Goals of this Study for the Converted

Review of Goals for the Unconverted

0:03 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, February 11th, 1996, at the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey.

0:16 Now, since the vast majority of you here this evening were with us this morning, I will not set before you anything approaching an extensive review, but simply and basically continue our introductory studies to a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments, or what is often referred to as the moral law of God. For those who may not have been with us, I'm sorry, but in order to press on and to cover the material that I believe we ought to cover tonight, I simply cannot take seven or ten minutes to give. Thank you. This is a synopsis of where we have been. After identifying the heart of our previous messages in terms of three categories of truth with respect to the Ten Commandments, categories that we've sought to establish by the responsible exposition of a number of texts of Scripture, I then ask the question this morning, what ought to be our goal or our goals, plural, in consideration? Considering, together, the Ten Commandments. And I answered by stating that a sensitivity to the emphases of the Word of God

1:42 would lead us to consider this question in two major categories. First of all, our goals with respect to those who are not in Christ. And secondly, our goals with respect to those who are not in Christ. And thirdly, our goals with respect to those who are in Christ.

2:03 And with respect to the first category, there are two basic desires, two fundamental goals set before my eyes and I trust before yours. Goals that I trust will frame and shape the contours of our prayers and of our expectations. And those goals are with respect to those who are not, in Christ, that each one of you who is not in Christ would be brought to understand and to feel what you really are as a guilty sinner in need of the righteousness of Christ. Since the righteousness of God provided in the person and work of Christ lies at the very heart of the provisions of the Gospel, those provisions will be treated with indifference, they will be despised or flatly rejected unless we are brought to understand and to feel how much as guilty sinners we need that righteousness to be found only in the Lord Jesus.

3:26 And then my second goal with respect to you who are not in Christ, is that you would be brought both to understand and to feel what you really are as an impotent sinner in need of the Spirit of Christ. You not only have a legal problem before the law, but the law will demonstrate that you have an internal moral problem. You are in the language of Scripture a bond slave of sin. And as the standard of the law is set before you, nothing will more clearly reveal to you that you are a slave of sin than to even make a half-hearted effort to conform your thinking, words, and actions to the standard of the law of God. An ancient author has described saving faith in this way. It is the flight of a person. It is the flight of a penitent sinner unto the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.

4:38 It is the flight of a penitent sinner unto the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. And that terminology takes its clue from Hebrews 6.18 which speaks of faith under the image of the old city of refuge in the old covenant. Those cities placed in various parts, the city of Israel, where a manslayer, someone who had been guilty of what we would call third, second, or third degree manslaughter as opposed to murder.

5:13 There was not purposeful, premeditated murder unless the avenger of blood, the nearer of kin who would take his life, would seize him. He would run to a city of refuge. Well, no man ever fled for refuge to one of those appointed cities who did not be saved. understand and feel his danger as a manslayer. And likewise, none will ever flee to the mercy of God in Christ, who do not understand and feel themselves to be both guilty and impotent and in need of the salvation of Jesus Christ. Joseph Hart, a hymn writer of another generation, quaintly expressed it this way, What comfort can a Savior bring to those who never felt their woe? A sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so.

6:20 Well, you see, what he was doing was using the word sinner in the sense of Matthew 9, where Jesus said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. When a person has been brought to office, and understand and feel the reality of what he really is as a sinner, the Spirit of God has brought him there. And Joseph Hart wisely and quaintly says, a sinner is a sacred thing, the Holy Ghost has made him so. Now we move tonight to consider our goals with respect to those who are in Christ.

Negative Goals for the Converted: Preserving Joy and Confidence

6:59 And in no way am I attempting in one message to give a fully exhaustive or even comprehensive statement of our goals, but as I have spent many hours in the background reading and preparation and trying to think through the particular concerns of this study in the Ten Commandments, I do believe that these are at least some of the major goals with respect to the study of the Ten Commandments that ought to be pursued by the people of God, and therefore consciously pursued as I prepare and preach, and as you attend upon that preaching in a prayerful disposition. First of all then I want to state the goals negatively, and then I want to state them positively. The goals negatively stated. What are they?

7:59 What are the goals that ought to be before us, those of us who are in Christ by faith, those of us who are united to Christ, because God has regenerated us by His Spirit, brought us to repentance and faith, and has given us the gift of the Spirit, the Spirit of Sonship, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Well, with respect to those of you who are in Christ, the goals before us in our study negatively stated are these two. First, it is not to turn you away from the joy and peace which ought to accompany justifying faith. The goal of this study is not to turn you away from the joy and peace which ought to accompany justifying faith. Faith. In Romans chapter 8 and verse 1, and the context is peculiarly significant,

9:07 for Paul has just finished discussing the function of the law as the revealer of sin. He has declared its function in his own life in his pre-conversion days, its ongoing function in his life as a believer, showing him the high, high standard of God and how far short he falls of it in his holiest moments. Yet he says in Romans 8 and verse 1, There is therefore now, in the present, no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. The status of one who is united to Christ is right now, no condemnation. His status will be no more glorious in the day of judgment than it is now. It will be proclaimed in a far more glorious setting.

10:16 It will be manifested in a far more glorious way. But in the day of judgment, the no condemnation is no more extensive and valid than the no condemnation. Yet it is right now. There is therefore now, in the present moment, to everyone in Christ Jesus, no condemnation with respect to the matter of sin.

10:47 And in the light of this, every person possessing justifying faith is to have a measure of joy and peace in the confidence that, that his status is that of no condemnation. Further on in this very chapter, Paul hurls out the question in verse 34, Who is he that condemns? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea, rather that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. And therefore, while in this study of the Ten Commandments, your sins and my sins will be exposed. Duties of which we have been ignorant will be delineated and clearly set before our minds. Our sins of commission and our sins of omission will be highlighted. They will be clarified.

11:55 In all of this, child of God, don't be unwilling. Don't be unwilling. Unleashed from the cross of Jesus Christ, where the just wrath of God was fully vented for all of those sins, for all of the unfulfilled duties, for all of the things which the law will expose, God exposes them in the life of a believer, never to rob him of his joy and peace that accompanies him in the life of a believer. that accompanies him in the life of a believer.

12:32 Justifying faith. And whatever depths of genuine brokenness and renewed repentance and renewed humiliation and mourning for sin there may be and ought to be, it must not be mixed with legal terrors and with the thought that somehow I have come out from under this declaration not to be a sinner, but to be sinned. No condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And then secondly, the goal negatively stated is this.

Negative Goals for the Converted: Preserving Expectancy in Sanctification

13:12 It is not to turn you away from the expectancy and confidence which ought to accompany sanctifying faith. It is not to turn you away from the expectancy and confidence which ought to accompany sanctifying faith. Now what do I mean by this? The Scriptures tell us that we are not only justified by faith, but that we walk by faith.

13:46 Now granted, the faith of the justified believer has dimensions of conscious and deliberate effort that do not enter in. To justifying faith, no one understands that or believes that more firmly than I do. However, we do not move from the position of being justified by faith to being sanctified apart from faith. No, the Scriptures tell us that we walk by faith.

14:17 Galatians 2.20 We live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself. For us, Hebrews 12 has a beautiful picture of faith at work. There we are called as men and women of faith to lay aside our sin and the weights, those encumbrances, and to run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising its shame, and is set down at the right hand of the Father on high.

15:02 And as we think of our ongoing life of sanctification, it is not only a life of effort, a life of ongoing repentance, a life of ongoing mortification of sin, it is a life of faith. Faith in such assertions as Romans 6.14, sin shall not, have dominion over you. Faith in such statements as Hebrews 13.20 and 21, where we have in that glorious benediction the description of God's mighty operations in us as believers in the process of sanctification, the God of peace who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ. Philippians 2 and verse 13, God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

16:17 Now we come in contact week after week, God willing, in weeks and months to come with the law of God, with the Ten Commandments. And as we do, sins will be exposed with respect to our lives as God's people. Duties will be unfolded of which we were ignorant prior to the opening up of the law. What are we to do?

16:43 Well, not only are we to refuse to come under legal guilt and lose the joy and peace which accompanies justifying faith, we are not, not to be moved away from expectancy and confidence that the standard of God's law, though never met perfectly in this life, by the grace and power of Christ, we can more and more render an obedience that is well-pleasing to God through the mediation of Christ. And therefore, in coming to this study of the Ten Commandments, my goal, my goal is not to turn anyone away from the expectancy and confidence which ought to accompany sanctifying faith, but just the opposite. The more extensive you see the will of God to be, the more broad you see the demands of God to be, recognize that ultimately these demands and standards are not demands and standards upon your frail humanity, but upon the grace of God in you and the grace of God to you through Jesus Christ and by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And so, dear people,

18:08 my goal in this study is not to see a people who lose their joy and peace and come under legal bondage as they see their sins and their unfulfilled duties, nor is it to have a people who turn away from the expectancy and confidence of a walk of faith. These are not my goals and I will be doing everything in my power as a pastor preacher to cut off the devil's attempt to take the preaching of the law to become the theater in which he accuses you with legal terrors and accusations and cripple you by looking inward upon yourself instead of looking outward to Christ for the grace to keep his law in the spirit of a freeborn son or daughter of the living God. So those are the goals negatively stated and now the goals positively stated. And I want to put these goals positively stated in two categories. The goals with respect to living the Christian life and the goals with respect to loving and appreciating Christ himself.

Positive Goals for the Converted: Living the Christian Life (Introduction)

19:24 And I wrestled with the categories wondering do I separate the matter of loving and appreciating Christ from the Christian life? Isn't that the very essence of the Christian life? But it's so special I didn't feel right just putting it as a category under the first. So some might question the validity of the categories.

19:45 That's your liberty. But if the truth gets through we'll still be friends. The goals positively stated. First of all the goal with respect to living the Christian life and here I have three very simple strands of the goal as it impinges upon your life as a Christian and mine.

20:04 Number one that we might actively pursue an increasingly accurate education of our consciences. Why are we engaging in this study of the Ten Commandments? And for those who are perhaps visiting amongst us and heard many strange things about us in my 33 years of ministry I've never preached through the Ten Commandments. So if you hear that this church lives under the shadow of Sinai you've heard a lie.

20:36 It just ain't so. And I felt it would be a disgrace to come to my grave having never preached through the Decalogue. And among many other reasons this is why we've settled upon this course of ministry. But as we do what is the goal with respect to the Christian life?

Positive Goal 1: Actively Pursue Accurate Conscience Education

20:53 Well it is that we might actively pursue an increasingly accurate education of our consciences. Now you say, Pastor Martin, what in the world are you talking about? Well I'll try to explain it. Conscience is that internal moral monitor which kicks in the moment we come into the realm of the issues of sin or of righteousness.

21:21 Conscience is that moral monitor that is activated in the presence of moral issues. Its function is described even in the heathen. In Romans 2, 14 and 15 a text we studied some weeks ago where Paul describes the conscience in its function of accusing or excusing. And according to a text such as Acts 24, 16 the function of conscience in the life of a Christian and therefore in the living of the Christian life is crucial.

21:59 Here the apostle describing his own internal spiritual experience says in Acts 24 in verse 16, Herein in the light of the coming of a day of judgment and resurrection of the just and the unjust, herein I exercise myself to have a conscience void of offense towards God and men always. Herein do I engage in a rigorous spiritual discipline to have a conscience void of offense, a conscience that brings no just accusation against me when I look up into the face of my God and when I look out into the faces of my fellow men. You remember in 1 Timothy Paul says that the end of the charge that he gives to Timothy is that there might be maintained among the people of God these spiritual commodities. The end of the charge is love out of a pure heart, a good conscience and faith unfamed. Now how central are love and faith to the Christian life?

23:21 Why they lie at the nerve centers. Paul places alongside of love and faith a good conscience and indicates that the maintenance of pure doctrine in the ministry of the church at Ephesus is crucial in order to sustain this critical element of a healthy Christian life, namely a good conscience. And one of my goals with respect to this matter of preaching through the Ten Commandments as it relates to those of us who are in Christ is that we might together actively pursue an increasingly accurate education of our consciences. Well you say, Pastor, why does the conscience need to be educated? Well I can do no better than again quote from Archbishop Layton who described the problem we have with our conscience under this beautiful imagery. Speaking of the writing of the law by the finger of God in tables of stone, he says God did this that they might abide and be conveyed to subsequent ages.

24:35 At first they were written in the heart of man by God's own hand. But as the first tables of stone fell and were broken, you remember when Moses dashed them, so it was with man's heart by his fall his heart was broken and scattered among the earthly perishing things which was before whole and entire to his maker. And so the characters of that law written in it were so shivered and scattered they could not be perfectly and distinctly read in it. Therefore it pleased God to renew that law after this manner by a most solemn delivery with an audible voice and then by writing it on tables of stone. And this is not all. But this same law he doth write anew in the hearts of his children. And in that simple little imagery he ties together the organic unity of the Ten Commandments, the moral law, from creation to Sinai to the New Covenant.

25:46 Beautiful stroke, tying it all together in a biblical way. And because we have remaining sin, conscience is not accurate automatically upon our regeneration. And though God takes out the heart of stone, gives us a heart of flesh, writes his law upon the heart, as with every aspect of God's work of grace in us, it is not perfect here in this life. His work on our behalf in the court of heaven is perfect from its very inception.

26:22 You and I will be no more justified if we may use the terminology a billion years into eternity than the millisecond after we lay hold of Christ crucified. But our sanctification begins now with the dethronement of sin, breaking the reign of sin in us, giving us a positive commitment to a life of righteousness, giving us an internal disposition and predisposition to obey the law of God. But because of remaining sin, affecting our minds with partial darkness, affecting our affections and our perception with partial darkness and perversity, we need that external, inscripturated, objective declaration of the summary of God's moral requirements in the Decalogue. And as Christians seeking to have a healthy and a good and godly conscience, we need constantly to educate our consciences by the absolute standard of God's holy law. For the New Testament clearly indicates that we can have a weak conscience, conscience condemning us

27:51 in areas where it ought not to condemn us. There can be a defiled conscience, conscience being silent where it ought to scream in our ears. And therefore if we are to make progress as believers, we must have an increasingly accurate education of our consciences. And it is the unique function of the law of God to be the educator.

28:21 And every true Christian will long for that education. That's why, frankly, I am suspicious, unless someone is, as we saw last week, reacting against an abusive treatment of the law, I'm suspicious of professing Christians who draw back from the thought that they're going to have a concentrated period of exposure to the Ten Commandments. According to Titus chapter 2, Christ died, and one of His major purposes in dying is this. Verse 11, The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us.

29:03 This is what grace instructs us in the salvation that it brings. Instructing us to the intent that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live so soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. The grace of God never takes a man in hand and brings him to lay hold of a crucified, risen, and an exalted Savior without also bringing him under a tutelage to a life of holiness. A holiness that involves denying certain things and practicing other things.

29:47 Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, and godly. But now the question is, how do I know what is an ungodly word, thought, or action? How do I know what is a worldly lust? How do I know what is involved in living soberly, righteously, and godly?

30:18 It is the function of God's law to give definition to what is ungodliness and worldly lust. It is the function of God's law to define what it is to live soberly and righteously and godly. And therefore, if God's grace has laid hold of me, then surely I want my conscience to be increasingly and accurately educated with respect to the issues of sin and righteousness, because I'm a debtor to grace, the grace that has taken me in hand and has taught me and given me a predisposition and a desire to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil age. So the goals positively stated with regard to the Christian life are, number one, that we might actively pursue an increasingly accurate education of our consciences. Secondly, that we might actively pursue an increasing spirit of humiliation, repentance, and watchfulness in conjunction with our remaining sin.

Positive Goal 2: Actively Pursue Humiliation, Repentance, and Watchfulness

31:45 That we might actively pursue an increasing spirit of humiliation, repentance, and watchfulness in connection with our remaining sin. One of the favorite texts from the Old Testament, one that when I'm asked to sign my name on someone's booklet that I may have written, and they say, Pastor Martin, would you put your autograph on that? I don't feel there's anything sinful in doing that, and I do it, and almost invariably I write under it this text. There are two or three texts that I most frequently use, but this is the one more than any other, Isaiah 57 and verse 15. Taking thoughts that obviously were embedded in the record of his call to the prophetic office as recorded in the sixth chapter of the prophecy, Isaiah declares in Isaiah 57, 15, For thus saith the High and the Lofty One, that in Tabet's eternity whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him. Now what kind of person does God hold intimate communion with? He's going to describe him.

33:09 With him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite. And if there is any distinction between these two things, God saying he dwells with the contrite and the humble, he revives the spirit of the humble and revives the heart of the contrite, I would regard the distinction to be right here. The humble man is the man who owns the realities of what he is as a creature. Utterly dependent upon God for his next breath. He has nothing but what he's received, therefore there's no strut, there's no cock-of-the-walk spirit in him. He knows he's but a creature. Utterly dependent upon God for all that he is and all that he has.

34:11 That's a humble man. A humble man is not someone trying to persuade himself he's not quite as great as he thinks he is. And trying to avoid the impression that he thinks he is as great as he really is. That's not humility.

34:25 That's hypocrisy. Humility is that reflexive disposition of the soul who found in the man who knows himself to be but a creature. And what is contrition? That's the reflex disposition of the man who knows himself to be a sinner.

34:44 The contrite man is the man who's experienced what Isaiah did. And Isaiah was no bum, no profligate. Isaiah was a man whom we would look up to for all of the dimensions of his godly manhood. Yet, when he saw the Lord high and lifted up and saw those strange creatures veiling face and feet and crying one to another holy, holy, holy is the Lord God the Almighty.

35:15 He says that having seen him he cried out woe is me I'm undone. I've had it. I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen Jehovah. It's the spirit of a Job.

35:31 I've heard of you by the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees you and I abhor myself and I repent in sackcloth and ashes. And who was he? A man concerning whom not he boasted but God and I have seen him not he boasted but God boasted. Have you Satan considered my servant Job upright just in all his ways?

36:02 Yet when he sees what he really is in the presence of God he says I abhor myself. What are the first two beatitudes in Matthew 5? You remember them don't you kids? Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

36:24 Blessed are they that mourn present tense for they shall be comforted. As our Lord describes the character traits of the sons and daughters of his kingdom he starts on the base notes that never leave and never cease to resonate through their character but grow with them as they grow in grace. They are poor in spirit and they mourn and they mourn and what keeps them poor in spirit it's the growing realization of what a horrible load they yet carry with them. It's the growing understanding of what they are as imperfectly sanctified sinners. What they are yet capable of. In one of our meditations in William J. this past week as my wife and I were reading it he made such a perceptible insight on the text when I am weak then am I strong and he speaks of the young Christian who when even reads in the Bible of the falls of those who walk along with God and he looks about him in the church and he sees people who have gone to great heights of spiritual attainment and yet they fall or stumble or some quirk and abnormality of character is manifested as a young Christian they are full of censoriousness and say how come

37:54 how could he do that how could he be like that but with the passing of the years and the more accurate knowledge of what they are capable of they recognize that but for the grace of God they would be that person I don't read the account of David's tragic falls as a mature middle aged experienced saint and say David how in the name of common sense could you do that and I don't say for rhetorical effect I never read the passage or hear it read but what I weep and say God have mercy on me I'm not home safely yet what are the goals of a study of the ten commandments for us the people of God not only that we might actively pursue an increasingly accurate education of our consciences but that we might actively pursue an increasing spirit of humanity and we might be able to carry the light of the world down our

39:23 way you see our lives are full of all load of dry tinder soaked in gasoline, you're going to be very careful around sparks. And the more you know yourself in the light of the law, the more you will go out of yourself in humble dependence upon the grace of God to uphold and sustain and keep you. And while others may see you growing in grace, all you will see is an increasing measure of your potential for sin that will cause you to grow in the grace of evangelical humiliation, repentance, and watchfulness. It wasn't a novice who wrote Romans 7, 14-25. It was a mature, experienced Christian man. Who when he drew close to the full searching light of that very law, which originally exposed

40:43 his pharisaic delusions and slew him and showed him his need of Christ, it was his constant contact with that law that showed him how much there was yet in him that was unlike Christ and caused him to cry, wretched man, not that I was, but that I am. And no man carries with him the echoes of Romans 7, 14-25 in his heart and has any strut left in him. Third goal with respect to living the Christian life is this. That we might actively pursue a greater measure of felt dependence upon Christ. That we might actively pursue a greater measure of felt dependence upon Christ. I also say, for Christ, when you go to heaven, there is a greater measure of not having notcome down. I'm going to go through the

Positive Goal 3: Actively Pursue Felt Dependence on Christ

41:44 first verse. That there will be� Go to the Lord to have a little Otaheimah ti Johuanah. dependence upon Christ. If we're in Christ, we depend upon Christ. We depend upon His work as the ground of our acceptance before God. We depend upon His work in us by the Spirit that we may walk in a way that is pleasing to God. Well, what happens when the law comes and under the blessing of the Spirit of God, our understanding of what is sin increases. Our understanding of what our duty is expands. Well, if we are in Christ, this should then cause us to have greater measures of felt dependence upon Christ, for each new discovery of sin should drive us afresh to the glorious truth that He is our righteousness. That though we may not have known that this and that and the other was sin until the law shed its light upon it, all the while Christ knew it was sin, and it was His work and mediation and advocacy that maintained our standing with God in spite of our ignorance of the very sin that in and of itself could have cut us off from God. But as our advocate at the right hand to the Father, He recognized that we are in Christ, and that we are in Christ, and that we are in Christ, and that we are in Christ, and that we are in Christ, and that we are in Christ, and that we are in Christ, and that we are in Christ, and that we are in Christ, and that we are in Christ, and that we are in Christ,

43:09 represents us, and therefore the increasing discovery of our sin should increase our dependence upon His objective work as the ground of our peace and acceptance. For again, it was not a young Christian who penned Philippians 3, and I again praying through it last week in my own devotion said, Lord, I don't understand. Please help me to understand what the Apostle is saying. I can understand when he says, the things that were in Christ are now in Christ, and I can understand gain to me, I have counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, and do count them but dung or refuse that, that I may gain Christ. Well, has He not yet gained Him? And be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. Here is a man determined to seek his acceptance with God in no other place but in an ongoing going

44:23 out of himself and into Christ and into Christ alone. And likewise, when we see our duties and the service of God, we see that we are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone in the service of God. We are not alone in the service of God. We are not alone in the service of God. We are not alone in the service of God. We are not alone in the service of God. We are not alone in the service of God. We are not alone in the service of God.

44:33 The scope of those duties expanded at the level of our consciousness through the preaching of the law. This should in turn increase our dependence upon the subjective work of Christ as the source of our power and our ability to do the will of God. I can do all things, Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Or Paul's might be filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ through the agency of the virtue of Christ. Or John 15, without me you can do nothing. Abide in me and my words abide in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself so neither can you except you abide in me. So when the law points out your sin, it is also pointing you towards the Christian afresh, to new actings of faith upon Christ and the perfect objective salvation that is yours in Him. And when the law points out your duty, it's not there like Pharaoh's

45:48 taskmaster, there cracking the whip over your back while withdrawing straw and demanding you make more bricks without giving you the ability. No, the law is there for you as a believer to explain the law. No, the law is there for you as a believer to explain the law. If you will, the law is there for you as a believer to explain the law.

46:03 The law is there for you as a believer to explain the law. Expand your understanding of the will of God in your duty that you might immediately look to Christ for new supplies of grace and strength to work in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, that He may be glorified as you become more fruitful in the virtue and in the power that He Himself gives. Now I tell you, would any Christian draw back from such goals? Would anyone truly in Christ have an aversion to spending some months in close contact with that which God has given as a means that we might actively pursue an increasingly accurate education of our consciences, actively pursue an increasing spirit of humiliation, repentance, and watchfulness in conjunction with our remaining sin? And that we might actively pursue a greater measure of felt dependence upon Christ? I say the heart of a true Christian cannot help but say, Lord, bring on the Ten Commandments.

Positive Goal: Loving and Appreciating Christ Himself

47:15 Bring them on, if that's what they will accomplish by Your blessing under the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But then finally, this last category, the goals positively stated. First of all, those three goals respecting the Christian life in general. But then the goal with respect to loving and appreciating Christ Himself.

47:38 Listen closely as I try to bring this to a close. Some of you have read enough theology to know that some of the older writers and some of the contemporary writers, when they speak of our righteousness procured by the work of Christ, they speak of the active obedience of Christ and the passive obedience of Christ. Now some have taken exception to the terminology and rightly so, but when you're trying to express biblical truth in human terminology, often it's difficult, and yet some truths, it's much more difficult to try to express them without coming up with some human terminology. And what they were trying to express is this, that the righteousness that answers to all of the demands of God is made up of the active obedience of Christ, and by that they mean simply this, that according to the Scriptures, Galatians chapter 4, Christ was made of a woman, made under the law. And that He placed Himself under the demands of God's law, not merely the totality of the Mosaic system, being a Jew, so that all of the types and shadows might find their fulfillment in Him, and by His work, He would break down the middle wall between Jew and Gentile and thereby dismantle the fabric of the civil law,

49:07 but that He perfectly obeyed the moral law of God, not in order to procure a righteousness for Himself, for He was the author of that law. He Himself was holy, harmless, undefiled, and without sin, but He perfectly kept that law as the representative, the surety, the head of His people, that in keeping, in keeping that law perfectly on their account, His perfect obedience might be credited to them, thereby earning them a title to heaven. And by the passive obedience of Christ, they were referring to His suffering under the curse of a broken law. His willingness to give Himself up to the jeering, to the spittle, to the buffeting, to the shame of being stripped naked and hung, upon a cross, and there bearing in His own body our sins up to the tree, in the language of Galatians 3, made a curse for us. And by the passive obedience of Christ, they are referring to His sufferings in vicarious curse bearing, so that our righteousness might be not only comprised of His perfect obedience to the law credited to our account, but His sufferings under the curse of the broken law

50:35 credited to our account, there could be no claim against us. So that all of our sins and the punishment they deserve are cancelled by His suffering and the righteousness that would earn heaven that we could not present, He presents for us. That's strongly suggested in such a text as Romans 5 and verse 19, one of the waters of the sea, one of the waters of the sea, one of the waters of the sea, one of the waters of the sea, one of the waters of the sea, one of the waters of the sea, one of the waters of the sea, often brought forward by those who insist on the active and the passive obedience of Christ as forming the fabric of our righteousness. As to the one man's disobedience, Adam, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted or made righteous. Now think with me for a moment, because I do believe that teaching. I do believe it's the teaching of the Word of God, though it's not been my purpose to clearly establish it on all of its exegetical grounds. But if indeed it is, and it's not strange teaching, it is classic, reformational teaching, then do you see what a study of the law of God will do in terms of our respect,

52:00 with respect to loving and appreciating Christ Himself?

52:05 You see, if our understanding of the law is that when, let's take the fifth commandment, honor thy father and thy mother, if we understand that to mean this much of respect, obedience, sensitivity, submission, consideration, and then we see our Lord Jesus as perfectly keeping the law of God on our behalf, if we see the law demanding this much and He fulfills this much, we will have an appreciation, an appreciation for His obedience proportionate to understanding of the demand of that commandment. But if we see that that commandment is exceeding broad, and it touches far more than common decency and submission and taking out the garbage cheerfully when He was told to do so, and cutting a board a certain length and planing it a certain angle when His human father Joseph told Him to do so, if we see that that commandment, that commandment is much broader and Christ perfectly fulfilled it, what does it do with respect to our love and admiration for Christ? To think that in this human condition where He had all kinds of negative examples around Him in His own unconverted, unsaved, Adamic half-brothers and sisters who didn't even believe on Him, why we have a renewed appreciation

53:33 when we read He was holy, harmless, undefiled. When He could say, who of you can convince me of sin? There was no one who could get close enough to any of His half-siblings to find out one little way in which He had ever deviated from the full scope of all the demands of the fifth commandment. Well, you see, to appreciate the breadth and the depth of the demands of the law is to have a new appreciation for the obedience of the Lord Jesus to see Him in the glory of His sinlessness and to love Him all the more.

54:15 And then in terms of His passive obedience, if He bore our sins in His own body up to the tree, 1 Peter 2, if according to Galatians 3.13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us, 2 Corinthians 5, He who knew no sin was made sin for us, if we have seen our sin to be of such a measure,

54:44 we have an equal measure of appreciation for what He suffered when He bore our sins. But if the law of God expands our understanding of what sin is, what our sins are, and we realize He bore them, all of them, it was those sins that made the cup that much wider and deeper, the cup before which He trembled and staggered in Gethsemane, that cup which caused Him, it says, to be sore amazed and to cry out, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. The more I see of my specific sins that were in that cup that He had to drink, if my sins were all to be atoned for, the just wrath of God vented for my sins, the more I see of my sin in that cup and realize He drank every last drop of it, then surely I cannot help but love and appreciate my Savior more. And so I say to you, my fellow believers, who, having not seen Him, love Him, draw near to the law of God, not as something that's going to distance you, but as something that's going to distance you from Christ.

Summary of Goals and Confessional Support

56:12 But I trust it's something that in the blessing of the Spirit of God will make Christ more precious than He's ever been before, that we'll stand amazed at the perfection of His obedience, stand amazed at His willingness to undergo the measure of the torrents of divine wrath against our sin, all for love of the likes of you and the likes of me. For He loved the church and gave Himself for it. Therefore, as we come to this study of the Ten Commandments, my goals for you, the Lord's people, remember them, please. I'll be reiterating them in one way or another again and again. Negatively, I have no desire in any way to dilute your peace and joy in justifying faith. I have no desire whatsoever to move you from the expectancy and confidence of a life of faith as you press on in your Christian experience. But it is my desire that in your Christian life there will be by this study of the law an increasingly accurate education of your conscience with respect to what is right and wrong, what are God's laws, what are mere men's laws.

57:40 Hopefully some of you will be blessedly liberated from bondage to men and others blessedly liberated from toying with things that unless they are dealt with may drag you into the horrible vortex of apostasy. Have your conscience educated to have by the grace of God increased measures of humiliation and repentance and dependence upon Christ and His grace as you face the reality of your indwelling sin and it's interesting after I had basically prepared these perspectives, accumulated them over the many weeks of pre-preparation and actual preparation, I turned again to our old confession of faith chapter 19 on the law of God and on this note I close. Paragraph 6, although true believers are not under the law as a covenant of works to be thereby justified or condemned, yet it is of great use to them as well as to others that as a rule of life informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and directs the people of God to the right path.