Dale Partridge - January 27, 2023


Do Christians Have to Obey the Old Testament Law？ - Dale Partridge


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27 minutes

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4,465

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278

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Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 In this episode of Real Christianity,
00:00:01.440 I discuss how Christians should view the law.
00:00:04.240 That is, does the law still have jurisdiction over Christians?
00:00:06.780 Should we fear the law?
00:00:08.480 What role does the law play in our evangelism?
00:00:11.280 I answer all this and more coming up right now.
00:00:30.000 Welcome to Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge. Now, as you know, this show is an
00:00:36.400 audio and video ministry of relearn.org, where our mission is simple. It's to bring the church
00:00:42.100 back to the Bible. Before we get started, do you have a friend or a family member who 0.98
00:00:47.520 needs to hear the gospel? Maybe a neighbor. Have you just been maybe intimidated to share the
00:00:52.840 gospel with them? Maybe you don't have the right theological clarity to deliver the message with
00:00:56.620 confidence, or maybe you're concerned about their tough follow-up questions. If that's you,
00:01:01.420 we have a perfect tool for you. It's called mailthegospel.org. You can mail a beautifully
00:01:06.840 designed, a theologically accurate presentation of the gospel. It only takes about 12 minutes to
00:01:13.120 read, and you can send it to anybody in the U.S. or Canada. Go ahead and go to mailthegospel.org
00:01:18.460 to mail a copy today. All right, let's go ahead and get started. We are in Romans. What an
00:01:24.600 incredible book this is. And as I said in previous sermons, this section in Scripture,
00:01:29.120 Romans 3.20-31 really acts as this center of the biblical solar system. And it's such an
00:01:37.140 important passage in this book. Everything revolves around this. The Bible anticipates
00:01:44.060 this section of Scripture. So we're going to read that entire passage again so we can focus
00:01:49.260 on our text today, which is verses 28-31. So I'm going to start in verse 20. It says,
00:01:54.140 because by works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes
00:02:00.160 the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested,
00:02:05.760 being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith
00:02:09.860 in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fallen
00:02:15.080 short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which
00:02:19.880 is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith.
00:02:25.440 This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God, he passed
00:02:29.540 over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness
00:02:33.960 at the present time, so that he would be the just and the justifier of the one who has
00:02:38.680 faith in Jesus.
00:02:40.160 Where then is boasting?
00:02:41.760 It is excluded.
00:02:42.840 By what kind of law?
00:02:44.020 Of works?
00:02:44.880 No, but by a law of faith.
00:02:46.560 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith 0.88
00:02:49.580 apart from works of the law. 0.98
00:02:51.400 Or is God the God of the Jews only?
00:02:53.440 Is he not the God of the Gentiles also?
00:02:55.840 Yes, of the Gentiles also.
00:02:58.020 Since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith 0.96
00:03:00.940 and the uncircumcised through faith is one. 0.94
00:03:03.960 Do we then nullify the law through faith?
00:03:05.780 May it never be.
00:03:06.980 On the contrary, we establish the law.
00:03:10.120 All right, I know that was a long passage of scripture,
00:03:12.280 but just stay with me here.
00:03:13.840 Have you guys ever been to a firework show?
00:03:15.580 maybe think about 4th of July, you can probably relate with what I think Paul is doing here.
00:03:21.220 Everybody anticipates the grand finale. I mean, you get there, you know that maybe 20, maybe 30
00:03:25.480 minutes in to the fireworks show, you're going to have this grand finale. And if you've been to a
00:03:29.880 well-designed fireworks show, you know that the coordinator will often scale the intensity
00:03:34.820 as you get closer and closer to the end of the show. And he'll have you on the edge of your
00:03:40.360 on the edge of your seat thinking, man, is this it? Is that the grand finale? And then it kind
00:03:45.740 of scales back a little bit. Then it intensifies even more. And he does this over and over until
00:03:51.520 he draws the crowd to this climactic moment, which we call the grand finale. And Paul uses
00:03:56.880 a strategy that's similar to this in his structure for Romans. Obviously, it's kind of going up and
00:04:02.540 down, up and down, but this is really a climactic part of the first portion of this book. He makes
00:04:08.560 these back-to-back intensifying claims, like Romans 3.10, which is, there is none righteous,
00:04:14.980 not even one. And I know that's difficult because we've read it so many times that you might not
00:04:19.740 understand the magnitude of a statement like that, but this is an incredible statement.
00:04:24.760 And then he says in Romans 3.20, by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified. I mean,
00:04:29.920 this is huge statements of theological truth that is going to stun the audience that he's speaking
00:04:37.760 to. And then we have Romans 3.21, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.
00:04:44.060 It's the exact opposite. It's very counterintuitive to what they were expecting.
00:04:48.120 And now in our text today, we finally get to the grand finale of, I think,
00:04:51.520 Paul's multi-chapter coordinated argument when he says in Romans 3.28,
00:04:56.320 quote, a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. So we are justified by faith.
00:05:03.120 And that justification happens apart
00:05:05.900 from our works of obedience to the law.
00:05:09.160 And so again, the whole Bible anticipates this claim.
00:05:11.720 Now, as a modern Christian, again, 0.72
00:05:12.940 this can seem anticlimactic
00:05:14.420 because we've been raised with the gospel.
00:05:16.660 We know the tenets of the gospel.
00:05:18.060 We have the mechanics understood.
00:05:20.280 But as you learn here in our study of Romans,
00:05:22.540 all humanity is fallen
00:05:24.280 and equally under the universal jurisdiction of the law.
00:05:27.940 And we learned that no man could keep the law
00:05:30.780 and as a result, none is righteous.
00:05:31.860 So we all are in a state of unrighteousness because we have not been able to keep the law
00:05:35.800 in our original sin, but also our acts of sin. And so our central need as humans is to identify
00:05:41.600 how we can become righteous. How can we be found righteous? How can we get righteous given to us?
00:05:46.740 How can we become guiltless before God on judgment day? And so for thousands of years, this truth
00:05:52.320 in great part remained a mystery to God's people. But here in Romans, the clarity of redemption
00:05:58.220 really reaches its high point in this statement.
00:06:02.540 And that's why I said,
00:06:03.300 I think the Old Testament really anticipates this statement.
00:06:05.800 Yes, we hear a little bit about this in Genesis 15,
00:06:07.900 that Abraham is justified by faith,
00:06:09.640 but this is absolute clarity, theological clarity.
00:06:12.760 It also has the substance of the gospel
00:06:14.360 that has been laid as a foundation
00:06:15.900 before a statement like this.
00:06:17.480 But a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
00:06:20.720 And so this is a statement that really hit the Pharisees hard
00:06:25.540 because this is individuals that think
00:06:27.700 that they're going to justify themselves through obedience. This is something that's going to really
00:06:31.360 struggle with the Mormons. This is someone that with the Jehovah's Witness or the Catholics, 0.95
00:06:35.260 the Roman Catholic Church, this is a doctrine that really acts as a knife to all of those
00:06:39.820 theological conclusions because we cannot earn or contribute to our right standing by our works
00:06:46.860 of obedience to the law. We are only justified by faith. And so let's go verse by verse through
00:06:51.840 the text and extract the meaning and apply it to our hearts and minds so that we might understand
00:06:55.900 the gospel even more. We could become more gospel fluent. And we want to understand the position
00:07:01.120 and posture that we should have towards the law, which we'll get towards at the end of this
00:07:05.120 episode today. So verse 28, for we maintain that man is justified by faith apart from works of the
00:07:11.680 law. So Paul is making a contrast between works of the law and the workless means of faith. We know
00:07:19.180 that faith is best characterized as rest. And so it's really dependence, it's trust. And so there's
00:07:28.700 a contrast happening here between faith and works of the law. And as I said last week, saving faith
00:07:34.540 is not some sort of intrinsic substance that we have within the human condition whereby all men
00:07:41.160 must, upon their own free will, exercise their free decision to have faith in Jesus. We really
00:07:48.840 removed that idea in the last episode. No, saving faith is not an act or it's not a work. It's a
00:07:56.460 gift of God. And we see that very clearly in Ephesians 2 verses 8 through 9. But it's when
00:08:04.620 we have saving faith, this trust, this giving our life over to Christ, this relinquishing the
00:08:09.840 authority of ourselves in submitting to the Lordship of Jesus. When that happens, this is
00:08:14.860 really a response to an already regenerated heart. And so this is not something that we do
00:08:20.300 as a first act. It's actually a response from God acting first. And so the 18th century
00:08:26.980 Presbyterian theologian, Robert Haldane, who's been probably the most helpful commentator as
00:08:33.740 I've been going through Romans. He did the Banner of Truth. It's the Geneva commentary series that
00:08:40.720 has really supported some of the study that we've been through here. He clarifies that faith is when
00:08:46.160 he says, quote, faith does not justify as an act of righteousness, but as an instrument by which
00:08:53.080 we receive Christ and his righteousness. So essentially saving faith is not a work of man.
00:08:58.620 It's a gift of God. We know this. And faith is not an action. It's really a vehicle or the means
00:09:03.320 or a channel by which God transmits the righteousness of Christ to us. So God doesn't
00:09:09.080 just give us Christ. That's important that we have Christ coming to cover our sins or pay for the
00:09:16.960 penalty of our sin. He also gives us the means to attain what we need from Christ, which is
00:09:23.000 that righteousness. So that righteousness is imputed to us and it's imputed to us through
00:09:26.980 the means of faith. Hal Dane makes another important biblical observation. He says,
00:09:32.880 quote, believers are said to be justified by faith and of faith and through faith, but never on an
00:09:40.980 account of faith. And he's touching on this idea that we don't have this intrinsic ability to have
00:09:46.260 faith on our own. Faith is a gift and faith is the means. It's not an action. It's not a work
00:09:51.760 that gives us this righteousness. And so the Bible always speaks to faith as this channel.
00:09:59.820 In other words, faith is the means of justifications, not a human choice that procures salvation
00:10:05.900 as a result. So I want you guys to really grasp it. If you don't understand that, you can go back
00:10:10.860 to the previous episode and listen to the episode on the fallacy of free will, which we're talking
00:10:16.760 about that we don't have free will to actually choose Jesus. We're slaves to sin. I always tell
00:10:21.380 people that we have a will, but it's never free. We are either enslaved to sin or we're enslaved
00:10:25.400 to Christ. So this justification is apart from works of the law. Without a doubt, this helps us
00:10:35.420 understand that obedience is not the root of our salvation, but it's the fruit of our salvation.
00:10:40.420 And the root of our salvation is what? Well, it's the perfect obedience of Christ. And so that's
00:10:44.260 why we can rest that we're not going to ever lose our salvation because we're resting upon the
00:10:47.880 perfect righteousness of Christ. So as long as Christ is righteous, you will always be righteous.
00:10:52.100 and that is given to us through the means of faith.
00:10:54.860 And that faith is even given to us as the means of a gift.
00:10:58.020 And so this is really all resting upon the work
00:11:01.620 and gift of Jesus Christ,
00:11:04.000 which allows us to rest in Christ.
00:11:06.100 It allows us to really look at the gospel as good news.
00:11:10.940 And essentially as sinful lawbreakers,
00:11:13.740 we need to rest upon the sinful or the sinless law keeper.
00:11:18.140 And I tell people, we talk about this
00:11:19.720 in the church all the time.
00:11:20.500 We think that, you know, people will say phrases like, Jesus died for you. And I go, that's true.
00:11:26.780 In the sense, if you're talking to somebody that is a Christian, Jesus died for their sins. He died
00:11:32.440 for the sins of their people, of his people. But what we don't often say is that Jesus lived for
00:11:37.280 you. And Jesus doesn't just die for the penalty and the sin that covers the sins of his people,
00:11:47.660 but he actually keeps the law perfectly
00:11:50.020 and imputes his righteousness to us through faith.
00:11:53.000 So verse 29 says,
00:11:54.260 or is God the God of the Jews only?
00:11:56.000 Is he not the God of the Gentiles also?
00:11:57.820 Yes, of the Gentiles also, since indeed,
00:12:00.200 God who will justify the circumcised by faith 0.95
00:12:02.140 and the uncircumcised through faith is one. 0.97
00:12:04.500 Okay, Paul is talking to people who have the law.
00:12:07.620 His audience here is obviously Jews and Gentiles, 0.94
00:12:10.180 but he's definitely speaking to the Jews
00:12:11.860 in this particular instance.
00:12:13.200 And he clarifies that this truth about justification
00:12:15.300 by faith is not limited just to those people who had the law. He's saying that the Jews had the
00:12:23.220 law, but also the Gentiles, and they're both going to be justified equally by faith. In other words,
00:12:28.400 unlike the biological connection of Abraham that the Jews had, the possession of the law 0.89
00:12:33.600 from Moses, again, what the Jews had, and the sign of circumcision, again, what the Jews had,
00:12:38.380 faith is not a national quality that's limited to only Israel. Faith is a universal attribute
00:12:44.800 that again expands the new covenant
00:12:47.400 into a greater opportunity for the Gentiles to come in. 1.00
00:12:51.300 This is part of this great taking dominion 1.00
00:12:54.040 over the whole world,
00:12:55.940 the redeeming of the earth
00:12:58.480 through God's people, through the church.
00:13:00.620 This is what is a part of what we're gonna see here.
00:13:04.060 Now, in the same manner that Paul demonstrated
00:13:05.820 that all are equally under the law,
00:13:08.540 both Jews and Gentiles,
00:13:09.520 Paul is demonstrating that all are equally justified
00:13:11.560 through faith.
00:13:12.320 And so this isn't just a promise
00:13:13.920 to those who had the law, it's a promise to those who didn't have the law. And so to a Jew, this 0.95
00:13:18.000 would be a difficult concept to accept. I mean, this is a struggling concept for them because
00:13:23.640 Paul is claiming that the special relationship that God had with Israel has now been expanded
00:13:28.620 to include other nations. This is something that you need to grasp as the contextual side of this
00:13:33.660 discussion. So this is nothing more than the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, Genesis
00:13:37.960 22, 17 through 18, which says, quote, I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your
00:13:44.280 offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand is of the seashore. And your offspring shall
00:13:50.940 possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth 0.99
00:13:56.340 be blessed, end quote. So the promise is also fulfilled in part through Paul's ministry. We
00:14:01.260 see this in Acts 9.15 when God is talking to Ananias, when Paul has gone blind and Ananias
00:14:08.060 is to restore his sight. He tells Ananias, quote, go for he, that's Paul, is a chosen instrument
00:14:14.960 of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel. So this already
00:14:21.120 starting to see this expansion of the gospel, expansion of the kingdom that's going to go 0.97
00:14:25.700 beyond the Jews. This is also a promise that's realized in the Great Commission, which is given 0.95
00:14:31.320 by Jesus in Matthew 28, 18 through 20, that says, quote, and Jesus came up and spoke to them saying,
00:14:37.040 all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and disciple the nations,
00:14:42.640 baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe
00:14:46.240 all that I have commanded to you. And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.
00:14:50.380 And lastly, Paul is confirming and summarizing this promise of the expansion from the Jews to 0.90
00:14:59.040 the Gentiles in Galatians 3, 26 to 29. He says, for you are all sons of God through faith
00:15:04.540 in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
00:15:11.100 There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free man. There is neither male nor
00:15:15.960 female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's
00:15:22.620 descendants, heirs according to the promise. So that's kind of the full circle there, seeing that 0.76
00:15:26.760 this is absolutely in connection with Abraham's promise. And essentially the Gentiles, the 0.89
00:15:32.980 expansion to include the Gentiles was always the plan. Paul then grounds his statement regarding
00:15:39.220 the global focus of the gospel in the following verse. He says, since indeed God who will justify
00:15:45.060 the circumcised by faith, and the uncircumcised through faith is one. The heart of Paul's effort 0.92
00:15:50.720 here is to establish a view of the kingdom that is exceeding the national borders of Israel. 0.95
00:15:57.080 This is a big look for the Jews to understand that God actually plans to take over the whole 0.92
00:16:03.080 world. And Christ isn't simply the king of the Jews, he's also the king of the entire earth. 0.96
00:16:08.260 And the text, in a sense, was intended to clarify to God's people that they were no longer
00:16:14.800 distinguished by their nation state, but they're actually
00:16:17.480 distinguished by their spiritual state. And while this
00:16:20.440 probably frustrated the pride of the Jews, it really is a
00:16:24.640 doctrine that sits at the foundation of Christendom, that
00:16:27.160 we are as a church attempting by way of the gospel to the power
00:16:30.380 of Jesus Christ, to preach the gospel to take the nations by
00:16:34.760 storm through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. And so God plans
00:16:39.240 to have dominion in every nation across the globe. That's
00:16:41.780 exactly what Paul is talking about in part. So Paul then closes by anticipating a question that
00:16:47.720 they're going to arise as a Jew. And he says in verse 31, do we then nullify the law through 0.85
00:16:53.920 faith? They're essentially asking the question, if we're saved and justified not by works of the
00:17:01.720 law, then does our faith actually nullify the purpose of the law? Paul says, may it never be,
00:17:07.220 on the contrary, we establish the law. And so this is an important verse to properly interpret
00:17:12.080 because the misinterpretation of this passage has led to so many different heretical movements,
00:17:16.880 the Hebrew Roots Movement, obviously people that think that keeping the law has some sort of
00:17:22.000 contribution to your justification in Christ. It essentially, we have to realize that the
00:17:28.320 ceremonial law, the sacrificial law, the feasts, the moons, the Saturday Sabbaths, all these
00:17:32.300 different things still have lost their purpose because the substance of that purpose has
00:17:39.280 arrived in Christ. And there is no jurisdiction or justifying power in those practices for
00:17:47.040 Christians. Those things are not the things that actually make a person right before God.
00:17:51.460 The only thing that makes a person right before God is faith in Jesus Christ. So two things
00:17:55.080 are really being confirmed in this text. Justification by faith does not remove the
00:17:59.740 jurisdiction of the law. It doesn't remove the jurisdiction of the law. The law is still
00:18:03.560 absolutely here. And then the second thing is justification by faith doesn't mean obedience to
00:18:07.960 the moral law. The 10 commandments, the Decalogue was no longer required. So I'm going to say that
00:18:13.800 this truth was really not established by Paul, but absolutely established by Christ. We can see this
00:18:18.760 in Matthew 5, 17 through 20. Jesus says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the
00:18:25.200 prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until
00:18:30.480 heaven and earth passes away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
00:18:35.420 Therefore, whoever relaxes on one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the
00:18:40.720 same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them
00:18:45.520 will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds
00:18:49.880 that of the scribes and the Pharisees,
00:18:51.960 you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
00:18:55.220 Okay, so the central failure of the American evangelicalism
00:18:58.700 is our commitment to preach Jesus without the law.
00:19:01.280 This is so frustrating
00:19:02.980 because the law is actually the thing that wounds
00:19:05.780 and the gospel is the thing that heals.
00:19:08.180 And the law, God still has an extreme standard
00:19:10.860 of righteousness and that standard is the law.
00:19:13.040 Yes, it has been fulfilled in Christ,
00:19:15.320 but nevertheless, we still must absolutely work
00:19:19.740 to maintain our personal sense of holiness to that law.
00:19:23.480 The good news is that though we fail,
00:19:26.540 we don't rest on our ability to keep that law,
00:19:28.660 we rest on the ability of Christ to keep that law.
00:19:32.240 And so the law is the ability to essentially,
00:19:34.900 for the lost person in our evangelism,
00:19:36.640 is to drive them to self-despair.
00:19:38.620 They cannot keep the law.
00:19:39.740 They will be unable to do so.
00:19:41.040 I often tell people,
00:19:42.080 the reason we teach our kids the 10 commandments is why?
00:19:44.540 It's because we want to teach them
00:19:45.940 that they can't keep the law.
00:19:47.580 It's the standard of righteousness that God demands that only Christ could keep.
00:19:51.460 And God still desires us to keep that law.
00:19:54.140 But at the end of the day, we can't keep it.
00:19:56.320 We can't maintain that righteousness to those 10 commandments.
00:19:59.280 And this is what sober preaching of the law does.
00:20:03.480 It becomes a catapult to Christ.
00:20:05.620 It takes us to Christ.
00:20:06.860 It forces us to realize that we cannot justify ourselves, but we need the righteousness of
00:20:12.360 Christ.
00:20:13.200 And so Paul is teaching here that the fulfillment of the law by Christ on behalf of his people
00:20:17.320 doesn't nullify the jurisdiction of the law in his people. In a very real sense, the law has a
00:20:26.400 purpose. And what is that purpose? We know it because Paul just said it. It's to bring about
00:20:30.620 the knowledge of sin. That's what it does. It's a mirror to ourselves to show. It's a measuring
00:20:35.560 stick and a rod to make us realize that we are not righteous and that we need an alien righteousness,
00:20:41.540 a righteousness of Christ that can be given to us again by faith. And so the law is still active
00:20:47.560 in the world. It's still absolutely should be used in our preaching. It still has a purpose of
00:20:52.460 instructing even to the Christians. So namely the law of God has both a condemning power over the 0.88
00:20:58.100 lost or over the world, and it has an instructing or guiding power over the saints. And this is how
00:21:03.280 we have to view the law. So we still need to be absolutely, you know, thou shall not commit
00:21:08.860 adultery. I mean, this is absolutely something that we should be aiming for. And Jesus doesn't
00:21:13.200 even just leave it at that. He actually says, you've heard that it says to not commit adultery.
00:21:19.680 I'm saying to you, even if you lust after a woman, you commit adultery in your heart. So
00:21:23.720 what Jesus is doing is he's actually saying the law isn't just the actions, it's actually the
00:21:30.000 thoughts and intents of the heart. So Jesus is a law magnifier. So he's saying it's not just about
00:21:36.400 following just what is said here, it's actually the internal state of your heart matters to the
00:21:42.700 law as well, which should make people despair even more because they're thinking to myself,
00:21:47.500 oh my goodness, if lusting or thinking hateful thoughts or thinking blasphemous ideas,
00:21:53.600 if even the thought of those things breaks the law, there's no way I'm going to be found righteous.
00:21:58.780 And this is why Jesus says that you have to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees,
00:22:03.280 which leaves everybody in the room going,
00:22:06.020 well, I can't do that.
00:22:06.840 The Pharisees are the most extreme religious zealots
00:22:09.980 that are there.
00:22:11.500 And I'm nowhere close to that religious holiness.
00:22:15.640 And this is exactly what Jesus is doing.
00:22:17.520 He's saying, you can't do it.
00:22:19.040 You can't do it.
00:22:20.100 You need to turn to Christ.
00:22:22.280 You need to have faith in Christ
00:22:23.220 to bring your justification through faith
00:22:24.640 because his righteousness,
00:22:25.580 he's the only one that has been able to keep that law.
00:22:28.280 And so the righteous requirement of the law,
00:22:30.220 again, has been met by Christ.
00:22:31.400 and the moral law still stands.
00:22:34.800 And then Paul closes by saying in verse 31,
00:22:37.240 we establish the law.
00:22:38.800 So how does the gospel establish the law?
00:22:42.840 John MacArthur says,
00:22:43.800 the gospel establishes the law by fulfilling its purpose,
00:22:46.960 by driving men away from works
00:22:48.940 and toward faith in Jesus Christ.
00:22:51.700 Ultimately, as Christians,
00:22:54.500 this should change our relationship with the law
00:22:58.260 from fear and condemnation because there is therefore now no condemnation for those who
00:23:04.040 are in Christ Jesus. We know that in Romans chapter eight, but this should actually turn
00:23:08.400 into be a guide for more Christ likeness. The law was kept by Christ. If you want to be like
00:23:14.860 Christ, then keep the law. The good news is that when you fail, Christ doesn't fail and we can rest
00:23:21.420 in that reality. So we obey the law, not because it makes us righteous. We obey the law because of
00:23:26.220 our love and gratitude for the righteousness that was given to us by faith in Jesus Christ.
00:23:31.800 So hopefully that was helpful for you guys in breaking down this passage of scripture,
00:23:35.640 understanding the relationship with the law that the Christian has. If you're a regular listener
00:23:39.540 to this podcast, thank you guys so much for listening. We'd love to have you give us a
00:23:43.460 review. You don't even have to write anything. You just tap the stars in your podcast app.
00:23:48.140 Those reviews really do help the exposure of our show. And thank you guys just for
00:23:52.280 continued loyal listenership. On that note, we're going to end this episode. My name is
00:23:57.360 Dale Partridge. This is Real Christianity, and we'll see you guys next time. 0.93
00:24:22.280 Thank you. 0.76
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00:25:52.280 Thank you.
00:26:22.280 Thank you.
00:26:52.280 Thank you.
00:27:22.280 You