Dale Partridge - Romans 3_19-20： Are You A Legalist？

00:00:00.000 In this episode of Real Christianity, we learn why so many people in the church are

00:00:03.480 legalists and what that term really means. But more than that, we learn how to properly view

00:00:08.780 the law and how it is intended to drive us to grace. Ultimately, don't miss this

00:00:13.760 essential portion of Romans. 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 romans 3 19

00:00:40.800 through 20 are you a legalist now as you know this show is an audio and video ministry of

00:00:46.560 relearn.org if you're watching the video recording of this episode please be sure to subscribe or

00:00:52.080 follow along for more biblical content if you're listening from apple podcasts google play or

00:00:57.360 spotify thank you for your faithful listenership big question for you though do you follow relearn

00:01:03.600 on instagram or youtube and do you follow me on twitter if you don't i'd love to have you

00:01:08.720 guys on the journey we are putting out resources and content every single day

00:01:12.720 it would be great to have you there folks i also have a big announcement an idea for you

00:01:17.760 christmas is coming and you are collecting everyone's addresses to mail them your family

00:01:23.840 christmas card why don't you mail them the gospel with your christmas card or just mail them the

00:01:29.600 gospel separately you can do either of these options at mailthegospel.org for example veronica

00:01:36.000 and i will be including one of our beautiful gospel tracks from mailthegospel.org in our

00:01:41.120 christmas card this year but you can also just go to mailthegospel.org and just enter the addresses

00:01:46.800 of your family and friends and we will mail the gospel to them for you and again you can do this

00:01:52.560 anonymously or personalized so again don't miss the opportunity to mail the gospel this christmas

00:01:59.120 season just go to mailthegospel.org all right guys we're going to jump right in today we finally

00:02:05.440 reached the conclusion of paul's coordinated multi-chapter argument against legalism and

00:02:15.360 this section of scripture was from romans chapter 1 verse 18 all the way through 3 verse 20 which

00:02:20.800 we will finish today. And the Apostle Paul has systematically stripped away any redemptive hope

00:02:26.960 from the Jews and the Gentiles in them being justified by works of obedience or by works 0.95

00:02:34.320 of the law. Paul has laid the groundwork to present the great Reformation doctrine, 0.84

00:02:40.960 sola fide, which is justification by faith alone. So, we are sinners and we cannot be found

00:02:49.120 righteous before God or be justified before God by our works of obedience. We do need an alien 0.99

00:02:58.360 righteousness that is given to us through faith. And so this is really setting the groundwork for

00:03:05.060 what Paul is going to be talking about in chapter 3, 4, and 5, which is just a beautiful, I think,

00:03:11.800 momentum that moves in through the book of Romans. And so over the last few weeks, we read Paul's

00:03:18.280 last ditch effort to demonstrate humanity's inability to be justified. In these two episodes,

00:03:26.180 we talked about the doctrine of total depravity. They're back-to-back episodes if you haven't

00:03:30.900 listened to them. There in those passages of scripture, Paul made it abundantly clear that

00:03:36.880 not only can we not justify ourselves through obedience, but our fallen state is so tragic and

00:03:44.280 it's so deep that we aren't even interested in God. No one seeks for God. No one does good.

00:03:52.040 We're essentially God-haters. We're so corrupted in sin that without the regeneration of our heart,

00:03:58.540 we hate God, we hate others, and we love self. And so again, these are just the basic biblical

00:04:05.340 facts that make up the doctrine of total depravity. Again, those episodes are essential

00:04:09.240 Christian doctrine. If you haven't got a chance to listen to them, please go back and do so.

00:04:12.820 Now, as I said in earlier episodes, total depravity doesn't mean that humanity is as

00:04:18.680 bad as it could be. No, total depravity means that man's fallen state is total. There's not

00:04:27.660 an area within his being that is not infected with the nature of his depravity. And so his

00:04:36.040 entire being, his spirit, his mind, his thoughts, his desire, his will, his words, his action,

00:04:41.340 And all of these things have been depraved by sin.

00:04:45.140 So more than that, we learned that the source of man's depravity is this spiritually dead heart or the spiritually dead soul.

00:04:55.320 In other words, if the heart is dead, dead in sin, then everything that comes forth from that heart will also be dead.

00:05:06.460 Deadness will come out of it.

00:05:07.440 We talked about because the heart is dead, the mouth becomes the sewage outlet of, what

00:05:15.480 did I call it?

00:05:16.060 Satan's sewer, right?

00:05:17.120 It just comes from the heart and out of the mouth.

00:05:20.320 And so what's the passage from Jesus that he says, out of the abundance of the heart,

00:05:26.240 the mouth speaks.

00:05:27.800 And so there's a direct correlation from the words that come from your mouth and the state

00:05:31.320 of your heart.

00:05:32.360 Again, we talked about this in previous episodes.

00:05:34.140 uh this is we're in this place the state of mankind because we're born physically alive but

00:05:41.340 spiritually dead and this is important for you to grasp as a christian to have a solid view of

00:05:47.520 doctrine and theology and the mechanics of the gospel and we're dead because our souls are

00:05:52.920 separated we know that death is separation death is physical death is separation from the body from

00:05:59.520 the soul. Spiritual death is separation of the soul from God. And so our souls, when we're born,

00:06:07.000 are separated from the spirit of life. It's why the Holy Spirit is not indwelling in us prior

00:06:13.380 to our conversion. Because he's not dwelling in us, he is separated from us. We are dead.

00:06:19.220 We need to be born again. And we're born again by the regeneration of the heart. And what makes

00:06:25.120 us alive is the Spirit of God coming and uniting together, resurrecting our spirit and soul,

00:06:30.660 giving us a new heart. And this is why Jesus would say things in John 6, 63,

00:06:36.760 it is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you

00:06:41.960 are spirit and life. So based on the words of Paul in this letter to the Romans, we have to conclude

00:06:49.280 that without a spiritual resurrection, without being born again, the regeneration of the heart

00:06:54.820 the life-giving power of Christ, no man will ever seek God, let alone be able to be justified by

00:07:02.020 his obedience to the law. He's not even interested in God. Now, as we get into today's text, Paul,

00:07:10.440 as a Jew, is expecting and anticipating his reader's opposition to the words that he said

00:07:19.460 in the previous section. And again, the previous section was on total depravity. It was talking

00:07:25.560 about how utterly broken mankind is, and it was applied in a universal way. And so, as we know,

00:07:35.360 self-love is blinding. It's blinding. And Paul expects that his audience is going to count

00:07:42.140 themselves as an exception to what he just said. Essentially, he expects the Jews to say something 1.00

00:07:47.740 like, yeah, some people are that bad, but not me, not us. We love to be the exception

00:07:55.500 to these doctrines of depravity. As a result, Paul, what he does here in this text that we're

00:08:01.280 going to read here shortly is that he slams the door of his argument with these two universal

00:08:06.100 truths that we will be studying. It really gives them no option but to see themselves within the

00:08:12.120 jurisdiction of the words that Paul just spoke. And so we're going to read Romans chapter 3,

00:08:17.680 19 through 20. And it says, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who

00:08:23.860 are under the law so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable

00:08:29.980 to God because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight for through the

00:08:36.240 law comes the knowledge of sin. Okay, so first, Paul makes this logical observation. When the law

00:08:44.660 speaks, he says, it speaks to those who are within the law's jurisdiction. Let me give you an example.

00:08:53.520 Germans don't care about Arizona law here in my state because Arizona law doesn't speak to them 0.99

00:09:02.660 in a sense that it doesn't have jurisdiction over them. 0.90

00:09:06.700 And so now every Jew who's hearing this 0.82

00:09:11.500 when he's talking about the law 0.99

00:09:13.740 would agree with Paul's statement,

00:09:16.040 which is now we know that whatever the law says,

00:09:18.300 it speaks to those who are under the law. 0.88

00:09:20.100 No Jew's going to shake their head at that reality

00:09:22.740 because they knew as Jews that they were under God's law

00:09:25.940 and it did have authority upon them.

00:09:28.160 But then Paul tells us why,

00:09:30.420 which is nicely marked with a purpose clause and if you've been following this podcast for any

00:09:35.220 amount of time you know that when you see the words so that in a passage of scripture it is

00:09:40.980 a purpose clause it is about to tell you bop bop bop bop the purpose of that passage of scripture

00:09:48.100 so let's read it all all together here it says now we know that whatever the law says it speaks

00:09:53.380 to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become

00:10:01.460 accountable to god so there is two purposes here and these two reasons are separated by

00:10:09.620 a coordinating conjunction which we know as the word and right it says so that number one every

00:10:15.780 mouth may be closed and number two all the world may become accountable to god so a coordinating

00:10:22.340 conjunction essentially is an important part to study your Bible, because when you see these

00:10:26.940 conjunctions, you know that it's saying that both purposes are of equal weight. They're not

00:10:34.380 chronological, they're not hierarchical, they are equal. And so God has two reasons in this passage

00:10:41.780 of Scripture. Again, I want to read it one more time. Now we know that whatever the law says,

00:10:46.000 it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed, point number one,

00:10:51.060 and all the world may become accountable to God. So the first reason was to shut the mouths of men. 0.53

00:11:00.340 What I want to point out here is that the passage is intended to eliminate man's boasting.

00:11:08.520 It's to demonstrate their failure to meet its demands and really have no room for man to glory

00:11:14.320 before God. That really is, the law is the great equalizer of men, and that we're not able to boast

00:11:23.500 because none of us, all of us have fallen short of the glory of God, and all of us need to be

00:11:30.340 justified not by our own obedience, by keeping the law, because we can't keep the law. We know

00:11:35.840 that James 2, verse 10, it says, any man who keeps the whole law but breaks it in one point is guilty

00:11:40.200 give all of it. That's James 2.10. And that passage of scripture is that we've all broken

00:11:45.380 the law, so we have no room to boast. And it's intended to shut our mouths so that we

00:11:51.880 cannot boast. And if you stood before God in a court case, which we all will, men would

00:12:00.220 have no verbal defense or remarks against their unrighteousness. That's essentially

00:12:08.320 the language that we're seeing here. It's kind of a court case language here, a forensic look.

00:12:13.060 Psalm 130 gives us that court case style imagery when it says, quote,

00:12:18.640 if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Again, showing that you would

00:12:24.220 be standing before the Lord in judgment, and you'd have no room to stand. I think about this

00:12:31.040 moment of Job, where he tries to question God and blame God at the end of Job. And God gives him

00:12:38.700 two full chapters of absolute reasons why he's God and Job is not. And the response from Job is

00:12:44.860 Job putting his hand over his mouth and saying, I am vile. And so this is really the intention

00:12:51.860 of the law is to show that you cannot be justified by it. And so the second reason is that all the

00:12:58.580 world may become accountable to God. And that is that all people are equally under the condemnation

00:13:03.440 and equally in need of justification. And the term can also be translated maybe in your passage

00:13:09.540 of scripture may become guilty instead of maybe become accountable, which again, it just emphasizes

00:13:16.640 this forensic court case style imagery that is important for us as Christians to understand

00:13:22.600 that there is a legal reality to the gospel that will really help us nurture that relationship

00:13:30.560 with Christ. And so without Christ as our representative for righteousness, all of us

00:13:37.160 will be found guilty. And that's where Paul's heading here. So again, we have to remember,

00:13:41.080 this is not common for the Jew to be lumped in with the condemnation of the Gentiles.

00:13:49.480 And so they're going to be struggling to see themselves as equally condemned with the Gentiles before the law of God.

00:13:59.680 We've seen this if you've been following along through this Romans series, but this is something to note on how a Jewish person would receive this letter at the time of Paul's writing. 0.81

00:14:13.100 And even though the apostles has demonstrated that God is impartial over and over and over again between Romans chapter 1 and chapter 3, again, it's so difficult for them to believe that they are equally accountable before God on the tenets of the law by which no man can keep Jew or Gentile.

00:14:36.740 So let's move to verse 20 here, and we'll work through this passage, and then I'll wrap up in 0.81

00:14:41.560 a little bit with what I think is a very clear conclusion about legalism. Okay, verse 20 says,

00:14:49.860 because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law

00:14:55.220 comes the knowledge of sin. So this is probably the clearest statement in scripture against

00:15:00.360 legalism. There is no way for it to be misunderstood. You cannot earn or even

00:15:06.660 contribute to your righteous standing before God or your obedience or by your obedience to the law.

00:15:13.120 This is just not possible. And this passage, again, I'm going to read it, because by works

00:15:18.220 of the law, you could change that out with obedience or religious works, no flesh will

00:15:24.800 be justified. You cannot justify yourself by works of the law. So to the religious man,

00:15:28.760 This should be the most terrifying passage of Scripture in the entire New Testament. 1.00

00:15:34.700 You cannot earn it.

00:15:36.540 That's basically what Paul is making very clear.

00:15:39.020 You cannot earn it. 1.00

00:15:41.860 And this fact should really leave every Catholic, every Mormon, every Jehovah's Witness, every Muslim, 0.54

00:15:48.320 every moralist who believes that their obedience earns them salvation or keeps them saved 0.51

00:15:54.480 or contributes to their righteous standing before God.

00:15:56.840 whatever the case may be, it should really leave them utterly hopeless and crying out for mercy,

00:16:05.380 which is the purpose of the law, which we'll talk about shortly. And so it's an impossible

00:16:10.480 and foolish endeavor to work your way to God's favor. And it's actually exactly what separates

00:16:17.320 Christianity from every other religion on earth. The gospel is not due. The gospel is done. It's 0.90

00:16:25.480 been done by Christ, you cannot do anything to render yourself justified before God outside of

00:16:32.440 Christ. And so this is not also a one-off theological reality either. This is not a

00:16:39.840 Romans-only or even a Paul-only doctrine. We see this throughout the entire Bible, Old Testament

00:16:47.240 and New Testament, actually. So works-based righteousness is condemned all over the New

00:16:51.300 Testament. I am going to give you a handful of passages just so we can reference that.

00:16:56.320 Galatians 2.17 says, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through

00:17:02.000 faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith

00:17:08.340 in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.

00:17:15.080 Ephesians 2.8-9 says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of your own

00:17:21.280 doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Titus 3, 5 through 7

00:17:28.600 says, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy,

00:17:35.040 by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly

00:17:39.940 through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, being justified by His grace, we might become heirs

00:17:46.000 according to the hope of eternal life. All right, guys, it's important for you to note that the law

00:17:51.600 wasn't incapable of saving. It was. It was capable of saving. It was just impossible for fallen man

00:17:59.420 to be justified by it. It was impossible for fallen man to keep the law perfectly. And I say

00:18:06.920 this because I want you to know that your justification through Christ was actually earned

00:18:11.260 through Jesus's righteousness and his obedience to the law, meaning that Jesus did keep the law

00:18:18.600 perfectly. He did obey perfectly. And so the law is capable of justifying, but it's not capable

00:18:26.400 of justifying those of us who have been marred with the sin-stained seed of Adam. And what I

00:18:33.080 mean by that is that Jesus was not born of the sin-stained seed of Adam. He was born of a virgin

00:18:40.460 of the seed of the Spirit of God, which made him like Adam in the sense that he was born without

00:18:48.440 sin, but unlike Adam because he actually maintained his sinlessness and continued on

00:18:55.960 through his ministry completely without sin, dying for our sins and not his own sins.

00:19:04.600 And because the wages of sin is death, the reason that Jesus could not remain dead is

00:19:10.300 because he was sinless. And so he was resurrected as a result. And so this is deep gospel mechanic

00:19:18.360 theology that you need to know. Romans 5, 9 says, for as by one man's disobedience, speaking to

00:19:26.180 Adam, the many were made sinners. So by the one man's obedience, Christ, the many will be made

00:19:34.200 righteous. And so this is also why Jesus would say things in, for example, Matthew 5, 17,

00:19:41.660 do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them,

00:19:47.900 but to fulfill them. And so in other words, Jesus brought about justification by fulfilling the law.

00:19:56.320 He kept the law perfectly. He didn't abolish the law because the law is still here having

00:20:02.420 jurisdiction over those who are sinning against the law the law is not gone it is here and it

00:20:08.980 still has authority over men but he fulfilled the law he fulfilled the demands of the law

00:20:15.460 and paul reiterates this in galatians 4 4 through 5 he says but when the fullness of time had come

00:20:24.740 god sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the law

00:20:30.660 so that we might receive adoption as sons i'm going to give you one more passage of scripture

00:20:34.820 that's so important for you to grasp just to see the greater picture of the forensic side of the

00:20:39.860 gospel that jesus comes and fulfills the demands of the law on our behalf romans 8 1 through 4 says

00:20:47.220 therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus for the law of the spirit

00:20:53.300 of life in christ jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death for what the law could not

00:21:00.500 do weak as it was through the flesh god did sending his own son and the likeness of sinful flesh

00:21:06.980 and as an offering for sin he condemned sin in the flesh so that the requirement of the law

00:21:15.860 might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit so again

00:21:23.220 Again, perfect obedience to the law has always been the only means to justify a person before

00:21:30.720 God.

00:21:31.480 But no man but Christ could produce this perfect obedience, which again makes the gospel so

00:21:36.720 much more special.

00:21:37.760 And as I said in earlier sermons, Christ did not only die for us, paying for our sins on

00:21:44.760 the cross, but he also lived for us, meaning he kept the righteous requirement, earning

00:21:51.540 the righteousness that he has to give to us, imputing to us through faith. And so he keeps

00:21:58.620 the law on our behalf. So the reality is, when you think about it, Christ didn't only die for

00:22:03.820 us, he also lived for us. And that's the two sides of the gospel. We give our sin to Christ

00:22:10.200 on the cross, and he gives us his righteousness through faith. And so this is 2 Corinthians 5.21

00:22:16.020 that says, he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the

00:22:24.020 righteousness of God in him. And so what is the conclusion of the whole matter? And this is key.

00:22:29.980 I want you guys to pay attention, write this one down, memorize it, put it on your fridge,

00:22:35.720 tell someone about it. It's a simple truth that we can draw from this entire passage of scripture

00:22:41.020 from Romans 1, 18 through chapter 3, verses 20. It's this, a low view of the law always leads

00:22:49.340 to legalism. I'm going to say that again. A low view of the law always leads to legalism. Now,

00:22:56.900 let me explain what I mean by that. When we don't grasp the impossible demand of the law,

00:23:04.240 what do we do? We trust in our own ability to earn salvation through good behavior.

00:23:10.440 When we have a low view of the law, we essentially say to ourselves, I got this. I can do this.

00:23:16.760 A low view of the law will lead you to legalism. If you think that you can accomplish and meet the

00:23:23.880 righteous requirement of the law, you have a low view of the law. The law is so big, it's like a

00:23:29.720 boulder the size of a city that's going to crush you. You cannot keep it. You already failed in the

00:23:36.760 fact that you are listening to me tell you this now that you already are a sinner and so when we

00:23:42.600 think that we can accomplish the demands of the law we also do what we eliminate a need for a savior

00:23:49.560 so again a low view of the law always leads to legalism it leads to this attempt to try to

00:23:57.080 justify yourself through obedience through moralism through righteous works when in reality

00:24:03.080 You cannot earn your righteous standing before God without the righteousness of Christ.

00:24:10.580 And so ironically, the very purpose of the law was to show man what his wretchedness,

00:24:18.460 his inability.

00:24:19.200 And the end of verse 20 says this, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

00:24:26.160 The law becomes this straight edge to show how crooked we are.

00:24:30.340 It becomes a mirror to our moral life. In Jesus's ministry, what does he constantly do?

00:24:39.020 He constantly magnifies the law. He doesn't minimize the law. He doesn't tell people that

00:24:45.620 you could probably keep this if you just try harder. No, he says things like, you have heard

00:24:51.780 that it was said that you should not murder. But I say that if you hate somebody in your heart,

00:25:00.340 you've already murdered them within yourself. Or he'll say things like, you've heard that it is

00:25:06.500 said to not commit adultery, but I say that if you even lust after a woman, you've already committed

00:25:11.140 adultery with her in your heart. These are statements that Jesus is saying, the law is not

00:25:16.740 just the outside, but it's also the inside. So he's elevating the authority and jurisdiction of

00:25:23.540 the law that he's saying, it's not just even what you do, it's even what you think. And you can't

00:25:28.420 keep that and it actually sends people to go my goodness if that's the case who could be found

00:25:35.300 righteous who who can be found able to keep the law and jesus goes yeah that's the point nobody

00:25:42.100 can only me only jesus christ and so this is essential that jesus is magnifying the law to

00:25:50.020 drive us to himself to drive us to grace and so jerry bridges once said quote god's law as a rule

00:25:58.020 of life is not opposed to grace. Rather, used in the right sense, it is the handmaid of grace. Or

00:26:05.300 to use an analogy, it is like a sheepdog that keeps driving the sheep back into the fold of 0.82

00:26:11.220 grace when we stray out into the wilderness of works." So again, the conclusion I say is this,

00:26:17.960 a low view of the law will lead to legalism. A high view of the law will always lead to grace.

00:26:26.920 when you have a high view of the law, when you realize how big it is, how impossible it is,

00:26:31.600 how huge it is, how you cannot keep it, you will always be driven back to grace. And this is

00:26:38.800 essential when we share the gospel with people. We need to afflict people with the law to show

00:26:44.920 them their impossible ability to uphold its demands so that we can heal them with the healing

00:26:52.820 ointment of the gospel. That's when the gospel must come in is when they realize they cannot

00:26:58.280 keep the law. And so it's this grace in Jesus Christ when the gospel truly sings

00:27:05.760 and we start to see why the gospel is actually good news. So guys, I hope that was helpful for

00:27:14.460 you guys to understand the gospel just a little bit better. And this book of Romans, wow, it's

00:27:20.360 been an incredible blessing to my own personal walk with the Lord as I've had the chance to

00:27:26.540 study. Because when I prepare a sermon that I deliver on Sunday and then deliver here

00:27:31.240 on this podcast, there's so much that I have to leave out. I have to really sum up what I've

00:27:38.300 learned and put it into 30 or 40 minutes. And so this has been just an absolute blessing to do that,

00:27:46.020 to serve you in this way. And so I hope this was edifying for you, that you're continuing to mature

00:27:51.340 in the gospel and that you're understanding the beauty of really Jesus Christ and the glory of

00:27:58.880 God. And so if you are a regular listener to this podcast, would you guys do me a favor? You don't

00:28:03.860 need to write something, but would you just leave a review and you just need to tap the stars

00:28:08.560 in your podcast app. If you do write something, I will read it. It is encouraging. We have over

00:28:14.620 6,000 reviews on this podcast because we've had so many listeners that have been faithful. Those

00:28:20.020 reviews really do help the exposure of this show and more people can find what we're doing because

00:28:25.840 of that. Also, would you consider sharing with a friend, taking them through the Roman series? And

00:28:30.880 so I would love to have more individuals listening here. We've already had people write me and telling

00:28:35.780 me that they've actually think they might've been born again through listening to this Roman series

00:28:40.920 and that they're understanding gospel mechanics

00:28:43.840 and theology for the very first time.

00:28:46.120 And so we would love to have more people on the journey.

00:28:49.040 On that note, my name is Dale Partridge.

00:28:51.040 This is Real Christianity, and we'll see you next week. 0.85

Dale Partridge - November 08, 2022

Romans 3_19-20： Are You A Legalist？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript