Transcription downloaded from https://legacy.freechurch.org/sermons/4675/crucified-with-christ/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Paul's epistle to the Galatians and I would like to look with you at these words that we have in the end of the chapter from verse 19. Galatians chapter 2 verse 19, for I through the law am dead to the law that I might live unto God.

[0:28] I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me.

[0:39] In the life which I know live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness come by the Lord, the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Now in these verses we have some very remarkable statements, statements or affirmations which Paul makes about himself as a believer.

[1:31] Statements which appear to be self-contradictory are paradoxical as they say, seem to be against each other. And yet they are so true and so fundamental to the spiritual experience of those who are in Christ Jesus.

[2:11] Paul here is speaking about his own death and his own resurrection.

[2:26] For I through the law have died to the law that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ nevertheless I live. Yet not I but Christ liveth in me.

[2:50] Now we might consider these words first of all in the light of Paul's arguments in defense of the basic doctrines of the gospel which he preached.

[3:17] We have to understand the context in which Paul is using these mighty words. He is arguing in defense of the particularly the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ alone.

[3:39] He was defending this truth against the Jews against the Jews, the Judaizing teacher who insisted that it was not enough to believe in Christ without conforming to the outward rights and observances of the the law of the law of Moses.

[4:14] They said you cannot be justified by faith alone. You have to fulfill these rights and ordinances that God gave to the Father.

[4:28] And as we read in the book of Acts, it is summed up in what they said, except they said you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved.

[4:42] And in this letter which somebody has described as the explosion epism, Paul explodes and shatters the arguments of the false teachers as being contrary to the gospel.

[5:04] Pointing out that such carnal rights and ordinances under the old dispensation had been done away in Christ.

[5:15] Christ, he said, Christ, he said is the end, the fulfillment of the law for righteousness. The law was only guiding us and directing us to him for justification and salvation because these things had no inherent merit in themselves.

[5:37] Only Christ Jesus is sufficient for our justification, for our peace with God. Christ is the end, the fulfilling of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.

[5:59] Now, he said in the epistle to the Romans, now is the righteousness of God without the law. That is without the works of the law, this righteousness is manifested.

[6:15] Even the righteousness which is by faith in Christ unto all and upon all who believe, for there is no difference.

[6:27] Now, you may say that you have heard this so often. The important question is, do we realize?

[6:39] Do we really appreciate this truth for which Paul was arguing and contending? That nothing, nothing other than the righteousness of Christ is sufficient for the sinner in the sight of God.

[6:53] It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you perform. It is not sufficient. But if you believe in Christ, if you trust in him, he is sufficient.

[7:10] He is all sufficient. He is the all sufficient ground of your justification in the sight of God. You needn't add anything to what he has done.

[7:23] You are complete in him. That is as far as you're standing in the sight of God is concerned. You are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

[7:42] If righteousness, said Paul, is from, is by the law in any way, then Christ died in vain. He died to, he died to accomplish something which might have been accomplished some other way.

[8:03] But no, he died because there was no other way. He suffered for sin.

[8:16] And he made peace through his own sacrifice on the cross. The question at issue at Antioch was whether the Gentile Christians could have fellowship with the Jewish without conforming to the Jewish rights.

[8:44] And it was concerning this question, you know, that, that Paul had to rebuke another apostle, Peter.

[8:59] He rebuked him to his face because he believed that he was to be blamed. What for? Well, Peter ate with the Gentiles.

[9:10] He used his Christian liberty with them at Antioch, believing that they were, they were one family with the Christians, the Jewish and Christ Jesus.

[9:22] But then when those of the circumcision came, certain Jews of the circumcision, they came down from Jerusalem. Peter withdrew himself for fear of offending the circumcision.

[9:37] And others joined with him in his inconsistency. Well, you see, Peter wasn't prepared to take a stand.

[9:48] He, he compromised on this matter and he was, he was undermining the, the doctrines which he himself had preached.

[10:02] The gospel which he and Paul was preaching, he was undermining it by his, by his inconsistency. And this is an incident where between two leading apostles at variance over the merits of, of the ceremonial law.

[10:20] It is an incident which shows us how easy it is to be afraid because of man. The fear of man brings a snare, the Bible tells us.

[10:36] And Peter was not prepared to take a stand like Paul was. And Paul considered that this was, this was wrong, that this was not in accordance with his, with his witness, with his profession.

[10:55] And how often this besets us in life. How easy it is to hide our light.

[11:07] When it, when it becomes, when it, when it becomes difficult for us to take a stand. And especially for fear of offending. And this is what Peter did.

[11:21] This conduct Paul considered unworthy of rebuke. And he withstood him to the face. He was denying the faith that he preached.

[11:32] He was rejecting the sufficiency of Christ as the only one who was sufficient, who alone could justify us.

[11:48] If, says Paul, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ is all sufficient. Why go back to these legal rights and ordinances which have been abolished?

[12:06] Why abandon the liberty which is in Christ Jesus for carnal ordinances which lead to bondage?

[12:18] Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, he said. Going back to Moses from Christ, have you forgotten?

[12:30] This only would I learn of you. Received ye the spirit by the works of the Lord, by the hearing of faith.

[12:42] Are you so foolish having begun in the spirit? Are you now made perfect by the flesh? No, Paul says, I can't go back to these things.

[12:59] If I build again those things which I have destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

[13:13] I have been a transgressor by setting these things aside. But no, I cannot build these things up again for I, through the law, I have died to the law that I might live unto God.

[13:31] I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. What a depth of understanding Paul had of his union with Christ in his death and in his resurrection.

[13:51] You say, well, you must try and understand it because it's very basic to your salvation. That you have been identified with Christ in his death for you and in your place for you as a sinner.

[14:11] You see how important it is to know these truths and of the gospel so that they may be indeed the foundations of our faith and our hope.

[14:25] I, through the law, have died to the law.

[14:37] Now I want to suggest how the apostle is using the first person pronoun here.

[14:52] I, the personal pronoun I. Let's look at the ways in which we can derive teaching from this use that Paul makes of the I.

[15:11] First of all, I, through the law, have died to the law. Here is the death of the old man.

[15:23] The old self. The Pharisee. The legalist.

[15:35] Who believed that he was already justified. You remember how Saul of Tarsus was according to the righteousness of the law blameless.

[15:47] And that's what made him so full of zeal against the church of Christ. But he could speak as no one else as being under the law at one time as a Pharisee.

[16:07] But you see he discovered that he was deceived. He was convicted of his sin, of his state before God.

[16:19] When the commandment came, he said. When it was applied by the Spirit and when I was brought to life to realize I died.

[16:34] I died to all my former hopes and expectations. All my hopes as a Pharisee were shattered. But not only did I die in the sense that I was convicted of being under condemnation.

[16:55] But I died in another sense. I have died to the law as a means of justification in the person of another.

[17:08] I have been crucified with Christ. He fulfilled the law in my place. And I have been discharged. As we can use that word.

[17:20] I have been discharged from the law. The law which condemned me. The law under which I was accursed.

[17:31] I was cursed. Through the death of Christ I have been discharged. For the old man has been crucified with him once and for all.

[17:42] And that is what he tells the role in the epistle to the Romans. That the old man is crucified with him. And then in that same epistle he uses the illustration of marriage.

[18:00] The law of marriage is an illustration of this. He says if the husband dies. Then the woman is legally free to marry another.

[18:11] So my brethren. Ye also have died to the law through the body of Christ. That ye should be married to another. The legal obligation under which you were.

[18:25] Has been terminated. By death. By the death of Christ. He who is dead. Is freed from sin.

[18:36] That is freed from his condemnation. He is delivered from his curse. I through the law. Have died to the law that I might live.

[18:50] And to God. I could never live to God until I was freed from the curse. You realize that you can't live to God.

[19:02] Until you are delivered from condemnation. Until you receive the grace of God. Until you find that Christ alone is your righteousness.

[19:15] And your just. And your. And your sanctification and your redemption. And your sins. And your sins reign. And your sins.

[19:26] And your sins. Nevermore sins. tourism. But then secondly. You notice you notice the eye of the new man. The eye of the new man.

[19:52] a partaker of Christ's life. He is risen with him. He is married to another. He is a partaker of his risen life, the life which he purchased, with which he is risen for our justification.

[20:15] If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things have passed away, all things have become new. The resurrection is a spiritual fact in the experience of the Lord's people.

[20:38] They have been raised up. If ye then be risen with Christ, how do you understand these words? If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, for ye are dead. You are dead to sin, you are dead to the law, you are dead to the world, and your life is hid with Christ in God. I live. That is a wonderful statement. Paul talking about his death, and then he's talking about his resurrection. I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. He lives in me by his spirit. The new man is essentially the same man, and yet he's not. There is a new principle of life begotten in his soul. He is a partaker of the divine nature. Through the spirit of God, one with Christ, by the spirit he is one in him, he is one with him. The spirit of the sun, the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father, I live. How far can you identify with Paul in these words? You see, I can't understand that at all.

[22:18] While I'm sure that the believers here can understand this, who have passed from death to life, in a spiritual sense, they are not what they were. They are risen. They are partakers of life in Christ. They have found peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

[22:44] There is a new nature within them, which thirsts after God, which seeks to do his will, which finds delight in his law after the inward man.

[22:56] I live, yet not die, but Christ lives in me. It was Dr. Lloyd-Jones, I think, who said this. The fundamental elements of our personality are not changed by being born again.

[23:18] But the new man means a new spiritual understanding and a new disposition in all the faculties of our soul toward God.

[23:32] It is a gracious disposition that delights in God after the inward man. I will put my laws in their minds and write them in their hearts.

[23:47] And so I will be to them a God and they will be to me a people. I live, yet not die, but Christ. Christ who is my life.

[24:08] I live, yet not die, but Christ who is my life. I live, yet not die, but Christ who is my life shall appear, and we shall appear with him in glory.

[24:21] But then there is a third eye. We have the eye of the transformed man. The transformed man. The life that I now live. I live by the faith of the Son of God.

[24:45] You see, God doesn't save part of us. And much as we talk about our souls being saved, the Bible is talking about the soul as being, as including the whole person.

[25:08] It is the whole person. It is the whole person. It is the whole person. It is the whole person. It is not just a part of us, but the whole personality.

[25:22] And it is that whole personality that has to be yielded up to God. When man sinned, it wasn't a part of him that sinned. It was man that sinned.

[25:36] And when man is saved, it is not a part of him, but the whole of him. He said, I live by the grace of God. I live by the grace of God. I live by the faith of the Son of God.

[25:49] No, Paul doesn't say that he is living a perfect life. The flesh still lusts against the spirit of God. And the spirit against the flesh. And he says himself that when he would do good, he finds evil present.

[26:03] And he says to God, I live by the grace of God. And I live by the grace of God. And I live by the grace of God.

[26:15] And I live by the grace of God. And the spirit against the flesh. And he says himself that when he would do good, he finds evil present.

[26:26] The tendency, the tendency to sin. Although the sin has no longer, although we're no longer under its dominion as believers.

[26:38] Yet there is the tendency to sin in us. And it's kind of tendency. Because you see the nature of sin doesn't alter.

[26:52] And yet we are not under its dominion. As those are who have not, who have not been saved.

[27:05] The tendency to sin. The tendency to self-righteousness. The tendency to be legalistic lurks in our hearts.

[27:18] And even in the hearts of believers, we are prone to rest in the letter of the law. In the letter. In external obedience.

[27:30] Well, external obedience, there's nothing wrong with it. But you see, God looks at the heart. And what is behind it. And what motivates your obedience.

[27:43] You see, we have not sufficient, we don't pay sufficient attention to the spiritual demands of God's will. God's law.

[27:54] It demands faith, first of all. It demands love. It demands obedience from the heart. God's law. The human conscience can persuade us to do a lot of good things.

[28:15] Without any love to God. God's law. And I ask you, how many things do you do out of love to Christ? How many efforts are you persuaded or constrained to do because you are under obligation to the one who loved you?

[28:41] We may say, well, I'm doing my duty the best I can. I keep the law.

[28:53] I keep the Sabbath. I attend the means of grace. I pray. I read the Bible. I support the church.

[29:04] And I'm as good as others and even better. That all may be very well and good. And all these have I kept from my youth up, said the young man, to the Lord Jesus Himself.

[29:21] All these, what lack I? Oh, you lack something. Very, very basic. basic. These things will not make up for your lack of faith and love to the Lord Jesus.

[29:44] Is it love to the Lord that motivates me, motivates you in our obedience or is it the love of self perhaps? Or is it just conforming to some outward rules and standards and traditions which have become part of us? We have been molded by them in such a way that we almost think that we would die unless we would conform to them.

[30:21] You know how many people are so bound by these things that they almost think that God would not look at them unless they were putting themselves into a particular kind of position. Unless they were sitting or standing or putting themselves into the right seat, God wouldn't hear that.

[30:44] And that is you see the extent to which man can be carried away without any perhaps without being motivated spiritually by love, loving obedience.

[30:57] The legal conscience can turn the gospel into a form of self-righteousness. I know so much about it. I know so much about the doctrines of the gospel. Ah, that's not the test. The test is how much do you apply? How much do I apply? How much do I do out of love to the Lord, ignorance of the purpose and design of the Lord?

[31:11] Pride and contention and division. The law of God is immutable, of course. The law of God is, we are bound under, we are ever under obligation to God as God's creatures. We shall ever be under it as his creatures.

[32:02] But as sinners, that law cannot, can never justify us. It cannot give us life. It cannot give us peace with God.

[32:15] By the works of the law no flesh can be justified, says Paul in God's sight. But by the law is the knowledge of sin. It is only when you try to satisfy the law that you discover how sinful your heart is and how difficult it is and how impossible it is to obey it in your own heart and in your own soul.

[32:40] Justification is only by grace, not by works. And through the merits of him who fulfilled the demands of the law of God and bore its curse, the just for the unjust.

[32:58] And you try and grasp hold of this cardinal and this central truth of the Christian salvation that there is salvation in none other.

[33:09] No matter what we try to put in its place, it will not suffice in the end. Though my, should my tears forever flow, though my grief no right respite no, all for sin could not atone.

[33:28] Thou must save and thou alone. Thou must save and thou alone. The renewed, the transformed man is the man who by the grace of God rests on Christ alone.

[33:44] His life is a life of faith. A life of dependence. But it is a life of obedience.

[33:55] It is a life of righteousness. Righteousness. Righteousness. Here is the righteous man. The life that I live. It is not a life that remains hidden.

[34:08] No use. Although it is true that life is in a very real sense hidden and mysterious. Yet, it must not remain hidden.

[34:19] It finds expression. As every life must do. It must find expression in obedience to the will of Christ. That I might live unto God.

[34:36] This is the great end. And the great purpose for which Paul was redeemed. And raised to newness of life. God.

[34:47] And that is the great end for which he quickens us and redeems us that we might live unto God. To his will. To his glory.

[34:58] But I think there is just another eye. There is a great end for the eye of the humble servant of Jesus Christ.

[35:12] He fills himself under a deep sense of obligation, gratitude. To him who loved me. And gave himself for me.

[35:25] That is the kind of life that he lived you see. A life of gratitude. To the Lord who loved him. He was constrained by this sense of love.

[35:37] The love of God to himself. He offered himself entirely. To him as an offering of thanksgiving. As one who had been redeemed.

[35:48] By his precious blood. His obedience was motivated by a sense. Not just of his own love to him.

[35:59] But a sense of the love of Christ. For the love of Christ he said constraineth us.

[36:10] Oh well what a, what a bright witness to the love of Christ Paul was. How dedicated he was and committed he was to his will.

[36:28] And when we consider the love of Christ. How it was manifested to us and exercised. Should we not feel constrained by that love to live to him?

[36:43] Is he not worthy of our obedience, of our trust, of our loyalty? Who loved me? Personally, you see Paul is making this a personal matter.

[36:56] He is feeling personally under obligation. This surely does not mean obedience without respect to the law of God. No, no. You see there is no such a thing in Paul's arguments as antinomianism.

[37:11] That the law has been abolished. That people just love God and that that's enough. No, that's not Paul's teaching.

[37:23] He was anything but an antinomian. Do we then make wide the law? He says through faith God forbid. Love doesn't make the law of God wide.

[37:36] It establishes the law. Because law and love are not at variance. They are joined together.

[37:48] This is the love of God that we keep. His commandments said John. The law is the believer's rule of life, rule of faith and rule of life, which by grace he endeavors to fulfill in the obedience of faith and love.

[38:12] The life that I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me. And the fact that it was the Son of God who loved me, makes it all the more wonderful.

[38:25] And places us under all the greater obligation. It was not an angel who loved us or died for us.

[38:38] But the Son of God. And you know, we could think in different aspects of this obedience that is that springs from love to Christ.

[38:53] And what it demands of us. It demands so many things. It demands self-denial. Not I.

[39:06] Not I. Not I. But Christ. That, that, that I means that Christ, not only have I, do I know him, but he has become my master.

[39:21] He is the ruler. He is the Lord. Not I, but Christ. I labored more abundantly than all.

[39:33] Yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me, says Paul. Well, you know how we are in the habit of using I so often in different senses.

[39:47] I this and I that. I thank thee, said the other man. I thank thee that I'm not like other men.

[40:02] I fast twice a week. I tithe all, of all that I possess.

[40:15] I. The eye of the Pharisee. And then there's the eye of Peter.

[40:27] Though all men should deny thee, I shall never deny thee. Peter, poor Peter, was unaware of his own weakness.

[40:42] Ah, but you see the Lord was ready to receive him and to restore him because he was, he was, he, he, he fell through his own ignorance.

[40:53] And we are so weak and so ignorant when we say the eyes, we use the eyes because we are so ignorant of self, of our own insufficiency. Ah, but Paul said, not I, I can't rely on the eye anymore, but Christ lives in me.

[41:15] And the life that I live is a life of faith in the Son of God.

[41:34] I am motivated by the love which has been shed abroad in my heart. I am deeply obliged to him.

[41:45] I am, I have, I know that I am, I have to be completely committed to him. And then, Paul could say, to me, to live is Christ.

[42:02] What do you mean? He meant that there was no other purpose in life for him but the one. That there was only one master, one Lord, whom he was obliged to serve continually.

[42:21] I live. Yet not I but Christ. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

[42:35] Is this the quality of my life? You know how they talk about the quality of life these days?

[42:48] Improving the quality of life. Well, what is the quality of my spiritual life?

[43:00] Am I inclined to rest in my own works, my own good deeds? Or am I motivated daily by love to the Lord Jesus Christ, seeking to love him, to obey him, and to glorify him who loved me, gave himself for me?

[43:21] May the Lord bless to us these thoughts. Let us pray. Lord, give us, give us the understanding that is according to thy word.

[43:37] Lead and guide us with thy counsel in the paths of righteousness. And grant that our hearts may be moved continually by that love which can never fail.

[43:55] May our trust be ever in the Lord Jesus for our own salvation. May we ever seek by thy grace to be yielded to him as our Lord and Master.

[44:11] Forgive us, O Lord, for our mistakes, for our ignorance in these things, and for failing so much in what we profess to know and to believe.

[44:29] For lacking the understanding and the power and the strength to apply this word of thine continually.

[44:43] And do thou, O Lord, bless all that has been done today. And the prayer and the offerings of thy people.

[44:57] We pray that many may have been blessed. May have received a blessing from thee through their attendance on these means of thy grace.

[45:09] And that they may be strengthened in thy way. And that they may go forward seeking to honor and glorify thyself.

[45:21]  We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.