Dale Partridge - Romans 2_1-5： How to Spot a Legalistic Church

00:00:00.000 In this episode of Real Christianity, we begin Romans 2 and confront the matter of legalism in

00:00:04.320 the church. Moralism and religion is still highly prevalent today. In fact, you might even be in a

00:00:09.300 legalistic church and not even know it. So stay tuned to learn how you can spot these works-based

00:00:13.980 gospel counterfeits. All that and more coming up right now.

00:00:30.000 Welcome to Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge. Today's episode is titled

00:00:40.080 Romans 2, 1 through 5, How to Spot a Legalistic Church. Now, as you know, this show is an audio

00:00:46.340 and video ministry of relearn.org. If you're watching this video recording of this episode

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00:01:03.480 have you on the journey. Folks, if you haven't noticed, we are committed to biblical truth here.

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00:01:25.200 donate. Again, that's relearn.org forward slash donate. Now, speaking of resources, I just finished

00:01:31.340 writing a 13-page PDF ebook titled How to Study Your Bible, a five-step process for faithful

00:01:37.340 biblical interpretation. First off, it's only five bucks and 20 minutes of time. You're going to learn

00:01:42.540 study techniques that you're going to use for the rest of your life. If you want to pick up a copy,

00:01:46.040 just go to relearn.org forward slash study. All right, guys, let's go ahead and get our

00:01:51.080 episode rolling today. We are on Romans 2, 1 through 5. I'm going to be reading this passage

00:01:57.340 of scripture in the ESV, so go ahead and follow along. It says, therefore, you have no excuse,

00:02:03.400 O man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because

00:02:08.580 you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls

00:02:14.820 on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such

00:02:20.760 things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on

00:02:26.680 the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is

00:02:31.740 meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing

00:02:38.200 up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

00:02:45.100 In the previous chapter, chapter one, we learned about the wrath of God being revealed against

00:02:49.300 all ungodliness from heaven for those people that denied God, even though we can see clearly

00:02:57.200 that the existence of God and the things that are made. And we learned about the self-afflicted

00:03:02.780 judgments of God that are carried out upon those as God withdraws himself from the life of these

00:03:10.820 individuals that have become essentially atheists and idolaters and have rejected God. And these

00:03:17.140 handing overs, there was, I believe, four handing overs that God hands them over to the lust of

00:03:22.540 their flesh, to the desires of their bodies, that ultimately manifests itself in sexual immorality, 0.99

00:03:29.980 specifically homosexuality, and culminates in this depraved mind with all these godless 0.99

00:03:36.640 characteristics, and we're coming off the heels of that. So we just learned about the tragic ending, 1.00

00:03:42.260 essentially of every atheist with that descriptive view, you know, debauched view of all things

00:03:50.500 and these kind of God-denying heathens and where they were going and what they look like.

00:03:56.440 And we learned that it's not just these eternal consequences that come for those that reject God,

00:04:00.760 but essentially we learned about these real-time consequences that would affect their character now,

00:04:06.220 the joy of their life now, the things that they do now. I can't not make the correlation with

00:04:14.420 those individuals that are in the modern day, these anti-life individuals that are for pro-abortion.

00:04:23.240 As you're watching at the fall of Roe v. Wade, you're seeing these protests all over the country

00:04:28.720 that are basically calling for the blood of babies.

00:04:32.540 They are deeply frustrated at the fact that they can no longer, 0.89

00:04:39.160 I should say, easily murder children.

00:04:41.600 And we're seeing this, again, very manifestation of Romans 1 characteristics, 0.52

00:04:47.800 this debased mind, this inability to determine what is right and wrong,

00:04:51.680 this emotional-based living that has been handed over to them

00:04:56.040 so that they seek the lust of their flesh, the desires of their mind. And it is actually happening

00:05:02.300 right before our eyes here in the culture. Now, as we go into chapter two, the apostle turns his aim

00:05:07.980 from that Greco-Roman world, that pagan world that doesn't know God, at least the more practical 0.96

00:05:15.780 knowledge of God being revealed through scripture or through the Jewish people in redemptive

00:05:20.740 history but he now he's actually shifting it towards the jews and so he shifts his focus again

00:05:27.380 towards this again people that don't have the knowledge of god uh historically and now he's

00:05:33.780 moving his angle towards those who do have the knowledge of god the the religious israelites

00:05:42.100 now you might be wondering how did the audience shift if you look at the context of chapter two

00:05:46.980 you're going to see clearly that he's shifting from a pagan audience focus to a Jewish audience

00:05:53.280 focus. And he makes it abundantly clear that those individuals from the Greek and Greco-Roman world

00:06:01.880 to the Israelite world are different people groups, and he needs to speak to them in different ways.

00:06:06.540 So in this section, Paul is speaking to the very people who think that they're saved by religious

00:06:12.360 works and who rejected the very righteousness from God, that is Jesus. And he's aiming in on

00:06:23.280 these individuals. So the point of this chapter really is to level the playing field between the

00:06:27.880 Gentile world and the Jewish world, to demonstrate, again, specifically to the Jews, that outside of 0.80

00:06:33.560 Jesus Christ, outside of the righteousness of Christ, every person stands equally condemned. 0.84

00:06:38.520 And that's really the point of this transition here.

00:06:42.020 He's showing that this chapter,

00:06:44.420 that God doesn't show partiality

00:06:46.840 in his demand for righteousness,

00:06:49.140 in his demand for justice.

00:06:51.000 There is no partiality. 1.00

00:06:52.580 Both the Jew and the Gentile will perish equally 1.00

00:06:55.540 if they're not in Christ 1.00

00:06:58.000 or understanding that they're not having

00:07:00.220 the righteousness of Christ represent them

00:07:02.040 through faith being justified by Christ alone.

00:07:05.280 And so our first verse,

00:07:07.040 to give you some context here, 0.73

00:07:08.520 Paul is coming again off the heels of articulating the absolute depravity of those who do not know

00:07:14.220 God. But then again, like this fire hose, he shifts and he turns his correspondence to the Jews 0.99

00:07:20.440 who do know God. They do know the moral law of God. They do know what God expects of them.

00:07:27.140 And he's starting verse one this way. He says, therefore, you have no excuse,

00:07:32.960 Oh man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself

00:07:39.240 because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly

00:07:45.060 falls on those who practice such things. The Jewish people were a prideful bunch. We know 1.00

00:07:51.220 this, right? They were bathed in this posture of elitism and they looked down upon anybody that's

00:07:58.660 outside of the Jewish culture, but especially when you use the phrase Gentile world, 0.99

00:08:03.980 absolute, an absolute snobbery that came with the Jewish culture. And we see this pride at the 1.00

00:08:12.460 woman at the well, the way that the Jewish culture would treat the woman at the well, or how shocking 0.85

00:08:17.060 it was that Jesus spoke to her, or the story of the Good Samaritan in the gospel. They basically 0.59

00:08:24.520 slighted anyone that didn't have the Jewish heritage. So the Pharisees obviously were the

00:08:30.320 worst at this. And a lot of the religious garbage that came from the Pharisees was 1.00

00:08:35.380 infecting the Jewish Christians. This was still a cultural issue that they've been bathed in 1.00

00:08:41.100 since they were born. And so this stuff is on them and the way they think about themselves

00:08:46.700 as being more righteous than the outside world. So Paul, again, essentially just slaps them in

00:08:53.480 the face with a stark reminder that while the pagans may have rejected God in creation, the Jews

00:09:01.860 actually rejected God in the flesh. And so this is, I think, the anchor behind what's going on here,

00:09:09.180 the frustration. And there's really no reason for them to have this pride anymore. The fact that

00:09:17.600 they crucified the Messiah really should chop away any pride right at the roots of the Jewish

00:09:24.380 people. Yes, it was the Jews who were given the oracles of God, but it was also the Jews

00:09:29.780 who murdered the Messiah. And so again, this is some context that I think is possible to be helpful

00:09:35.960 for this passage of scripture. The practical point that Paul, and I should say even the more direct

00:09:40.700 point that Paul is making here, is regarding their prideful posture as it results to the religiosity.

00:09:47.100 And so he wants to make clear that no amount of religious practice, no amount of law following

00:09:55.760 or moral living of animal sacrificial systems can earn the righteous position and permit

00:10:02.360 them to be in a position where they can look down on others that have a less righteous

00:10:08.240 standing.

00:10:09.560 James 2.10 says,

00:10:10.860 for whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point, has become guilty in all of it.

00:10:18.060 So let me just give you a hypothetical for a second. I'm going to give you an impossible

00:10:22.340 hypothetical. We all know that we're born in sin, meaning that sin's not just an act. It's also a

00:10:29.640 condition that's handed down from Adam to all people that are born of Adam. And it's why we

00:10:34.220 need to be born again of Christ. Now, again, hypothetical here. Let's just say that you were

00:10:37.620 born sinless. And then you sinned one time at the age of five. And then until you were 80 years old

00:10:47.460 and you died, you had no sins. You lived a completely perfect life. All of your righteousness,

00:10:52.600 all of that righteousness before that first sin at five, all of that righteousness after that,

00:10:57.160 none of it would mean anything. You broke the law one time and you're hell bound as a result.

00:11:03.340 It's an absolute condemnation.

00:11:05.440 You break the law once

00:11:06.340 and you're guilty of the entire thing.

00:11:08.260 So we need to understand that this kind of leveling

00:11:10.340 that we are all sinners, nobody is righteous

00:11:13.400 and we are absolutely in need

00:11:16.560 no matter how well we've lived,

00:11:19.300 no matter what testimony we might have,

00:11:21.860 no matter if we grew up in a Christian home,

00:11:23.520 all of us are equally condemned

00:11:25.640 because we have not been able to keep God's law perfectly.

00:11:29.760 This is why Jesus says in Matthew 5, 48,

00:11:33.720 you therefore must be perfect

00:11:35.280 as your heavenly father is perfect.

00:11:39.180 Now, the only way that we can essentially be perfect

00:11:42.060 is to be in Christ who is perfect.

00:11:44.760 And so we need to have the righteousness of Christ

00:11:47.140 to make us perfect

00:11:48.500 because there's no way that we can be perfect on our own.

00:11:51.900 And this is why, again, Romans 3, 10, 12, 10 through 12 says,

00:11:56.520 as it is written, none is righteous,

00:11:58.700 No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. I want you to catch

00:12:04.460 that. All have turned aside. Together, they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one.

00:12:11.300 So without the perfect righteousness of Christ, you and I can never be made perfect. This is some

00:12:17.980 bedrock doctrine that needs to be clarified to everybody, but specifically people that are in

00:12:23.700 the legalistic religiosity, or in this specific circumstance, the Jews, Christ is our only hope

00:12:33.060 to be found righteous and to be justified before a perfect and holy God. So anyone who believes

00:12:39.520 that they have the right to look down on another person's moral state is blind to their own moral

00:12:45.660 state. So all sinners, again, were condemned outside of Christ. We cannot judge. We cannot

00:12:51.840 boast because the only reason we're righteous is because of Christ's righteousness. So we can boast,

00:12:57.240 but we can boast in Christ alone. And that's essential that we need to grasp this. We cannot

00:13:01.760 cast judgments from a moral high ground, which again, the Jews were criminal at this. The Jewish 1.00

00:13:07.360 culture was criminal at this. We can only boast in Christ. So this is exactly the opposite of what 1.00

00:13:14.460 the Jews were historically doing. They viewed themselves as righteous and above everybody else. 0.99

00:13:20.400 And again, Paul is coming here and leveling the playing field.

00:13:24.580 So they wrongfully estimated their standing with God.

00:13:27.560 They thought that they were saved by the religious works.

00:13:30.300 They thought that religious working would somehow make them righteous when in reality,

00:13:36.180 no matter what the level of religious works, no matter how long you've carried out those

00:13:41.680 religious works, you sin once, you sinned all, you're condemned.

00:13:45.700 And again, they didn't even take the reality that total depravity that were born of Adam,

00:13:49.720 sin as a condition, not just an act. No matter what, we are born dead, spiritually unrighteous,

00:13:56.300 needing to be justified, needing a foreign righteousness, needing Christ. And so this is,

00:14:02.060 again, why Jesus would often say things like, you are whitewashed tombs. You look beautiful on the

00:14:06.720 outside because your works are great, but on the inside, you're full of dead bones. This is the 0.52

00:14:11.780 structure, why Jesus was so anti-self-righteous religiosity. And so this is the condemnation of

00:14:22.080 legalism. You cannot be found righteous without Christ. We don't contribute to our righteousness

00:14:26.440 whatsoever. So we have to get these lies out of our head. If you're in a legalistic church or you

00:14:31.960 grew up around this kind of stuff, you can't believe that your law keeping, your obedience

00:14:39.060 adds any value to your status as a child of God.

00:14:44.320 It does not contribute to your righteousness.

00:14:46.400 You are not righteous by anything you do.

00:14:48.840 You are actually just a sinner in everything you do.

00:14:51.900 Christ is the only righteousness that you have

00:14:54.520 before a holy and perfect God.

00:14:56.000 So it's not your church attendance.

00:14:57.200 It's not your prayer schedule.

00:14:58.460 It's not your Bible reading frequency.

00:15:00.620 You're giving, none of it makes you more righteous.

00:15:03.140 None of it.

00:15:03.640 None of it contributes to the standing

00:15:05.640 that you have before God.

00:15:06.780 The only way that you stand righteous before God is again in Christ. 0.86

00:15:11.400 And so the Jews did not understand this, especially coming out of a legalistic culture.

00:15:16.040 I know many Christians that came out of legalistic churches and still struggle with this.

00:15:19.960 They find themselves, they're constantly condemning themselves that they did this and they did that.

00:15:25.760 Yes, we need to repent when we walk in sin, but that repentance is a renewal of the original repentance,

00:15:30.920 the big R repentance, that when we turned away from our sin and came to Christ and we were

00:15:36.300 justified by our faith, there is nothing that can take us away. We cannot lose our salvation

00:15:41.460 because our salvation wasn't resting upon our righteousness. It was resting only on the

00:15:46.080 righteousness of Christ. And so lots of people have this struggle with religiosity and legalism

00:15:52.220 that they think that if they don't do enough, that God's angry with them, or if they do something

00:15:57.120 and that God's happier with them.

00:15:58.820 The reality is, is God's happy with Christ.

00:16:01.220 We're in Christ.

00:16:02.280 We obey because of that beautiful gift,

00:16:04.200 that good news that we can be righteous in Christ.

00:16:07.100 And in any of those good works that we do do,

00:16:09.920 they're in Christ,

00:16:10.980 and we can't take credit for those works.

00:16:13.000 Any sin that we do commit is of the flesh,

00:16:15.200 and we can take credit for that.

00:16:17.040 So again, Paul closes this little section here

00:16:19.320 in this first verse.

00:16:21.340 He says, we know that the judgment of God

00:16:23.700 rightly falls on those who practice such things. So essentially, Paul is saying, because you have

00:16:30.220 not the righteousness of Christ, you are equally as wicked. You are no longer, you never were,

00:16:39.960 having any higher ground than anybody else. These people wrongfully interpreted their position

00:16:47.860 with God the Father. And so they have a veneer of light, but they're essentially darkness on

00:16:55.480 the inside. And again, Paul wants to make this absolutely clear to them. They practice self

00:17:00.700 righteousness, again, which is an abomination to God. When we practice self, when we think that

00:17:05.100 our works have some sort of contribution to our standing before him. And basically, Paul is saying

00:17:13.820 you remain under the judgment of God if you believe these things. So Christianity is not

00:17:19.700 about what to do. It's about what's been done. That's essential for us to understand. And as a 0.92

00:17:26.200 result of what's been done, we can joyfully do. So basically obedience and righteousness and

00:17:34.280 Bible reading and church attendance and compassion on one another and truth, these things are

00:17:42.080 fruits of a good root, but they are not the root themselves. The root is Christ and he is the

00:17:48.160 source of all those good things through the Holy Spirit in us. So even those righteous works that

00:17:52.400 we do, we can't take credit for. And so we need to be, we just need to remember that Christ,

00:17:57.840 if we want to say for from him and through him and to him are all things, all glory be to Christ

00:18:02.160 and him alone. We need to realize that all those good things come from Christ and not from us,

00:18:06.780 But we need to, again, remove that desire to approach God on our own, through our own

00:18:14.640 religious law-keeping.

00:18:16.520 Again, we can do righteous things from the Spirit of God to the glory of Christ, but

00:18:23.580 those things that we do in terms of our religious life or our piety aren't contributing or

00:18:30.880 making us any more righteous or any more loved by doing those deeds.

00:18:35.800 And so verses three through four, we'll get some more direct context here. It says,

00:18:42.400 do you suppose, oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself,

00:18:49.620 that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness

00:18:56.360 and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

00:19:03.140 So this word presume, asking a question,

00:19:06.740 do you presume?

00:19:07.660 It's, do you think lightly about these things?

00:19:09.840 That's what he's saying.

00:19:10.640 So Paul's asking a sincere question 0.98

00:19:12.400 and to the Christian, it might be a rhetorical, right?

00:19:15.320 Do you suppose, oh man, that you who judge 0.86

00:19:17.220 and those who practice such things

00:19:19.100 and yet do them yourself,

00:19:20.280 that you would escape the judgment? 1.00

00:19:21.720 A Christian's gonna go, of course not. 1.00

00:19:23.780 But the Jew actually would go, 1.00

00:19:26.960 yeah, we are gonna escape that 0.76

00:19:28.880 because we have a religious system.

00:19:30.880 and we are righteous because look at how we live our lives. Look who we are. We are God's chosen

00:19:35.800 people. That's that posture that Paul is trying to address here. He uses the term, O man, which

00:19:44.100 again, in Paul's writings is a term of earnestness. He uses it later in chapter nine, who are you,

00:19:52.040 oh man, to essentially evaluate God. And so at the core, Paul is calling the Jews hypocrites. 0.97

00:20:02.620 That's really what he's saying here. And when you look at all these individuals who live a certain 0.99

00:20:08.180 way and walk another way or speak one way and walk another way, this is the sin of hypocrisy. 0.97

00:20:15.760 They judge the Gentiles for the idolatry that they commit, when in reality, they're committing 0.96

00:20:21.720 their own form of idolatry, which is self-righteousness. They're believing that 1.00

00:20:26.660 law-keeping will actually make them righteous, which again is to reject the Messiah, is to

00:20:32.300 reject their need for a Savior. So again, the question that was asked is, do you suppose,

00:20:39.500 oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourselves, that you

00:20:45.040 will escape the judgments of God. And so moral people, the problem with moralism and the problem

00:20:52.560 with self-righteousness is that these are individuals who know the law of God. And while

00:21:00.020 they might not openly carry out these acts as prevalent as those in Romans chapter one,

00:21:08.500 they commit these things in their secret life. They commit these things in their heart. And this

00:21:14.460 is again why Jesus would often say it's not just that you've heard that it was told that if you do

00:21:20.160 these things physically, he says, no, but I'm looking at the heart. And so this is again,

00:21:25.280 this moral high ground and Jesus raising the standard of the heart, leveling the playing

00:21:30.840 field. The Jews, the Greeks were all under the same condemnation. None of us are righteous. No,

00:21:36.900 not one. And so again, the Jews had grossly overestimated their standing with God. They 0.58

00:21:45.220 genuinely believed that their religious law keeping was sufficient to render them righteous. 1.00

00:21:50.260 And again, this needed to be purged from the Jewish mind and the Jewish culture. This is 1.00

00:21:56.020 something that they still live and believe in today. And so what this again illustrates is a

00:22:02.220 total miscalculation of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. And this is Paul's ministry

00:22:08.420 as a whole, is he constantly wants to talk about the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man,

00:22:14.040 and the bridge that bridges the gap, right, is Christ Jesus. And so the Jews viewed the law as

00:22:21.100 a ladder that could bring man to God, when in reality, the law was intended to demonstrate

00:22:27.740 man's inability to ever reach God. The reason we teach our kids the law of God is why? We want to

00:22:33.680 teach them the Ten Commandments because very quickly they're going to learn that they can't

00:22:37.300 keep them and that they are going to be guilty and that they need a Savior. We know that the Old

00:22:42.280 Testament, the law, was a tutor unto salvation. It taught us our need. The problem is that the

00:22:49.080 Jews missed this, and obviously they crucified the Messiah. This is fresh on the mind of Paul

00:22:55.640 as he's communicating this. 1.00

00:22:56.780 So if you, like the Jew, 0.99

00:22:58.900 is relying on anything else 0.99

00:23:00.640 to make yourself right with God,

00:23:02.760 again, your obedience, your prayer life,

00:23:04.220 your sin frequency,

00:23:05.060 how often you raise your hands at worship,

00:23:06.740 whatever it is,

00:23:07.940 you're miscalculating the value

00:23:09.760 of your religious works

00:23:10.820 and you're trying to earn

00:23:12.360 what you can never earn.

00:23:13.700 What we need to do is go,

00:23:15.280 I can't do anything, Lord.

00:23:16.720 I repent of all of my sins,

00:23:18.580 everything that I've tried

00:23:19.740 to contribute to these things.

00:23:21.140 It's all Christ.

00:23:22.920 He is the only way.

00:23:24.420 He is the only truth.

00:23:25.640 He is the only way to the Father, and you just need to rest in Christ. That is a shift that needs

00:23:30.640 to occur. We know that Isaiah 64, 6 says, we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our

00:23:38.120 righteous deeds are like a filthy rag. Again, even our good works, that they're not done to the glory

00:23:44.720 of Christ. And you know that I'm reteaching, right? I'm teaching here in concentric circles.

00:23:49.060 So I said this a couple minutes ago. I'm saying it again. Sometimes we need repetition to learn

00:23:52.900 these things. So we have to realize that if we do a good work, say we go and we give some money to

00:24:00.420 the homeless shelter, if that is done not to the glory of Christ in faith, then that is not viewed

00:24:08.440 by God as a righteous deed, because if it's not done the glory of Christ, it's done to the glory

00:24:11.520 of self. If it's making you feel good for you, that is sin. Later in Romans, Paul says anything

00:24:19.840 that is done not from outside of faith is sin. And so anything that's done outside of a desire to

00:24:25.420 glorify Christ is sinful. And again, many of us today still miscalculate our self-righteousness.

00:24:32.360 We think that somehow by rule following, we're going to have God be happier with us or he's

00:24:41.020 going to love us more. We basically perform for God when in reality, we just need to go praise

00:24:47.060 Christ, praise Christ, because he is the one who did everything. He did it all from start to finish.

00:24:54.800 And we need to recognize that as Christians. And so every good thing in you is of Christ. That's

00:25:03.900 just something that we need to constantly remind ourselves in a world that wants to perform. Every

00:25:08.200 good thing is of Christ. Every bad thing in me is of self. So Paul anticipated the blindness of the

00:25:14.280 Jews. Why? Because he understood the absolute depravity of the lostness of his religiosity. 0.65

00:25:21.500 Paul was the perfect individual to write Romans because he understood legalism to the core. Paul

00:25:26.900 was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was the chief of sinners. He understood that the posture and

00:25:33.960 the thinking and the structure of the religious system the Jews were so entrenched in. So he asks

00:25:42.300 another question. He says, or do you think lightly on the riches of his kindness and forbearance

00:25:49.200 and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? And so he's

00:25:55.220 saying, do you think that you deserve a righteous standing? Are you blind to the riches of his

00:26:01.500 kindness and forbearance and patience towards you? Are you blind to these things? He's given you

00:26:06.620 knowledge. He's given you understanding. He's given you the scriptures. He's given you the

00:26:10.460 prophets, right? Do you not see that he has patiently restrained his wrath toward the Jews?

00:26:18.320 They killed the Messiah and he's patiently restraining the wrath against the Jews. But 0.95

00:26:24.980 most of all, he's asking, do you not know that the purpose of all these divine mercies, again, 0.72

00:26:31.240 that kindness, that forbearance, that patience, is not meant to affirm that Israel was not in

00:26:37.900 need of more mercy or of mercy in general, it was meant to lead them to repentance. That was the

00:26:44.360 purpose of that kindness and that forbearance and that patience, right? God's kindness towards

00:26:50.080 someone in giving them knowledge, knowledge of his moral law, knowledge of his son, knowledge 0.90

00:26:58.900 of the scriptures, knowledge of the words of the prophets, again, like he did with the Jews, 0.78

00:27:03.880 is not to affirm them that they're fine just the way that they are. The knowledge is not sufficient 0.98

00:27:10.120 to save. It's to teach them that they're great in desperate need of a Savior. It's a gesture

00:27:17.040 of mercy intended to show them their desperate need for forgiveness and a Savior. That's the

00:27:24.080 purpose of God's patience and kindness toward us, is to show us our need. He's patient towards us.

00:27:32.160 But religion, again, is powerful.

00:27:34.000 Religion is absolutely powerful.

00:27:36.840 Religion makes believers think that God accepts them on the basis of what they do 0.72

00:27:40.500 instead of on the basis of what Christ has done.

00:27:43.900 That is what legalism is.

00:27:45.440 And a lot of us have this little piece in our heart

00:27:49.180 that we think that we're just going to add something.

00:27:53.560 We're going to keep ourselves saved by staying in this amount of sin.

00:27:58.780 But if we sin a little bit more, maybe that means we fall away.

00:28:01.320 No, that's bad, bad thinking.

00:28:04.580 I used to be in a church where someone says, you know, there's a canyon there.

00:28:08.840 And if you get too close to the canyon, you're going to fall in.

00:28:11.480 You're going to lose your salvation.

00:28:12.300 You want to stay far away from the canyon.

00:28:15.060 What that kind of mentality does is that it basically makes me work to keep myself saved.

00:28:23.160 It makes me work.

00:28:24.380 And it also gives me a little bit of glory that I can tap my shoulder and say, you know what? 0.63

00:28:29.600 that person that was a Christian that walked away because they fell down the canyon,

00:28:35.720 you know what? I'm better than them because I kept myself saved, and I had more discipline

00:28:41.700 than they did, which is, again, absolutely wrong. If someone is saved, if someone is truly in Christ,

00:28:48.000 born again, a child of God, God will keep you saved. We know in John 10, verses 24 through 25,

00:28:56.320 and I'm going off memory here. Jesus says, my sheep know me, they follow me. I give them

00:29:04.060 eternal life and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand because no one's

00:29:09.540 strong enough to snatch them out of my father's hand. Me and my father are one. Again, that's the

00:29:13.140 paraphrase there, but they will never perish. And so we have to realize that he who began a good

00:29:17.720 work in you will finish it. So that the perseverance that you have in the faith,

00:29:22.760 your ability to maintain obedience, your ability to walk and keep your faith strong. It has nothing

00:29:28.600 to do with you. It's Christ in you. Because again, he who began a good work in you will finish it.

00:29:33.280 We know this in Hebrews. It says that Jesus is the author and finisher of your faith. Your faith

00:29:39.660 itself is a gift from God. It actually is the very thing that keeps you sustained. And so we can't

00:29:45.100 say glory be to me. We could say all glory be to Christ who does these works for us. And so

00:29:52.760 And at the very end, verse five, it says, but because of your hard and impenitent heart,

00:29:58.040 you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be

00:30:04.100 revealed. So the phrase hardness of heart that's used here would produce images for a Jewish 1.00

00:30:10.280 culture of Moses's story with the account of Pharaoh and God hardening their heart.

00:30:17.840 It would conjure up images of Ezekiel

00:30:21.380 where talking about these individuals

00:30:23.340 having a heart of stone.

00:30:25.300 And so Paul's using language that was historically used

00:30:27.820 to demonstrate someone under God's wrath,

00:30:29.960 and he's pointing it right at them

00:30:32.040 and using that language towards them.

00:30:34.400 He's saying that they're storing up wrath for themselves,

00:30:38.360 which again is a terrifying thought

00:30:39.860 because it essentially is saying

00:30:41.260 that sin can be accumulated and punished accordingly.

00:30:45.800 You can store up wrath with self-righteous behavior.

00:30:50.380 So God hates legalism, hates it.

00:30:54.040 It's really when you walk into a legalistic structure of your relationship with God,

00:30:58.840 it's again, it's rejecting his son.

00:31:02.060 It's saying that, you know what?

00:31:04.080 Christ did his part.

00:31:05.320 I'm going to do mine.

00:31:06.700 No, Christ did it all.

00:31:08.680 We need to get that through our minds.

00:31:10.740 Christ did all of it.

00:31:12.100 you cannot contribute whatsoever. What we do is we obey because of what Christ has done.

00:31:19.400 We don't obey to keep ourselves saved. It is gratitude and love that leads us to obedience,

00:31:28.860 not fear and law that is the motivation or the motive behind why we obey.

00:31:36.880 And so their rejection of Christ

00:31:39.020 and reliance upon their works

00:31:40.660 was again, an act of stockpiling wrath.

00:31:43.860 Again, this is talking about Jews that are not saved, 0.83

00:31:46.740 that have not received Christ.

00:31:48.320 He's opening up again, we're in Romans chapter two.

00:31:51.240 This is an exposition of the gospel.

00:31:53.360 He's talking to individuals at this point

00:31:55.500 that he's condemning those who are outside of Christ.

00:31:59.120 And so you gotta understand who the audience is right now.

00:32:02.300 These are, the letter sure is to the church that's in Rome.

00:32:06.140 But it's clarifying that there are individuals, Jews, Gentiles, that are not saved, and they're

00:32:11.680 giving them gospel doctrine. And so, in other words, those who rest on religious works

00:32:18.280 reject the sufficiency of Christ, and they squander the mercy of God, extend to them

00:32:23.620 by grace, and they store for themselves wrath that's going to be delivered to them

00:32:27.980 on the day of judgment. And again, the Jews had a special grace that was given to them

00:32:33.200 from the prophets, from the scriptures, from the fathers that were before them. The law of God was

00:32:38.620 delivered to them. They had the oracles of God. They had no excuse and God extended kindness and

00:32:44.680 mercy to them and handed them, given them gift after gift after gift. And so Paul is passionate

00:32:49.080 about this, but they need to see that their righteous ways or their righteous works will

00:32:52.900 not contribute. They need to realize that Christ alone is their righteousness. And so the day of

00:32:57.840 judgment that he's talking about is the day where all of those people who did not keep the law will

00:33:02.120 receive the eternal consequences that they've sinned against an eternal God. That day of judgment's

00:33:06.740 coming. And if you're standing there and you're trusting in your own works, you're done. You need

00:33:12.980 to trust only and solely on the righteous work of Christ. So Christians, on the other hand, for us, 0.95

00:33:20.040 we don't need to worry about this stuff because we trust in the righteousness of Christ. And

00:33:26.280 there's a promise to Christians for those who are in Christ about the day of judgment and the

00:33:31.440 condemnation that comes on that day. It's Romans 8, 1 through 4, and I'm going to read it to you.

00:33:36.000 It says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law

00:33:43.800 of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has

00:33:50.880 done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending his own son in the likeness

00:33:57.260 of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement

00:34:03.320 of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the

00:34:10.040 spirit. So again, if you break this down, man, I wish we had time to just break this down.

00:34:14.220 But essentially God is saying he fulfilled the requirement of the law for mankind in Christ.

00:34:20.040 And our sins were actually nailed to Christ on the cross. He paid the price of us breaking the

00:34:27.240 law. And through faith, Christ imputes his righteousness to us. And therefore, there is

00:34:31.940 now no condemnation for us that are in Christ Jesus. It's an incredible passage of scripture.

00:34:36.460 I once heard a pastor say, quote, the essence of legalism is trusting in the religious activity

00:34:42.560 rather than trusting in God. It is putting our confidence in a practice rather than a person.

00:34:49.920 and without fail, this will lead us to love the practice more than the person. Okay, this was

00:34:58.580 and still is the posture of the Jews, the posture of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the church, 0.55

00:35:05.840 the posture of the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the other cults, the Seventh-day

00:35:10.200 Adventists, the Church of Christ, and many of those sects of the Church of Christ. And as a

00:35:16.580 result, this is what happens. Many people leave the practice because they never came to the person.

00:35:21.880 You've heard me say, so many people have come to church, but they never came to Christ. This is

00:35:26.020 what I'm talking about here, is that if you didn't come to Christ and you come and you're just here

00:35:31.500 for the practice, you leave the church, you leave the church because you left the practice, not the

00:35:36.780 person, because you never came to the person. And they believe that Christianity is about something

00:35:43.560 to do. And when they get tired of doing it, they leave. And then we think for those of us that 0.97

00:35:49.400 don't understand the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, or this once saved, always saved

00:35:53.840 doctrine, people think, oh, this person walked away from the faith. No, they never walked away

00:35:58.600 from the faith. They were never saved. They were never saved. If they were of us, they would have

00:36:03.140 remained with us as first John, I believe chapter two talks about that. And so we need to realize

00:36:08.000 is that when people come just to the practice and they leave the practice, they leave the church,

00:36:12.640 they never were born again. They need to be born again. And when you're born again,

00:36:16.440 you will never leave the church because God will continue to keep that desire and those

00:36:20.860 affections for God's people, and you will be sustained. So again, Christianity is not about

00:36:27.260 doing, it's about resting in what has been done. And this is what the Jews finally need to 0.99

00:36:34.480 understand. And Paul is working incredibly hard to get that point across. This is the good news

00:36:42.800 to those who work. This is the good news to those who labor. You know, Jesus is talking about,

00:36:50.380 come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest. Come rest in Christ, in his perfect

00:36:58.180 righteousness. You don't have to labor to be righteous. You can't do it. The only thing you

00:37:04.080 can do is rest in Jesus Christ alone. So let's go ahead and pray, and then I'll close us out today.

00:37:09.820 Father, we thank you, Lord, for your son, Jesus, Lord, that has made us righteous. And Lord, we

00:37:15.080 pray for any of us that are listening or watching right now that are relying on their works or that

00:37:20.780 have confused the grace of God with a works-based gospel. Father, we ask that you would give them

00:37:25.920 wisdom to understand the difference and that you would bring conviction and clarity so that these

00:37:30.060 individuals can rest in the grace and the love of Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, guys, thank

00:37:37.360 you for listening to this episode of Real Christianity. As you guys know, my hope is that

00:37:42.140 this podcast, this show is edifying for your walk with Christ, that it strengthens you, that it

00:37:48.100 gives you sound doctrine, that biblical and theological literacy continues to grow in you.

00:37:53.360 If you haven't subscribed to our channel or our podcast, would you do that? If someone just sent

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00:38:01.840 button so that we can continue to give you biblical truth every single month or every single week.

00:38:07.300 And lastly, would you prayerfully consider just making a donation to what we're doing here,

00:38:12.980 supporting and giving to the work that we are here? We are trying to, again, bring theological

00:38:18.880 and biblical literacy back to the church. Our hope is to produce more resources, more content,

00:38:23.440 more books, more trainings, more courses to just, again, bring the church back to the Bible

00:38:30.100 and strengthen our understanding of what it means to be a Christian. So again, thank you guys for

00:38:36.640 joining us here today. You can always give at relearn.org forward slash donate.

00:38:41.160 My name is Dale Partridge. This is Real Christianity, and I'll see you next week.

00:38:53.440 We'll be right back. 0.94

Dale Partridge - July 08, 2022

Romans 2_1-5： How to Spot a Legalistic Church

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