Dale Partridge - August 09, 2022


Romans 2_12-13： The Inescapable condemnation of God’s Law


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29 minutes

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5,138

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344

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Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
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Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 In this episode of Real Christianity,
00:00:01.380 we continue our journey through Romans 2
00:00:03.660 and confront the reality of the moral law of God.
00:00:06.980 What is the purpose of the law?
00:00:08.240 And if Jesus fulfilled the law,
00:00:09.720 does the law still have jurisdiction today?
00:00:11.740 But most importantly, how does the law relate
00:00:14.120 to how we share the gospel?
00:00:16.460 I'll be answering all these questions
00:00:17.880 and more coming up right now. 0.85
00:00:30.000 Welcome to Real Christianity.
00:00:39.100 My name is Dale Partridge. 0.66
00:00:40.020 Today's episode is titled Romans 2, 12-13, The Inescapable Condemnation of God's Law.
00:00:46.420 Now, as you know, this show is an audio and video ministry of relearn.org.
00:00:49.960 If you're watching the video recording of this episode, please be sure to subscribe
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00:01:27.380 to support these efforts? If so, you can just go to relearn.org forward slash donate. Now,
00:01:32.520 speaking of resources, have you used our new gospel service, mailthegospel.org? You can now
00:01:38.120 mail the gospel, a theologically accurate, beautiful, and bold presentation of the gospel
00:01:42.880 to anyone in the world. What friend or family member needs to hear the gospel? What coworker
00:01:47.680 or neighbor needs to hear the gospel? Get their mailing address and go to mailthegospel.org and
00:01:53.520 send it to them today. All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and dive in. As we know,
00:01:58.320 Romans is Paul's magnum opus. It's the greatest exposition of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we
00:02:04.460 have in print. It's something that we can learn from every time I read Romans. It just continues
00:02:10.000 to go deeper and deeper and deeper. In chapter one, we learned about the evidence of God in
00:02:14.640 creation, leaving no excuse for atheism. In chapter two, we learned for those who still
00:02:20.460 deny God and worship idols. They turn that intrinsic desire to worship toward things that
00:02:24.980 were created. God hands these individuals over to a variety of self-inflicted judgments where he's
00:02:30.620 drawing away from the individuals, leading to a life and eternity of pain and misery.
00:02:36.420 Earlier in chapter two, we learned that God's justice is individualized. Paul levels the
00:02:42.680 playing field between the Jews and the Greeks and the universality of the judgment and jurisdiction
00:02:49.160 of the gospel. Ultimately, what I'm saying here is that both Jew and Greek are going to stand
00:02:54.600 equally before the judgment seat of Christ on the day of judgment. There will be no partiality. We
00:03:00.120 know this in 2 Corinthians 5.10 that says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ
00:03:06.240 so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
00:03:12.500 Now, when we say that word all, this includes Christians, non-Christians, both Jews and Greeks.
00:03:17.780 the reality is that for Christians, we get to lean on Romans 8.1 that says,
00:03:22.740 there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So that is that our final
00:03:28.940 verdict during that judgment is not resting upon our works, but upon the work of Christ,
00:03:34.540 because we have our faith in Christ alone, where he imputes his righteousness to us,
00:03:39.460 making us justified before the law because of his righteousness, not our own. And so while
00:03:45.540 Christians will stand before judgment and we will have a reward for the way that we behave. 0.83
00:03:51.980 Our final verdict is not going to be resting upon our own works, but upon the works of Christ. And
00:03:57.340 this is a place for Christians to have peace and rest. But for those who are not believers,
00:04:02.740 it should absolutely terrify you. Paul's essential point is that judgment is coming for all people.
00:04:09.800 It's coming. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
00:04:13.940 Both Jew and Greek and the religious moralism of Israel was not sufficient to make people 0.77
00:04:19.380 righteous or to be justified before God. 0.93
00:04:22.320 Namely, outside of Christ, all people are condemned.
00:04:25.440 This is what we need to really settle our hearts on.
00:04:28.220 There is only one way to the Father.
00:04:30.300 We know this, Jesus Christ.
00:04:31.840 There's only one righteous one who can atone, Jesus Christ.
00:04:35.060 There's only one Savior who can redeem, again, the man, Jesus Christ.
00:04:39.080 So in today's passage, Paul's going to shift his focus from the universal judgment, and
00:04:45.580 he's going to move on to the condemning power of the law.
00:04:49.840 And so it's from the actual judgment to really the underlying structure of that judgment,
00:04:55.220 which is the law.
00:04:56.300 If the last sermon that I gave, the episode before this, was the action, then this sermon
00:05:01.460 is really the grounds.
00:05:02.900 The law is the grounds for the judgment.
00:05:05.000 In other words, if the judgment of God is just, it's because the law is authorized or operative
00:05:11.960 or enforceable. It's available for us to see. It has jurisdiction over how we live and how we're
00:05:18.760 supposed to obey and that we've violated it as sinners born into sin and also sinners who commit
00:05:25.860 sin. So we're going to read Romans 2, 12 through 13, just a short passage of scripture. We're
00:05:31.380 going to dive in after that verse by verse. So Romans 2, 12 to 13 in the ESV, it says,
00:05:36.700 for all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. And all who have sinned
00:05:42.980 under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous
00:05:49.660 before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. Okay. The main idea of this sermon,
00:05:57.380 of this passage of scripture is this. The law of God is intended to damn men, not deliver them.
00:06:05.540 Okay, you need to grasp this. I'm going to say it one more time. The law of God is intended and
00:06:10.400 designed to damn men, not deliver them. So I've broken today's sermon into two sections, and we're 0.88
00:06:19.500 going to be breaking in verse 12 and verse 13. So verse 12 is the condemning power of the law,
00:06:25.200 and verse 13 is the unbearable demand of the law. Okay, so we have two sections. Again,
00:06:31.520 one more time, the condemning power of the law and the unbearable demand of the law.
00:06:36.800 So this section is to start a larger section or a larger argument. So when we read this passage
00:06:42.700 of scripture, we have to realize that Paul is not saying this statement in an isolated moment.
00:06:48.060 No, this is a piece of a larger correspondence on a specific issue, on a coordinated argument
00:06:54.700 that he's making regarding the law and its role in the gospel. So we have to understand that.
00:07:00.860 And so from verses 2, 12 through 3, 31, this is one consistent argument. So we have to take it
00:07:08.300 in context. We can't just take this passage of scripture, strip it out and read it without the
00:07:14.280 other sentences and paragraphs surrounding it. It's essential that we keep it in context because
00:07:19.660 if we read this passage and we go, oh, for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before
00:07:24.540 God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. We're going to think, oh, we just have
00:07:28.140 to do the law and that's how we get justified. No, this is Paul actually starting out this
00:07:32.280 conversation. He's leading to a point later in this passage that's going to clarify what he means
00:07:38.480 by what he says, but none of us are going to be justified by the law because we can't keep the law
00:07:43.160 perfectly. And that's what he's essentially saying here. So if we looked at the section 2.12 through
00:07:49.980 331, in my ESV Bible, just the headings will give you kind of a key understanding of what's being
00:07:56.600 said here in the narrative of his argument here. Number one, he says, I should say the headings say
00:08:02.840 in the ESV Bible, God's judgment and the law. Number two is God's righteousness upheld. Number
00:08:09.000 three is no one is righteous. And number four is the righteousness of God through faith. So if you
00:08:14.880 read chapter two and chapter three, those are the headings. So you start to see that thematic
00:08:19.100 narrative that Paul is trying to take us on. So verses 12 and 13, which we're talking about,
00:08:25.220 really act as a thesis for this section where Paul demonstrates the power of the moral law of
00:08:33.120 God. He talks about the just condemnation of the law of God, our guilt because of the law of God,
00:08:41.000 and our only path to be found righteous before the law of God. So this is, again, a larger
00:08:46.660 narrative and discourse on the gospel presentation that occurs in the early half of the book of
00:08:53.160 Romans. I often say that Christians really need to have a bad news, good news gospel. If you just
00:08:59.300 have a good news gospel without the bad news, nobody's really going to appreciate the good
00:09:04.180 news. The good news is good because the bad news is so bad. But if we preach just the good news
00:09:09.360 without the sting of the bad news, the condemnation of our sin, the power the law has over our
00:09:15.680 behavior, the condemning power that we stand before the law of God, then we're not going to be
00:09:21.260 thankful and grateful for the rescue that the Savior has taken by fulfilling that law for us.
00:09:28.420 And so it's essential that we have this bad news, good news gospel. And in this section, Paul is
00:09:34.840 establishing the bad news. This is what we're in, this section, for the next several passages of
00:09:40.580 scripture that we're going to be teaching. That's what he's talking about, the bad news. The question
00:09:44.620 you need to ask yourself, is this how you share the gospel? Do you start with the bad news? If you
00:09:49.500 don't, you're preaching the gospel inconsistent with the apostle Paul, and that should raise some
00:09:54.320 red flags. So verse 12, we'll break this down verse by verse here. For all who have sinned
00:10:00.260 without the law will also perish without the law. Just stop right there and just listen to what he's
00:10:06.740 saying. For all who have sinned without the law, they've never even heard of the law, will also
00:10:12.000 perish, meaning that they're going to die physically and spiritually. They're going to
00:10:17.060 perish without the law. And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. So this
00:10:25.320 is, again, a universality of the condemnation of the law. Now, Paul opens up this paragraph with
00:10:31.680 the word for. And the word for is a causal clause. And you want to pay attention to this, people,
00:10:38.520 just so you can get better at interpreting scripture on your own. It's this reoccurring
00:10:42.700 theme, even from chapter one into chapter two, Paul is again, showing the interconnectedness
00:10:48.380 of his argument. It's a line of reasoning. Ultimately, if you could rephrase this,
00:10:52.840 it would be saying, this occurs because this is true. And this occurs because this is true.
00:10:57.140 And this occurs because this is true. That's what's happening here. And we have to take note
00:11:01.500 of that so that we're not just reading the scripture without the greater narrative of
00:11:07.200 what Paul is trying to get across to us. And so this is, again, a coordinated argument that we
00:11:12.180 need to pay attention to. So again, first, Paul is demonstrating the universal condemning power
00:11:17.200 of the law. He's leveling the playing field. He says, we're all condemned, whether you have the
00:11:22.160 law, whether you don't have the law, you're all going to perish, regardless if you have possession
00:11:27.380 of the law. And so to the Gentiles, he's saying, you're a sinner. Therefore, your ignorance of the 0.68
00:11:32.440 law does not change your guilt before the law, you're going to perish. He's saying to the Jews, 0.98
00:11:37.560 you're a sinner, therefore your possession of the law does not change your guilt before the law, 0.99
00:11:42.580 you're going to perish. Both people are going to perish with the law outside of Christ. And so we 0.94
00:11:48.340 know that the wages of sin is death. And because all have sinned against the law, ignorantly or
00:11:54.940 knowingly, all people will perish, all people will die. And it's not just talking about a physical
00:12:00.700 death, it's also talking about a spiritual death. A physical death is the separation of the body
00:12:04.820 and the soul. A spiritual death is the separation of soul from God, or I should say soul from the
00:12:12.080 grace and the mercy and the love of God. You will have the wrath of God upon you, but you will not
00:12:16.280 have the love of God on you. So for example, if I was driving 45 miles per hour down a street here
00:12:24.180 in Arizona, and I was unaware that the law said on that street that I could only drive 25 miles
00:12:31.860 per hour, I would still be guilty of that law despite my understanding or awareness of that
00:12:39.500 law. So whether I know it or not, I'm still responsible and I'm guilty of that law. That
00:12:46.580 law has jurisdiction regardless of my awareness or ignorance of that law. That's essentially what
00:12:52.240 Paul is teaching here. So when you break the law, you're guilty of the law, regardless of your
00:12:57.360 relationship with the law, whether you know about it, whether you don't know about it, every single
00:13:02.320 one of us is guilty of disobeying and breaking God's law. Romans 3, 9 through 12 says,
00:13:11.600 For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it is written,
00:13:18.400 None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside.
00:13:24.040 Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. So why was this so essential
00:13:31.320 for Paul to communicate to the Jews? What was his point? Why was he so careful to make sure that the 0.68
00:13:38.540 Jews understood what he meant by the judgment of God and the condemnation of the law? First, 0.79
00:13:45.500 we know that the Jews had underestimated the power of the law and overestimated their ability 0.97
00:13:52.740 to keep it. Absolutely something that happens even today with the Mormons and the Jehovah's 1.00
00:13:58.460 Witness and people in the Church of Christ and people in the Amish community, people in the 0.92
00:14:04.360 Seventh-day Adventist community. There are people, definitely in the Roman Catholic, people that
00:14:09.220 believe in a works-based salvation or a faith plus work salvation. They underestimate the power of
00:14:15.140 law and they overestimate their ability to keep it they don't turn to christ alone to be their
00:14:20.340 alien righteousness the one who can keep the law and impute his righteousness to you through faith
00:14:25.300 they don't understand that but the jews specifically really struggled with this reality
00:14:31.060 one historian said that a common jewish response to christian evangelists was quote we have our law
00:14:38.340 we don't need your gospel. We have our law. We don't need your gospel. This is a grave example
00:14:44.700 of foolishness. They're literally hanging on to the very thing that is going to kill them, 0.99
00:14:50.140 that is going to kill them, not just in body, but also in soul. We don't need your gospel.
00:14:54.540 We have our law. Romans 3.20 says, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified.
00:15:03.320 Okay. I'm just going to say that again. Romans 3.20, for by works of the law, no human being
00:15:07.600 will be justified. James 2.10 tells us, for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point
00:15:15.240 has become guilty of all of it. So if you kept the law absolutely perfectly from birth, which
00:15:23.660 you can't, but from birth to 10 years old, you steal a pencil and then you keep it perfect until
00:15:29.980 death. It doesn't matter. You broke the entire law. You break one piece of it. You're guilty of
00:15:34.400 all of it, you're condemned universally by the law. And so the site of our moral state
00:15:41.300 is the start of our salvation. I'm going to say that one more time. The site of our moral state
00:15:47.920 before the law is the start of our salvation. When we finally see that law following
00:15:54.740 for the law breaker is a hopeless pursuit for justification, we finally look out to mercy for
00:16:04.660 the Savior. We have to realize that law following for justification purposes is not, it's a hopeless
00:16:13.360 endeavor. We will never be justified by works of the law. Now, we are to obey the law out of
00:16:19.980 gratitude because of what Christ has done for us, but we're not obeying the law to keep ourselves
00:16:24.640 saved or to get ourselves saved. And so this is essential that we understand the purpose of the
00:16:31.200 law here. Now, this is not only instructive, again, for the Jews, but for every moralist and
00:16:37.120 every legalist and every peddler of that faith plus works gospel message. This is, again, it's
00:16:43.320 instructive for all those Christian groups that I named earlier who believe obedience contributes
00:16:49.020 to their salvation, or the maintaining of their salvation, or the actual catalyst to their
00:16:56.080 salvation. William Farley once wrote, quote, we enter the world in love with legalism. We are
00:17:03.420 convinced that we can merit God's favor. The flesh loves duty, but it resists the gospel.
00:17:09.840 As a result, we become moralists, and we believe we merit God's favor by being good. 0.99
00:17:14.480 This is a deadly enemy of the Christian. The moralist trusts in his own goodness, 0.99
00:17:19.820 virtue, and principled intentions to get a, quote, not guilty verdict from God on the day
00:17:25.220 of judgment. It is a rejection of the Savior. It is a cloak over an unregenerate heart and can make
00:17:31.520 it difficult to see one's true spiritual condition, end quote. So let's move now to section two. So
00:17:37.160 section two is Paul illustrating the unbearable demand of the law. Again, section one is this
00:17:44.260 idea of the condemning power of the law. No man is going to be justified by the works of the law.
00:17:52.540 Now we're going to talk about the unbearable demand of the law. And so verse 13, Paul says,
00:17:59.460 again, he uses that word for, for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God,
00:18:06.080 but this contrast clause, but the doers of the law who will be justified. Again, remember this
00:18:12.340 portion of scripture isn't some isolated statement, but it's a piece of a larger presentation
00:18:17.900 of the good news or the gospel or the, I should even say the bad news before he presents the good
00:18:23.320 news. So Paul is not explaining the way of salvation through law keeping. That's not what
00:18:29.740 he's doing, but he's talking about the need for salvation because nobody can keep the law.
00:18:35.640 Again, we know that nobody can keep the law perfectly.
00:18:38.180 We know that just a few paragraphs later, he says,
00:18:40.520 for by works of the law, no man will be justified. 0.99
00:18:42.700 He's not some sort of schizophrenic idiot 0.99
00:18:44.640 who's having a conversation about saying one thing 1.00
00:18:46.880 and then another thing.
00:18:47.520 No, he's having a larger presentation
00:18:49.500 of the power of the law and the unbearable demand of the law.
00:18:54.400 He's not saying that be doers of the law to save yourself.
00:18:59.620 That's not what's being said. 0.97
00:19:01.080 he's demonstrating an absolute universal condemning power of the law to both Jew and Gentile. 0.99
00:19:08.620 Doesn't matter who you are, you will absolutely be condemned by the law. You cannot carry it. 1.00
00:19:14.880 Imagine the law is kind of like a thousand pound boulder. It will smash you. You cannot keep the
00:19:21.520 entire thing. It is designed too large for human beings to withstand. And this is again why Paul
00:19:30.000 is saying, that by works of the law, no man will be justified. He's saying that you have to keep
00:19:37.400 the whole thing if you're going to want to be saved and you can't do it. So Galatians 3.10
00:19:41.260 explains this a little bit further, where Paul writes, for all who rely on works of the law
00:19:48.280 are under a curse. For it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things
00:19:55.720 written in the book of the law and do them. This is a kind of a cross reference to the Old Testament
00:20:02.620 of Deuteronomy 27 through 26. The emphasis is all things. You can't do all of it. It's a statement
00:20:08.280 of impossibility. It's intended to discourage you. You can't keep the law. You're not going to be
00:20:13.900 able to sustain your obedience. It's not going to be able to, you're never going to be righteous
00:20:18.020 by what you do. You're only going to be righteous by what Christ has done. And so it's a weight that
00:20:24.620 no man can carry. Essentially, Paul is saying, Jews, it's not enough to hear the law. You actually
00:20:31.220 have to keep it perfectly if you're going to be saved, and you can't. You can't do it. It's just
00:20:36.480 impossible. And so he's helping them to see their own unrighteousness, their own inability, their
00:20:44.160 own condemnation before the law. It's essential that we help people see this too. I can't tell
00:20:49.740 you how many people think that they're a good person. They think that they're a good person.
00:20:55.040 They think that by some measurement of some moral law, they're measuring themselves against other
00:21:02.580 individuals. I'm better than that guy. I'm better than that individual over there. I'm not a murderer.
00:21:07.920 I'm not a rapist. I'm not a pedophile. I don't steal. Therefore, I'm good. No, the reality is
00:21:14.200 the standard for goodness is God himself. The standard for goodness is the moral law of God,
00:21:21.440 and nobody can keep it. Therefore, if anybody breaks even one point of it, nobody can say
00:21:26.120 they're good. So anybody out there who thinks they're a good person, you need to break them
00:21:30.960 and wound them with the law, because that is the only time that they're going to want
00:21:36.200 the ointment of the gospel. And so this is essential that we understand what Paul is doing
00:21:41.020 here. He's cutting off any route for escape to believe that there's some sort of self-righteous
00:21:47.140 possibility available to humanity. He's forcing them to see their own doom. He's showing them
00:21:53.120 that there's no refuge in the law and that they have to run to Christ. This is what he's pushing.
00:22:00.200 And it's essential that we do the exact same thing when we're presenting the gospel. Again,
00:22:05.020 the purpose of the law is not to save men, but to point men to the Savior. Okay, the purpose of the
00:22:11.980 law is not to save men, but to point men to a Savior. And this is why we teach our children
00:22:17.940 the Ten Commandments. We want them to memorize the Ten Commandments so that they can realize
00:22:22.740 that they can't keep them and that they need a Savior. It's a tutor or an educator or a training
00:22:29.460 up. It's shepherding us toward our own inability so that we would turn to the Savior, Jesus Christ.
00:22:36.680 This is why Galatians 3.11 through 13 says, quote, now it is evident that no one is justified before
00:22:44.940 God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith, but the law is not of faith. Namely, what
00:22:53.240 he's saying there is that the law and faith are two separate systems. Verse 13, Christ redeemed us
00:22:58.660 from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone
00:23:07.020 who is hanged on a tree. So the curse of the law is death. We know that, right? The wages of sin
00:23:13.420 is death. The curse of the law is death. If you eat of the tree that Adam and Eve were instructed
00:23:19.820 not to, you will surely die. That is the curse of God's law. We know that if we sin, that we will
00:23:28.140 perish because the wages of sin is death. Now, the curse of the law is death. And as we know,
00:23:34.660 Christ took on this curse for us, where he died to essentially make us uncursed, or if we use
00:23:41.640 biblical language, blessed. And so you and I were covenantally cursed in Adam. We were born of Adam,
00:23:49.560 Adam sinned, we were essentially in Adam. So I want you to just to, for a second, just kind of
00:23:54.520 do a little divergence here. If you think about this for a second, in Adam, all humanity existed
00:24:02.520 in Adam. Everybody came from Adam. Even Eve came from Adam. So all people came from Adam. Every
00:24:11.000 individual person was somehow genetically stored up in Adam. Every person born who eventually had
00:24:18.120 another person born, had another person born, was all stored up in Adam. So when Adam sinned,
00:24:23.960 we all sinned in him, in Adam. And so we were a part of that covenantal curse on mankind,
00:24:32.680 the fall of mankind. So when Adam fell, we all fell. And so when Adam sinned, we all sinned.
00:24:39.260 This is the whole reality of Romans chapter five. And it's why we have to understand that sin is
00:24:44.120 not just an act, it's also a condition. And it's a condition that we are born with a sinful nature
00:24:50.380 because we were born in Adam. Adam became a sinner. He was cursed by God and everybody born
00:24:56.400 of him was cursed by God. Covenantally, we were going to die unless we were born again in Christ. 0.84
00:25:03.340 And so you just have to understand the systematic theology of what's happening here. So again,
00:25:08.640 we are covenantally cursed when we're born doomed and damned, but now those who trust in Christ
00:25:14.380 we're covenantally blessed and we're atoned for and we're redeemed. And so the idea that Paul
00:25:21.140 has to extract from the moralist and the legalist and the Jew is that the law was never intended to 0.87
00:25:29.060 save. Obedience was never intended to be the focus of our relationship, of our justification. 0.63
00:25:37.800 Yes, we obey, but we obey from gratitude and love for what has been done for us. We don't obey so
00:25:44.200 that we can be saved or maintain our salvation. So the law was to instruct and reveal to humanity
00:25:51.500 God's desire for human behavior. This is good. We want to know God's desire for human righteousness,
00:25:56.240 but it's to point us to our inability to keep it and illuminate our need for Christ.
00:26:00.820 That's essentially what's being said here. The 17th century Puritan preacher Samuel Bolton
00:26:05.880 once said, when you see that men have been wounded by the law, then it is time to pour in the gospel
00:26:14.900 oil. Very similar to what I was saying. We have to afflict people with the law so that we can
00:26:20.420 heal them with the gospel. That's exactly what Paul does. And it's unfortunate that so many
00:26:25.720 Christians skip out on the bad news and they just give the good news. And therefore many people 0.98
00:26:31.000 never repent. They never understand the true gospel. And as a result, they're actually not
00:26:35.380 born again and never saved. And so this is Paul's intention with this section of scripture. He's
00:26:40.000 afflicting them with the lethality of the law. Okay. It's essential that we grasp this. And as
00:26:45.940 I said earlier, the main idea of this passage is to what? It's to show that the law of God is
00:26:50.640 intended to damn men, not deliver them. That's what's going on here. So the application, what
00:26:56.920 does this mean for us? How are we to do, or how are we to live as a result of this passage of
00:27:02.780 scripture. So three things, maybe four. First, we cannot lean on the law for any redemptive results
00:27:12.560 in the sense of it's not going to make us justified. It will sanctify us. It will make
00:27:17.920 us more like Christ. God wants us to follow his law, but we're following his law through the
00:27:23.140 conviction of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, he gets the credit for our obedience and not us.
00:27:26.500 but it's not a redemptive reality to obey the law. Christ obeyed the law and imputed his
00:27:34.460 righteousness to us, and that's why we're righteous, not because of our own law following.
00:27:38.940 Second, we must inflict this truth to those who believe that they are good people or a good
00:27:45.060 person. We absolutely need to tell people that the law has condemned them, and they will stand
00:27:51.080 before God guilty of it if they don't trust in Christ alone. Third, as Christians, we must love
00:27:58.380 the law because we are free from the power of the law. Now we're free from the power of the law,
00:28:04.200 the condemning power of the law, because we are in Christ. And so we have to obey from a place
00:28:08.700 of gratitude and love, not fear or duty. And lastly, we have to use the law as the Lord and
00:28:18.740 as the apostles use the law, which is again, kind of a weapon of sobriety. It's to let people see
00:28:24.940 the weight, the inescapable inability of the law for human behavior so that they would turn
00:28:31.080 to the Savior. It's a tool to take men's false peace away, to show them a mirror of really of
00:28:41.280 their condemnation before God. And ultimately it should produce repentance and redemption.
00:28:48.260 and the only righteous one, Jesus Christ.
00:28:50.920 So again, guys, I hope this episode,
00:28:52.880 this content of Romans chapter two
00:28:54.400 was helpful and edifying for you guys.
00:28:56.560 It's such an important message for the church today
00:28:59.100 to learn that we need to give the bad news
00:29:01.260 before we give the good news.
00:29:03.140 So hopefully that was edifying for you guys.
00:29:05.120 If you're a regular listener to Real Christianity,
00:29:08.420 thank you guys so much.
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00:29:24.100 out what we're doing here at relearn.org.
00:29:26.700 On that note, thank you guys for listening to this episode.
00:29:29.320 My name is Dale Partridge.
00:29:30.440 This is Real Christianity, 0.91
00:29:31.620 and I'll see you guys next time. 0.94