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- [00:00]
Sola Media Announcer
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- [00:40]
Bob Hiller
The law is there to hold us until the Christ comes to be our Savior. Kind of like, you know, he doesn't say this explicitly. I'm reading it a little bit here, but kind of like Pharaoh held the Israelites in slavery until their Savior arrived. And then what happened? God sent Moses. Moses comes in, brings them through the waters, off into the promised land. What has God done for you? Well, he sent you Christ. And now you who are baptized through the waters, Jew, Greek, slave free, male and female, you are all in Christ Jesus, because Christ has come for you. Therefore, Christ now is the end of the law. And your sons living in Christ, no longer under the law, no longer in Egypt, no longer in slavery. Just as God in the Old Testament says, out of Egypt I called my son, so now you, Jew, Greek, slave free, male and female, out of the law. Christ has called you and made you sons and heirs of the kingdom. And so this chapter three and four, Paul is saying, listen, this is who you are in Christ. You are the ones who have been set free from the slavery that the law imposes on you, because the conditions of the law will kill you. But Christ gives you a new creation. He makes you a new life.
- [02:05]
Sola Media Announcer
Applying the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. This is White Horse Sin, a weekly roundtable discussion about theology and culture.
- [02:27]
Mike Horton
Hello and welcome to another episode of White Horse Inn. I'm Mike Horton, here with my friends Bob Hiller, Walter Strickland, and Justin Holcomb. And we're talking about really the heart of the Gospel, as Paul exposits it in his letter to the Galatians. I want to start in this program with Galatians 4, beginning at verse 21, because I think it really is the center of Paul's argument throughout this letter. He says, tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two, one proceeding from Mount Sinai, bearing children who are to be slaves. She is Hagar. Now, this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free. She is our mother. For it is written, rejoice, barren woman who does not bear, break forth and shout, you who are not in labor. For more numerous are the children of the desolate than of the one who has a husband. And you, brethren like Isaac, are children of promise. Try to project yourself back into Paul's audience, where you have Judaizers and Christians who have just recently adopted Jewish circumcision. And Paul tells them, do you actually know what the Bible says? You who want to be under the law? Do you know what the law actually says? Let me tell you. Abraham had two sons, one by Hagar, who was the slave, and one by Sarah, who was the promised mother of the promised son. And you could imagine them saying, yeah, well, all right, we know all that. And he says, yeah, and actually the present Jerusalem on earth is in bondage. It's actually the child of Hagar. They're slaves. What? Basically, what Jesus told the Pharisees, and he said, oh, we don't have. We've never been slaves. And then he goes a little bit further and says, let me think now. Where is Mount Sinai where the law was given? Oh, in Arabia. Huh? In Arabia, Hagar, Arabia, slavery. At this point, they're saying, paul, have you lost your mind?
- [05:36]
Bob Hiller
Yeah.
- [05:37]
Mike Horton
And Paul's saying, no, this is the way it is at this point in redemptive history. Those who cling to the law for salvation, those who say all this we will do, imagining that they can be justified before God by the works of the law, are condemned, are children of Hagar, regardless of their ethnic lineage. Tough passage.
- [06:03]
Bob Hiller
You read that passage and you read Paul whenever he goes to any town in the Book of Acts, and he starts in the synagogue, you got to imagine he didn't lead with that one, but he gets there because they're always throwing him out with rocks thrown at his head. I mean, this is really.
- [06:17]
Mike Horton
It must have been something like this.
- [06:18]
Walter Strickland
Yeah.
- [06:20]
Bob Hiller
Is getting quite offensive here, especially with that illustration. To say that Jerusalem is associated with Hagar. Yes, that. That the law is associated with Hagar. This is. This is shattering the whole Jewish identity completely. At this point.
- [06:35]
Mike Horton
You're Esau, not Jacob.
- [06:36]
Bob Hiller
Yeah. Yeah, I, I think that that part, Galatians 4 ends there. I think Paul is doing somewhat of a similar thing as you work actually through the previous chapter and back into chapter three. If you notice his argument here, the Judaizers are going to come along and they're going to say, hey, we are more in line with the traditions of our fathers. We're more in line with the word of God and the Torah than what Paul is giving you, because he's only giving you Jesus. So Paul says, all right, let's do this. Let's go back and think through the, the pattern of the Torah. We begin, of course, with Genesis 1, where the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters. Now, where did you receive the Holy Spirit? When did you rece the Spirit? Was it because of your obedience or was it by hearing through faith? So you think you're going to stay in, you could keep sustaining yourself on your own by the law? Or is it hearing through faith? And that's how he kind of begins. And then he moves, just as the law does to Abraham. Now, Abraham was righteous before God. Why? Because of his performance or because of faith? It's because of faith. It's not because of his performance. It's the promise. And then he goes to the prophets, for the just shall live, the righteous will live. Habakkuk says, by faith. And then he starts talking about then what is the role of the law? And the law comes in and he says, the law for us is kind of like our tutor, to hold onto us until the Messiah arrives. God made a promise to Abraham, to his seed, not to multiple seeds, but to one seed, that is to Abraham, that his seed would be the Messiah, that is Christ. The law is there to hold us until the Christ comes to be our savior. Kind of like, you know, he doesn't say this explicitly. I'm reading it a little bit here, but kind of like Pharaoh held the Israelites in slavery until their Savior arrived. And then what happened? God sent Moses, Moses comes in, brings them through the waters, off into the promised land. What has God done for you? Well, he sent you Christ. And now you who are baptized through the waters, Jew, Greek, slave free, male and female, you are all in Christ Jesus, because Christ has come for you. Therefore, Christ now is the end of the law. And your sons living in Christ, no longer under the law, no longer in Egypt, no longer in slavery, just as God in the Old Testament says, out of Egypt I called my son, so now you, Jew, Greek, slave free, male and female, out of the law. Christ has called you and made you sons and heirs of the kingdom. And so this chapter three and four, Paul is saying, listen, this is who you are in Christ. You are the ones who have been set free from the slavery that the law imposes on you, because the conditions of the law will kill you. But Christ gives you a new creation. He makes you a new life. Is that a fair reading or did I put too much into that?
- [09:34]
Justin Holcomb
So, yeah, just this idea of the warmth of sonship, this idea of the fatherhood of God is not really a theme that we see a ton in the Old Testament as much, but we see much more in the New Testament. And I think it's JI Packer who knows that justification is a fundamental blessing of the gospel. But adoption as a son is an even higher privilege. And so justification, it relieves us from guilt, but it leaves us simply pardoned criminals before a forgiving judge. But adoption takes us off the street. It brings us into a family, and.
- [10:10]
Mike Horton
It places us one bath and a meal.
- [10:12]
Justin Holcomb
Oh, yeah. It places us before a loving father. So. So this idea of adoption as sons, in the contrast with slavery, sort of talk, even Jesus. This is a sort of a continuation of what Jesus was doing, I think. Was it in John 8, I believe he was saying, you know what? You're not in the family, you know, because of your children.
- [10:38]
Mike Horton
Of Abraham.
- [10:38]
Justin Holcomb
Yes. Because of your ethnic background. You don't do what Abraham does. Well, what did Abraham do? What he believed in the Promise.
- [10:46]
Bob Hiller
Yep.
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Justin Holcomb
And so he's this. I love that. The way that Paul picks that up from Jesus. But also the warmth that we see coming along with this is also something that I think is very helpful too.
- [11:00]
Walter Strickland
I think looking at Galatians 4, we need to explore the logic of that chapter because there's differing views on how's this covenant working out. What are these covenants? What's happening here? And there's a. So, Mike, I'd love for you to take some time to really walk through the logic of the view of republication. So is there. There's a. There's a. Within the reform discussions, there's this mono. Covenantalism, this mono Covenantal view. And what does that mean? And then the more Meredith Klein view of how to just describe the difference of how to read Galatians 4. Because there's good reasons for why there's different views.
- [11:43]
Mike Horton
Yeah, sure. Well, it's not just like this Meredith Klein view. This is in our confessions. Westminster Confession, for example, says that there's a covenant of works and a covenant of grace. And this was an outworking of the law gospel distinction, and let me show you that here, just for a moment, since you ask. This is from Calvin. It says, the law is a mirror to show us our sin and send us to Christ. This was the whole purpose of the ministry of Moses. The law tells us simply what we owe to God, according us no hope of life unless we fulfill every part of it and on the contrary, annexing a curse if we are guilty of the smallest transgression. Thus the life of the law is man's death. The peculiar office of the law is to summon consciences to the judgment seat of God. Moses had no other intention than to invite all men to go straight to Christ. And then, very close to Galatians 4, where he talks about sonship, Calvin on Romans 8:15 contrasts the spirit of bondage with the Spirit of adoption. One he calls the Spirit of bondage, which we are able to derive from the law, and the other the Spirit of adoption, which proceeds from the gospel. The first, he states, was formerly given to produce fear the other is given now to afford assurance. The certainty of our salvation, which he wishes to confirm. Here appears with greater clarity from such a comparison of opposites. From the adverb again we learn that Paul is here comparing the law with the Gospel. This is the inestimable benefit which the Son of God has brought us by his advent, that we should no longer be bound by the servile condition of the law. Although the covenant of grace is contained in the law now referring to the Old Testament, yet Paul removes it from there. For in opposing the gospel to the law in the theological sense, he regards only what is peculiar to the law itself, namely, command and prohib, and the restraining of transgression by the threat of death. He assigns to the law its own quality, by which it differs from the Gospel. And in this argument in Galatians 3 he says, it is an argument from contradictions, for the same fountain cannot yield both hot and cold. The law holds all men under its curse from the law, therefore it is useless to seek any blessing. He calls them the works of the law, who put their trust for salvation in those works. Such modes of expression must always be interpreted by the state of the question. Now we know that the controversy here relates to the cause of righteousness. The law justifies him who fulfills all of its commands, whereas faith justifies those who are destitute of the merit of works, and rely on Christ alone to be justified by our own merit, and by the grace of another, are irreconcilable the one is completely overthrown by the other, and then the second Helvetic confession. The gospel is indeed opposed to the law. For the law works wrath and pronounces a curse, whereas the gospel preaches grace and blessing. Theodore Beza, Calvin's successor, wrote a catechism in which he said, we divide the word of God into two principal parts or kinds, the one called the law, the other the gospel, for all the rest can be gathered under one of these two headings. We must pay great attention to these things, for with good reason we can say that ignorance of the distinction between law and gospel is one of the principal sources of the abuses which corrupted and still corrupt Christianity.
- [15:41]
Bob Hiller
Amen.
- [15:42]
Mike Horton
Ursinus begins his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, which he wrote by saying, the whole doctrine of the church consists of two parts, the law and the Gospel. Go to William Perkins, the father of Elizabethan Puritanism, who wrote a book on the art of preaching, in which he said, the most important thing you do when you preach is to know the difference between the law and the gospel. And he gives great exegetical examples of what he's talking about. So this is just traditional Reformed theology. Law and gospel got cashed out in terms of the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. Now the question was whether the covenant of works was republished at Mount Sinai. Was the Sinai covenant, the Mosaic covenant, a redo of that original covenant God made with Adam in paradise? Well, there are a number of ways, in my view. It's not one. It's after the Fall, not before it. We were created in true righteousness and holiness. But now at Mount Sinai, you have sinners. Furthermore, you have a difference in promise. The Mosaic covenant has to do solely with temporal blessings. As long as you keep my law, you can live in my land, and you can have figs and vines, and everything will be great. If you don't keep my law, I'm going to kick you out, and I'm going to do to you what I did to those who I drove out before you. So curses. But the curses are temporal, the blessings are temporal. Whereas the promise to Adam was that he would be confirmed, he and his posterity in everlasting righteousness upon obedience. And if he didn't, he would be eternally cursed, eternally judged. So there are differences here. But most Reformed theologians have said, yes, in some sense, the Mosaic covenant is a republication of the covenant of works. We can at least go this far, because Paul does that. The covenant at Mount Sinai is not Based on promise. The covenant at Mount Sinai is based on law. Don't confuse these mountains. Don't confuse law and promise. Totally different basis. The law says, do this and you will live. The promise says, I'll do this and you will live.
- [18:27]
Walter Strickland
So how do you respond when people go, well, it's kind of the model covenantal view, which is like, well, the Mosaic law is just. Sinai is just an administration of the one covenant of grace. That's the basic summary. And God already took them out of Egypt, gave them the law as just a way to show gratitude. That's how people would sometimes. It's the gift of the law. It was gracious. God gave the law, and that was his gift of grace to his people.
- [18:55]
Mike Horton
Well, yeah, in one sense, I would say the law is a gift. Moses says, who is such a nation like ours that we have your law? It was a sign of election. God took them out of Egypt and then he gave them this law. But the law itself. Read Deuteronomy 28. The law itself has no grace in it.
- [19:23]
Walter Strickland
For Paul, in Romans, the law kills, Right?
- [19:27]
Mike Horton
Right. The law just says, do this and you will live again. Read Deuteronomy 28 and tell me that it's part of the covenant of grace. It's typological of Christ's obedience. Christ is the true Israel. Just as Adam didn't fulfill it, Israel didn't fulfill it. Hosea 6, 7 reads like, Adam, Israel broke my covenant. And now Christ comes. And he is the one who fulfills the covenant. He's the one who obeys. He's the Lord commands. And the servant who fulfills the commands in our name bears our judgment and rises again the third day for our justification. That is, we are saved by works. We have to be saved by works. The law has to be fulfilled. We're just saved by someone else's.
- [20:22]
Bob Hiller
Right. This is culminating in Christ is so fascinating. Going back to chapter three real quick, Paul shows here that he is the fulfillment, not just of the fulfillment of the obedience to the law, but in a sense, he fulfills the curses of the law. Like he who was without, he becomes the curse on the tree. So he fulfills the law both in its expectations and demands, and also in the curses that it exacts upon sinners. And so Jesus becomes sort of the chief of sinners on the cross, if we can say it that way, where he dies for us, so that he, it says, curses everyone who is hanged on a tree. And so Christ becomes that person, even though he himself does fulfill the law. And he does uphold the covenant, so he fulfills it in that way. Further, he fulfills the promise to Abraham, the covenant promise, because he was told that your seed, there's one descendant that this promise is for Jesus is the fulfillment of that too. So all the covenants, both of them, do come to a head in Christ. One is the fulfillment of promise, the other's the fulfillment of the law.
- [21:32]
Mike Horton
And in fact. Exactly. That's such an important point. I would say anyone who embraces a mono covenantal view, one covenant has to deal with Paul's contrast here, has to deal with the fact that he says literally these are two covenants.
- [21:54]
Bob Hiller
It's not subtle.
- [21:56]
Mike Horton
No. One law, one gospel. How can I represent it? Two mountains, two mothers. We belong to Mount Zion, not to Mount Sinai. What does Hebrews 12 tell us? The same thing. You have not come to a mountain burning with fire that everyone was terrified to be at. You have come to the heavenly Zion. And John Levinson, interesting, the distinguished professor of Jewish studies at Harvard, wrote a book, Sinai and Zion, which is really useful here, where he says, in the Hebrew Bible there are two traditions, the Sinai tradition and the Zion tradition. The Sinai tradition is based on complete fulfillment of the works of the law. And we don't have access to the temple anymore. The temple is destroyed, and so we don't have the sacrifices and so forth. It is our repentance instead that suffices for merit. And then he says that there's the Zion tradition, and he gathers together same passage as we would for the covenant of grace. And he says there is this sense in the prophets of some inviolable covenant, that regardless of what humans do, God is going to show grace and mercy. But for us Jews, Sinai will always have the last word. But he said that this is where Christianity and Judaism parted ways. And he admits Judaism today is not biblical religion because it doesn't have the temple or the sacrifices and so forth. So it became a different religion after 70 AD. But Christianity, Christianity said Christ is the temple, Christ is the sacrifice and so forth. He just understands it so well. He understands it better than some theologians.
- [23:55]
Bob Hiller
No kidding.
- [23:56]
Mike Horton
But yeah, Sinai will have the last word.
- [24:19]
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- [25:15]
Walter Strickland
I want to take a peek. So that's Galatians 3 and 4. And what's really beautiful is that he starts off Galatians 4 talking about sons and heirs, kind of the extension from Galatians 3. And then he turns to the Galatians, so he's talking about sons and heirs. And then he's going to go to the two sons, the two different, you know, Hagar and Sarah, the two mothers and the two sons, one who's a slave, one who's free. But he has this I'm again in anguish of childbirth, and in Christ is formed in you, my little children, for whom I am in anguish. I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I'm perplexed by you. I entreat you. I mean, he is this is not a head trip. This is everything's coming to bear. Because he just talked about earlier in Galatians about who's bewitching you, thinking that this is the way to go. This is a different gospel, but the goal is he's talking about slavery. And then in five and we can come back to four in five he starts moving toward Christ has set us free. And it's the benefit of the work of Christ, of our being in Christ. He fulfills the law, the whole law. We're not, you know, and then the freedom that comes from that. Should we, should we start turning toward that freedom to follow out the logic from Galatians 4 and never be bound again.
- [26:39]
Mike Horton
Don't let anyone put you back under.
- [26:41]
Walter Strickland
The law for salvation, for freedom. Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of sin, slavery. It's Galatians 5:1. That's good.
- [26:52]
Justin Holcomb
Hey, Mike, just started to take us back to the covenant of grace conversation, that republication view, if we're telling on that plane. But most Baptists would say that the covenant of grace was sort of there was an announcement of that in Genesis 3:15. But then it really takes its full effect in the new covenant with Christ. And there is the affirmation amongst Baptists that, yes, the, the law Sinai was actually it was a gift because it does reveal our need for a savior. And so I was wondering if you had any thoughts about how the republication view of Klein would differ from that sort of Baptistic perspective? Because they seem to run fairly parallel to each other. But I'm sure there's some differences.
- [27:39]
Mike Horton
Yeah, there would be differences, but I think that the main. The main point. And again, this isn't Klein alone. This is Charles Hodge. This is most reformed orthodox theologians. They'll point out differences, discontinuities between the covenant made with Adam and the covenant made with Israel. But then what makes the Mosaic covenant a republication of the covenant of works is the form of the treaty itself. Again, you go back to the heart of the constitution, the old covenant constitution in deuteronomy, especially chapters 27, 29. And it's very clear that if you do this, here are the blessings. If you fail to keep all of the commands, here are the curses. There's no good news in it at all. Or think of early in Deuteronomy, earlier, he says, circumcise your own heart, okay? And then in chapter 30, he says, oh, by the way, yeah, you're not going to do well at that. So I'm going to do it. I'll circumcise your heart. So already in the law itself, you have the gospel pop up here and there as a promise that the law itself cannot give.
- [29:18]
Bob Hiller
So Moses, he's because an example of this, right? You don't trust Moses, but Moses, who's giving you the law, is also the one who says, look, someone better than me is coming, right? Like there's going to be a greater prophet to arise, so you can't cling to me. And he sort of personifies the law. He can't get into the promised land. The law can't get you into the promised land. You need that greater prophet. You need that greater word. You need the gospel.
- [29:42]
Mike Horton
Isn't that what Jesus says when he says, you cling to the law, but you don't keep it? Jesus started this ball rolling. After all, there is no daylight between Jesus and Paul on this stuff.
- [29:58]
Walter Strickland
So we were talking about the freedom piece, and we can say more about freedom if we want to, but that was a connection to the end of five, where Paul starts talking about keeping in step with the Spirit. But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. This is not the bash on the misinterpretation of this passage series, but this one's a doozy. This one we've heard this One, this is like, oh, yeah, get away from any rules or, I mean, the laws, the holiness of God, the character of God. There's nothing wrong with the laws. Good, true. And it is life, if you were to actually follow it. Problem is not with the law, the problem is with you. But this gets this passage, if you are led by the Spirit, you're not under the law that usually gets turned into. You need to get away from the external stuff and get into your emotions. Start with Schleiermacher, the feeling of ultimate dependence, that kind of thing. That's not. What Paul is saying is stay away from the external stuff and all of that, you know, word, sacrament stuff or rituals, whatever. Get into. Get into, like, some type of nebulous sense of inspiration that'll make you want to do better. I mean, is that a. Is that a fair depiction of the misrepresentation of that passage?
- [31:26]
Mike Horton
Yes.
- [31:27]
Bob Hiller
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
- [31:29]
Walter Strickland
What does that passage actually mean?
- [31:30]
Bob Hiller
Yeah. So what I think is interesting here, like, Paul does not see the reception of the Spirit, the reception of the Gospel, as something that turns you further in on yourself. In fact, it's the opposite. Like, if you're going to become a Judaizer, you're going to do it and they're going to come along and they want to boast about you because they want to have, like, a greater position and everyone to see, like, how great they are at following the law and all of this, and it's going to become very divisive and problematic. But now that we have the Spirit, let's keep in step with the Spirit. And what does the Spirit do? He gives us love and joy and peace and patience, et cetera, et cetera. Now, when you find your brothers burdened, carry their burdens with them, you see someone caught in sin, go out to them. What happens is when the Spirit takes over, when the preaching of the forgiveness of sins is now the defining word, you don't have people sitting around picking on each other's sins. You're saying, here's a fellow person starving on the side of the road, and I know where to get him food. Here's someone who's struggling with the sin. I know where to get him forgiveness. I'm going to go to them and suffer with them and carry their cross alongside of them so that we can get to Christ together. So what happens is the Spirit produces in us, and the fruit of the Spirit are not works we accomplish, but it's the Spirit at work in us to drive us into the lives of our neighbor. So that the only thing really enslaving us if we want to speak such ways, is the burden of love for the sake of someone else not trying to earn our righteousness, but because that's under control. And Christ I can. I'm finally able to love my neighbor without fear. And I. I think that this freedom we have in Christ Jesus is not an opportunity for the flesh, but quite the opposite. We can finally get down to the business of loving.
- [33:08]
Walter Strickland
It's called the fruit of the Spirit. Drives me bonkers when I hear the fruit of the Spirit or like this, my other ones. Well, the abiding in Christ one is like, abide in Christ. That means stay there. It's not that. Yeah. And they're like, let me give you some principles on how to abide. I'm like, is it just not good enough to just cling out of desperation? And the fruit of the spirit usually becomes. How do you cultivate this in your life? This is not about virtue cultivation. Of course we participate in our sanctification. No one's saying we don't. We're finally alive and we have gratitude, of course, we have choice and all that kind. But we are not the gardeners of this fruit. We're not the primary agency in this fruit. The Holy Spirit's Philippians 2:13. That the Holy Spirit works in you to will and do God's good pleasure. And so, just so everyone hears, the fruit is grown, cultivated. It is the manure thing. What's that? When you throw that.
- [34:10]
Mike Horton
Fertilized, fertilized.
- [34:11]
Walter Strickland
You can't even find the word fertilized.
- [34:13]
Bob Hiller
Manures.
- [34:14]
Walter Strickland
Fertilized by God. The trees are pruned by God. He's the gardener. And what did we bring? We brought the works of the flesh in five. 19 are. I mean, let's hear these so we can see why you run to Christ and then what he replaces these with. These are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. What is the works of the flesh? Sexual immorality. I'm sexually immoral. Not right now. I'm not trying to do it right now. But like you read the Law. You are right.
- [34:47]
Justin Holcomb
Yeah.
- [34:48]
Walter Strickland
Impure sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of rage, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies. And things like these. Like, that's what it sounds like. Jesus saying what comes from the heart. Then he makes a list of really dark things. And the reality of what he's doing here is like freedom from that. The works of the flesh are freedom and forgiveness. For that to then the fruit of the spirit.
- [35:27]
Mike Horton
Yeah. It's not just that we're free from the guilt, which he's emphasized up to this point, but freedom from the dominion of sin. And that is the power he brings. Yeah. He breaks the chain of canceled sin and sets the sinner free. And what I find interesting too is the fruit of the spirit actually turn out to be what it looks like when you follow the law.
- [36:00]
Justin Holcomb
Yep, exactly. I think, Mike, that's the thing that people want to cast aside. They think the. The lawsuit's yoke and not the. As Justin already said, they don't see it as the character of God being written out for us and saying, this is a guide for you.
- [36:18]
Mike Horton
Yeah, God promised he's going to do this. He promised. I will circumcise their hearts. I will take away their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh, and I will forgive their sins. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do all, all of that. And so now what we. This is kind of the irony, right? What you're trying to do, Judaizers, is you're trying to attain a righteousness that you never can attain that turns you into a mean person.
- [36:58]
Bob Hiller
Right.
- [36:59]
Mike Horton
And here, if you relinquish that, if you say, no, I'm going to by faith be a child of Abraham, a child of Sarah rather than of Hagar. All the stuff that the law commands now, God performs in us. It's just, it's beautiful.
- [37:21]
Walter Strickland
I think that's why people need to see the point you were making, that it's the guilt of sin and the power of sin that is being dealt with not only. I mean, that's great. I love being forgiven of my sins. But it sure is wonderful when you look in the rear view mirror of your life and you're like, wait a second, I see the scars of the chains, but the chains aren't there the way they used to be. Those are in the rear view mirror. And sometimes the chains come back, Right. We go back to slavery and we're like, okay, got the chains back on. But there's nothing wrong with growth in holiness and sanctification because of. I mean, that's great. That's freedom from. Our tradition has a prayer and it says, we come to this table for pardon and renewal, solace and strength. I mean, there's that. The fullness of what's being done here with this freedom, renewal and freedom and strength.
- [38:13]
Bob Hiller
It's interesting, Justin, you say that about our liturgy when we have the confession of sins. We conclude our confession of sins saying, we ask that we would delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your Holy name. Right. I mean, there's something there about which what we're asking here, See, this is Paul's freedom, and this is where it's great. You are freed from the law. Why? Because Christ has died for you, to free you from your sins, to forgive your sins and the guilt and the power of sin and authority over you. See, just because you're free from the law doesn't mean you're now free to sin. No, that's a whole other bondage. You're free from the authority of the law. You're free from the authority of your sin because you belong to the Spirit. And the Spirit is this new thing which is freedom, which actually, amazingly enough, then, now leads you to live according to the law. But what drives you is the Spirit, not your flesh, not the law, nothing but Christ.
- [39:12]
Justin Holcomb
Well, I was going to say, pastorally speaking, I've met with so many people who say, I'm struggling with this sin. What do I do about this sin? And they want me to prescribe some sort of methodology that really becomes another law for them. And I'm saying, just as you were saying, Justin, it's about abiding. It's like clinging to Christ. That is not just pointing our finger at one sin and saying, let's do these five things to get rid of that. It's like, no, if you cling to Christ, then at that point you'll lean into the fullness of what the Spirit offers, which is the ability to just live according to the law. But it's not because you're trying to use the law for justification, is because of the power of the Spirit in your life.
- [39:55]
Walter Strickland
I had a. When I was doing college ministry many years ago, I had someone come up and they said, you keep on talking about grace in the gospel. I'd like some exhortation. Once you ever exhort me, I said, I'm happy to exhort you. Stop sleeping around with all of your sisters in Christ. Stop doing that. That's what you're doing. Stop it. And no one, really. I'm like, don't ask for exhortation. Let me just give you the law.
- [40:22]
Bob Hiller
Right?
- [40:22]
Walter Strickland
And this is. I love seeing this because you guys are putting it together for me. In justification, you have. Your sins are forgiven and you are declared righteous, pure, holy. In sanctification, we're dying to sin, and mortification and vivification, we're being made alive and our wills are becoming free and we have new loves and thoughts and our desires are actually shifting. And that's what. When we talk about sanctification, that's what we're talking about is not, you know, the desire for sin and walking in Christian life and the ways that God has. I want to ask a question because there's a phrase here and I brought it up. It says, walk by the Spirit. Paul is actually telling them, you know, but I say walk by the spirit. Do not gratify the desires of the flesh. That walk by the Spirit is used in really either vague ways or distorted ways. I think it would be really helpful for listeners to hear. What does Paul mean by walk by the Spirit?
- [41:26]
Mike Horton
Well, I think one thing. Think about the Holy Spirit's career. He hovered over the waters in creation, the second verse of the Bible. He's associated with fertility. Not about fertility, cults or anything weird stuff, but with making the Father's word in the Son fruitful. And then you have the Holy Spirit hovering over the people on their pilgrimage. And wherever the Holy Spirit is in his glory cloud, there is below that cloud, not hurricanes and tornadoes, but blessing in the middle of a barren desert. And then. And the same Holy Spirit hovering over the womb of the Virgin Mary, totally barren. She's a virgin. But now the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters, the barren waters, and God the Son becomes a zygote in her womb. The Holy Spirit is constantly being. And then he's going to be poured out on all flesh. What will happen? Your old men will dream dreams, your daughters will prophesy and so forth priesthood of all believers. The Holy Spirit is associated with making what is barren fruitful. And so I think walking by the Spirit at least in part means being under that cloud. Just walking under the blessing and the influence. He also uses that right. Don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. So we're not just walking under a cloud. The cloud is filling us. We are stones, living stones in the new temple of God.
- [43:23]
Justin Holcomb
Yeah, I think this idea of fruitlessness is really helpful to answer the question of, like, what it means to walk in the spirit. I mean, if we think about the Spirit's role, it's, you know, the Spirit is illuminating us to the truth of God. And I put my hands around sin by saying sin is a legitimate need meant by an illegitimate means. And so as we're walking.
- [43:44]
Bob Hiller
Oh, I'm stealing that.
- [43:45]
Justin Holcomb
That's pretty good.
- [43:45]
Mike Horton
That's good.
- [43:46]
Justin Holcomb
So as we're walking in the Spirit. What the Spirit will do is that it would let me know that the paths that I have taken to find the needs that are legitimate, that I have met, the Spirit will say, no, that's an illegitimate fulfillment of that need. And so then, if I'm just walking in the Spirit, when I look to whatever thing I look to, to satiate that need, the Spirit will say, walter, it is not there. It's in Christ. And so that's the way. So that fruitlessness, you know, that you're saying, mike, the Spirit will tell me that thing that I'm using to find value in that thing that I'm looking to, to find fulfillment in the Spirit will say, fruitless.
- [44:33]
Mike Horton
Yeah. When Jesus said, I will send my Spirit, he said, and he will convict the world of sin and guilt and convince them, persuade them of righteousness.
- [44:47]
Bob Hiller
I think, too just use Paul's language. To walk by the Spirit means it's faith working itself out in love. So circumcision or uncircumcision don't count for anything. But faith working itself out in love, that is to say, trusting Christ in all things, not your circumcision, not the law, not your sin, but trusting Christ and then leading a life of love towards the neighbor. So that again, Paul repeats it in a different way when he says, circumcision, uncircumcision, doesn't count for anything. But what matters is a new creation in Christ. And to be walking in the Spirit is to be a new creation in Christ Jesus.
- [45:21]
Mike Horton
Yeah. The faith produces the works. The Holy Spirit produces in us that. That sanctification, the desire for it. Not by threats, not by condemnation, not by hanging judgment over our heads, but by showing us, look, this is what has happened. You are free. This is not. Become free. Make yourself free. Find freedom. This is. I just. No, I just told you. You are. You are free. So why do you live like a slave?
- [46:08]
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