Word of Salvation – September 2024
To That… I’ve Died!
Sermon by Harry Burggraaf B.D. on Galatians 2:19-20
Scripture Readings: Galatians 2:11-21
Singing: – The Lord’s my shining light (BoW.027)
– I will extol you O my God (BoW.145)
– O God to us show mercy (BoW.067)
Congregation,
If you were to go to Bali the thing that would immediately strike you is just how religious the people of that island are.
At least one temple in each village; temples on the highest mountains; temples on the remotest part of the coast – and then the offerings and the sacrifices – you find them everywhere. Little bundles of rice and flowers at almost every major street corner; beautifully decorated rice cakes and huge bunches of fruit brought by people in colourful processions to the temples and shrines. And that of a people who are wretchedly poor, who desperately need themselves the food they offer to placate the gods, and keep at bay the evil spirits.
In it all you see a people searching for the meaning of life, grasping for salvation – yet they will not find it in their religious system because they seek salvation on the basis of offerings… of works… of human merit.
And then you can go to a totally different part of the world – southern Germany, Bavaria – still steeped in Roman Catholicism, tradition and superstition as great as that of the Balinese. And as you enter one of the beautiful baroque churches there in the centre, around the high alter you’ll also see people working at their own salvation. The pathetic sight of an old, sickly, arthritic woman, crippling her way around the alter once, twice, a dozen, twenty times – she can hardly walk, but the more rounds the more merit and acceptance with God. What a tragedy! For salvation is not, is never… by works and human effort.
But why look at the remote, faraway places? The same thing is happening right at our door steps. If we look around we see men and women searching, working, striving for comfort, for happiness, for meaning, for salvation in every conceivable way but God’s way.
– the average Australian suffocating in his materialism, searching for the good life in ever more goodies to enjoy, better education for the children, more mod cons, a colour T.V. set, a new car;
– whipped along by a government and prime minister which sees the salvation of the country in ever more consumption. As long as we buy, as long as we let the money turn over everything will be all right says our Prime Minister.
– and the young drop-outs who reject such crass materialism but who bind themselves to even more tyrannical ‘salvation by works’ schemes in the Hari Krishna cult, the Divine Life Society, the Children of God or the latest religious fad.
Happiness and meaning and security in knowledge, vocation, technology, material goods, religious exercises, living the good life – boiled down it all comes to the same thing SALVATION BY WORKS, by human effort and merit – and it’s a dead end road.
To all that, says the apostle Paul in this mighty personal testimony, TO THAT I’VE DIED.
“Through law I died to law, that I might live to God.”
Away with any scheme, life, or system that seeks salvation on the basis of what a man achieves or does.
A. DEAD TO LAW.
a) ‘Died to law’
What caused Paul to give this intensely personal testimony?
Well it seems from the context in the passage which we read that even the apostle Peter had things all wrong. And Paul had to correct him.
Even that intimate associate of Christ, that pillar of the faith, seemed to be denying in practice that a right standing with God is a matter of divine grace alone; that salvation cannot be obtained by a meticulous keeping of the law or any other way.
You see Peter had lived out the liberty and freedom of the gospel by fellowshipping and eating with Gentile Christians without any hesitation whatsoever. He had shown that he wasn’t bound by the traditions which forbade a Jew to eat with Gentiles. He hadn’t conformed to all the meticulous food laws of the Old Testament dispensation.
God had sent that vision of the clean and unclean animals and made it quite clear to him that the gospel was for all men; that the restricted Old Testament dispensation was past; that there was to be a new freedom in Christ.
And Peter had rejoiced in that and given expression to the universality of the gospel by freely associating with Gentile Christians.
But then things turned sour. Some Jewish Christians had come from Jerusalem; people who maintained that before a Gentile could become a Christian he really had to become a Jew first. He had to be circumcised and conform to all the rites and traditions and laws of the Jewish faith.
And out of fear Peter had given way to this sort of teaching. ‘Fearing the circumcision party’, we read, ‘he withdrew and held himself aloof’ – he stopped having fellowship with the Gentile Christians.
Peter, the rock, buckling under the fear of man.
Ah yes, we can understand that so well, can’t we? The fear of ridicule and scorn, the fear of criticism; the fear which makes us hide our Christian testimony; which prevents us speaking out freely for Christ.
Yes we can feel with Peter.
But the problem was that by his behaviour Peter was endorsing the idea that to become a Christian is a matter of observing rules and ritual and ceremony; the ‘do it yourself’ way to heaven. He was denying the very gospel of which he was an apostle.
No wonder Paul had to put him right. No wonder he had to admonish Peter publically, embarrassing as that must have been.
“A man is not justified by works of law”, says Paul, “but through faith in Jesus Christ” (vs.16)
“I, for one, I died to the law. For me it can never be the way to God again. Neither does the law have any more claim on me, it can no longer control me; it can no longer condemn me.”
Some Christians, even today, feel that Paul is advocating some sort of antinomianism; IOW he’s doing away with the law; he’s saying that we can now do as we like; the Old Testament is past tense and we’re absolutely free in Christ.
But he isn’t saying that.
No.
Rather he is affirming that the law as a system of merit, as a matter of achievement is abolished. You see the Jews, and especially the Pharisees, saw conformity to the law as the way of salvation; by observing meticulously the whole law and all the tradition that had built up around it they could please God. Like the rich young ruler for instance – remember his conversation with Jesus – “I’ve kept all these: you shall not kill, you shall not steal, honour father and mother what more could God possibly want?”
And Paul had tried that way too, ah how he’d tried: “As to the law, a Pharisee,” he says to the Philippians, blameless, a meticulous observer. ‘But to all that I’ve now died; my break with that sort of thing is as irrevocable as death. When I became a Christian I ceased to seek my salvation from my obedience to the law of God; as a means of obtaining merit with God – it’s forever done away.’
b) ‘died through the law’
But how did Paul come to this position? What then is the way to God? “I died to law THROUGH law.”
What a remarkable statement…!
The very law to which Paul had died, with which he’d made a radical break, which could no longer condemn him – that law was the instrument which brought about the break. It was the law itself which had shown him the folly, the utter folly of getting acceptance with God through keeping a set of rules.
It was the law that drove Paul to Christ. “Therefore the law has become our tutor, our schoolmaster, to lead us to Christ that we may be justified by faith,” he says in the next chapter.
Perhaps today we as Christians are too timid about declaring the law of God. If we did perhaps people would be shocked out of their smugness and apathy. If anyone can kid themselves that their own goodness is good enough for God let them place themselves under the law of God; When we feel satisfied with ourselves consider law:
– you shall not kill; and that includes every hateful thought;
– you shall not bear false witness; and that encompasses peddling half-truths,
damaging the others reputation, propagating misleading advertising;
– you shall not commit adultery; and that extends even to monitoring
your T.V. programs of all that will lead to sinful thought;
– love God and your neighbour absolutely, totally,
Oh the impossibility of its demands…!
As Calvin pointed out so beautifully: The law is a kind of mirror – in it we discover our stains, our impotence, our wretchedness, our guilt.’ It cuts us down to size by showing us the righteousness God requires and our utter inability to fulfil it.
“The utility of the law”, says Augustine, “is that it convinces man of his weakness and compels him to apply for the medicine of grace, which is in Christ.” ‘And our thoughts go to a sixteenth century Augustinian monastery where Martin Luther was struggling with this very problem. He tried keeping the law as a way of salvation. Oh how he tried – deprivation. fasting, isolation, self-inflicted pain – and the more he tried, the more the law condemned; the more he looked to himself and his achievements, the more wretched and inadequate he realised he was – until the light of the gospel burst through. Justification is not of works but of faith in Christ.
c) ‘crucified with Christ.*
But there is also a deeper, profounder sense in which Paul ‘died to the law, through the law’ – he expounds it in the phrase: “I have been crucified with Christ.”
The Bible makes it very clear that those who do not obey the demands of the law in all its detail deserve to die. The law exacts a penalty: the punishment of death.
But the glorious gospel in answer to the demand of the law is that Christ took that penalty in our stead. We stood accused in the dock before God, the judge of heaven and earth, for failing to meet the requirements of the law; but when the pronouncement ‘guilty’ came, it was Christ who fronted up and paid the penalty on our behalf.
“When Christ was crucified, I was crucified,” says Paul, “When he died I died because he died my death on my behalf, as my representative.” The law has no more claim on me, just as it has no more claim on Christ because he fulfilled and paid its penalty. The guilt of sin is absolutely removed.
The law is like a bee, it can sting only once, once the sting has been drawn it is impotent to do any more harm. And praise God, praise God – Christ has drawn the sting of the law. “Through law I died to law.”
Congregation is Paul’s testimony, our testimony? Can we say that we are dead to the law? Can we say, ‘I have been crucified with Christ’?
By faith…, by faith we share in Christ’s crucifixion and all that that accomplished – by faith we are identified with him, unified with him in his death; by faith also unified with him in his resurrection. For that is the second aspect of Paul’s testimony.
B. NEW LIFE IN CHRIST.
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” “I died to the law!” Why? With what result? THAT I MIGHT LIVE TO GOD.
Isn’t it tremendous how intimately the two great aspects of salvation are interwoven and connected in this text; JUSTIFICATION and SANCTIFICATION; freedom from the GUILT of sin, and freedom from the POWER of sin.
We have seen on the one hand how ‘death to law’ deals with the question of how (despite the obvious guilt of the sinner) he can become right with God. ‘Christ living in me’ is the other side of the same coin; the vital aspect of salvation; the new life and power over sin which the forgiven sinner possesses. And crucifixion connects the two – for on the cross Christ eliminated both the guilt of sin and the power of sin. That is why the new life is possible.
‘I don’t live, but Christ lives in me,’ says Paul. What does he mean by that?
Well I don’t think it’s a metaphysical or biological statement. Christ cannot literally live in me. Christ is in heaven and in any case the Bible says it is the Holy Spirit who works in our hearts and applies the work of Christ. Nor is it a psychological statement. It doesn’t indicate a sort of mystical union, a merging of personalities – of the believer and Christ.
No rather it means that my relationship with Christ is so close, so intimate that in a very real, but not literal, sense Christ lives his life in me. The Holy Spirit transforms my will, my desires, my behaviour, my thoughts and conforms them to Christ’s will and behaviour and thoughts.
That’s not explained but it is described. The Bible uses so many different metaphors for it:
– 1Cor.2:16 “We have the mind of Christ” – we start to think Christianly on issues, on all issues, whether it be politics or preaching, the Bible or the Federal budget;
– Phil.2:5 “We have the attitude of Christ” – his humility and servant role will be obvious in us, dispositions and affections tuned to him;
– We are transformed into the image of Christ (eg 1John 3:2) – his beauty, purity, love for the truth, will be the marks of our life.
‘Christ in me’ is the principle and the dynamic of the sanctified life. Not just another influence in life, not just the introduction of a new motive into my conduct but a radically new life that in its quality and in its source is the life of Christ.
“Look at Christians,” says Paul, “and you see so many manifestations of Christ. Frightening? No! A source of action!
C. THE CONFIDENCE OF FAITH.
But is it true to reality?
Are Christians leading such entirely new lives?
Is it so clear that Christ is living in them? Just think of all the faults of the church:
Its ineffectiveness; its lack of outreach; its lack of ability to speak to issues of our age; its pettiness, its small mindedness. Just consider some of the breakdowns some churches have periodically suffered. Or look at your own life: the lack of zeal, the apathy, the sins, the failings. Is it really no longer I who live but Christ in me? Aren’t there still the same ‘old world’ characteristics.
Of course! Paul is realistic enough to see that.
The life I now live – is still in the flesh” he says; still belongs to the old order of things; outward existence hasn’t changed; completion and perfection hasn’t come yet.
BUT, its new in the sense that I now live by faith, faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
We’ve come full circle. Immediate sanctification? No, we reject that! But he delivered himself up for me – that means that my new life of holiness, is earthed back into justification: the once for all event of Christ on the cross on our behalf.
Some people think that justification is a sort of graduation ceremony into the Christian life and after that you’re on your own. We try to live the perfect, victorious life as best we can – sometimes we get discouraged and need a bit of a spiritual pep pill – but then that’s what church is for, and conferences and so on. We’re helped along of course by the Holy Spirit and gradually it will get better and better.
But that is a futile hope. No matter how hard we try on our own we can never live a life pleasing to God – even after we’ve been saved. Our life must always be grounded in Christ’s redemptive work. I have been crucified with Christ’ and therefore I have the power to live the new life. The original language indicates that our present condition is a result, an outcome of that past action on Christ’s part.
The Christian life is primarily one of remembrance – remembrance, faith, confidence – in the Son of God who… who loved me! Yes, certainly that… but above all in the Son of God who delivered himself up on my behalf.
Growth in grace does not mean becoming less and less sinful – it means becoming more and more sinful in our own estimation and throwing ourselves more and more on Christ who obtained our righteousness and holiness for us. And finally the new life in the confidence of faith is the hope and the assurance that one day completion will come – we will be truly made perfect. But the only ground of that hope regarding the future is once again that which Jesus Christ had already done for me on Calvary 2000 years ago.
Faith gives us absolute confidence that the one who loved me and gave himself for me will bring to completion the work that he has begun.
– Faith will turn to sight,
– The newness of life, now partly hidden, will be plain for all to see.
Think of it in terms of that hymn:
How vast the benefits divine,
Which we in Christ possess,
We are redeemed from sin and shame,
And called to holiness,
‘Tis not for works that we have done,
These all to him we owe,
But he of his electing love,
Salvation doth bestow. (Toplady 1774)