under the curse. Isn’t it an interesting word?
And we’re going to see that word a couple different times in our text here this morning. What is the curse of the law? Well, in the nutshell, folks, the curse of the law is you have to keep it perfectly. You can’t offend in one jot or tittle of the law.
That’s the curse. If I said to you, have you ever done anything wrong in your life? Who would say I’ve never done anything wrong? I’ve never sinned. I’ve never had a bad thought. I’ve never done anything wrong. Would anyone say that? No, they would say, well, I’ve done more good than bad.
The curse of the law is if you’ve done one thing contrary to God’s standard, you’ve failed. So notice what he says. It is written.
Where is that? Deuteronomy 27, verse 26 says, curse does everyone who does not notice continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. Now, I’ll read to you the passage in these Old Testament passages.
You can turn there if you can or would like to. But what’s interesting about this passage is the list of curses that are in Deuteronomy 27. If you’re looking at that or will look at that, you have beginning in verse 15, curse does everyone who makes any carved or molded image. Verse 16, curse is everyone who treats his father or his mother with contempt. Verse 17, cursed is the one who moves his neighbor’s landmark. He goes through a list of curses until he gets down to the very last one, which is verse 26 and says, cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of the law. Now you say, well, you know, why can’t somebody just say, I think all the law is good.
Here’s why. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, quotes that statement as the curse of the law. In other words, the Holy Spirit means it the way Paul is saying it. And that is, you are under God’s curse if you don’t keep all of the law to do it.
Isn’t that amazing? As many as are under the law, whoever you are trying to work your way to heaven by the Jewish law or any other law, you better be 100%. or you’re not going to make it. Look at chapter 5 again of Galatians that is, chapter 5 and verse 3 where when we get up there he will say it this way, I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. If you want to go that way, fine, you’ve got to keep the whole law. And you remember James, don’t you? You remember the verse in James of course, whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he’s guilty of all. And James will go on to the next verse and say you may not be in a, you murder, you’re guilty of everything or you may not murder but you commit adultery, you’re guilty of everything. So whatever it is that the point that you’ve, you fail in makes you guilty of all. In other words, it makes you a sinner folks and this is why the book of Romans concludes of course after dealing three chapters with everyone in the world finally says all of sin and come short of the glory of God. There’s none righteous, no not one.
And why is it? Because basically he will have said in those three chapters, you’ve sinned somewhere and when you’ve sinned somewhere you’ve become a sinner. One sin condemns you to an eternal hell.
It makes you a sinner because God is just, God is perfect, God is holy and he does not allow unforgiven sin in his presence. So number one, you want to keep the law? You got to keep all of it. And who said that? The law said that. Moses wrote that in Deuteronomy. Secondly, verse 11, but that no one is justified by the law on the side of God, it is evident for now he quotes the second Old Testament verse from Habakkuk to for if you have HAB, it’s Habakkuk.
The just shall live by faith. That sounds like a very familiar New Testament statement, but actually it’s an Old Testament statement. It comes from the book of Habakkuk. I remember when I was in school, I had a class from a professor who was Egyptian by birth and he spoke and wrote Hebrew fluently and he would always say, have a kook. I grew up hearing Habakkuk and he would say, have a kook. And I decided I like the English rather than calling the old guy a kook all the time. So I still like the English pronunciation of Habakkuk.
Okay. Well in that chapter, he says in chapter two and verse four, Habakkuk, behold the proud. His soul is not upright in him.
The just shall live by faith. He points out just the sin of being proud. Now how many here have never, never in your life ever had a proud moment? You never been proud in the sense of pride that is as sin.
I don’t think any of us could hold our hands and yet he’s doing that. The proud person, I think Habakkuk is saying, never thinks that he needs to be forgiven of his own sin. That proud person says, I’m okay. I’m a good man.
I’m a good person. I don’t need to be justified in some other way. And so he continually, all of his life tries to justify himself.
The verse goes on by the way in verse five, indeed because he transgresses by wine. He’s a proud man. He does not stay at home because he enlarges his desire as hell. He is like death and cannot be satisfied.
In other words, he just expands on that. The person who doesn’t think he’s a sinner is a sinner. And yet how can you be right before God by trying to do it yourself? No, by being justified by faith.
And let me justify it by faith. Where would you go in the New Testament to find that list of people? Hebrews chapter 11, we call it the Bible’s Hall of Fame.
And whether we begin with Abel and Enoch and Noah before the law or come up to Abraham and all within the law, what does it say about every Old Testament person? By faith, this person did this. By faith, this person did that. In other words, justified how? By works of the law. No, by faith. And even all of those people that are listed under the Mosaic period, 1400 BC up until Christ, all of them in Hebrews 11 are justified by faith.
And why is that? Because the law itself the prophet Habakkuk reminded us that if you’re going to be justified, you have to be justified by faith. And so we have that here in our chapter in Galatians chapter three also, the just shall live by faith.
Thirdly, not only must you keep all of it, You have to try to justify yourself rather than letting Christ justify you, but number three, you have to live by it. Now here’s an interesting quotation in Leviticus 18. In Leviticus 18, it’s part of what we call the holiness code in the book of Leviticus.
The holiness code is that three chapters, 18, 19, and 20, where Moses specifies all of these wicked sins, many of them sexual type sins, including homosexuality and bestiality and things like that. But even just all of the forms of adultery and fornication, it goes through all of that and says God hates this and God hates this and God hates this. This is an abomination before God. This is an abomination before God.
When you read especially chapter 18, you find that whole list of things. But in verse five of Leviticus 18, you shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments. And then he says this, which if a man does, he shall live by them.
I am the Lord. And then goes off into this list of things. If you do these, you must live by them. What is then being said? Again, we come back to Paul and Paul’s inspired interpretation of it in our verse says, the law is not of faith. The man who does them is going to have to live by them. You’re going to have to do this all of your life all the time. Now, you say, is that really what he’s saying here?
An ongoing responsibility. Let me remind you of Romans chapter 10, where this same verse from Leviticus 18 is quoted by Paul in Romans chapter 10. And by the way, what is Romans chapter 10?
If you’ve ever led someone to Christ, you’ve probably gone to Romans chapter 10. This is part of what we call the Romans road that a foul shall confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead. Thou shall be saved.
How do you get saved by the death, barren resurrection of Jesus Christ? Well, Romans chapter 10 verse four through eight, I’m going to read it to you, comes before that. And here’s what Paul is saying in Romans 10, four through eight. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Now, stop and think about that. Is that not like the book of Galatians? Is that not what the book of Romans is all about? Christ is the end of the law. Quit trying to live by it to everyone who believes that is who comes to him by faith.
I’ll go on. Verse five. For Moses writes about the righteousness, which is of the law, quote, the man who does those things shall live by them. That’s that’s our quote from from Leviticus, right? But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, quote, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven. Now he’s quoting back into Deuteronomy. Now, that is to say, to bring Christ up from above or quote, who will descend into the abyss? Paul says that is to bring Christ up from the dead.
What has he said there? What’s what is the gospel, folks? The gospel is the death, barren resurrection of Jesus Christ, isn’t it? And what is he’s quoting the book of Deuteronomy? They’re saying even the book of Deuteronomy is saying you better know who comes down from heaven and you better know who comes up from the grave. And who is that that Jesus Christ?
So he ends it by saying, but what does it say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. And that is the word of faith, which we preach. Now, what I’m illustrating by by going there is that Paul is also saying hearing Galatians kind of quoting the same thing that he quotes in Romans 10. And that is that if you are going to try to live by the law and be saved by the law, you’re going to have to do it all your life without fail. Not just today, not just on Sunday mornings, not just at one, you know, special time in your life, but all the way.
Excuse me. Let me illustrate that by having you turn in Galatians over to chapter five. And let me remind you of this passage we’ll get to eventually in this book. But from verse 19, actually verse 16 to the end of the chapter is where you have the difference between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. So if you’ve ever memorized the seven fruits of the spirit, there they are in verse 22 and 23. But back up above verse 16 says, I say then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Basically what he’s saying is you’re either going to be walking in the spirit in your life or you’re going to be walking in the lust of your flesh in your life.
One of the two. So in verse 19 or let me say verse 18, if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. You can’t be led by the spirit unless you’re born again. You cannot be led by the spirit unless you have the spirit of God.
So verse 19 says, now the works of the flesh are evident which are. And you see the list and you know what? I bet you you could find something that you’ve done in that list. Maybe not adultery, but fornication or uncleanness. How about in verse 20, how about contentions that ever been in you? How about jealousies, outbursts of wrath? Oh, none of us, surely.
Selfish ambitions? All of these things are works of the flesh. In other words, without Christ, your life is filled with these things.
You do them throughout your life. There’s a big difference between the statement works of the flesh and verse 22, fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is what the Holy Spirit grows in you. When you are saved by faith, the Holy Spirit is in you. Yes, you still have sin, but it’s being overcome by the fruit and the work of the spirit. What do you want to try to do in your life?
Work out in your flesh or let the Holy Spirit grow fruit in you? And so I think he’s going to come to the same thing again. Now look at verse 24 of Galatians 5. And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not be overcome or not become conceited, provoking one another and ending one another. So what are we saying back in chapter 3? Which way do you want to go?
You want to try to work your way into heaven? You’ve got to live that way the rest of your life. But you know your problem? You’re doing it in your own flesh.
You’re doing it by the works of the flesh because you don’t have the Holy Spirit. And you think you’re going to live it that way? He says in chapter 5, here is everything you’re going to do in life. So one more thing here, and that’s in verse 13. You’ve got to avoid the curse.
Interesting. So in verse 13, Christ redeemed us, we’ll come back to that statement in a minute, but Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. There’s that idea of cursing again.
But he says it this way. Redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written. Now a quotation again, this time from Deuteronomy 21.
Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. We know that generally that refers to Christ on the cross, and I’m going to read from Colossians in a minute that of course that is true. But it’s interesting in Deuteronomy 21, at the end of that chapter, chapter 21, from 18 to 23, you have the description of how a person was executed, capital punishment, under the law.
And the reason that is given here in Deuteronomy 21 for capital punishment is when a child curses his or her parents. You want to live by that law? You want to keep the law that way? And so when your child disobeys you, curses you, you should have them stoned to death. Aren’t you glad that the law is passed away?
But here’s what it is about. Matter of fact, verse 20 says, they shall say to the elders of the city, this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, and he will not obey our voice. And besides that, he’s a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones, and shall put away the evil person from among you, and all Israel shall hear in fear. And verse 21, if he has committed a sin worthy of death, he has put to death, you hang him on a tree.
It’s an interesting thing that we don’t often think about. When they would stone a person by stoning, then they would hang the body on a pole or a tree until sundown as an evidence of what justice is all about. In Israel, this is what they did, Deuteronomy 21. You put that body, which is now dead, on a tree, hang it up so that everyone can see, but you must remove it before dark.
You don’t leave it on the tree overnight. Kind of justice with mercy. And yet you say, I don’t see a whole lot of mercy there. But verse 23 says, his body shall remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance for he who is hanged is a cursed of God. That person hanging on the tree has God’s curse on him. Now, I want to read you some words from a commentator.
I thought this was great. Peter Craig and his commentary on Deuteronomy says this, the body was not a cursed of God because it was hanging on a tree. It was hanging on a tree because it was a cursed of God.
Do you understand the difference between those two? And the body was not a cursed of God simply because it was dead, for we all die, but it was a curse because of the reason for the death. To break the law of God and to live as though he that is God did not matter or exist was in effect a cursed God. And he who cursed God would be cursed of God. God.
Or let me put it this way. We are guilty by not keeping the law. And we are accursed by God for that.
If you’re trying to live by good works and you’re trying to get to heaven by how good you are, whether it’s the Mosaic law or any other law that you’re trying to keep, then the curse of God is upon you. Why? Because you have failed to do that.
Not because you’re hanging on a tree, but because you have failed in that. And you will not be a sinner because you’re in hell. You will be in hell because you’re a sinner.
That’s why they were hung on a tree. What happens to people today who sin and are not forgiven, they end up in hell. And they’re there because they’re a sinner. The fact that they’re in hell doesn’t make them a sinner. They are a sinner. Now, let me conclude this first half of our message and just say, no one was ever saved by keeping the law.
And you can see why. And so though I say there are two ways to be saved, as I have said, two ways that people are trying to be saved. And isn’t it a shame, folks, that most of the world and most of the people throughout the history of the world have tried to get to heaven by their own good works? How few are there that really have trusted Christ and said, I can’t make it myself. I can’t do these things.
You’ve got to save me. And those are in the minority. And yet that’s the way life is. That’s the way the human nature is. That’s the way sinners are.
But let me quickly look at the other half of this, just also in verses 13 and 14. And that is, of course, there’s a better way. And there is the only way to get to heaven. And that is through Jesus Christ. I would go back to Romans chapter seven and read a number of verses there.
But let me just summarize it where Paul says in Romans chapter seven, I died to the law because the law killed me. I thought I was a good man until I read the law and then I realized I can’t do that. I thought I was a great man until I read, thou shall not covet.
And I said to myself, I covet all the time. And so I thought I was alive until I read the law and it killed me. And so he says, I died to the law. I can’t do anything, but I am alive to Christ. When I accepted Christ, then the life came in. Then the eternal life came to me. So I want to say four things with the idea of let this happen to you then. First of all, let Jesus Christ redeem you.
Verse 13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. That’s how you get out from under it. That’s how you change sides. You change avenues from your own works to the grace of God. Let him redeem you. Now this word redeemed is a New Testament word. It’s a word that is used often having to do of course with salvation and the forgiveness of sins. The word in the New Testament agorazo, listen to that word agorazo means to buy something back. Just to pay a price, agorazo, to buy. And often it was used in those days of buying a slave because the Roman Empire was full of slavery of course and this was commerce going on all the time.
So you could buy a slave. Well here you have not just the word agorazo, but you have x agorazo, x which means out and to buy. And that means in the slave market language to buy a slave and take him out of the slave market, to take him out of that whole world and that whole life. That’s the word used here, x agorazo and again read the verse, Christ has x agorazo bought us and taken us out from what? From the curse of the law.
That’s why it’s used in that sense here. He takes you out from under that burden and out from under that curse and he buys you with his own blood and his own life, his death, burial and resurrection and no longer are you a slave to your own good works. He’s taking you out of that whole world and set you free. And by the way, there is a third word that has to do with buying and it’s a different word, leutroo, which means to set you free. And we have that by the way and I’m going to read it in 1 Peter chapter one, 18 and 19. Knowing that you are not redeemed, leutroo, you are not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. You were bought with the blood of Christ and having been bought with the blood of Christ, you were taken out from under the works of your own flesh out from under the law and set free. free, so that you are God’s and you are free from the condemnation of that. By the way, at the end of Romans chapter seven, chapter eight, verse one, therefore there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation.
Set free from all of it. You can never be condemned by your failure to do good works. You are bought by the blood of Christ. He paid the price for your freedom with his own blood. So let him redeem you is the first thought.
Secondly, let him be your substitute. Now also in verse 13, notice the pronouns us. He has redeemed us from the curse of the law.
Have him become a curse for us. I’m talking about being a substitute, a substitute for you. Skip down to verse 14, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ that we might receive. Let him be your substitute, that you might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith and so he has become your substitute. Second Corinthians 521, he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. He was our substitute who took our sins on the cross. First Peter 224, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we having died the sins might live to righteousness by whose stripes you were healed, by his stripes, by his blood you are healed.
And he did that on a tree. Now it’s not just the hanging on the cross that was the curse, but rather the bearing of our sins, the bearing of us, our sins as the curse. Listen to Colossians 2, 13 through 15. You being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses and how did he do it? Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements, that’s the law, that was against us, which was contrary to us. Remember the curse of the law, contrary to anything you could do. And he has taken it out of the way having nailed it to his cross.
What is happening there? Jesus Christ went to death for you and me and every human being that ever lived on this earth. And everyone who is trying to live by their good works and is a sinner and all of us are either there or have been there. And he went to that cross bearing not just he had no sin, not just your sin individually, but all the sin of the world.
I don’t think we can imagine what that was. And to have the Heavenly Father turn his back on him because there is the sin of the whole world. And yet what he did was satisfy every demand that the law or any other law had ever made. It’s as if you had never sinned. He’s fulfilled all the demand that would have been on you and he took it upon himself and died in your place.
What a thought that is. I don’t know how we express it. Nailed it to his cross. There Satan, you failed.
I succeeded. There is salvation for the whole world. In 2 Peter 2 1 there’s an interesting statement and there are many statements like this in the New Testament.
But 2 Peter 2 1 says there were also false prophets among the people even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies even denying the Lord who bought them. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world and not just some but everybody. They were bought by the blood of Christ and yet they trample upon the very Savior that could save them. What a terrible thing it is for a sinner to say I don’t want the blood of Christ. He bore that person’s sin on the cross.
The Lord who bought them. So let him be your substitute and quickly let him then also give you a blessing. Verse 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus.
Jesus turned the tables. The thing that would be the curse becomes your blessing. The thing that would curse you and that is not being able to get to heaven by your own good works.
He turns into a blessing because he’s done it for you and he’s paid the price for you. And it is the blessing of Abraham. We don’t have time to develop that whole thought but remember I’ve said the Abrahamic covenant there were three things promised Abraham.
A land, a seed which we’ll talk about in the next message down below and a blessing. In other words you have the Palestinian covenant, the Davidic covenant and the new covenant. And we live under the new covenant and that is grace. That is blessing that comes to us.
us. So you know what? We open our Bible and I say always turn to your Old Testament or to your New Testament, right? And we’re just kind of used to that word. You understand that the word Testament is the word covenant. Same word in Greek. And so the Old Covenant is the Old Mosaic Covenant.
But the New Covenant or New Testament is what? Grace. It’s the dispensation of grace. It is the blessing of the Abrahamic Covenant. And so when we say New Testament or New Covenant, we’re talking about that blessing part that came from Abraham down to us. And you know what the blessing is? You can be saved by faith. That’s the blessing.
Not by any works. There’s a second blessing and that’s my number, that’s my fourth point. Let him give you the Holy Spirit. So it goes on and says, the blessing of Abraham that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And one of the great things is the New Covenant that will, by the way, go on into the millennial reign of Christ and go on into eternity. But the blessing is the gift of the Holy Spirit. So Joel said it when he’s describing it, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your faith is that the Holy Spirit has poured out on us. It started at Pentecost and it goes through the Age of Grace every time somebody gets saved. For by one spirit, are we all baptized into one body?
And so the Holy Spirit is poured out on you when you get saved. Not before, not when you’re trying to do it on your own works. You have no helper.
You have no buddy but yourself. But now you’re living for Christ and the Holy Spirit is in you producing the fruit of the Spirit and you’re living for Christ. Finally, chapter four, verse four through six of Galatians. When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. We asked, by the way, I told you last time, you have God as your father because you are sons. God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts so that you can cry, Abba, father, you can come to him in prayer. You can cry out to God for your needs. He is your father now.
What a great thing this is. And what is the conclusion of these four points? The conclusion is anybody can get saved this way. The conclusion of the first four points, nobody can get saved that way. The conclusion of the last four points, anybody can get saved this way.
And I had down Roman 623. Let me just remind you or quote it to you, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Wages of sin, gift of God. What do you do when you’re working? Why will you go to work tomorrow morning if you still go to work or ever have gone to work?
Why? Why do you go to work to get paid for wages, right? So you work for wages. If you are trying to work your way to heaven, then you will receive wages for it, for your work. And you know what the wages are? The wages of sin is death. You can’t make it that way.
So what do I do? Isn’t it better just to get a gift? I’m not going to work for money. Somebody’s just, you know, I have a rich uncle, he just give me everything. You have a heavenly father who owns a cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mind, and he’s ready to give you his riches. And his riches are eternal life. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Isn’t it better to go the way of a gift rather than the way of wages, especially when the wages only get you death rather except Christ the Savior.
That’s the only real way to heaven. Stand now with me if you will. Let’s stand and we’ll sing a song as we think about these things and ask the Lord to speak to our hearts and the hearts of any who hear a message like this today.
Let’s pray together. Father, again and again in this book of Galatians, we read it. We have to be saved by faith. And Father, we say it with gladness. We say it with joyfulness, with thankfulness in our hearts because we know we couldn’t have come any other way. We know we were lost without hope, without God in this world, that Jesus died for us and we received it as a gift. And we have eternal life.
How simple, how great. And Father, yet as we’re reminded, you’ve told us that most of the world is undersigned. Most of the world has said no to your offer. Father, I pray that today on this Lord’s Day, wherever the word is preached, that souls would come to Christ, whether here in our midst or across this world. Father, I pray that you would bless those messages that are preached and bless the hearing of your word.
I pray the Holy Spirit would do his work in those hearts. But Father, may we who know you praise you and thank you and always live joyfully before you that were delivered from death, even from the condemnation of our sin. And we live in your grace. Thank you for that. Now, bless as we sing and we allow you to speak to our hearts in the way that you need and that we need and we pray, Father, for the results of that in Jesus’ name. Amen. Gordon’s going to come and lead us in this song. You respond to this message in the way you want, either as we sing or as our services close. Do what the Lord is leading you to do.
Full Transcript
Thank you, Gordon and Barbara, for our music this morning. And welcome to those of you joining us on live stream. We are in Galatians chapter 3 this morning, message number 12 from the book of Galatians. And I’ve titled this message today, Two Ways to Be Saved. I hope that when you read that, you say, isn’t there something wrong with saying it that way?
And you’d be right. And yet, what I mean is, there are two ways that people are attempting to be saved. And so, you can try one way, or you can try the other way. And in that sense, there would be two ways to be saved, but the conclusion will be only one of them works. And Paul is going to tell us that in a no uncertain term. As a matter of fact, I want you to glance back to chapter 2 and verse 16 just for a second, because there, I identified that verse as really the proposition of the whole book.
This is the bottom line. This is the thesis that Paul is telling us here. And I want you to remember something that I pointed out when we looked at that verse. Three times in this verse, he will say, salvation is not by the works of the law. Well, when he says that, though we translate the law that way, in that original language, the article, T-H-E, is not there in any of those three statements. So in essence, he says, because salvation is not of law. You’re not justified by works of law.
So in other words, Paul broadens the picture quite a bit. Any law, whatever law you decide to try to live by to get yourself to heaven doesn’t work. And yes, the law of Moses is one of those ways. It’s the major way that was happening in the time of Paul, and that’s what he was writing about, of course, as these Judaizers were saying, the law of Moses. You have to keep the law of Moses. But in essence, you may be trying to keep the law of a church or the law of a denomination or the law of a cult or whatever law you want to write in that blank spot.
Justification will not come that way. So it’s not just the Mosaic law, as we would apply it to today. And maybe you know you have a Jewish friend, someone who’s still trying to earn their way to heaven through keeping the Old Testament law.
But more than likely, you have friends and you know people who are trying to be good and be accepted by God when they die for all of their good works. So these Judaizers in the first century, they were thinking Mosaic law, and that’s what basically we’re going to talk about today. Now as we come to chapter 3 and verse 10 through 14, it’s kind of interesting in chapter 3 that Paul is kind of laying out a timeline. In verses 6 through 9, we talked a lot about Abraham. And in verses 10 through 14, we’re going to talk more about Moses and the time of Moses when he writes that Old Testament law. And then in our verses 13 and 14, but especially verses 15 to 18, we’re going to talk about the time of Christ being the son and the heir of Abraham. And so it’s kind of interesting to me that Paul’s making this sweep of the Old Testament from Abraham to Moses up to Christ. And in all of this sweep of the Old Testament, he is telling us, you can’t work your way to heaven.
You can try to go that way, but it’s not going to work. So there are three periods. There’s the period of Abraham, the period of Moses, the period of Jesus. Or if we look at the dispensations, there’s the dispensation of promise with those patriarchs, the dispensation of law under the Mosaic law, and the dispensation of grace under Christ.
We have that flow. You have three of the Old Testament covenants here, the Abrahamic covenant with Abraham, the Mosaic covenant with Moses, and the New Covenant that comes with Christ. So I think it’s kind of interesting that he’s just giving us this broad sweep of history throughout the Old Testament.
We’re looking at that middle part that is specifically from the days of Moses when he writes the Old Testament law. Now, in the end, there have always been two ways that people try to get to heaven, as I’ve said. Whether you live back in the days of Abraham or you live in our day to day, there are people trying to work their way to heaven. As a matter of fact, anyone who is not trusting Christ as Savior is trying to work their way to heaven. And whatever they call it and however they’re trying to do it, it may be their own atheism. I’ve known atheists who think that they’re better than any Christians, and they’re basically trying to work their way through life also. But either you trust in your own works or you trust in the work of Christ.
And that is always Paul’s conclusion on what he’s going to say. As a matter of fact, I thought, you know, if each of us would think back to the time we got saved. If you can remember that time, that day, maybe you don’t know what date it was on the calendar or whatever, but you remember that time when you accepted Christ as Savior. You would also reflect and remember that what you were saying is, I’m lost. If I die, I will be in a Christless eternity. I need the righteousness of Jesus Christ to save me.
I mean, however you worded it and however you’re thinking was the time, that’s basically what you were saying. I can’t do it on my own. I need Jesus Christ. And you are coming to the same conclusion that Paul is coming to in our text today and in this chapter and in this whole book. So, if you will, let’s look at how I’ve divided this passage up into two parts. Because I say there are basically the two ways that people are trying to get to heaven. The first one is by keeping the law and the second one is by trusting Christ as Savior. And so by keeping the law, notice in verses 10 through 13, as you look at your own Bible, that there are three or excuse me, four quotations from the Old Testament. Do you see those?
You might have those marked off. My Bible, for example, has the quotation itself in italics. Some Bibles set them off totally. Or you might just have a footnote after each quotation with maybe the reference underneath it or the reference in the margin of your Bible. So you notice on the bulletin that you have or on the screen that you’re looking at, I gave you the four Old Testament references so you don’t have to rewrite them.
You might have them in your Bible. Now, why is that unique? And why am I pointing that out? Because basically, if you’re trying to keep the law to be saved, if you’re trying to be justified by the law, Paul is going to quote from the law four times where the law says itself, you’re not going to get saved this way.
That’s a pretty strong argument when you think about it. Here are these Judaizers saying, you got to keep the law to be saved. Paul says, well, let me tell you what the law says. And in four places, and he probably could have quoted a dozen more, four times the law says you can’t get saved this way. So that’s basically what we’re looking at in these four things.
But notice how I’ve worded them. In other words, if you want to be saved by keeping the law, number one, you must keep all of it. Number two, you must justify yourself. Number three, you must live all of your life by it and you must avoid the curse. So those are the things I want to look at with you as we look at these verses. So the first way, if you’re going to get saved by keeping the law, the first thing is you’ve got to keep all of it. Read it again, verse 10. As many as are of the works of the law, that is, you’re not trusting Christ to save you.
You’re trying to work your way to heaven. Are under the curse. Isn’t it an interesting word?
And we’re going to see that word a couple different times in our text here this morning. What is the curse of the law? Well, in the nutshell, folks, the curse of the law is you have to keep it perfectly. You can’t offend in one jot or tittle of the law.
That’s the curse. If I said to you, have you ever done anything wrong in your life? Who would say I’ve never done anything wrong? I’ve never sinned. I’ve never had a bad thought. I’ve never done anything wrong. Would anyone say that? No, they would say, well, I’ve done more good than bad.
The curse of the law is if you’ve done one thing contrary to God’s standard, you’ve failed. So notice what he says. It is written.
Where is that? Deuteronomy 27, verse 26 says, curse does everyone who does not notice continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. Now, I’ll read to you the passage in these Old Testament passages.
You can turn there if you can or would like to. But what’s interesting about this passage is the list of curses that are in Deuteronomy 27. If you’re looking at that or will look at that, you have beginning in verse 15, curse does everyone who makes any carved or molded image. Verse 16, curse is everyone who treats his father or his mother with contempt. Verse 17, cursed is the one who moves his neighbor’s landmark. He goes through a list of curses until he gets down to the very last one, which is verse 26 and says, cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of the law. Now you say, well, you know, why can’t somebody just say, I think all the law is good.
Here’s why. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, quotes that statement as the curse of the law. In other words, the Holy Spirit means it the way Paul is saying it. And that is, you are under God’s curse if you don’t keep all of the law to do it.
Isn’t that amazing? As many as are under the law, whoever you are trying to work your way to heaven by the Jewish law or any other law, you better be 100%. or you’re not going to make it. Look at chapter 5 again of Galatians that is, chapter 5 and verse 3 where when we get up there he will say it this way, I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. If you want to go that way, fine, you’ve got to keep the whole law. And you remember James, don’t you? You remember the verse in James of course, whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he’s guilty of all. And James will go on to the next verse and say you may not be in a, you murder, you’re guilty of everything or you may not murder but you commit adultery, you’re guilty of everything. So whatever it is that the point that you’ve, you fail in makes you guilty of all. In other words, it makes you a sinner folks and this is why the book of Romans concludes of course after dealing three chapters with everyone in the world finally says all of sin and come short of the glory of God. There’s none righteous, no not one.
And why is it? Because basically he will have said in those three chapters, you’ve sinned somewhere and when you’ve sinned somewhere you’ve become a sinner. One sin condemns you to an eternal hell.
It makes you a sinner because God is just, God is perfect, God is holy and he does not allow unforgiven sin in his presence. So number one, you want to keep the law? You got to keep all of it. And who said that? The law said that. Moses wrote that in Deuteronomy. Secondly, verse 11, but that no one is justified by the law on the side of God, it is evident for now he quotes the second Old Testament verse from Habakkuk to for if you have HAB, it’s Habakkuk.
The just shall live by faith. That sounds like a very familiar New Testament statement, but actually it’s an Old Testament statement. It comes from the book of Habakkuk. I remember when I was in school, I had a class from a professor who was Egyptian by birth and he spoke and wrote Hebrew fluently and he would always say, have a kook. I grew up hearing Habakkuk and he would say, have a kook. And I decided I like the English rather than calling the old guy a kook all the time. So I still like the English pronunciation of Habakkuk.
Okay. Well in that chapter, he says in chapter two and verse four, Habakkuk, behold the proud. His soul is not upright in him.
The just shall live by faith. He points out just the sin of being proud. Now how many here have never, never in your life ever had a proud moment? You never been proud in the sense of pride that is as sin.
I don’t think any of us could hold our hands and yet he’s doing that. The proud person, I think Habakkuk is saying, never thinks that he needs to be forgiven of his own sin. That proud person says, I’m okay. I’m a good man.
I’m a good person. I don’t need to be justified in some other way. And so he continually, all of his life tries to justify himself.
The verse goes on by the way in verse five, indeed because he transgresses by wine. He’s a proud man. He does not stay at home because he enlarges his desire as hell. He is like death and cannot be satisfied.
In other words, he just expands on that. The person who doesn’t think he’s a sinner is a sinner. And yet how can you be right before God by trying to do it yourself? No, by being justified by faith.
And let me justify it by faith. Where would you go in the New Testament to find that list of people? Hebrews chapter 11, we call it the Bible’s Hall of Fame.
And whether we begin with Abel and Enoch and Noah before the law or come up to Abraham and all within the law, what does it say about every Old Testament person? By faith, this person did this. By faith, this person did that. In other words, justified how? By works of the law. No, by faith. And even all of those people that are listed under the Mosaic period, 1400 BC up until Christ, all of them in Hebrews 11 are justified by faith.
And why is that? Because the law itself the prophet Habakkuk reminded us that if you’re going to be justified, you have to be justified by faith. And so we have that here in our chapter in Galatians chapter three also, the just shall live by faith.
Thirdly, not only must you keep all of it, You have to try to justify yourself rather than letting Christ justify you, but number three, you have to live by it. Now here’s an interesting quotation in Leviticus 18. In Leviticus 18, it’s part of what we call the holiness code in the book of Leviticus.
The holiness code is that three chapters, 18, 19, and 20, where Moses specifies all of these wicked sins, many of them sexual type sins, including homosexuality and bestiality and things like that. But even just all of the forms of adultery and fornication, it goes through all of that and says God hates this and God hates this and God hates this. This is an abomination before God. This is an abomination before God.
When you read especially chapter 18, you find that whole list of things. But in verse five of Leviticus 18, you shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments. And then he says this, which if a man does, he shall live by them.
I am the Lord. And then goes off into this list of things. If you do these, you must live by them. What is then being said? Again, we come back to Paul and Paul’s inspired interpretation of it in our verse says, the law is not of faith. The man who does them is going to have to live by them. You’re going to have to do this all of your life all the time. Now, you say, is that really what he’s saying here?
An ongoing responsibility. Let me remind you of Romans chapter 10, where this same verse from Leviticus 18 is quoted by Paul in Romans chapter 10. And by the way, what is Romans chapter 10?
If you’ve ever led someone to Christ, you’ve probably gone to Romans chapter 10. This is part of what we call the Romans road that a foul shall confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead. Thou shall be saved.
How do you get saved by the death, barren resurrection of Jesus Christ? Well, Romans chapter 10 verse four through eight, I’m going to read it to you, comes before that. And here’s what Paul is saying in Romans 10, four through eight. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Now, stop and think about that. Is that not like the book of Galatians? Is that not what the book of Romans is all about? Christ is the end of the law. Quit trying to live by it to everyone who believes that is who comes to him by faith.
I’ll go on. Verse five. For Moses writes about the righteousness, which is of the law, quote, the man who does those things shall live by them. That’s that’s our quote from from Leviticus, right? But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, quote, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven. Now he’s quoting back into Deuteronomy. Now, that is to say, to bring Christ up from above or quote, who will descend into the abyss? Paul says that is to bring Christ up from the dead.
What has he said there? What’s what is the gospel, folks? The gospel is the death, barren resurrection of Jesus Christ, isn’t it? And what is he’s quoting the book of Deuteronomy? They’re saying even the book of Deuteronomy is saying you better know who comes down from heaven and you better know who comes up from the grave. And who is that that Jesus Christ?
So he ends it by saying, but what does it say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. And that is the word of faith, which we preach. Now, what I’m illustrating by by going there is that Paul is also saying hearing Galatians kind of quoting the same thing that he quotes in Romans 10. And that is that if you are going to try to live by the law and be saved by the law, you’re going to have to do it all your life without fail. Not just today, not just on Sunday mornings, not just at one, you know, special time in your life, but all the way.
Excuse me. Let me illustrate that by having you turn in Galatians over to chapter five. And let me remind you of this passage we’ll get to eventually in this book. But from verse 19, actually verse 16 to the end of the chapter is where you have the difference between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. So if you’ve ever memorized the seven fruits of the spirit, there they are in verse 22 and 23. But back up above verse 16 says, I say then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Basically what he’s saying is you’re either going to be walking in the spirit in your life or you’re going to be walking in the lust of your flesh in your life.
One of the two. So in verse 19 or let me say verse 18, if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. You can’t be led by the spirit unless you’re born again. You cannot be led by the spirit unless you have the spirit of God.
So verse 19 says, now the works of the flesh are evident which are. And you see the list and you know what? I bet you you could find something that you’ve done in that list. Maybe not adultery, but fornication or uncleanness. How about in verse 20, how about contentions that ever been in you? How about jealousies, outbursts of wrath? Oh, none of us, surely.
Selfish ambitions? All of these things are works of the flesh. In other words, without Christ, your life is filled with these things.
You do them throughout your life. There’s a big difference between the statement works of the flesh and verse 22, fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is what the Holy Spirit grows in you. When you are saved by faith, the Holy Spirit is in you. Yes, you still have sin, but it’s being overcome by the fruit and the work of the spirit. What do you want to try to do in your life?
Work out in your flesh or let the Holy Spirit grow fruit in you? And so I think he’s going to come to the same thing again. Now look at verse 24 of Galatians 5. And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not be overcome or not become conceited, provoking one another and ending one another. So what are we saying back in chapter 3? Which way do you want to go?
You want to try to work your way into heaven? You’ve got to live that way the rest of your life. But you know your problem? You’re doing it in your own flesh.
You’re doing it by the works of the flesh because you don’t have the Holy Spirit. And you think you’re going to live it that way? He says in chapter 5, here is everything you’re going to do in life. So one more thing here, and that’s in verse 13. You’ve got to avoid the curse.
Interesting. So in verse 13, Christ redeemed us, we’ll come back to that statement in a minute, but Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. There’s that idea of cursing again.
But he says it this way. Redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written. Now a quotation again, this time from Deuteronomy 21.
Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. We know that generally that refers to Christ on the cross, and I’m going to read from Colossians in a minute that of course that is true. But it’s interesting in Deuteronomy 21, at the end of that chapter, chapter 21, from 18 to 23, you have the description of how a person was executed, capital punishment, under the law.
And the reason that is given here in Deuteronomy 21 for capital punishment is when a child curses his or her parents. You want to live by that law? You want to keep the law that way? And so when your child disobeys you, curses you, you should have them stoned to death. Aren’t you glad that the law is passed away?
But here’s what it is about. Matter of fact, verse 20 says, they shall say to the elders of the city, this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, and he will not obey our voice. And besides that, he’s a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones, and shall put away the evil person from among you, and all Israel shall hear in fear. And verse 21, if he has committed a sin worthy of death, he has put to death, you hang him on a tree.
It’s an interesting thing that we don’t often think about. When they would stone a person by stoning, then they would hang the body on a pole or a tree until sundown as an evidence of what justice is all about. In Israel, this is what they did, Deuteronomy 21. You put that body, which is now dead, on a tree, hang it up so that everyone can see, but you must remove it before dark.
You don’t leave it on the tree overnight. Kind of justice with mercy. And yet you say, I don’t see a whole lot of mercy there. But verse 23 says, his body shall remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance for he who is hanged is a cursed of God. That person hanging on the tree has God’s curse on him. Now, I want to read you some words from a commentator.
I thought this was great. Peter Craig and his commentary on Deuteronomy says this, the body was not a cursed of God because it was hanging on a tree. It was hanging on a tree because it was a cursed of God.
Do you understand the difference between those two? And the body was not a cursed of God simply because it was dead, for we all die, but it was a curse because of the reason for the death. To break the law of God and to live as though he that is God did not matter or exist was in effect a cursed God. And he who cursed God would be cursed of God. God.
Or let me put it this way. We are guilty by not keeping the law. And we are accursed by God for that.
If you’re trying to live by good works and you’re trying to get to heaven by how good you are, whether it’s the Mosaic law or any other law that you’re trying to keep, then the curse of God is upon you. Why? Because you have failed to do that.
Not because you’re hanging on a tree, but because you have failed in that. And you will not be a sinner because you’re in hell. You will be in hell because you’re a sinner.
That’s why they were hung on a tree. What happens to people today who sin and are not forgiven, they end up in hell. And they’re there because they’re a sinner. The fact that they’re in hell doesn’t make them a sinner. They are a sinner. Now, let me conclude this first half of our message and just say, no one was ever saved by keeping the law.
And you can see why. And so though I say there are two ways to be saved, as I have said, two ways that people are trying to be saved. And isn’t it a shame, folks, that most of the world and most of the people throughout the history of the world have tried to get to heaven by their own good works? How few are there that really have trusted Christ and said, I can’t make it myself. I can’t do these things.
You’ve got to save me. And those are in the minority. And yet that’s the way life is. That’s the way the human nature is. That’s the way sinners are.
But let me quickly look at the other half of this, just also in verses 13 and 14. And that is, of course, there’s a better way. And there is the only way to get to heaven. And that is through Jesus Christ. I would go back to Romans chapter seven and read a number of verses there.
But let me just summarize it where Paul says in Romans chapter seven, I died to the law because the law killed me. I thought I was a good man until I read the law and then I realized I can’t do that. I thought I was a great man until I read, thou shall not covet.
And I said to myself, I covet all the time. And so I thought I was alive until I read the law and it killed me. And so he says, I died to the law. I can’t do anything, but I am alive to Christ. When I accepted Christ, then the life came in. Then the eternal life came to me. So I want to say four things with the idea of let this happen to you then. First of all, let Jesus Christ redeem you.
Verse 13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. That’s how you get out from under it. That’s how you change sides. You change avenues from your own works to the grace of God. Let him redeem you. Now this word redeemed is a New Testament word. It’s a word that is used often having to do of course with salvation and the forgiveness of sins. The word in the New Testament agorazo, listen to that word agorazo means to buy something back. Just to pay a price, agorazo, to buy. And often it was used in those days of buying a slave because the Roman Empire was full of slavery of course and this was commerce going on all the time.
So you could buy a slave. Well here you have not just the word agorazo, but you have x agorazo, x which means out and to buy. And that means in the slave market language to buy a slave and take him out of the slave market, to take him out of that whole world and that whole life. That’s the word used here, x agorazo and again read the verse, Christ has x agorazo bought us and taken us out from what? From the curse of the law.
That’s why it’s used in that sense here. He takes you out from under that burden and out from under that curse and he buys you with his own blood and his own life, his death, burial and resurrection and no longer are you a slave to your own good works. He’s taking you out of that whole world and set you free. And by the way, there is a third word that has to do with buying and it’s a different word, leutroo, which means to set you free. And we have that by the way and I’m going to read it in 1 Peter chapter one, 18 and 19. Knowing that you are not redeemed, leutroo, you are not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. You were bought with the blood of Christ and having been bought with the blood of Christ, you were taken out from under the works of your own flesh out from under the law and set free. free, so that you are God’s and you are free from the condemnation of that. By the way, at the end of Romans chapter seven, chapter eight, verse one, therefore there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation.
Set free from all of it. You can never be condemned by your failure to do good works. You are bought by the blood of Christ. He paid the price for your freedom with his own blood. So let him redeem you is the first thought.
Secondly, let him be your substitute. Now also in verse 13, notice the pronouns us. He has redeemed us from the curse of the law.
Have him become a curse for us. I’m talking about being a substitute, a substitute for you. Skip down to verse 14, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ that we might receive. Let him be your substitute, that you might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith and so he has become your substitute. Second Corinthians 521, he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. He was our substitute who took our sins on the cross. First Peter 224, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we having died the sins might live to righteousness by whose stripes you were healed, by his stripes, by his blood you are healed.
And he did that on a tree. Now it’s not just the hanging on the cross that was the curse, but rather the bearing of our sins, the bearing of us, our sins as the curse. Listen to Colossians 2, 13 through 15. You being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses and how did he do it? Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements, that’s the law, that was against us, which was contrary to us. Remember the curse of the law, contrary to anything you could do. And he has taken it out of the way having nailed it to his cross.
What is happening there? Jesus Christ went to death for you and me and every human being that ever lived on this earth. And everyone who is trying to live by their good works and is a sinner and all of us are either there or have been there. And he went to that cross bearing not just he had no sin, not just your sin individually, but all the sin of the world.
I don’t think we can imagine what that was. And to have the Heavenly Father turn his back on him because there is the sin of the whole world. And yet what he did was satisfy every demand that the law or any other law had ever made. It’s as if you had never sinned. He’s fulfilled all the demand that would have been on you and he took it upon himself and died in your place.
What a thought that is. I don’t know how we express it. Nailed it to his cross. There Satan, you failed.
I succeeded. There is salvation for the whole world. In 2 Peter 2 1 there’s an interesting statement and there are many statements like this in the New Testament.
But 2 Peter 2 1 says there were also false prophets among the people even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies even denying the Lord who bought them. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world and not just some but everybody. They were bought by the blood of Christ and yet they trample upon the very Savior that could save them. What a terrible thing it is for a sinner to say I don’t want the blood of Christ. He bore that person’s sin on the cross.
The Lord who bought them. So let him be your substitute and quickly let him then also give you a blessing. Verse 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus.
Jesus turned the tables. The thing that would be the curse becomes your blessing. The thing that would curse you and that is not being able to get to heaven by your own good works.
He turns into a blessing because he’s done it for you and he’s paid the price for you. And it is the blessing of Abraham. We don’t have time to develop that whole thought but remember I’ve said the Abrahamic covenant there were three things promised Abraham.
A land, a seed which we’ll talk about in the next message down below and a blessing. In other words you have the Palestinian covenant, the Davidic covenant and the new covenant. And we live under the new covenant and that is grace. That is blessing that comes to us.
us. So you know what? We open our Bible and I say always turn to your Old Testament or to your New Testament, right? And we’re just kind of used to that word. You understand that the word Testament is the word covenant. Same word in Greek. And so the Old Covenant is the Old Mosaic Covenant.
But the New Covenant or New Testament is what? Grace. It’s the dispensation of grace. It is the blessing of the Abrahamic Covenant. And so when we say New Testament or New Covenant, we’re talking about that blessing part that came from Abraham down to us. And you know what the blessing is? You can be saved by faith. That’s the blessing.
Not by any works. There’s a second blessing and that’s my number, that’s my fourth point. Let him give you the Holy Spirit. So it goes on and says, the blessing of Abraham that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And one of the great things is the New Covenant that will, by the way, go on into the millennial reign of Christ and go on into eternity. But the blessing is the gift of the Holy Spirit. So Joel said it when he’s describing it, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your faith is that the Holy Spirit has poured out on us. It started at Pentecost and it goes through the Age of Grace every time somebody gets saved. For by one spirit, are we all baptized into one body?
And so the Holy Spirit is poured out on you when you get saved. Not before, not when you’re trying to do it on your own works. You have no helper.
You have no buddy but yourself. But now you’re living for Christ and the Holy Spirit is in you producing the fruit of the Spirit and you’re living for Christ. Finally, chapter four, verse four through six of Galatians. When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. We asked, by the way, I told you last time, you have God as your father because you are sons. God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts so that you can cry, Abba, father, you can come to him in prayer. You can cry out to God for your needs. He is your father now.
What a great thing this is. And what is the conclusion of these four points? The conclusion is anybody can get saved this way. The conclusion of the first four points, nobody can get saved that way. The conclusion of the last four points, anybody can get saved this way.
And I had down Roman 623. Let me just remind you or quote it to you, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Wages of sin, gift of God. What do you do when you’re working? Why will you go to work tomorrow morning if you still go to work or ever have gone to work?
Why? Why do you go to work to get paid for wages, right? So you work for wages. If you are trying to work your way to heaven, then you will receive wages for it, for your work. And you know what the wages are? The wages of sin is death. You can’t make it that way.
So what do I do? Isn’t it better just to get a gift? I’m not going to work for money. Somebody’s just, you know, I have a rich uncle, he just give me everything. You have a heavenly father who owns a cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mind, and he’s ready to give you his riches. And his riches are eternal life. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Isn’t it better to go the way of a gift rather than the way of wages, especially when the wages only get you death rather except Christ the Savior.
That’s the only real way to heaven. Stand now with me if you will. Let’s stand and we’ll sing a song as we think about these things and ask the Lord to speak to our hearts and the hearts of any who hear a message like this today.
Let’s pray together. Father, again and again in this book of Galatians, we read it. We have to be saved by faith. And Father, we say it with gladness. We say it with joyfulness, with thankfulness in our hearts because we know we couldn’t have come any other way. We know we were lost without hope, without God in this world, that Jesus died for us and we received it as a gift. And we have eternal life.
How simple, how great. And Father, yet as we’re reminded, you’ve told us that most of the world is undersigned. Most of the world has said no to your offer. Father, I pray that today on this Lord’s Day, wherever the word is preached, that souls would come to Christ, whether here in our midst or across this world. Father, I pray that you would bless those messages that are preached and bless the hearing of your word.
I pray the Holy Spirit would do his work in those hearts. But Father, may we who know you praise you and thank you and always live joyfully before you that were delivered from death, even from the condemnation of our sin. And we live in your grace. Thank you for that. Now, bless as we sing and we allow you to speak to our hearts in the way that you need and that we need and we pray, Father, for the results of that in Jesus’ name. Amen. Gordon’s going to come and lead us in this song. You respond to this message in the way you want, either as we sing or as our services close. Do what the Lord is leading you to do.
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