Why Keeping the Law Can't Save You — Galatians Chapter 2

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, an Oklahoma rancher and farmer. Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for over 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. Okay, good to have everybody again, and we're just going to jump right back in where we left off in our last program, and that, of course, in Galatians chapter 2, and we'll start at verse 15. Galatians 2, verse 15, and again, just for a word of explanation, we're just an informal Bible study. We are not connected with any group. When the station first called me years ago and asked if I would consider teaching on television, it was just like a shot out of the blue, and took us three months to agree to do it. But whatever, it's been going, and the Lord is blessing it, so we're not underwritten by anyone. No one else ever had anything to do with our getting all this together. It's just that the station up here had heard about our teaching, and they thought it would work on television. And we have to give God the credit for putting the thought in their mind, and we just were amazed at what the Lord has been doing. And for those of you who have the tapes, and you watch our programs from when they were first, or I guess it's even going to be on television, when you watch our earliest productions, boy we weren't very many people in here. We were just tickled to death to get 15 or 20, but I'll tell you what, it makes a nicer picture to see all of you here today. All the past programs are available of course on video, audio, and the printed page, and if you're interested in any of those things, you just write to us, or give us a call, and we'll send the information out to you. Time is of the essence, and everybody wants to learn as much as we can, but time is short. And so we'll turn right back to where we left off, Galatians chapter 2, and now verse 15. Where Paul after coming away from his confrontation with Peter, who was still succumbing to the demands of the Law, keeping Jews at Jerusalem, now he says in verse 15, "...we who are Jews by nature," that is by birth naturally, and we're not of those pagan Gentiles who of course were looked down upon by the Jews of that day. Now verse 16, "...knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the Law." Now we're going to go back to Romans where it makes it a lot plainer than this. Romans chapter 3, one earlier Bible scholar that I've read in days gone by put it this way. The little letter to the Galatians is sort of like an artist who had the picture in his mind, and he drew it first in pencil. And after he saw the whole thing in pencil, then he put it on canvas with oil, and that's the book of Romans. You know I kind of like that. Galatians is just sort of introductory. It covers all the bases, but you don't get the graphic detail until you get into Romans. Now here's a good example. This verse 16 in Galatians is kind of hard to sort out, but my we go back to Romans, here it is. Galatians chapter 3, and let's look at verse 19. Now this is going to be a review again of what we had several months ago in our study in Romans. Now we know that what thing so ever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law. In other words, the Ten Commandments were directly given to the nation of Israel. Not to the Gentile world, to Israel. But since it's the Law of the Sovereign Creator God, how far does the influence of that Law go? To the ends of the earth. And look what the rest of the verse says. That every mouth may be stopped. Even a Gentile can't come up and after having stolen something say, well I never did anything wrong. Yes you did, because the Law of God says that it's against His will, it's against His Law to steal. So every mouth was stopped, and all the world, not just Israel, all the world become guilty before God. Therefore that being the case, by the deeds of the Law, in other words by law keeping, by works, shall no flesh, Jew or Gentile, be justified in His sight, because the Law only has one function. Now you know we've got people all over, even Tulsa and Oklahoma, who think that by keeping the Law, keeping the Commandments, they're making brownie points, and someday God will just let them like one fellow told me, oh he said if I can just slip in under the door, it's not going to work that way. The Law wasn't given for that at all. The Law had one function, and what was it? To show mankind how sinful they really are. Every human being has been a lawbreaker, and we're sinners by nature, and consequently by keeping the Ten Commandments, no flesh shall be justified, for by the Law is the knowledge of sin. Now let's come on down to verse 23. For all have sinned, not just Gentiles, like the Jews perhaps thought, but everybody, Jew and Gentile, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You know I've put it on this program over and over and over, not because of anything we have done, that's not what makes us a sinner. We're sinners because of who we are. We're sons of Adam, you know I've put it on the board many, many times. We sin because we're sinners. We're not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners. We're offspring of Adam. So all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now then, here's the remedy, verse 24, "...being justified freely without a cause by His grace, His unmerited favor poured out on us, and through the redemption, or the buying back process, that is in Christ Jesus." Now verse 25 and 26, "...whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood." Now remember we looked at the ramifications of the blood in our last program, going all the way back to Genesis 9, Leviticus 17. The blood was something special in God's sight, because in the blood is what? Life! Life is in the blood. And so, "...through faith in the blood of Christ, wherein is, yes, the significance of His death, but far more the potential power," for what? Life! Eternal life. And so reading on, "...so we declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God." And then verse 26, "...to declare," I say at this time, "...His righteousness," the righteousness of Christ, "...that He," Christ, "...might be just," fair, "...in every which way, and," all of this is wrapped up in the person of Christ in His finished work, "...and the justifier of him who repents and is baptized." Oh hey, that's a lot of people saying. Read it any which way you want. Oh, to Him who does this, or does that, to Him who keeps the commandments, no it doesn't say that. It says that He will be the justifier of him who believeth. And then he comes into verse 27, "...so where's boasting?" Who can brag? Who can boast? Well it's excluded, why? Because the Law of Faith excludes it, and the Law of Faith is, Believe the Gospel. I've got my list of salvation verses over there, and all I want people to realize is that not a one of these verses says anything about what we can do, except believe. I don't remember the order, but all of these verses say basically the same thing. When we believe that Christ died and rose from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Now it says it in various and different ways, I know, but all of these verses that we have on this whole page have been excerpted from Paul's various epistles, and they all make no mention of repentance and baptism. Every one of them make no mention of any kind of works, or doing, or keeping. They all say basically the same thing, that by grace are you saved through faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. I don't know if that verse is in there. I can't read them from here, but for our television audience I hope they can read them. All I want people to see is that all of these basic salvation verses are just like this one says in Romans chapter 3. That it's through faith in His blood, through His death, burial and resurrection, and that if we believe it, God does all the rest. We don't have to do anything, He does it, and we've been seeing the results of the power of the Gospel as people have been writing and calling. I know these are people who have had no exposure to this whatsoever, and yet the Lord is opening their eyes that it isn't what we do, it's what we believe, by faith. Now then coming back to Galatians chapter 2, verse 17. Galatians chapter 2, verse 17 But if we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? Well perish the thought! And here's the basic reasoning. Now verse 18, now this takes a little thinking, I know it does, but think it through. For Paul, remember his past, a religious Jew par excellence, the likes of which no one else could even come close to. But look what he says. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. Now what's he saying? Here he has been a law keeping Jew, and he just killed people because they were accepting something contrary to that. And so he was a religious zealot, but when he suddenly realized that all of that counted for nothing, because the work of the cross had now become preeminent, and it's only through faith in the finished work of the cross that sinners can be saved. Now he says, if I go back and put my converts back under the law and command them to keep circumcision, then I am rebuilding what I have torn down. You get that? Now let me repeat it. Here he had been a great practitioner of Judaism. He thought the law and the temple and the Old Testament was the epitome of everything. But once he saw the truth of the power of the Gospel of Christ, how that He died, shed His blood, and rose from the dead, then he could literally destroy everything of the old account. And let me show you the verse. Turn to the right a few pages to Colossians, and nobody understood this better than the Apostle Paul. And this is a graphic statement in Colossians chapter 2, verse 14, speaking of the work of the cross, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. What was that? The law. And especially the law that was being practiced at the time of Christ, which was a compilation of 613 rules and regulations. That's what the law had become, as it was degenerated of course. But see all of that, all of the ordinances that were against us and were contrary to us. In other words, the law was absolutely contrary to human nature. Everything in the law, human nature says, do it. And so all of these things that were contrary to us, he took it out of the way, and what did he do with it? Nailed it to his cross. Now that's what Paul means then, coming back to Galatians chapter 2, that once he helped believing Jews like himself to see that that old economy had been totally done away with. It was nailed to his cross. Now Paul says, if I come back and tell these converts that I was wrong and that I've got to put them back under the law, he said, then I'm building again that which I have destroyed. Isn't that beautiful? But he said, I can't do that. He could not go back on the revelations that the Lord had given him. Now let's move on to verse 19. And this is his whole reason for pressing on constantly throughout the Roman Empire with the Gospel of the grace of God. For I through the law am dead to the law. Now this is Romans 7 all over again. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I may live unto God. Now let's analyze this a minute. What was the Law? Perfect. Right? It was the very mind of God. It was perfect from God's point of view. But what was it from man's point of view? It was something he couldn't keep. It was weak. It was beggarly. Because even though it was perfect from God's point of view, from man's standpoint, he couldn't keep it because there was no power in the Law to help him keep it. Understand that? The Law, as I've said way, way back in Exodus, how did God give it to Moses? On a beautiful piece of lambskin? No, on cold what? Stone. Now listen, stone is not cuddly. I don't care what age we are, some things are cuddly, but stone is not. It's cold, and it is not something that you can just bring to yourself. That was the Law. It was cold. It was beggarly, Paul says. And even Peter admitted that it was a yoke, it was like a millstone around people's throat because of its heavy demand, and man's inability to keep it, and it had nothing to help him do it. Now that was the Law. And I've always said the Law was severe. My, if you went out on the Sabbath day and picked up a few sticks for the fireplace, it wasn't a slap on the wrist. What was it? Death, death. If someone was caught in an act of immorality, it wasn't a wink of the eye, it was death. That's how severe the Law was. All right, we have been set free from all of that because of the work of the cross. But you and I, or anyone else that's ever experienced salvation, would never realize why we needed salvation if it weren't for the Law. My own pastor the last few Sundays has been in Romans, and I've really been thoroughly enjoying it. I've told him so. And one of the comments he made, you can never be saved until you know that you're lost. I'm quoting him word for word. You can never be saved until you know that you're lost. How do you know that you're lost? Because the Law condemns you. If it weren't for the Law, anybody could say, well, I'm good enough, God will accept me. But the Law says you're guilty. There isn't a one of us in this room that hasn't broken the Ten Commandments. We know that. And if we've broken the Ten Commandments, what are we? We're lawbreakers. And if we're a lawbreaker, we're a what? A sinner. That's all. You know, a lot of people have got the idea that a sinner is just somebody that's down in the gutter. Somebody who has committed murder, or somebody who has been in a house of ill repute, or any of these things that the world looks of as maybe sinful. Hey, listen, good people are sinners, nice people are sinners, church people are sinners, because we're all guilty of having broken God's perfect Law. And so what condemns us? The Law. Come back to Romans 7. Oh, Romans 7 is tough. You know, Romans 7 is like what I would refer to as our 8th grade arithmetic when I was in school. Boy, I'm dating myself, I suppose. But boy, I'll tell you what, those 8th grade arithmetic, do you remember we called them story problems? Where they give you a whole paragraph of a background and all of the ramifications, and I'll tell you what, it'd just blow your mind to try to work them out. Well that's what Romans 7 is. Romans 7, it just boggles your mind and then all of a sudden it comes out. But look what he says, oh, beginning in verse 7, of Romans 7. Now this is a dilemma. What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? Is the Law something wicked or evil? Well, banish the thought. No, I had not known sin, that is, you remember I always say in Romans, the best explanation is the old sin nature. Paul says, I wouldn't have known about my old sin nature except the Law. For I had not known what lust was, except the Law said, Thou shalt not do it. How simple that is. So it was the Law that condemned this religious Jew, that he thought was keeping it. But sin, his old sin nature, taking occasion by the commandments, the Law, wrought in me all manner of contraptions, in other words, it got his mind just broiling. Now, verse 9, for without the Law, the old nature was dead, it was inoperative. But it was the Law that exercised it. Verse 9, for I was alive without the Law once, but when the commandment came, Thou shalt not covet. Old Adam woke up, and old Adam in Saul's make-up said, Hey, that's me, I'm a coveter. And then what did he do? I died. Well now what does he mean? Well, he had to die in the realm of that old Adam who was a Lawbreaker, and with the death of old Adam, what happens? New life. And that's what we talk about all the time, that's salvation. When our old Adam is put to death because he was a Lawbreaker, and we become a believer in the finished work of the Christ, which is the Gospel, then what? We're a new creation, we're alive, we have eternal life, the whole nine yards. And Paul is constantly referring to that. As Peter said in all his epistles, this is all he talks about. Now back to Galatians chapter 2, and now let's move on to verse 20, which is a classic. It's a verse I think that most kids in daily vacation Bible school, at least they used to always memorize, and I hope they still do, where now Paul gives his own personal testimony under inspiration of the Spirit, and it becomes of course part of the Word of God. And look what he says, I am what? Crucified. Crucified. I am crucified. Now Paul didn't die on a Roman cross. If he did die a martyr's death, it was I think by beheading. He was never crucified, so what's he talking about? Oh that day on the road to Damascus when the Lord spoke to him, and literally knocked him to the ground, and the moment Saul of Tarsus recognized that he was dealing with the Ascended Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One, what happened? Oh, Saul died. He was crucified in the Old Adam, and immediately what happened? He became a new man, a new creation, and so this is Paul's whole thrust of teaching that now as believers we have these two forces working within us. God reckons Old Adam is absolutely dead, but in experience he's still there. I don't mind the attacks of Satan half as much as I do the attacks of my Old Adam. Now think about that. As you go through a week of life right here and now, where do you run into most of your difficulty? Not Satanic as much as Old Adam. Old Adam, He's the one that pops these thoughts into our mind. He's the one that catches us in these moments of weakness, and of course don't take away from Satan's power, not that, but it's our Old Adam that just constantly confronts us to still go the direction of the Old Adamic nature, but opposite it we have that new nature which is energized by the Holy Spirit. Now verse 20, I've only got a minute left. I am crucified with Christ, in other words when Christ died, that's when we died, nevertheless I live physically, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, here and now, day by day. How do we live it? I hope I'm not doing violence to the text. By the faithfulness, I like to put in there, the Greek probably won't let me do that, but it just helps me personally, that the life I now live in the flesh, I live because of the faithfulness of the One who bought me. He is faithful. He will never let us down. And then Paul goes on to say, by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me, and you know I'm always saying, and how did Peter put it in Acts chapter 2, you killed the Messiah. Paul says, He died for you. Now that's a graphic difference, and this is what we have to understand. So again, look at this verse. The life we now live in the flesh, we live by the faithfulness, because God is able to keep us, to empower us, to live a life that is pleasing, and we show that He loved us, and He gave Himself for us, and this is what we have to constantly remember. Now, if you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.