Relationship of Christ's Righteousness to Man
Romans 3:21-23 · Bob Eckel · Apr 2, 2006
Romans (2005-07), No. 25
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262347504423

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Vern Peterman will teach next week on Romans 3, 24 through 26. I will return subsequently for the following week on Easter. And then the following week after that, Mike Doyle will teach, I believe, on Romans 4, 1 through 3. So I've mapped out the next several months. Jim and I are going to be bouncing back and forth until July 1. Hopefully, Hal will be up and ready by July 1. That's kind of a date of approximation.

But we'll kind of see how that's going. The problem with handouts is that there's no suspense here. You guys can read the whole handout and all this showmanship up here gets dismissed. But that's OK. We do this for a reason the way we do it. But the idea of presenting these ideas sequentially.

So I've begun with what I call an appetizer. And the appetizer this morning is kind of what leads up to a very important transition in Romans. that I think begins with verse 21, and many people would agree with that. It's not that I'm so wise, it's just that this is a good place to kind of start looking through a new pair of glasses. So the appetizer, I thought, was reasonably appropriate to begin with Romans 2, 11 and 12.

And for there is no respect of persons with God, for as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law." Now, I'm kind of color-coded this morning, so the things in red you don't have in your handout, they're not copied in color, but the things in the red typically relate to the downside or the sun side. Whereas the things in blue I think I've highlighted as particularly uplifting in who we are in Christ and all that's been done on our behalf. Romans 3, 9 through 12, dot, dot, dot, they are all under sin.

As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Romans 3, 19 and 20, that Jim covered last week, Now we know that what things whoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall be no flesh justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin."

So that's the appetizer. Today's text is 21 through 23. Let's read it right now together if we could. But now the righteousness of God, apart from law, is manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all of them that believe, for there is no difference. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. But now, it's kind of an indication that there's something new coming up. But now, I mean, a very small phrase, but it kind of opens up the door to something that we haven't really heard much about thus far. And I think what follows exemplifies that truth.

So the question I'm going to ask you this morning is, what is the righteousness of God? How would you define that? No looking at your notes. Somebody has asked you, what is the righteousness of God? How would you answer that question? Yeah, but I don't know anything about that. I have no knowledge.

Define sin. Is it a malshapen rock, like I was told by a fellow scientist about a month ago? That was sin to him. It's a rock that's not perfect. Now, I don't know if I've ever seen a perfect rock, actually. Well, you're a scientist, you have to... Yeah, absolutely. How'd you like that behind the back? Okay.

Schofield, I think, kind of begins with, I mean, in a sense, it's what Margaret said. If we didn't know anything about God, we have to kind of be informed about who God is. But Schofield says all that God demands and approves, that's not bad in terms of just kind of broad strokes, isn't it? So the righteousness of God is really what he's looking for in everyone fully Most people had some concept of God and What God demanded I mean most people in the world in the known world that as we know it But today, there are people, like the scientist friend of yours, who has no concept of God. And he doesn't want to have any concept of God. That's true. And they've chosen to not have anything to do with any God. So, how does God reveal himself to all of mankind, the three C's?

Creation. Creation's number one, so we're all... you know, accountable before God simply by his tremendous creation. So if we look around us, I'm not talking about that house over there now. I'm talking about the trees and valleys and mountains and rivers and oceans and clouds and sky and stars and all that kind of stuff. You have to kind of say, gee, where did this all come from? So there's kind of creation speaking to us. What's the second C?

And remember, consciousness is not perfect. I mean, we all live kind of... and this is the omnipresence of God's Spirit in the world system. Remember, the world is not of God in terms of the sinful nature and the lack of righteousness. But His Spirit pervades the entire universe and each of us have a conscience. And within societies that are not as educated as ours, there's still a sense of right and wrong that God has placed in every man. Now, the question is, does that take him to the cross? Probably not, but that conscience also can be influenced by culture, by ethnicity, and other things.

So conscience doesn't save anybody, but consciousness is something that brings us into an apparent relationship to God, at least at a distance. There must be right and wrong. There's something going on here. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I know to murder my neighbor because I want his cow is probably not a right thing to do, even though that cow I want. So consciousness ultimately plays out in a variety of circumstances in a day-to-day existence for everybody in the world.

And then the third is what? The third C, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ. So the righteousness of God is perfectly revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. So when we get into kind of definitions, what's God's righteousness, I think we can fumble around a lot and we kind of describe God for who He is and we probably, you know, are feeling the surface of the elephant. We're kind of getting at some aspects of God's righteousness. But He's given us the perfect example, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's look at these verses sequentially. Ruthie, would you take 1 Corinthians 1.30, Carol Romans 5.21, Lindy Philippians 3.9. I'm sorry, I missed 10.4.

Lindy Philippians 3.9, that's fine.

And Harry, would you take Romans 10.4? And when you get those, just read them.

It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus. who has become for us wisdom from God, that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. All right. Good. And that our sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. All right, so God's righteousness reigning through the Lord Jesus Christ. OK, Harry, Romans 10, 4. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. I think that's it, isn't it? Is that it? Okay, thanks.

And Philippians 3.9?

All those verses, I think, very graphically show us this, and perhaps one of the stellar verses, perhaps at the peak, is this one, although these are all exemplifications of God's righteousness being shown in His Son, is 2 Corinthians 5.21. I love this verse. For He hath made Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be sin for us. Come on. There we are. Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

See, the neat thing about that verse is Christ is identified as God's righteousness and then we're identified with Him. So our righteousness is because of his righteousness, and we're in the same club together. So if we say that God's righteousness is exemplified in the Lord Jesus Christ, then we have a whole book, the Bible, about the Lord Jesus Christ. So if we want to know what God's righteousness is, here is the text. And we can study him from top to bottom. sideways, upside down, in every way possible, and we can start describing God's righteousness. So I'm not shortchanging what the answer is to God's righteousness, but I think we have all we need in terms of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Remember, that's what makes Christianity different. Our faith is not in a religion, it's in a person, the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. So in studying Him, We know Him better. We know better who we are in our relationship to God. And so that's true identification. True identifications. God's righteousness demonstrated through Christ and we being in oneness with Him.

Now, when you think about Him fulfilling the law, what verse comes to mind here? And I ask a question that I provide the answer. I'm sorry. slideshow didn't delay that, but you got your hand out anyway. So I was talking to Hal a little bit about this on the phone yesterday. I was thinking, you know, when you think about Christ fulfilling the law, remember the law was there to convict us of sin, but yet, you know, Christ, in fact, did keep the law. And here's the verse that I think really reflects that. I tried to look for other ones, but I think this does it best. Think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I'm not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." So not only was Christ God's righteousness, but His righteousness was exemplified by His keeping every last jot and tittle of the law in terms of what God's intent from the law was.

Now keep in mind that the Jewish law has 613 components. And that, in fact, may or may not have been kept. I mean, remember Christ healing on a Sunday. I mean, was that, you know, added law really of God for the Jewish faith? I mean, you could, Christ, you know, circumvented the law there. So maybe that was not really a law that ultimately fulfilled, was fulfilled in itself by the Lord Jesus Christ, but he was above the law anyway. So you can speculate all you want about that. When you say that he kept the law, was he really interested in keeping the Jewish law, or was he more interested in keeping God's law that he had put down? I mean, Christ was so cynical about the Pharisees, he knew that all those laws were man-made.

Well, that's because they were not circumcised of the heart, right? We've dealt with that back in Romans 2, right? The Jew was circumcised physically, but not circumcised at the level of the heart. So his intent really wasn't keeping the law in the way God had demanded the law be kept.

And anyway, the law was given not to be kept. The law was given to convict men of sin, right? So in a sense, you know, the whole issue of healing on a Sunday, I think, is, I mean, Christ is God, you know, and he's just... I don't want to... He didn't even care about that, I don't think, because it wasn't God's law. That wasn't God's law. That was my point. Yeah, man's law. In terms of the Ten Commandments, if we put that in as the Mosaic law, Christ kept that fully, correct? Right, yeah. I mean... The other stuff. I don't want to get bogged down here. We don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ because he was a law keeper, right? But yet he said himself in the Beatitudes that one jot or one tittle will not pass from the law until all be fulfilled. And who was the fulfillment? He himself, right?

Back to the text. Without laws manifested. So back to the verse. But now the righteousness of God apart from the laws manifested. Now, the important thing here is it's not the law here. It's apart from law. There's no article. So if Howe were here, Howe would say, and he always says this so beautifully, in the absence of the article, law means a law system. Now, in the second part of the verse, there is an article indicating the Mosaic law. But in this phrase, we're talking about without law. So that could be any aspect of a legal system, including the prayer list on your refrigerator, okay? I mean, so this is really an expansive kind of law system that is manifest.

So, this is a perfect passive indicative. What's that mean? Perfect tense means what? It continues into the future. Right, Wendy, that's right. Passive. Passive tense meaning what? Done to you. Right. We're the recipient, not playing an active role. And then indicative. Fact. Right. It's a fact.

So, again, let's read the phrase, but now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is manifested. Is manifested means that it's continuing to be manifested. We're being the ones that it's being manifested in. it's factual. Galatians 2.16 I think touches on this, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ, that should be faith in Jesus Christ is a better translation, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith in Christ and not by the works of the law for by the works of law shall no flesh be justified. Then the second part of the verse is being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets. Now this is Mosaic Law. So the righteousness of God is being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.

So this kind of reflects the Old Testament Scriptures. I'm paraphrasing JFB in terms of one of the commentaries. And he says, thus, this justifying righteousness, although new, as only now fully disclosed, is an old righteousness predicted and foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Because remember, it's saying that this is being witnessed by the law, meaning Old Testament, and prophets. And remember, who is the last prophet? Last biblical prophet. John the Baptist? Probably. So let's reflect here just for a moment on the Old Testament saints.

Let's turn to James 2.23 to start that off.

So Margaret, would you look at James 2.23 and read it for us, please? All right, so in a sense this aspect of righteousness being justified by faith really was a principle that Abraham understood well. And we have other evidences for that. I mean, this whole issue of the principle of faith has been forever.

Romans 1.17, For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as is written, that just shall live by faith. And the prophets knew this, didn't they? I mean, the true prophets of God lived by faith.

Galatians 3.8, And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached beforehand the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

And 1 Peter 1.10, of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently and have prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. So we have evidence that the heroes of the Old Testament, the prophets, ultimately lived by faith in what was to come.

And Abraham was really the prototype of that type of faith relationship. And remember, what's the simple definition of faith? believing what God has revealed. And again, I'm kind of forcing that in your brain here. I think it's so simple and so perfect.

Because remember, the faith that Adam had was different than that of Abraham, and different than that of Moses and Daniel, and different than that of John the Baptist, and different than that of Paul. And Paul's and ours are similar because it was based on the cross and all that the cross comes to bear. How can we live by faith when we're criticized by the world system about our faith walk? How do you defend your faith just in terms of responding to the fact that we live by faith?

We were talking about that in our Bible study on Friday, talking about the book of Hebrews, the early part of Hebrews. I mean in my profession I get criticized presumably Sometimes I hear it, but most of the time I don't. I don't think about living by faith. I'm a scientist, so I do experiments. We look at results and try to repeat them, and if they come out again and again and again, we think that's true.

But what's this life of faith all about? How can we claim faith as being as true as we claim it to be? What's the foundation of our faith? Okay, but I don't know, there's a lot in the Bible that is remaining uncertain. How do we know that Wayne is with the Lord Jesus Christ right now? Can we prove that? Is there an experiment we can do to say, gee, Wayne's with the Lord? But why do we believe the Lord and what he's revealed?

Yes, Carol. All right, there's a personal experience, but the experience doesn't make it in an intellectual conversation. Well, I think one thing we fall back on, and this is really, I think, so important for us to really intellectualize a little bit, is the fact that God's prophecy has been pretty good thus far. I mean, those things that he has prophesied have come to be.

Look at all the Old Testament reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Psalm 2. Look at Psalm 22. I mean, and look at Genesis 3.15 and on and on and on. I mean, the historical document is almost perfectly accurate.

And where the intellectual would have criticized it a little bit, maybe being a year or two off, we're going to give that to God. I mean, if somebody's missing out a year here or there in terms of an exact prophecy, the world system is probably wrong and not the Lord.

But anyway, I think we trust God for His promises to us as believers based on the evidence He's provided already that His prophecy has been true. So this issue of what is faith, faith is believing what God has revealed, we can't convince an unbeliever of that faith. But I think we need to be well-founded in the fact that God has proven himself true until now. Now even if you were convinced, if you took a non-believer and you or he or she sat down with the Word of God and you went through all the fulfilled prophecies, that doesn't convince anybody of anything. So what else is necessary to get saved?

I mean it's not simply the intellectual argument. It's not all about me publishing a paper wherein I've had to convince the reviewers and the editor of the journal that these experiments are correct. By the way, there are flaws in science. You see it all the time, people sending in an apology that what they've published is really wrong. I mean, that's sometimes honest mistakes and sometimes it's simply fraud.

But all that aside, if we show a non-believer the Scriptures and we show them the prophecies that have been fulfilled, what next is necessary? Exactly. I think the non-believer to come to a saving relationship has to recognize the righteousness of God. And that's the topic before us now. God's righteousness. And all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

That's our text for today, right? But if man doesn't realize that, he or she is eternally separated. I didn't make those rules. But I think that's where the creation and the conscience really come to bear on the individual. Everyone is accountable. If they'd never heard of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are still accountable, because all have fallen short of the glory of God. Any thoughts, further comments about that?

I ultimately got saved when I realized that I wasn't making it on my own. If God is who He really says He is, and I only had a glimpse of what God was like, then I needed a savior because I wasn't making it on my own. If God's righteousness is what's being demanded, it ain't happening here. And I increasingly became opened up to who I am and who God was and there was a big gulf between the two. And I think that's how people get saved. You don't get saved because you have a promise of heaven. get saved because your sins and your sin nature have been crucified.

Alright, Romans 3.22, I'm going to show you two versions, the Interlinear Greek and then the Amplified. So, these are two extremes of interpretation of this verse. So, in the King James, let me read that first.

Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. Now, we're making again that transition to the fact that the righteousness of God is apart from the law, and this is by faith. Okay, so that's the principle in 117 that we brought up a few minutes ago. The inner and outer great gave righteousness of God through faith of or in Jesus Christ to all the ones believing.

And, you know, the ILG does the number thing. It really reads, know for there is distinction, which would be, you know, obviously translated for there is no distinction. I like the amplified here, and I wanted to put the ILG first to see how these things really, you know, are the same but are really quite different. Namely, the righteousness of God, which comes by believing with personal trust and confident reliance on Jesus Christ, parenthesis, the Messiah. Remember, that's what the law system represented, to a large extent, is the Jewish tradition. And it is meant for all who believe, for there is no distinction. All right.

Again, Galatians 2.16, we've read it before, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith in Christ or of Christ. It's not Christ's faith that makes us justified, it's our faith in him that makes us justified. And of has been criticized by many people as being the wrong preposition, but that's what's in the King James. And not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

So think of all the other faiths in the world. Think about the Mormons. Think about the Jehovah's Witnesses. Think about the Muslim faith. Think about all the Eastern religions. I mean, all of these are works-based religions. And God says that it's not by the works of the law or any law system that anybody is ultimately justified. There we go.

So in Galatians 3.28, it really exemplifies this point further. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Remember, there's no distinction. We're all one.

And I've exemplified this for you a little graphically. Jew, Greek, black, Asian, tan, Asian, tan, obviously Asian, more Indian there. Know ye therefore that those who are of the faith, the same are the children of Abraham. So we're all, you know, living by the same faith that Abraham exemplified in believing God for what he'd revealed.

Nothing about works. So let's just go tangential here for a second. So what are works? If we continue to claim, you know, the faith message in terms of our salvation, Does that principle change for a believer once he or she is biblically saved? So what about works? James puts a lot of emphasis on works. Works are the works that the Lord has designated we can do. I mean, they're all from Him. And that doesn't mean that works are not part of our faith, but they're not from us. They're not from the flesh. They have to all be from Him.

That sounds like kind of a cop out. Is this kind of let go, let God? Is that the idea here? Well, maybe in a way. I think we have to wait on the Lord to show us what He wants us to do. I mean, I think there are a lot of missionaries out there who have just decided in the flesh to become missionaries, and they're miserable. A lot of people respond with words based on what they were taught that that should be their response of thankfulness.

Exactly. I began there myself, Wendy. I mean, that's kind of what I started. I got so frustrated not being able to do enough that ultimately, you know, there was a light bulb that went off. Okay, so a good message is this, and I've tried to recall this message in terms of raising children is is we all know who raise children is a task. And wanting your kids to live a life filled with faith is really something you may desire, something you pray about, but does it happen?

And it may or it may not to various extents. And we're not the yardstick there. It's the Lord Jesus Christ who's the yardstick, not us. But I think a little quip that I think is often very useful to me to remind them of and to remind myself of, and Margaret, as we discuss this in more detail, is it's not what you do, it's who you are. And once you know who you are, what you do is an evidence of who you are. It's a life. The Christian life of works is a life that bears works.

Because we know no law system, that's our text, no law system justifies us. So even though we're not following the Mosaic Law, we know we would fail that just in coveting. I mean, I'm sure last night you probably coveted something you may not have even recognized. But anyway, this whole Mosaic Law thing, we're failing at that one. But even any law system that the believer might bring to bear on his or her life is a failure.

But when we know who we are, the Holy Spirit leads us into a life where the works are evident of that. And we as believers aren't in the business of judging one another's works. We can certainly look at them and tend to want to be able to weigh those for what they're worth, but that's God's business. Remember in Romans, judge not lest ye be judged, right, for the mortal non-Jew. And I think that's really the principle we're talking about.

So the whole world is one in Christ. The Jew and Greek are gone. The man and woman is gone. The bond and free are gone. We're all one in Christ Jesus. There's no distinction. The last verse, a verse we all know well, is one that is really, again, put on a pedestal after we've looked at the appetizers that we've looked at and then consider the verses that have preceded it. For all have sinned and fallen short or fall short of the glory of God.

So this sinned is what's called a constative second aorist active, and we're not going to spend a lot of time there, but this tense gathers up the whole race into one statement, a timeless aorist tense. Done and positioned and ultimately active because we're the ones who have sinned. This isn't some passive thing. In a sense, it's passive. Why might it be interpreted passive although the verb is active? We're the ones that have sinned. Why could it potentially be passive? And haven't you heard that repeatedly claimed by the non-believer, why do I have to inherit this Adam nature? It's not my fault. What's the deal here? I mean, I've heard that argument comes up a lot. That tree looked pretty good to me, I don't know. But anyway, the verse claims that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. How would we define Adam before the first sin? How were Adam and Eve defined? Were they righteous? What would we call them? Yeah, it's a great term. I think innocent is good because they hadn't sinned yet, but they were about to. So they were not guilty yet, but ultimately bit the tree, if you will. And then fall short is a present middle indicative. So a present tense means that we're constantly falling short of the glory of God. This doesn't change.

I mean, who we are, we have decided to sin because we don't really have any choice. Yes, the sin nature has been put on us. but we respond to that sin nature perfectly well. So we are the ones sinning. And that's eros. That's historic. We have sinned or are currently sinning. It doesn't make any difference whether it's past, present, or future. It's an entity of our sinning.

Then the present middle indicative is factual, meaning that it kind of is happening to us and we're part of it. This falling short thing is really because God's righteousness is declared that we, in fact, be righteous. So in a sense, it's passive because we don't have the capability of being righteous, but yet it's also active to the extent that our constant sinning has us being part of this. So the middle tense is an interesting one in terms of us being the recipients of a sinful nature, but yet we're still actively falling short. And that's because law systems don't make it. So it's a continued action, still falling short, And this falling short means to kind of suffer want, to be devoid of, to lack, to be inferior in worth. It carries on a lot of definitions that are all fairly adequately describing what we're seeing here in context. Now, let's define sin. And by the way, the very simplest definition of sin is missing the mark.

Now, my describing this to Roger Davis about a month ago didn't seem to hit home because he had no idea about God or God's righteousness. So the idea of missing the mark before God wasn't something he could even begin to relate to. I couldn't believe it. But this guy had no concept that his intrinsic nature was not acceptable to God, because who's God anyway? I mean, this is just a really wild and crazy experience.

So what do we think of as believers now in terms of missing the mark? Well, you see your handout. We'll take a look at these individually here. Let's turn to 1 John 1, 9-10. If you could get that, Laban, that'd be great. So first of all, missing the mark is an act. And 1 John 1, 9-10 is one of multiple verses that describes a sinful act. And this is nice because there it says the believer continues to sin. Go ahead, Laban. 1 John 1, 9-10? Right.

If we confess our sins, be faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make you a liar, and his word is nothing. Alright, so we're talking about deeds, or lack thereof, and acts, and things that we do that are sinful, and it happens even this morning. I'm finding myself confessing a few things this morning in terms of these acts of lack of God's righteousness. Margaret, we're late. How many times did I say that? I was losing my patience. I've got to teach this morning.

Anyway, so acts of sin are common. Isn't it great that we can rest on John chapter 1, 9 through 10? Not that we abuse that. Remember, in Romans we're going to read, should man continue in sin because we're forgiven? God forbid, right? I mean, that's not something we would choose. And that really relates to the second aspect of missing the mark. is missing the mark in terms of sin as a state. It's the absence of righteousness. Let's go back to verse 9 in the same chapter we're currently studying. And there it says, What then? Are we better than they? We're talking about now the whole world being guilty before God.

No, in no way. For we have before proved, both Jews and Greeks, that they're all under sin. And that's a state. So in the absence of a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, we are in sin. That is our state before God. Being in sin is the absence of God's righteousness and that's the position that Jew and Greek and black and white and tan and the whole world is in a state of sin. And the final missing the mark is a nature. and that nature is an enmity against God.

Let's turn to Romans 6.6.

Wendy, could you read that please for us, Romans 6.6? Okay, so that, so for he that is dead is freed from sin. So this sinful, you could call that a state.

But it's also when we get more into the Roman six truths of the old man being crucified and risen with him, who's that old guy that keeps showing up all the time? I mean, we all believe, I mean, if a psychiatrist would see us in the emergency room and ask us about our two natures, he or she'd think we're crazy. Yeah, absolutely. To have two natures, I mean, that's called psychosis.

But yet we all believe that that old man is a nature that continues to raise his ugly head in our lives. So sin missing the mark is an act, it's a declared state being absent from the righteousness of God and it's enmity in our old man or the old nature. So these all miss the mark in one way or the other.

We say we've fallen short of the glory of God. We must, I guess, have to have a sense of what the glory of God is. And if Hal were here, he'd take the next three months and talk about the glory of God. But Hal's not here, and we've only got five minutes to talk about God's glory. All right, so here's Bob Beckel's five-minute discussion of God's glory. The nature and acts of God in self-manifestation is kind of just a very simple definition. And just like God's righteousness, It's exemplified perfectly in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's look at a couple of verses. Amy, would you look at Hebrews 1, 1 through 3? And let's put you back to work in John 1, 14 again. These are just great verses among many here. Right, and this, by the way, is what we covered Friday night in our Bible study. We just started the book of Hebrews.

In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times in various ways. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Boy, that doesn't say God's glory there, but boy, this whole issue of being the brightness of his glory and express image of his person. We're talking about the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly well exemplifying who God is. And the thing I like there, the term is hypostasis, and I love the definition of hypostasis, his substantial essence. I mean, we're touching God's glory there. So the Lord Jesus Christ is in these last days appointed to be heir of all things, who being the brightness of God's glory and the express image of his person upholds all things by the word of power.

John 1.14. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. we have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. All right, so there's the word became flesh, that glory actually perceived by man. So God's glory is a pretty big term to define, but yet it's well exemplified in the Lord Jesus Christ. The neat thing, it's available to us, Romans 5, 2, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

2 Corinthians 3.18, but we all with unveiled face beholding as an emir the glory of the Lord are transformed into that same image from glory to glory even as from the Lord the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 4.6, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So isn't that neat? Through identification we not only have his righteousness, we have his glory.

And boy, what a truth that goes beyond any other faith. I thought it was interesting and probably appropriate to close this session by some homework that I did on a hymn called The Home, written by this guy, who's Gerhard Terstegen. He lived from November 25th, 1697, born in Germany, died in Germany, 1769. and he wrote a number of hymns that are available online if you want to access them. Just put Ter Stegen on the web and you'll see tons of hymns that he's written. This was very special.

Thou who givest of thy gladness till the cup runs o'er, cup whereof the pilgrim weary drinks the thirst no more, not an eye me, but within me is thy joy divine. Thou, O Lord, hath made thy dwelling in this heart of mine. Need I that a law should bind me, captive unto thee? Captive is my heart, rejoicing never to be free. Ever with me, glorious, awful, tender, passing, sweet, one upon whose heart I rest me, worship at his feet. Now, the colors on the board, the blue, I think, are the uplifting nature of the hymn. The red is the caution.

Now, remember, this guy's in 1697 here. He's already got this truth down. So the red is this idea, need that a law should bind me captive unto thee. The reason I went green here is I thought that this could relate possibly to this or possibly to this. I'm not quite sure how to interpret. Help me there.

Captive is my heart. So his heart is rejoicing, never to be free. Now, so his heart could be captive to the law, but I don't think he'd be rejoicing about that. So that makes me think that's tied in more to the last part. but yet never to be free seems binding to the law. So I wasn't quite sure what Ter Stegen meant by those two phrases. What are your thoughts? You think it's tied into what follows then? Well, yeah, but what's it mean never? He's never free because he's the Lord Jesus Christ, right?

That's the new nature fully completed in the absence of a law. That's fine. I think that's best, but I thought it could also tie in a way. Captive is my heart, I think is captive to the new life, right? And the absence of the law system is probably the best way to interpret that. I agree, Carol. I just sometimes I was just kind of being strung back that maybe it relates to what he said before, but I think you're all right. I think it better ties in. to the fact that the law has no bearing whatsoever on his relationship to God.

Let's close in prayer. Father, we're thankful today for the text, and we pray that what's been revealed here is ultimately the truth and clearly brings your glory. And we're thankful for that righteousness that's not dependent on our inability to follow any law system or even the Mosaic law, but in fact is based on your great love for us, the great grace you've extended. in our faith is simply what needs to follow. I'm thankful that for this day, Father, we pray that we would walk in truth and in our citizenship from above. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.