Unfathomable Riches in Christ - Identification truths: joined to Christ &...
Vern Peterman · Jun 17, 2018
Unfathomable Riches of Christ, No. 22
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261910381426

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

We are looking here after seeing several different passages and topics that talk about our being made close. and are having access to God, are having been made brothers, and having been made sons and children of God, and those kinds of things that are a result of being in Christ and a part of our unfathomable riches. We want it for today and for next week. And I want you to notice something. This is one and two.

And this is also dated for this Sunday and next Sunday, so it will be the same handout. So you can either hold on to it or put it back and get it back again, whatever you prefer. But we'll be using this handout for two weeks, and the reason is there's a lot to dig into here. And so looking at this topic, the identification truths joined to Christ and then separated from, and we'll talk about what's that, what are we separated from, who or what, right? And so we're going to cover that for two weeks here, and so this handout is for both today and next Sunday. So you can figure out what to do, either hold on to it or Give it back so you can get it back, right?

So one way or the other. So here it is, we have for today and next Sunday that topic, and then we'll be moving on to another series of things in the unfathomable riches, and actually planning at some point to have Randy join in again, and deliberately, not just because I'm gone or something. And so here we have the identification truths are the front door to our unfathomable riches.

And that's summarized, as we'll see here, as being in Christ. But is being in Christ the only way that scripture says that we are identified with Christ? It is one very substantial way. Yeah, in other words, we say in Christ. In fact, there's much more detail to that, right? There's much more detail to that, and we'll be getting into some of that today. But some of the other terms, besides saying that we are in Christ, some of the other terms for our being in Christ include Can you help me here?

We're in him. Okay, so one of the things we'll see is very similar terms using pronouns and alternative terms. So in him, in whom, in the beloved, in Ephesians, like there's a study in another part of the church here. So, you have that. How about in Romans 6 and in Galatians, I think it's chapter 3, and something we're going to be having in two weeks here, right behind this screen.

We're going to lift the screen so that we can have a baptism, right? And so Romans 6 and Galatians 3 say that we were baptized into Christ. So that's another way of stating our identification with Christ. Or in Christ, he refers to us as our children? Oh, yes, that's certainly what comes from it, being in Christ, and that is one of the descriptions of the outcome, and so there's that. What we're going to be looking at here is the word joined. Joined, and as a matter of fact, this word joined actually has a specific nuance we'll be looking at.

Now, so let's ask one other question before we dive into this, and that is, is the Bible's teaching on being in Christ and everything about our position, is that just hypothetical? I'm seeing mostly no. Why not? Why is not just somebody says, well, you're in Christ. and you're seated with Christ or something like that, how come that's not just hypothetical?

Because it actually happened. Okay, one is that it actually happened. It's truth. It is actual history. Okay? It is actual history. Now, will you find it in the history books? Do you remember? It's not because you remember it, right? It's not because it's in the history books. Why do you say it's actual history and the truth? Why would you say that?

Because it's in the Bible. So the revealed spiritual facts are in the Bible. The Bible does reveal history, but ultimately the most important history that the Bible reveals is spiritual history. The most important things that the Bible reveals historically is spiritual history, and you're only going to get it from the Bible. I had history in high school and in college, and they didn't really talk about spiritual history. But, that's what it says in the Bible, so it's the revealed spiritual facts about our history. But one other thing is, it is actual event, both historically in the physical realm and historically in the spiritual realm, but what else? Is that all that it is?

Why are the things that we're studying here, the things we're looking at in our unfathomable riches, why are they not just hypothetical? We're joined in Christ. Okay, we are indeed joined to Christ, and that's something we'll be looking at here today. Yeah? Well, it was part of God's plan when he made creation. Ah, okay. First of all, first of all, these are things that actually happened.

These are things that God intended when he made creation. It means that God had these things in mind before he said, let there be light. Before He said, let there be light, the things we're looking at here, God says, boy, these are all the things I have laid out. So it is God's intent and plan from the outset, from before He made anything. Isn't that amazing? Before God said, let there be light and let the earth creep with creeping, all the things that God did and made, He said, first let's get this settled.

I'm going to choose these people in Christ before I even start this whole thing. So yes, you're right, it is what God intended exactly from the outset. And by outset, I don't mean just when He created, it means before He created everything. And then what else? What else about our position in Christ Keeps it from being just hypothetical. It's recorded and proven history. Yes, it is recorded. That's true. That's true. As we live life, as God intended here, as believers, does our position in Christ have anything to do with how we live? Absolutely. As a matter of fact, that's exactly why we study this. It's exactly why we examine it and explore it, is because God intended anything and everything that he asks us to do to be based on the position that we have in him already.

God has not given you, or me, any assignment He has not delegated anything that is just ours to do, all by ourself and all by our lonesome. Everything that he has done in our position is to make provision for and to prepare us in our condition. So our position is not just hypothetical at all, but our position is God's provision for living out life as he intended.

And there is nothing separately delegated for us to do. God does not, in anything, say, well look, you go off and do this, and when you're all done, we'll touch bases and see how you did. God is not intending to operate that way. As a matter of fact, let's put it one other way.

Does God intend for us to do our very, very best, and when things get a little over the top, we ask Him for some help? You will even find Christian songs that sing exactly that. Boy, when it gets tough and it gets over the top, and life gets to be a little bit too much, then I can call on the Lord for help. And the Lord says, why did you wait so long? That's not what I had in mind. He does not want us to do our best. He doesn't even want us to ask, what would Jesus do? And by the way, what Jesus would do may not at all be, in fact, what we should do.

Why? Because he was God. Are you God? No. And one other thing, he had a specific assignment to a certain people and place. Aside from a little trip to Egypt in his infancy to get away from Loony Herod, aside from that little trip, every record we have is that he stayed inside of either what was Israel or what was supposed to be Israel's. He didn't go anywhere else.

He set in Matthew 10, He sent the disciples out. He said, I'm sending you out to the lost sheep of Israel. Don't even go on a road that leads to the Gentiles. Chapter 15 of Matthew, Jesus says, I was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now, does that apply to you? Have you gone to Israel and then made sure that you didn't go on a road that went to the Gentiles? He went to Israel and stayed there, right? None of us, right?

Why don't we receive that as a direct command from the Lord since that was what Jesus did? His purpose was different. And it's exceedingly important for who he was and the time that that took place and what he was set to accomplish That made perfect sense for him to do that. But what would Jesus do may in fact be the very wrong question for you and me. God does not expect us, nor did he design us in the body of Christ to simply ask what would Jesus do.

Gay? Yeah, to think that I could figure out the mind of Christ, that's very presumptuous. Very good. Now, in our position, we've got no issues there. But in fact, I am growing into the position that I have. When I walk through heaven's gates, when I get to heaven and see the Lord face to face, that will be a different story. But from right here, right now, God's got something else in mind and it isn't for us to go around trying to guess what would Jesus do and then do our very best to carry it out, right? Not our assignment.

So how many miles did Jesus travel around Israel? Just like 20 miles? Well, if you look at it, here's the rough figure. It took four or five days to get between the Sea of Galilee area down into Jerusalem. He spent 80% of his time in the Galilee area. about 20% of his time in Jerusalem. He didn't travel much at all. Yeah, and he occasionally went to some other outlying areas, but the vast majority of his time was in Galilee, and the second most common time was around Jerusalem, but that was only about 20%.

How many miles is it from Jerusalem to Galilee? Let's see, real rough numbers, it depends on what part you're talking about, but about 100 miles. If it took 4 or 5 days, it could go 20 miles a day. Yeah, 20 miles a day, 4 or 5 days, that was about it. And again, it depends on which part you're talking about. So he delegated travel? Jesus delegated travel? His disciples? But if you look at it, have you been spending most of your time in Galilee?

No. Not even close. So let's take a look here. The truth we're looking at here, starting with what we have been following for some weeks and months here, the identification truths of the front door to our unfathomable riches, one of the expressions of the identification truths is this word joined. And what you see is this diagram in the middle of the first page.

And it has on the left-hand side those who are in Adam, that is, those who are unbelievers, before faith in Christ. They are separated from Christ. They are joined to the sin nature, the principle of law, and the Jews explicitly to the law of Moses and to the world. Once having died with Christ, after faith in Christ, we are joined to Christ.

That's what we're going to see in this Romans 7.4 passage. We are separated then from the sin nature. I'm going to talk about what separation means. The sin nature, the principle of law, and the world. Those three things are the joined to before faith in Christ and separated from after faith in Christ.

And who did the separating? Was that your job and my job? We pull it off? Man, I worked really, really, really hard and after I got done, I got separated. Is that how it happened? Yeah, and if it was up to us to be separated from the sin nature, the principle of law in the world, how would we do? Not good. Not happening. Okay? So this is God's accomplishment. What did we do? Believe. We believed. Did we do anything else? No. Did we try really hard? No. Did we say, you know, what would Jesus be separated from? No. Yes. Yes.

There are an awful lot of believers, I think, that have never been exposed to what unfathomable riches are and how they receive them. But they did receive them. Isn't that amazing? So they're trying their very best, but that does not affect their position at all. Is that correct?

Yeah, let's work our way through this. You bring up a very important question. So you can imagine, these things that we're studying, and we're going to study them through the rest of the year. By the way, after a year of exploring these things, will we have exhausted everything that's in them?

No. We will have introduced them. That's all. After a year of Sundays, looking at these unfathomable riches, We will have introduced them. We will not have exhausted the depths of all of them. How many of you know everything there is to know about being Christ's brethren? Not so much, right? So again, all we're doing is introducing these things.

There is more to learn about them, and there is also some growing into them. So when you get to this here, you say about for someone who becomes a believer, for someone who becomes a believer, do they know all these unfathomable riches? Have they been through a year of elective studying these unfathomable riches?

They don't, do they? They haven't a clue. What did they believe to be saved? They believed that Christ, the Son of God, died for their sins, was buried, and rose again. That's it. All the rest of it, everything we're taking a look at here, they don't know about. They don't know about it. So, what happens if somebody is not taught about these things? How do they live life?

Works. Yeah, you give it your best effort, you try and try again, people get discouraged, And you say, well, boy, I've been working my tail off. I'm getting nowhere. Yes! Perfect! But the problem is a lot of people think that's all there is to Christianity because it's not, in many churches, it's simply not taught. And you're taught that it's by your efforts and your own personal accomplishments.

And you're trying to work the shades of gray, right? I'm trying to increase my percentages. People get that mindset, and pastors will reinforce it. I was talking this last week about a pastor back in Carson City who was telling his congregation, if you're a good Christian, you will da-da-da-da-da.

And he goes and lays out all these different things. But it's exactly the problem you point out. Much of Christendom, and I'm not just talking about those who are in Catholicism or the cults or something like that, but much of Christendom is stuck in a, if you're a good Christian, you're going to do this, this, this, and not do that, that, that, that, that.

Yes. Try and fix up the old man. Yes, try and fix it up, right? Fix up the old man, fix up the sin nature, if you believe you even have one, right? And so people are going and trying to fix the problem and they don't even know what the problem is, right? And so that's one of the reasons we take a look at these things, because we want a true, realistic, spiritually realistic, biblical understanding and assessment of what is going on here, and to deal with that, not with misunderstanding.

So, let's read Romans 7, 1-6, Or do you not know, brethren, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives. For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man. 4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now that we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the spirit and not in oldness of the letter."

Okay, a lot to digest here. So, let's go back. The first three verses there give this comparison of husband and wife according to the laws of the day. Is this talking about the laws of the Roman Empire or the Law of Moses? Law of Moses. Pardon? Law of Moses. Okay, you say Law of Moses, and you're correct.

Is that all? It could be the Roman Empire. It has jurisdiction. Yes, it is a fact you're both right. Here's what Paul did. He chose an instance in which both the law of Moses, because are there Jews here among the Romans? Yes, there are, right? Both the law of Moses and the law of the Roman Empire applied to this circumstance. Isn't that interesting? And he chose specifically that. He did not choose, for example, the married man as bound by the law to the wife. So let's walk through that.

First of all, both the Law of Moses and the Law of the Roman Empire only apply to the person that's living. There was no expectation like the Law of Moses allowed you to stone somebody or give them up to 39 lashes for punishing different things. They do that with corpses. Did they stone and whip corpses? No. So, they didn't do that in the Roman Empire under Roman law either. The laws we have say, get them buried. And that's it. But not like this. Why did he pick this?

Because under the law of Moses, both the husband and the wife were required to be faithful. Under Roman law, only the wife was required to be faithful. Isn't that something? I mean, it does that kind of woo-woo, but that was the way the Roman law worked. The wife was required to be faithful, the husband not. So why have you come into adultery with Romans and put her in jail? What was the punishment? Oh well, the adultery situation required her to be faithful.

The husband had various options. So it wasn't a matter of him prescribing what must take place. And even under Jewish law of the time of the New Testament, they had options for, you know, how do we handle this? So... If the wife was... the Roman Empire had a wife who was faithful, how should she be punished by the Romans? Should she be put to death?

First of all, it was at the husband's auction. Oh, he would say what a penalty is? He could say what the penalty is, but he might just say, hey, I'm divorcing you, and you're supposed to be faithful. He wasn't required to be, but she was. Oh, if the husband had six mistresses, the wife couldn't do it, either. Yeah, that was fine. Yeah, and it was considered that in the pagan Roman culture, it was considered that a good wife would not mention any of these infidelities on the part of the husband.

That's kind of like the Middle East, Saudi Arabia. Yes, different parts of the world that's been the case. As a matter of fact, that Roman thing got carried on into much of southern Europe and Italy and places like that. Okay, so now what we have is Paul picks the example of the wife here because it fits both Roman law and the law of Moses. So that's why he picks that one, because everybody, whether you're Roman or Jewish, they would all understand it, according to the law that they fell under.

For the married woman, according to the law of Moses, and the Roman law, is bound by law to her husband while he is living. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning her husband. So then, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress under both laws, Roman and Law of Moses. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, that is, she may get married again. So that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man. So death releases from the law under both the law of Moses and the law of Rome.

So that's the example he picked so that everyone that he was writing to would understand it. So let's look at how does that then get applied verses four through six. Therefore my brother, and he says okay logic this thing out, follow the logic, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another." To whom? To Him who was raised from the dead, which is who? Christ. Christ, that you might bear fruit for God.

For while we were in the flesh, by the way, the word flesh is used in different ways in Paul's writings. What does he mean here? While we were in the flesh. Well, this would be sarx, right? This would be the word sarx, but it has multiple definitions depending on context. Here, what's he talking about?

This human fleshly body, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law. So let's ask this question. If you try to apply the law to somebody, what happens to the sinful passions? It agitates it, makes it worse. Here are two things that the sin nature, two things that the sin nature does with respect to somebody coming and applying the law. One, the sin nature says, pick me, pick me, pick me, and wants to sign up for it. I can do it, yes! Right? That's what the sin nature is up to. I can do it. Pick me. I'll do this. I promise. And so that's the one thing. Sin nature jumps at the opportunity to prove itself. Oh, I'm good.

But what happens? Failure. Oh, by the way, what happens when the sin nature fails? What's our automatic response? Get the whips out. right? Beat myself up, whip myself, you know, condemn myself. Oh, I did so bad. Oh, I'm so disappointed in myself. Good. Right? Because then here comes the other problem with the sin nature.

It gets stirred up by the law. One of my favorite little cartoons, I don't show it all the time because you get bored with it, is here's this couple, they're standing at the edge of the street and there's this sign that says, absolutely no machete juggling. And the one guy turns to the other and he says, suddenly I have this intense desire to juggle machetes. You didn't even think of it before, but once I made a law, boy, now I'm really going to fight it.

Oh yeah, you're going to tell me to do this? Oh no, you're not going to do that. So there's a rebellion. And so that's part of the problem with the sin nature. On the one hand, it signs up and wants to follow it and wants to do its best. And it says, pick me, pick me. And on the other hand, once law gets applied, the reaction, the result from the sin nature is to rebel and run the opposite direction. Oh no! Right? So you have this intensely hypocritical set of double fixations from the sin nature. So good luck with that. So that's why he says it arouses the law, aroused by the law. Sin nature has, again, this double fixation.

Pick me. Pick me. Condemn you. Condemn you. You failed. Oh no, we're not. So the sin nature has this cycle. Have you ever been through that? Any application of law. Could be one. Now, so here's the thing. This is looking specifically at law that defines our spiritual and moral character.

And he gives what we won't go into, but in the rest of chapter 7, he gives an example, and he gives an example with one law out of the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not covet. Which, by the way, the Catholics broke it up into two. So, anyway, thou shalt not covet. And he says that's all it takes. The sin nature just takes off in turbo mode. Any law, just one, is all it takes. And he gives that example in the rest of this chapter.

We won't have time to go through that, but the point here is that while we're in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law, whether it was the law of Moses or any other law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. What is death? Death is separation. Death is not termination, annihilation, and cessation. Death is separation.

So then, but now, and when Paul writes but now, what does he mean? Once you're in Christ. Yeah. Once a person has believed, that's the but now. And he does that repeatedly. The folks in the Ephesians elective The folks in the Ephesians elective have already gone through this Ephesians chapter 2 verse 4, but God. And here's a but now. And so we have a once God has accomplished these things and we have believed, we're in a different situation.

But now we have been released from the law. Which law? Essentially, it's ultimately the law of Moses. Now, does it mean that we're supposed to disobey the law of the land? No. But we're not looking to obey the law of the land as some formula for righteousness before God.

It's different. It's different. We've been released from the law. So let me ask this question. Have we been released from the law except for the Ten Commandments? No. I see heads going no. Why not? It's a hole or nothing. Because God puts authorities in position. OK. So God puts authorities in position in terms of that's how he wants us to go about living, right? But in terms of our righteousness before him, Law is just not going to define it.

I remember hearing one time about a church that had a service to pray for the repentance and the forgiveness of sins because one of the people in their church body had gone to see a movie. Was it real? Oh, I'm sure it was G, but it was a movie with those nasty, awful, raunchy, raucous actors and actresses. And so seeing any movie was just completely forbidden. And perhaps God would forgive it. So this is the other thing.

It's not just the law of Moses. It's not just the law of the land. The people look, I'm going to be righteous by living by the law of the land. But it's whatever other laws people have to cook up. It's a principle of the law, isn't it? Yeah. You don't want to listen to music because you might dance. I remember the church that I grew up in, early on, I think they changed it, but they had an organist who wouldn't play anything in three, four times because you might dance to it. Yeah, but you don't have to obey the laws of people cooking. What about civil disobedience?

Yeah, there we get into something that's a very good topic, but kind of off the course of what we're looking at here. Yes? Okay, so if you take verse 4 or 5 here, you look at the situation with Adam and Eve, even though there was just one law, God knew that with the help of the serpent that there was going to be these passions that were raised by the law.

So he knew it was impossible for them not to eat of that tree from the very beginning, right? Well, let's put it this way. He knew what they would do. He knew what they would do, that there'd be an eventuality, that the possibility of choosing contrary to him was actually the way he designed it. We get into a topic I'll take about five minutes to cover. So here's one thing.

Why is it that God would design Isn't everything in the garden what he designed? Here the earth is fresh. Everything that he designed, he created Adam innocent. But was Adam fundamentally righteous? No, he was not fundamentally righteous, but he was innocent. But he created Adam with the capacity to choose contrary to what God had instructed. Did Adam at that point have the sin nature before he took of the tree? He did not. So it was not an innate inclination to disobey God. in the way that Adam was made, but he was made with the capacity to choose contrary at that point, which is a big distinction. God knowing something does not mean God determined it.

And we actually have instances like that. One of them that I typically will use is, have you ever heard, been in a situation where you've heard tires screeching? I mean, not just a little bit of, but, you know. You ever heard that? Yeah. And what you listen for is what?

Crash. Crash. Crash, tinkle, tinkle, right? And so that's the, because that's the next thing you expect. And so if we hear, and there's no crash, tinkle, tinkle, then we immediately conclude the accident, the collision didn't happen, right? If we hear, Crash! Tinkle, tinkle. Then, you say, I'm sorry it happened. When that happens, you had a very strong suspicion in advance that this was a significant risk. Does your knowing it, and knowing how to interpret those screeches, does your knowing those things make those things happen?

And similarly with God, God knows things. It doesn't mean that God made things happen, even though he knows it well in advance. Did he know well in advance that Pilate would sentence Jesus to death? Sure. Certainly he did. He knew it well in advance before he said, let there be light. And so did Jesus. And so did Jesus. And the Father and the Son agreed to this.

That doesn't mean God caused it. It doesn't mean God causes everything because simply He knows it. Now, what is fascinating, and I've got to cut this out because I'm doubling my five minutes very soon here. What's fascinating is that God has created not an identical but a similar situation with the two created kinds of spiritual beings, angels and human beings. Similarly, with angels, he created them so far as we have any knowledge or revelation, all at one time.

They were given a time window in which they had the capacity of contrary choice. For human beings, there was a time window in which man had the capacity in Adam to have contrary choice. Even now, People have the opportunity to believe or not believe. They have the capacity for contrary choice. Even once we become believers, do we have the capacity for choice contrary to walk a fellowship with God?

Yes, we do. Here's a quick summary. In all the spiritual beings that God has made, He is glorified by those spiritual beings choosing Him. is glorified by those spiritual beings choosing him, and that he could only be so glorified if they actually had a choice. See that?

It is only if those beings had a choice that he would be so glorified. Could he have programmed the angels to only follow him? Could he have made them and programmed them that way? Yes, he could have. Could he have done that with human beings, designed human beings that will never sin or fall away? He could have done that. Why didn't he do it in both cases?

Because he is glorified by beings who have the capacity to and do by their act of will to sin. He is glorified as we choose to walk in fellowship with him moment by moment. God gave the power of contrary choice in order that he might be glorified by those who choose him, whether angels or human beings, whether salvation of human beings, or moment by moment walk in fellowship with him. Now we've been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

Joined to another. That word for joined? Good word. That is a word that is also used for married. Are we in the body of Christ, married to Christ? Yes. Yep. Forever. Right? joined to Christ. But we are joined to Him. And let's ask one other question. Was our being joined to Christ partial? Anybody here been partially married? Like 50%? 40? 60? Doesn't happen, does it? You're either married or you're not. And so the instance here, we were joined to Christ and it was complete. Was our separation from the law complete? Absolutely. So that's one thing.

There are those, I mean, people who write commentaries on Romans and still believe in the Ten Commandments or something like that. John Stott was one who wrote, he wrote a commentary on Romans, he wrote various books, he was an outspoken evangelical Christian. But he believed in the Ten Commandments, even after writing a commentary on Romans. But what does this say?

I died completely in Christ's death, and I was separated from the law. Why and how? Because I was joined to Christ. It was a 100% joining and a 100% separation from. Not grayscale and not percentages. Where does the marriage supper of the Lamb fit into that? That is the ultimate culmination. The marriage supper of the Lamb is the ultimate culmination of our being joined to Christ. Is that the celebration then of our marriage?

That is the celebration of it because you look in the Jewish wedding traditions and the feast was held before or after the wedding. after, so it's already taking place at that point in time, right? So it has already occurred in heaven. Ah, so here's the thing. Ah, so here's the thing, and you bring up a question at a very little time, but it's an important one.

OK, so the law, we were separated from it. Does that mean that we're just suddenly cut loose from any sense of morality and ethics and things of that sort? No. No, why not? Pardon? Principle. OK, principle, all right. A principle is either the way things work or a fundamental truth for both, right?

So here we have the law, it says we're separated from the law. Are we still under the law or not? I think we are. And actually what scripture would say is we're not under the law, and here is why. We've died to the law in order that life might be carried out by an entirely different way. Is the law holy, righteous, and good? Yes. And it says later on in this very same chapter in Romans 7, the law is holy and righteous and good. What's the problem with it? Is the problem the law? There's the problem. Exactly.

It is our human inability to keep the law, and especially from the heart. That's why he chose the next verses right after the passage we're looking at. Thou shalt not covet. Where does coveting start? It starts in the heart. And we've got a heart problem that cardiologists can't fix. We have a heart problem that cardiologists cannot fix and we cannot keep it. So what did God do about that? He joined us to Christ to do away with our connection, our being joined to the law. Is it in order that we be immoral and unethical people? No, he could live his life through Christ.

Yes, in order, this is Galatians 2.20.

Galatians 2.19 says, I died to the law, just like this. Perfect agreement. I died to the law. Heavens sakes, so now I'm going to go out and be immoral and unrighteous. Right? Right? No. I died to the law, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who do the living, but Christ does the living in me. So how does this murderous man, Saul, turn to Apostle Paul? Go from being this murderous man who's doing his very best to follow the law, to someone who can write, I've died to the law.

Here in this passage and in Galatians 2.19.

It is only what Galatians 2.20 says, I've died to the law, I'm no longer under the law, even though it's holy and righteous and good.

Why? Because I can't pull it off. But does Christ have any problem being righteous and moral and ethical? None whatsoever. He never did, never will. And it's His life in me that lives these things. So that morality is not from my trying as a delegation, God delegating it to me. Morality and ethics and righteousness are not my best efforts, not my attempt to even believe. But life gets lived out by Christ himself. Gayle.

Yeah, I'm thinking Christ is our federal head. in regard that he died for us, is he then like a federal head in regard to keeping the law? He does not have to keep the law. Why? No, I mean, in that sense, has he kept the law for us? OK, so what the Bible says is he kept the law, but he also died to the law. So he kept the law, that's what the Bible says, but he died to the law.

He is no longer under it, and neither are we. So we are not keeping the law in him. No, we're not keeping the law, and it has been a mistake of Christians, even in conservative evangelical churches, they'll tell you the law is written on your heart. No, it's not.

Christ lives in my heart. That's the truth. That's what the Bible teaches. Christ lives in my heart. He does the living, not me. It is not my best efforts, or even Christ-empowered, to try to obey or live by the law. I died to it, and so did Christ. I died with Christ to the law. That's what this is saying. Now, we have a lot farther to go, but we've got to stop because there are people just about ready to bust through the back doors here.

Okay? We're going to pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for what you lay out and make clear. We also just pray as we continue to look at this very, very, very important topic. that we have good and solid understanding of what you've revealed. We pray these things, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.