The Righteousness of God Without the Law Explained

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. All right, ready to go on another program, and we're going to go right back to where we left off in our last lesson. That's Romans chapter 23, Romans 3, verse 20, and then we'll go on into verse 21. Once again, we'd like to welcome all of you. I know some of you have come quite a distance today, and we just appreciate the effort that all of you put forth, and we always like to thank all of our listeners and our contributors, those who write, those who call, that were so appreciative, because after all, I could never do this without the help of God's people, and we can't possibly write personally to everyone. I try to personally answer every direct question, but there are a lot of folk I know. I finally wrote to a dear lady who was, I think, the very first contribution we got way back when we first started, and that dear lady has never missed a month that I'm aware of, as long as we've been on the air. With her small contribution, a widow's might, I'm sure she's on real limited income. In fact, I wrote her originally that we didn't want to even take money from someone who needs it so badly, but nevertheless, I wrote her a note the other day of how much we have appreciated her faithfulness, and I know that there are a lot of people that can't give financially that are praying their hearts out, and I appreciate that just as much, because without prayer, you see, I could do nothing. Again, we like to let the audience know for a few more weeks, we've got a display to show that our books are available, and every program going all the way back to Genesis 1 are available either by video, and the videos have been transcribed into the little booklet form, and we don't make anything on them, so don't feel that when you order a book that you're helping the ministry by five bucks, because they cost us $4 .93 to get printed, and with paper going up, it'll probably go beyond that. So anyway, we're doing it just to get the word out, and I had a lady who was making some kind of a classwork up in Michigan, and she said, after interviewing me a little bit, she said, well, you do this just for the Lord, and I said, absolutely, and I never take a penny for what I do, and we do it only because we love the Lord, and we feel the time is short. There are hungry people all over this country, and we want to get the word out. So anyway, if you're interested in the little books or the videos, you give us a call, or drop us a line, and we'll get them out to you as quickly as we can. All right, now let's get back to the most important thing at hand, and that of course is the Word of God. Romans chapter 3, and remember the last half hour we were talking about the Law does nothing but condemn a person. The Law can do nothing to help us get to heaven. You can keep the commandments till you're blue in the face, and it's not going to cut any muster at the great white throne. And you remember Jesus Himself told so many, and they all say in that day, but Lord, didn't I this, and didn't I that? And He'll say, depart from Me, I never knew you. And why didn't He know them? Because they had never come God's way. Now, those of you who have been with me for a long time over the years, you know that I have two statements, and I call them the two absolutes of Scripture, and I was kind of reserving them. I may use them at a later seminar, but whatever. Those two attributes are both in Hebrews, the book of Hebrews, and we won't take time to look them up. But the one says that without faith it is impossible to please God, without faith. And the other one is just as important and just as set in concrete, and that is without the shedding of blood there is no remission. And so we always have to, in the light of what we saw in the last half hour, in light of what we're going to see today, never lose sight of those two precepts. That without faith you cannot please God, and that you can get nowhere with God without the shedding of blood, which of course now goes back to the cross. Alright, now then again, just a quick review of verse 20 in order to go into verse 21, where Paul wrote, But therefore by the deeds or the keeping of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge or the awareness of sin, and I told you that was old Adam. That's where it was. That law could do nothing but condemn. It had no power, even to the Jew, it had no power to help the Jew be a law keeper. All it could do was just condemn him. But, the next verse says, and what have I always said about that little three letter word, B-U-T? Flip side, flip side. Oh, the law can't do anything, all it can do is point the finger and say you're guilty. But, but, but, now, see, the righteousness of God, not human righteousness, they're like filthy rags, you remember, but the righteousness of God without the law. Can you get it any plainer than that? The righteousness of God without the law is manifested, put in the spotlight, witnessed by the law and the prophets. Now, Paul, you see, comes on the scene rather late in the progressive revelations, doesn't he? Here we've come all the way up through the Old Testament, even in our study. We start back there in Genesis and we came all the way past the flood, we came past the Tower of Babel, we came to the call of Abraham, we came to the covenant promises, we came to Isaac and Jacob, and then finally here comes the nation of Israel out of Egypt and into the Sinai, and they get the law under Moses, and then along come the prophets, all pleading with the nation of Israel to straighten up their act, because if they don't, this is what's going to happen. That's prophecy. And then finally, prophecy was fulfilled to a great degree when Christ came the first time. That was prophecy. Everything had been foretold, every jot and tittle was fulfilled concerning His first coming, and then Israel under Peter and the eleven continued to reject all these offers, and when Israel was just seemingly going further and further away, God did something that even the Jew couldn't understand. He saved another little Jew and told him from day one, I'm going to send you to the Gentiles. Now, you want to remember, as I've shown so often on this program, keep your hand here in Romans 3. Come back with me to Ephesians, because this is hard for some people to swallow. I'm thankful for the hundreds of letters that we're getting that people say, oh, for the first time I'm understanding my Bible, because you're the first one that has pointed out the difference between law and grace. You're the first one that has shown the difference between Peter and Paul, God dealing with Israel, and God dealing with the Gentiles, and you have to get that straight if you're going to understand what God is trying to say, because until you get that straight, you're going to be living in a half world of confusion. All right, Ephesians chapter 2. We've looked at these verses many times, even on the program. Ephesians 2, verse 11. This same apostle that's writing the book of Romans writes now to the Ephesians, "...wherefore remember," oh, understand, "...that you being in times past Gentiles," see, not Jews, Gentiles, "...who are called uncircumcision by those who are called the circumcision, that is, in the flesh made by hand." In other words, the Jew referred to the Gentile as uncircumcised. And now verse 12, "...that at that time," what time? Oh, while God was dealing with the Jew under the Law. All those 2,000 years from Abraham until the Apostle Paul comes on the scene, God's dealing with the Jew under the Law. And this is what Paul is looking back at, and he says, "...at that time you Gentiles were without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel." Now I'm taking this slowly. I want you to see what it says. Don't just read a bunch of words. See what it says. Aliens. Well, what's an alien? He's a foreigner. He has no rights because he's not a citizen. And so he says, "...you Gentiles were aliens from that commonwealth of Israel." In other words, everything that God was doing for the Jew didn't apply to a Gentile because we weren't a citizen of Israel. The book says it. I'm not. "...and strangers from the covenants of promise." Oh, who had the covenants? The Jew, first given to Abraham, repeated to Isaac. Jacob, I just went through it a minute ago. Gentiles had no part of that. They were outside the covenant's promises. The book says so. "...and without God in the world." No wonder they were all pagan. You know, somebody can get so nitpicky once in a while, and that's all right. I don't mind. But I'd made the statement. You see, there wasn't a single person who had a knowledge of the one true God except when God was able to go down and touch Abram, knowing that he'd be a man who would respond, and then beginning with Abram, God made the promise, "...you're going to have a nation of people that are going to be the only people on earth who have a knowledge of the one true God." Well, then I had somebody, and I couldn't argue the point. He said, "...well, what about old Seth?" Well, I guess Seth was still living, so maybe he was one. But whatever. The point is, the whole then-known world was steeped in paganism. Now we just got back from a glorious trip to Greece and Ephesus and Corinth, and all you see on every hand in those ancient cities were temples to the gods and goddesses. My, when you stand down there at the Acropolis, and you look at that huge outcropping, and then way at the top sits that beautiful Parthenon. And I'll have to admit, I guess I was ignorant, whether it was a high school teacher who misled me, but I always thought, you see, the Parthenon was their seat of government. No, no, no, Guy says, it had nothing to do with government. It was just a temple to a goddess. Well, then what I have to look at is those poor people somehow or other had to get all that heavy rock work and all that heavy marble cleared up to the top of that outcropping, not to mention the work of building the beautiful thing, and all for a female goddess? Oh, think about it. But that was the ancient world, steeped in that kind of idolatry, paganism, no knowledge of the one true God. And that's what Paul is reminding us, without God. But now, see, the same word I just showed you in Romans 3.21, but now, oh, what a difference. Now God isn't saying, hey, I'm only dealing with the Jew. Now He's saying that on the basis of the finished work of the cross, He's dealing with us Gentiles. Read the next verse in Ephesians 2, verse 13, But now in Christ Jesus, you Gentiles, who were at one time far off, oh, indeed they were. They were steeped in paganism. They had no knowledge of the God of Abraham. But now you're made nigh by the what? The blood. That's why I gave you those first two statements. Without faith, it's impossible to please God, and without the shedding of blood, there is no way you can have remission of sin. Now, come back again to Romans. The only way you can deal with old Adam is on those two premises, faith and the shed blood. You can't escape them. And now you just analyze, maybe even someone here, I don't know all of you that well. If you think you can try your dead level best, if you think by just simply going to church, and again, don't ever misconstrue that I'm against church. I'm an active church member myself. But that going to church doesn't gain you points for salvation. There are many a soul in hell tonight who never missed filling their pew on Sunday morning, maybe even Sunday night. And they thought they were gaining it on their own good works. But they never understood that they were riding that tremendous horse I told you about last program. And that old horse was just loaded with energy to do evil, but they were able to keep it curried and calmed and dressed. Maybe they went through life and had themselves fooled all the way. But if the log could have really manifested itself, their beautiful horse would have exploded too. But here we are now in verse 21 again of Romans 3. But now, this side of the cross, not that side, I'll get in trouble yet. Five years I've gone pretty good. I've mentioned before, but I haven't made a big deal of it. My class people are constantly telling me all we hear Sunday after Sunday are sermons from the four Gospels. One gentleman even went so far, he didn't quite believe me when I repeated that one day, he made a log every Sunday morning sermon for four months. The other day he gave it to me. Only once did they depart from the four Gospels and they went to 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, and anybody can preach a sermon out of that. But other than that, it was all from Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Not once did they get into these parts of doctrine. And then it's not alone, and it was funny when I shared it with one of the classes, everybody in the class said, well that must have been my church. No it wasn't, because I know this is routine, and if I've got pastors and I know I do. Pastors, if you're listening to me tonight, for goodness sakes, get to where the meat is. You have to get into these writings of Paul, because see the Gospels, the cross hadn't even been accomplished yet, and why can't people realize that? Christ wasn't preaching death, burial, and resurrection in His earthly ministry. How could He? It hadn't even taken place. Oh, He knew it was coming. You know, I've shown you Luke 18 so often, where He told the disciples, we go up to Jerusalem, and everything written by the prophets shall be accomplished. He'll be spit upon, He will be beaten, He's going to be put to death, and on the third day He's going to rise again from the dead. He told them, but what does the next verse say? They understood none of these things, because it was hidden from them. Well, that gets back to what I said a moment ago. So here, after all these things have been kept hidden forever so long, now after Christ has finished the work of the cross, He's ascended back to glory, He's sent the Holy Spirit, now He reveals to this other apostle, the one everybody likes to push back in the corner. They don't want to fool with Paul, but it's to that apostle that all these great truths of salvation are now revealed. And that's why he says then in verse 21 here, "...but now, as a result of the ascended Lord revealing to him that the finished work of the cross did something for the human race." It did the things that man can't do. All right, we'll read at it again. Verse 21, "...that the righteousness of God without the law is manifested." Put in the spotlight. How? By the Law and the Prophets. That's the Old Testament. Absolutely. When I stress Paul, I'm never going to say ignore the Gospels. I'm never going to say ignore the Old Testament. We take the whole book from cover to cover, but you have to begin with some basics. Oh, a verse just comes to mind. I'm jumping, aren't I? 1 Corinthians chapter 3. And if these things aren't true, then Paul is going to have the hottest corner in the lake of fire. That's right. If what he writes is not true, then he's the biggest liar that ever walked, then he's the biggest imposter that ever wrote, but he's not. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, beginning at verse 9. Or he says, "...we are laborers together with God." You, as he speaks to believers, are God's husbandry. You are God's building. Verse 10, "...according to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I," Paul says, "...have laid the foundation." Now, if he didn't, then he's a liar. And if he's a liar, then his writings have no business in this book. But they are, because he's not. The Holy Spirit inspired the man to write just exactly what he wrote, and he says, "...I am the master builder." Now, when does the master builder come into the scene? Halfway up from the ground up. Paul doesn't come in as a master builder and start continuing with something that has already been building for years and years. Paul comes in and he starts with a brand new foundation. And what is that foundation? Jesus Christ and Him crucified, buried, and risen again. You see the difference? That's where he starts his building, and that's what he says in the next verse, "...for other foundation," see, "...for other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Now, you see, we're being confronted today, politically and every other which way, of a consortium of the religions of the world coming together. They used to call it ecumenicalism. You don't hear that much anymore. I guess it's still part of it. But nevertheless, I had a young man call me the other day from, I think it was from Iowa, and his pastor had made the statement the previous Sunday morning that, after all, all the religions of the world that are monotheistic, in other words, they worship the one God, all of those put together are all in Christ, they're all believers, they're all going to heaven. And he called to say now, he says, I don't know much, but he had seen some of our tapes from a friend. And he says, I know this much, that's not right. Well, I guess that's not right, because you see, all these other religions of the world know nothing of Jesus Christ as their foundation, and here's where we have to be adamant. Yeah, that's narrow. I'll grant you it's narrow. This is a narrow book. And then when people come to me and they say, well, now wait a minute, the Koran and the book of this and the book of that, are they all wrong? Well, I'll just come back with another question. Can you name me one other book besides this one that predicted things thousands of years in advance, and they happened? Do you know of another religious book of whatever kind that can even tell a prophecy five years in advance, let alone five hundred or a thousand or more? It's the only one, see? And that's why we don't have to take a back seat when we defend this book. Prophecy has secured its accuracy. If you can see that what was foretold concerning Christ's first coming, and it all happened, 360 some, I think, individual prophecies, all fulfilled completely, and then you say that the rest of it may not be true, well, there's something wrong with your thinking. But it is true. Alright, and so come back again to what Paul has just said. I'm the master builder. I've laid the foundation. Jesus Christ is the one and only foundation for what we believe. Alright, now let's get back to Romans 3, or we won't make any headway at all. I'll probably be in Romans for the next five years. Now verse 22, "...even the righteousness of God..." Now you see, man's righteousness is never brought in here. Not a thing of man's good works is even mentioned. We're talking only about the righteousness of God. "...even the righteousness of God, which is by faith," or faith in Jesus Christ. Now watch how it is appropriated. "...unto all, and upon all them that..." What's the problem with those places? I always tell people, now look and analyze how many different things would the world's religions have to put in there. But it doesn't. It's not in there. It says, "...all of this has happened to them who believe, plus nothing." Oh, that riles people up. I know it does, but I can't help it. I'm not about to say this verse says, "...to them that believe, and repent, and are baptized, join a church, or whatever else you want to put in there." It doesn't say it, and we have no right to put it in there, because this is a whole new concept now on this side of the cross, that because Christ died, shed His blood, and was able to scream in His final words from that horrible cross, it is what? Finished. And what's the human race trying to do? Add to it, oh, He didn't quite finish it. I've got to do this. That's not what the book says. The book says it's finished. It's complete. God has done everything that needs to be done to take care of old Adam, to give us a new divine nature, to set our feet on a rock, all the things that you want to put in there. It was all accomplished when He said it's finished, and we can't add anything to it. And so here it is. It's all done unto them that believe. Now, when I say believe, I'm not talking about a simple acknowledgment, well, yeah, I guess that's the way it was. No, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a genuine heart condition, when that old Adam has been erupted by the law that has condemned him and convicted him, and then we cry out for mercy. I shouldn't say that, and I'm going to take that back. We don't cry out for mercy. We cry out and realize that all of God's mercy has already been poured out, and we merely appropriate it. We say, Lord, I believe it. I can't understand it. I can't comprehend how the Creator Himself came down and took on human flesh and lived those 33 years on the dusty, dirty roads of Israel, went the most horrible death ever dreamed up by mankind, and did it willingly and obediently simply because He loved the human race, and did all that needed to be done in order to just pour it out if they'll just believe it. Believe it. Believe it. And when we believe it, oh, then God gives us the power again to live it. How many people have told me over the years, well, I'll get saved when I can live it. Well, you can't live it until you're saved. Just like I've shown up here on the board. Until we let God get rid of old Adam, we're going to be lawbreakers. It's our nature. But when we get to the place we can say, all right, Lord, crucify old Adam. We'll be looking at that in the weeks to come. Then we'll get to the place where we can say, here am I, Lord. Do what you can. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. 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