Christ the End of the Law pt 2

SPEAKER A You once to every time in the sight of the good or evil sky don't break on you that I choice of life forever with that darkness. And. SPEAKER B The Bible assures us in Ephesians two, verses eight to ten, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Welcome to faith to faith Here are your hosts, Ettienne McClintock and Braedan Entermann. SPEAKER C Dear listener, greetings and a warm welcome. Thank you for joining us again on the program. We are glad that you are able to be with us. And as we start, we just invite you to bow with us for a word of prayer. Gracious Father in heaven, we just commit ourselves to you and we commit this program to you. We just pray that your Holy Spirit will guide and lead us. That what we say here, Father, will bring honor and glory to you, that you will lead us into all truth by the spirit of truth which you have promised to each one of us. Bless us now, bless our listener. Lord is our prayer. In Jesus name, amen. SPEAKER D Amen. SPEAKER C Now, this is part two of our program called Christ the End of the Law. Now, that's quite an intriguing statement to make as a heading for our program, but it is one that we will unpack. And by the time we're done today, we should understand exactly what it means that Christ is the end of the law. And our heading for the program comes from Romans, chapter ten and verse four. Now, we touched on that last time and now we're going to unpack this a little bit more. And it says there in verse four, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Now, does that mean that Christ has brought about an end of the law he's actually eradicated? He's got rid of it altogether. He's destroyed the law. He's taken it out of the way. Is that what that word means? SPEAKER D No, it doesn't. And as we were looking in our last presentation, some people do believe that because reading at face value we go, Christ is the end. When we think of the word end, we think of termination. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D So the end of life is life no more. But what we don't realize is that there is actually another meaning for the word end. SPEAKER C That's true even in the English language. We use the word end. We put it with the word up. If I say to you, Where did you end up? I don't mean when did you die? Or where did you die? Where did you cease to exist? Or when were you destroyed? If we say Where did you end up, it actually means a particular point where something else happened or what was the outcome of what you were doing, where'd you get to, where did you get to. Basically, that's what it means. Now, I looked at the Cambridge Dictionary online, and what it actually says is end up means to finally be in a particular place or situation. So that's what end up means. And if you want to use it in a sentence, it says, after working her way around the world, she ended up teaching English as a foreign language. SPEAKER D So the final outcome for her, the. SPEAKER C Final outcome, that's right. Now the word end, Christ, is the end of the law. That word end is the Greek word talos. Now the Greek word talos is actually very interesting because it can mean a number of things. It can mean end or termination. It can also mean result, it can also mean purpose. If you look at your Greek language and the meanings of it, talos can actually mean to set out for a definite point or goal. So when we read Crisis, the end of the law, the word talos there actually means the purpose or the definite goal or the aim of the law. That's what the word tellos means. For example, if we go to First Timothy chapter one, first Timothy chapter one, and we read verse five there, it uses the word talos there as well. And if you read it in the new King James, it actually doesn't use the word end. The old King James still translates it end, but the new King James actually uses a different word. Have you got it there for us? I do. SPEAKER D So First Timothy chapter one and verse five, it says, now the purpose of the Commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith. SPEAKER C Okay, so that's interesting. So now the word the end, as it says in King James, is the word talos. Now it says the purpose. So the new King James translators, when they translate it, that they realize that if they use the word end there, it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit within the way we understand the word end. Maybe in the King James 1611 or one seven hundreds, the word end would have made more sense. SPEAKER D Correct? SPEAKER C But in our days, end has got a slightly different meaning. SPEAKER D And because this rendering here, it says, now the purpose of the Commandment is love from a pure heart. This is exactly what Jesus had been teaching all along. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself on these two. Love God and love one another. Hang all the law and the prophets. SPEAKER C All the law and the prophets. Hang on that concept of love. He's saying love to God first and then love to our fellow man. SPEAKER D And Paul says that love is the fulfilling of the Law. And so it makes perfect sense here. Now the purpose of the commandment, what do those commandments reveal? It reveals our duty to love God and to love one another. So the purpose of this commandment is love from a pure heart. So that's the goal of the commandments is to outline number one and to point us in the right direction so that we can love from a pure heart, from a good conscience and from sincere faith. SPEAKER C So in other words, that's where the Law would like to end up. That's where the Law wants to end up and that's where the Law has to end up. So the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, then also love from a good conscience and love from sincere faith. That's basically what that text is telling us. Now why does it actually bring the principle of love out and saying that the purpose of the commandment is love? It's quite interesting. If we want to ask the question what is the love of God? We can go to First John, chapter five. So that's the epistle of John, first John, chapter five, and we can read from verse three. So the question is what is the love of God? And it says for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. So is love and the Law compatible or is love and the Law diametrically opposed? That's probably the question we need to ask. SPEAKER D They're inextricably linked inextricably because you said. SPEAKER C Before that love to God and our fellow man, all the Law and the prophets hang on this principle. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C The Bible tells us very clearly that God is a being of love. God is love. So the principles of his kingdom ultimately will then be based on who he is as a being. SPEAKER D I'm finding here in Romans chapter 13 in verse ten, it says love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. SPEAKER C So love is the fulfillment of the law. Okay? So when we look at the Law, we got to look at them as the principles of love. If we look at them as anything else, it's actually to misunderstand the Law. Then we come back to that challenge that we see in Romans chapter ten, where the Jewish people, they had a problem because they were actually ignorant of the righteousness of God, because of righteousness is the principles of the Ten Commandments. Righteousness are the principles of love. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C And it says that they were ignorant of the righteousness of God, so they were ignorant regarding God's love and the standard of God's love. And it also told us there that they had a zeal for God, but it was not according to knowledge, so it wasn't according to the principles of agape love. SPEAKER D I'm finding here because it's interesting. It says there the purpose of the Law is pure love. That's what God is trying to show us and reveal to us. But it's interesting, this love being the goal. We're tempted to go, oh, that's simple. It's all about love. We live in a world where it's know love, one that's the word love, though it is misunderstood in many ways, is the battle cry of so many different groups around the world. Just let's love one another. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D Now, Jesus, he did not view this concept of love as a small matter. It's not just a nice thing to do to make everyone smile. His standard of love is something that is so mind blowing that it's actually impossible for a human being to keep in their own strength. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D So he says in Matthew, chapter five and verse 43, you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For he makes His Son rise on the evil and on the good, and sends reign on the just and the unjust. So not only does he tell us to love one another, he also asks us to love our neighbor, and he also asks us to love our enemies. And what he's calling us to do here, we kind of think, oh, that's simple enough. But love is a complete commitment to the well being of someone else, and even those who do not deserve it. This is someone who doesn't have the. SPEAKER C Same commitment to you. Someone may even have a commitment to hurt you and to do your harm, to hurt your reputation and to take things from you that don't belong to them, but belong to you. To love a person like that, who's actually acting contrary to that love exactly the opposite to you, that's not natural. To the human heart, it is not natural. SPEAKER D And beyond that, it's impossible. Jesus identifies here, he's like, for if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? He's like any old joke, can be nice to someone who's nice to them. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D But if you want to be a son or a daughter of God and be part of God's kingdom, it calls for a different type of interaction. It's not just the law of reciprocity. You do this and I'll do this. It's the law of love which gives, period. SPEAKER C That's right. So it's unselfish. SPEAKER D It's totally unselfish love. SPEAKER C There's no egocentricity in that love. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C It's others centered, god first, and then our fellow man. SPEAKER D I find it so interesting with the children of Israel there at Sinai, their response. We looked at this in our previous presentation. All that the Lord has spoken, we will do and be obedient they quite confidently declared that they would be able to live up to this standard, this law, which is love god and love one another. I find it so interesting, from the time that they were in bondage back in Egypt, they could not get themselves out. They were oppressed severely. And who had to get them out? SPEAKER C It was God. SPEAKER D They came to the Red Sea. Could they escape the Egyptians? No. God had to rescue them. God had to make a way. Then they were hungry and thirsty. Could they provide for themselves? No, god had to. And then he brings them to the foot of the mountain and he shows them his law, which is a more formidable standard than the approaching enemy of Egypt. The people of Israel recognized that they could not fight against pharaoh. They recognized that that was too challenging. So they called out to God for help. Now we have the law revealed. And they go, yeah, we can do that. That'll be fine. We can do that. All of these lessons have been preparing them to give the right response, which is, how in the world will we be able to do that? How can we love as you are expecting us to love? At which point God would be able to explain to them how it works. Yes, but they were so confident that they could, yeah, we'll solve that problem. We'll be able to love people. When in effect, it was actually impossible for them by nature. They needed the infilling of the Holy Spirit. SPEAKER C That actually reminds me of the story of Joshua you mentioned. I think it was in the previous presentation that they came to the Mount Sinai and then they said, all that the Lord said he will do, we will do and be obedient. So they may readily enter into a covenant with God. Not realizing how high the standard was, they thought, oh, well, I just won't do this. I just won't take someone else's possessions. But the law is spiritual, but we are not spiritual. We can't always sold to sin. That's what the Bible says. So in that confusion, that ignorance regarding the high standard, they readily said to God, look, yeah, no problem. You want this covenant with us, we enter into it and we'll abide by our side. You abide by your side, so to speak. Now, Joshua is in the promised land, there with them. And then he says to them there in Joshua 24, verse 14 now therefore fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and in truth. So sincerity and truth, very important. And put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the river and in Egypt serve the Lord. And it says if it seems good or evil to you to serve the Lord, choose you for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served on the other side of the river, the gods of the Amorites and he mentions all those, but then he says as for me, in my house we will serve the Lord. So it says so the people answered and said, far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, for the Lord our God, is he who brought us out of the land of Egypt. So now they recount some of the things that happen and what God has done, and it's good that they do this. They recount their history, because I think it's very important to remember our history. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C In verse 18, it says that the Lord drove out before us all the people, including the Amorites, who dwelt in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for he is our God. Now, those are good things to say. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C Right. Just like they said. Yes. What the Lord said, we will do and be obedient. There's nothing wrong with that. However, if you don't realize you can't do it when you make the commitment, then there's something seriously wrong with it. You're actually biting off a lot more than you can chew. SPEAKER D It's a really good way to put it. Yeah. SPEAKER C So we in verse 19 now of Joshua 24, but Joshua said to the people, you cannot serve the Lord. They've just a commitment. Yeah, we're going to serve the Lord. He says, you cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God, and he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins if you forsake. Now, verse 21, then the people said to Joshua, no, but we will serve the Lord. Why is Joshua saying they can't do it? Because they are ignorant of the high standard of the righteousness of God, which is really a standard of unselfish love, and they were still selfish. SPEAKER D I love that point you've just made. We make God like one of the fellas. SPEAKER C That's right. He's one like us. SPEAKER D Yeah. Over and over again, God says in scripture, you thought I was like you because we have this tendency to make God in our own image. We assume that God is just like us, and yet he's like, I'm very different from you. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D I'm very, very different from you. SPEAKER C That principle of loving your enemies is a high standard that you just mentioned before Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount, that sermon of peace that he presented to all people, peace and goodwill. And he raises the standard high in that sermon. He says that, but he doesn't only say it because he actually demonstrates it as well. Now, we're in the book of Romans, romans, chapter ten, but in Romans chapter five, we actually read there where Paul says that God actually demonstrates that love, that unselfish, self sacrificing love. And he does it in what way? We're in Romans chapter five and verse eight where it says, but God demonstrates his own love toward us. So God doesn't only say he loves us, he demonstrates it. Now, how does he demonstrate it in that while we were still sinners, not good people, bad people, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So it's interesting that he says it, but if you go to verse six two verses before that, it says, when we were still without strength. So in other words, just weak people. And Israel didn't think they were weak. That was their problem. If they realized they were weak, God could have helped them. But now they rely on their own strength and they fail miserably. It says, While we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. See, he dies for bad people, he dies for sinners, he dies for people who are weak. But now I want to take it a step further, and I want to talk about this concept of enemies, because we are told by Jesus to love our enemies. Now, I want to jump two steps ahead. Now from so we did verse six, we did verse eight. Now I want to go to verse ten. And this is what Paul says. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. So Jesus Christ died for the ungodly. He died for those without strength. He died for those who were sinners. And now it also says there that the enemies of God, which is us, he died for his enemies. And through the death of Jesus Christ, we were actually reconciled to God. God ignored the fact that we were evil. God ignored the fact that we were his enemies. And in spite of that, Jesus Christ paid the price for even his enemies so that they could be reconciled to God. That's an incredible demonstration of love. Yeah. SPEAKER D And this is what Paul, when he's getting so excited in Romans, chapter one, he's saying that he says, I'm not ashamed of the says they may stone me, they may throw me in jail, they may beat me. He says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also to the Greek for in it in the Gospel is the righteousness of. SPEAKER C God revealed, in other words. And the righteousness is another name for the principles of love. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C Which is embodied in Ten Commandments. So the love of God, the righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel, just like the law of understood correctly, actually reveals the love of God as well. SPEAKER D And it's so interesting. Back with the children of Israel coming through the wilderness to Mount Sinai, we can see God's love even revealed there. What did they give to like, what contribution did they make to him? They were just an inconvenience full stop. SPEAKER C That's right. They weren't even the greatest nation on the planet. God actually says, you are of the least of the people, but he loved them in spite of that, and he did that simply because he honors his word. He had promised to Abraham that he would bring these people into the Promised Land. SPEAKER D And this is so remarkable, because he takes them out and they're complaining the whole time against Him. They're ungrateful the whole time against Him, and he is faithful and patient with them. He provides for them for that 40 years. That 40 years when they were in the wilderness with that judgment that they couldn't go in because of their unbelief. He still fed them. SPEAKER C Still fed them. They still had the cloud by day to cover them so it's not too hot, and then the pillar of night to keep them warm and give them light in the desert. SPEAKER D This is just a remarkable revelation of God's love just here. Even when they have decided that they don't want to trust God anymore and they want to do their own thing, he doesn't withdraw his blessing. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D He doesn't say, I'm doing this, so then you'll do this. He's like, I'm doing this because I care, and I'm not going to change just because you change. SPEAKER C And the mana still falls six days a week, overnight. God still feeds them. And the interesting thing is, it says that God, even while they were rebellious and they had to stay in the wilderness 40 years, it says that the shoes and the clothes did not wear out. Now, I've never had clothes that last me 40 years. I bought a nice jacket, right? I bought it about three years ago. Had this jacket. I wore it a few times. Anyway, I went to go and wear the jacket again. It just at the top there. It started fraying, and there was a little hole there. So I don't know if it was a little silver moth, because we don't have silver moths in our cupboard. A little jacket. I can't wear it now. It's got a hole. Three years, 40 years. These people have got their clothes and their sandals, and it doesn't wear out. SPEAKER D Wow. SPEAKER C God looks after them even in their. SPEAKER D Rebellion now with this whole thing of Christ being the end of the law. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D So back at Mount Sinai, not only did God give the law and inscribe it down on readable tablets for them, making it very plain what the principles of his kingdom were, he also because God knows that they, in their lives day by day, do not demonstrate harmony with this law. They're living contrary to it in so many different ways. He instructs Moses a few chapters later to build a sanctuary. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D He says that I may dwell among them. And God explains to Moses, some very significant and special things will happen in this sacred tent that allows human beings who are laden with sin and guilt to come and place their sins upon the head of an innocent lamb or goat or whatever other animal there was. And that animal would die for them. And it's interesting again here, what was the purpose or the final result of God giving this law? It was meant to reveal in their lives how they had broken God's law and lived to hurt other people and themselves. And then God pointed them to the lamb who would be able to bear the sin and the consequences. And so when the law is revealed to us, it points us to Christ, because you can't get angry with the law. It just tells you what's right and wrong. It identifies what we've done is wrong. And then God quickly points us to where we can go to get healing and cleansing. And that is Jesus Christ. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D So the ultimate outcome, the purpose, the end of the law is Christ. It can't solve our problem. It's kind of like a number of years ago, I broke my knee and I got the most painful MRI because my leg was so swollen it couldn't lay straight. But in order to do the MRI, they wanted it to be straight. So they pushed down on top of my swollen knee. SPEAKER C I feel the pain. SPEAKER D To lock it down and to lock it in. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And I was laying there and they said, Be still. Just lay there. And I was just listening to the music that they put on my head, because it's a very noisy machine. But all the while, while I'm laying there, I'm under no illusion that that machine, after I'm in it, it'll fix my knee. SPEAKER C Right. It's only identifying the problem. SPEAKER D That's right. When I'm in there, I'm not expecting it to be perfect when I get out of this thing. What I understand very clearly, I don't know how the machine works too well, but I understand its purpose is to show me what's inside my knee. Because I can't see on the outside it looks swollen, but on the inside, I can see why it's swollen. And so as I'm laying there, it takes 20 minutes. It's very, very painful for me. And then after the scan is done, where do they refer me? They refer me back to the doctor who can do something about it. And so that's where an appropriate understanding of the law is. When we come to the law of God, we should be under no illusion thinking that it will somehow be able to solve our problems or get angry. SPEAKER C With the law if it says there is a problem. SPEAKER D That's right. I didn't kick and scream and punch the MRI machine. SPEAKER C Yeah. Say your silly MRI you showed me I've got a fractured knee. SPEAKER A Yeah. SPEAKER D Because if I was honest, my knee was hurting, I knew there was a problem. But we as human beings, just we struggle with coming face to face with the fact that we need help. We've got some problems. And so the end of the purpose of the law is to direct us to Christ as the one who will be the one who can solve our problems. SPEAKER C Absolutely. Now, that reminds me of a text it says there in Romans, chapter eight and verse seven, it says, because the carnal mind the word carnal there sucks. It just means the flesh, because the fleshly mind and that's what we naturally born with. We're born physically alive, but we still spiritually dead. Says because the fleshly mind is enmity against God, the word enmity just means it's hostile. It's actually an enemy of God. And we just spoke about that Christ died for his enemies and that God through Christ, was reconciling his enemies to himself. So it says that the Carmel mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. So we, by nature are not subject to God's law of love. God's law of self sacrificing love. So that's an issue for us. Now, I had a really unusual experience just a few days ago. Wake up in the morning, have a shower, get dressed, and I'm just about to go and leave, so I can drive to work. It's about 630 in the morning, and I get this pain, and my chest just on the right hand side. So I go, okay, right hand side. That's better than left hand side, from what I understand. Anyway, I have a pain there, and it gets really tense and fairly tight. It's quite over a broad area. So I start breathing to try and see if I can just breathe it out because it's quite sore. And as I'm breathing it out, all of a sudden it starts radiating into my right hand side of my jaw. And I go, oh, if it goes in the jaw, I've heard that this is a sign of having a heart attack. Now, I've never had a heart attack before, so I don't know what it feels like. I've got no idea. And I'm thinking, I wonder if this is a heart attack. Then I started getting a little bit of cold sweat, and my wife said, what's going on? And I said, well, I'm just not feeling well. I'm feeling a little bit lightheaded as well. She goes, you're jumping into the car straight away with me. We go into the ane to the hospital, and I said to her, look, let me just sit a few more minutes and just wait. Now, she's had an experience with someone who had difficulty breathing, and if she didn't act fast, this person would no longer be with us within ten minutes of the and saying, I'm finding it difficult to breathe, and I've got a little bit of pain. She had them in the A e. And they were busy anyway, so she does the same thing with you. Throws me in. The car and I'm feeling well, I'm going to feel really stupid if nothing's really wrong. Throws me into the car. They take me through immediately. They put these little electrodes all over me and they do like a ECG, see if the heart's right, that seems to be okay. They do blood tests. They check the blood. The blood seems to be okay. I don't have any of those enzymes that suggest there was a heart attack. They do an CG a little bit later again, they do another blood test and then they do a third blood test and test that for something the whole time while they're doing these tests. I'm not getting upset with the test because the tests are going to help to determine whether something's wrong or not. As it turned out, they cannot explain what was wrong with me, but I'm not upset. They also they did an X ray. Now, I don't get upset with the X ray machine. I didn't get upset with the blood test. I didn't get upset with the ECG. SPEAKER D And you weren't under the illusion that they would be able to fix the problem if it finds something? SPEAKER C No, because I'm hoping they can actually identify what the problem is so that we then can find what the solution would be to the issue. As it was, it was unexplained. All the test could say to me is, there's no heart attack. Your blood's fine, your heart's fine, it's beating well, no problem. Your oxygenation, your blood is fine as well. So what the law does, it either tells us something is right or something's wrong. If something's right, well, then that's fine. We're not sinning. SPEAKER D And we kind of need this because when we look through human history, like in the last hundred years, there's been 160,000,000 people killed in war. SPEAKER C Wow. SPEAKER D And that's enough bodies. If you laid them head to toe in a line, that's enough bodies to wrap the world 6.7 times. SPEAKER C That is a lot of death. SPEAKER D And people think that we don't have problems down here. We have problems very, very big time problems. SPEAKER C Absolutely. SPEAKER D And God's law identifies where that all comes from. We've got selfish natures, and I love this. In Romans chapter eight, it concludes it says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Verse three is interesting. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, god did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and on account of sin, he condemns sin in the flesh. That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. SPEAKER C Amen. Dear listener, that's all we have time for at the moment, I think we're going to have a part three to this program and we can wrap it all together and give a clear understanding of what we are talking about and what the word of God is trying to teach us. May God bless you. Until next time. SPEAKER B Thank you for joining us on Faith. To Faith. 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