January 1929
61
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
J a n u a r y 19, 1929
not simply the ceremonial part of it. While the law was readily divisible into moral, civil and ceremonial laws, these distinctions are nowhere made in Scripture.' Freedom from the law means that salvation is not Christ plus.
SEPARATION Text: Gàl. 1:15-16 The title “Pharisee’’ means “a separated one.” Paul, before his conversion, had been one of these “separatists,” and although a most zealous religionist (vs. 13-14), he had been the arch prosecutor of Christians. When the vision of Christ stopped him in his course, and the Spirit of God laid hold of his heart, he became conscious of another kind of separation. He knew then that God had “separated him from his mother’s womb and called him by His grace to reveal His son in him that he might preach Christ among the heathen” (vs. 15-16). When he was saved, Christ was “revealed in him.” The word means “uncovered” (cf. Mt. 10:26; Lk. 12:2, same word). It is of little use to try to preach until Christ has been uncovered within our lives.
J anuary 23, 1929
MORALITY Text: Gal. 2:19-20 Yes, we are set free from the law. We are “dead to it,“ because Christ’s death relieves us of the yoke of bondage. But we are all wrong if we think there remains no law which we are bound to obey. We are dead to the law “that we might live unto God.” How do we know what God’s moral standards are? The law! We are not saved by the works of the law, nor are we, after we are saved, a class of spiritual Bolsheviks. “We are free from the law of sin and death . . . that the righteous ness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” (Rom. 6:2-4). The “fruit of the Spirit” consists in the very things the law requires. Those saved by grace have a far greater obligation to do the will of God than ever rested on Israel in the flesh. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us as our Enabler causing us to “live unto God." jgj8a J a n u a r y 24, 1929 ENABLEMENT Text: Gal. 2:20 One can never say, with Paul, “Christ liveth in me,” until he can say : “I am crucified with Him.” This crucifixion is not something zee accomplish. We are never told to crucify our selves. It is already accomplished for us in the death of Christ. We enter into the experience of it when we “reckon it” done (Rom. 6 : 6 ). When once we realize the fact, the voice of the accuser is silenced, we enter into the peace of God, and Christ becomes our Enabler. “I live, yet not I— Christ liveth in me.” How do we apprehend this divine enabling? “The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.” It is faith from beginning to end. It is first faith to receive Him as our Substitute and it is faith for the life we now live to the very end. “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?” The word “bewitch” means “to subject one to occult influences.” How much of this is in the air today! Many are fascinated by men who profess to be Christian teachers, but really are enemies of the cross! Jesus had been “set forth crucified among them” as the one means of salvation. Now bewitching teachers convinced them it was Christ plus other things. “Are ye so foolish? Hav ing begun in the Spirit,” do you think your salvation is now to be completed by rites, works and ceremonies? (V. 3.) From first to last, salvation is the Spirit’s work in us. How foolish to think a work undertaken by the Spirit should depend for com pletion, upon the efforts of the flesh! Text: Gal. 3:10-11 Paul knew that the Galatians had not realized what was involved in requiring submission to the law of Moses as one of the terms of salvation. He shows that if the law is brought in as an instrument of salvation, they must bring it all in, not such parts as Judaizing teachers might select. As many as are hoping for salvation through the work of the law “are under the curse,” for it is written: “Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” The law is a unit. To break any part of it is to break J a n u a r y 26; 1929 CURSE “Not I but Christ, be honored, loved, exalted; Not I but Christ be seen, be known, be heard; Not I but Christ in every look and action, Not I but Christ in every thought and word.” J a n u a r y 25, 1929 WITCHERY Text: Gal. 3:1-3
J a n u a r y 20, 1929
LIBERTY
Text: Gal. 2:1-5
“The mention of Thy name shall bow Our hearts to worship Thee, The Chiefest of ten thousand, Thou, Whose love has set us free.”
Religionists have always been bitterly opposed to the Chris tian teaching of liberty through Christ. It was our Lord who first said: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” But let us remember that ours is a freedom “in Christ.” It is secured to us by the indwelling Spirit who frees the mind from mistaken notions about God and Christ (2 Cor. 3:17). Christ secures to us freedom of choice and action, within the limits imposed by the consideration of the welfare of others. “Use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (5:13). As Christians, we have liberty to do anything we want to do, but only when we want to do what we ought to do. Peter was the man who, at the Jerusalem Council, had uttered a very clear word as to the relation of Law to Gospel (Acts 15:7-9). Alas, Paul finds him walking in direct contra diction to his own words. The death of Christ, admittedly, had broken down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile (Eph. 2:13-15). That wall was the Mosaic law. Here was Peter setting aside the work "of the cross, reopening the breach the Lord’s death had closed, dividing the one Body, the Church. Why? Because some influential Jews said: “Come on, Peter, we can’t win the support of the higher-ups without mixing in a little law.” Therefore, Peter, fearing he would be criticized for eating with those who were uncircumcized, withdrew from Gentiles. Can one but wonder if any man is immovably con sistent? How easy it is to talk by the yard and live by the inch! Thank God for a Paul who could jar an inconsistent Peter out of his errors 1 The keystone of the New Testament is the statement of v. 16: “A man is not justified by works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.” The most vital question a man can face is : “How shall a man be justified before God?”—and here is the answer: “We have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by works of the law.” We cannot work' to get saved. We get saved, then work. “By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” “I cannot work my soul to save; That work my Lord hath done. But I can work like any slave For love of God’s dear Son.” When the Apostle speaks of the law being done away as an instrument of salvation, he means the Mosaic law as a whole— J anuary 21, 1929 INCONSISTENCY Text: Gal. 2:11-14 J a n u a r y 22, 1929 LEGALISM Text: Gal. 2:16-18
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