In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of understanding the role of the law in relation to the gospel. He explains that Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law of Moses in his human nature and took upon himself the curse of sin. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus satisfied the requirements of the law and justified believers. The preacher warns against distorting the law and adding human merit or works to the gospel, emphasizing that salvation is a result of God's grace alone.

Romans chapter 3 and verse 31 asks a question and rejoins with a brief answer. The question is this, and this is the second time we are addressing ourselves to this question. We did so last Sabbath day, which is this seventh day of the week, and we're doing it this seventh day of the week, and if the Lord will, we shall do it finally on the next seventh day of the week, because we want to get at this matter. The apostle says, do we then make void the law through faith? And he answers, God forbid, yea, we establish the law. Paul puts himself in the place of a hypothetical questioner. It isn't that he's asking this question as if he didn't know it. He does know it, but he's putting himself in the place of a questioner in order to bring up the kind of question that is raised by others, and I may say against the doctrine of the gospel, in order to undermine it. So he takes off his own coat, and he puts on the coat of this hypothetical questioner, who in fact is nothing better than a white-washed hypocrite, who sidles up to Paul as though he was joined with him, and says, well, do we then make void the law through faith? And then the apostle throws off this unaccustomed coat, and puts on his own simple garb, and he says, hey, God forbid, we establish the law. So he takes the part of a hypothetical questioner, because we've got no fear of any questions that can be asked about our gospel. We know whom we believe, we know what we believe, and we're not afraid of any questions from the world or from religion, because they're all answered in the word of God, and here they are. I say he puts himself in the place of a rhetorical questioner, of a hypothetical questioner, and he asks the rhetorical question. It isn't that he needs to ask it, it isn't that he would ask it, it isn't that his godly hearers would ask it, but by putting on the coat of the questioner, this hypothetical questioner, and by asking this question rhetorically, not as though he really wanted to ask it or really needed the answer, but by rhetorical we mean he asked it to bring out the truth for the benefit of his hearer who believes what he believes, that is, the gospel of God concerning his saviour. And he draws out the truth, and that's his method, but the key is in the question, do we then make void the law through faith? When? Well, then, that is, because of the doctrine he just enunciated, because of the truth of the gospel, because of the doctrine of Christ, well, there are certain people who say, well, that's all very well, but do we then make void the law, never mind the gospel, do we then make void the law through faith? So, apart from running from the question, or hiding under the carpet, or whatever, he brings it out and asks it himself as though he were the questioner. He takes the place of the hypothetical questioner, and he asks this rhetorical question to bring out the truth, not to run from it. Do we then make void the law through faith? Then, that is, because of the doctrine just enunciated. Now, what doctrine is that? It's not a doctrine, it's the gospel. It's what he's been teaching in the last part of chapter 3 of Romans, in a word, because of the doctrine. That sinners have no righteousness of their own, that they've no hope of achieving any righteousness of their own, and they've got no hope of overcoming their innate sinfulness, not a hope of it. But upon such, God confers, God reckons, God puts to their account, God credits them, just as they are, without any change in themselves. Without any change in them, Isaiah, he credits them with a divine righteousness, an everlasting righteousness, a righteousness outside of themselves. He puts it to their account in heaven. That is, he puts to their account in heaven a righteousness which God himself has brought to them on earth by Jesus Christ in the days of his flesh and on the cross. This is called justification by faith. And it counts the sinner and ungodly as a sinner, and as ungodly as he is, without any prior change in himself or herself. He counts them, reckons them, credits them to be forever righteous on no account of his own, but on account of this freely given, divinely wrought, eternally sure, graciously bestowed, imputed divine righteousness of God by Jesus Christ. But, oh, oh, oh, says the hypocrite, is it safe? Oh, says the religious, but I'm used to working out my own righteousness. Oh, says the self-righteous, but I expect to justify myself. Ah, coerce they all, but what about the Ten Commandments? What about the law, with this dangerous system of which we are all rather suspicious in religion, called free grace for not sinners. All very suspicious, very dangerous. Do we then, in such a case, make void the law, which requires works, merit, working up righteousness, justifying ourselves? Do we then make void the law through faith? So they're so worried about the law. Last week we saw with a witness, no we do not. And we spent an hour and a half, just as long as you're making yourself comfortable, we spent an hour and a half saying so. Do we then make void the law through faith? I say last week we saw with a witness, no we do not. This week we are to see, we do not. But these questioners do. These religious do. These hypocrites do. These self-styled custodians of self-righteousness, self-justification, self-will, the works of the flesh, and the pride and the boasting of religion, they do, but we don't. Who hold a free grace gospel without merit, without works, for poor, not self-condemned, damned sinners who have no hope in heaven and in earth of ever justifying themselves. We establish the law, it's they that don't and make it void. Yes, last week we saw that. We don't, but they do. And this week we're going to see just how they do. Just how the questioner makes void the law through faith. And he does it in three ways. One, by misrepresenting the law. Two, by making the law the basis of justifying righteousness. And three, by setting the law before the believer as the rule of life. That's how he makes void the law, and the gospel doesn't do any of those three things. But I'm going to show you, by the grace of God this evening, and I hope you'll listen, as you value your immortal soul. Nor think these things above you, for if these things are above you, the New Testament's above you. And if the New Testament's above you, you haven't a hope in hell. And if you think to have a Jesus, have a religion, or have a hope, without doctrine, you're utterly blind. And God has never said to you, let there be light. Firstly, they make void the law, who say we do, who question whether we do, by misrepresenting the law. Now why do that? Well, to get the law into the gospel. Now by the law we mean, a system of works which requires men to do something, which if they do it, will merit favour from God. Whether it's thinking to think their way through. And the academics of the students love to say it, I'm thinking my way through. What a conceit. Or whether you want to feel it, and you're imposing yourself on yourself, certain states and feelings which you must induce and you must reach, before you feel God will take notice of you. Or whether it's volitional, and you think you must have this intention, and you must have that experience, and you must have this intensity, and you must do these things, before God will look upon you and as a consequence of what he sees, merit what you have achieved with the favour of his grace. We repudiate it totally, absolutely, utterly, and completely. But they don't. And we're bringing them to the light. And who knows who we're bringing to the light this evening. Why misrepresent the law? Why to get it into the gospel where it never belongs? But why do that? Why to legalise the gospel? So as to make human merit and free will and works essential to salvation. So the attainment of a certain state, whether of mind, whether of will, whether of life, whether of affections, whether of passions, whether of the flesh, to make a certain state, whether of self-denial, or whether of attainment, or whether of presumed spiritual experience, to make a certain state necessary before you can say, now God will give me salvation. But why on earth do that? Well, because if you've done that, and you claim that, and vast cults and sects do claim it, then they've got some cause of boasting. Why, we've attained to that. That's why God has blessed us. That's why the Spirit's been given to us, so they say. Because they've merited it by their standards and attainments, whether of emotions, whether of experiences, whether of mentality, or whether of will, or whether of life. Having attained to it, they can then say, therefore God has blessed them with the Spirit, set them at liberty, given them this wonderful experience, set his favour upon them, and so on. That's not the Gospel. That's the same as saying, do we make void the law through faith. To get the law into the Gospel at any cost in order to have a cause for self-righteousness, self-justification, and boasting. And as long as man does something, and as long as man supposes he must attain to that, or this, or the other, there is a cause of self-righteousness, there is a cause of self-justification, there is a cause of boasting. And in the Gospel, the Apostle Paul says, where is boasting? It is excluded! It's all of grace! It's all of God! And it's all free! And he doesn't regard the state of the sinner in the least degree. Romans 3, verse 27, boasting is excluded. And why? Because law is excluded. Because the law requires works. The law demands that from you which you ought to render in order to propitiate and appease God and make him more favourable towards you. Now Ed, if it's a soul in this room, including me, in whose heart that is an endemic, we're born with it, but we're reborn out of it, and we want to stay in the rebirth. We want to call the nightmare, we want to call the darkness night, and we want to separate the two. Because the law is excluded, then it must be, for these people, subtly misrepresented, to corrupt our saving, free, gate, grove, glorifying, righteousness-imputing Gospel of Christ, by these people merging it with a misrepresentation of the law of works, or of religious dependence on self-righteousness. Now, how do they misrepresent the law? Never directly. Satan never did a direct thing in his life, much less in religion. Always grey, always merging, always using a half or if possible 99% of the Gospel. But God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. That's what you want to get. Now, how do they misrepresent the law? Well, the first thing they do, in order to misrepresent the law, is confound the whole of the scripture together and mix it all up. And they start at the very beginning. They call the law, they call the law, the forbidding of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil in the Garden of Eden to Adam. They say God gave to Adam a law, and that law was he forbade him and them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God gave to Adam a law. That's a quotation. That is, he must not eat of it. Oh, alright. But then they say, categorically, this is the very same law which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. Oh, say they, it's the same in principle, say these marvellous theologians. It's the same in principle. The law that God gave to Adam in the Garden of Eden, that he was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is the same in principle, say they, as the law which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. That's a quote. If you want to find it in the Westminster Confession, don't bother to buy it. Buy the Westminster Confession exploding. Oh, it's the same in principle, say our so-and-so theologian. Oh, is it? Then how do they account for the fact that Adam was forbidden to eat of the tree, and his sin was that he did so? Whereas what they expressly call the same law was given to Moses on Sinai with the express commandment to keep it in a figure and metaphor to eat of it. So Adam mustn't eat of it on pain of death, and he did and died. And Moses tells the people, you must eat of it, otherwise you won't live, you will die. In the one case, if Adam did it, he died. On the other case, if men did not do it, they died. But what are you going to do? And this is theologians, this is doctors, this is professors, this is the wisdom of this world, this is right out of Oxford and Cambridge, this is straight out of a long parliament. This is your Westminster Confession. They say that the law that Adam received is the same law that Moses received, but the law that Adam received was that he mustn't do it. The law that Moses received was that you must do it. If you didn't do it, if you did it, you died. If you didn't do this, you died. Well how can it be the same law? Because they don't know what they're talking about. That's why. Because they've already started to confuse the issue, and they've already started to be cloud religion to such a dark miasma and such a fog, you'll never find your way through it from birth to death. If you leave yourself to their mercies. Determined to reintroduce the law into a free grace gospel, however, they discover a difficulty. It won't fit. They can't. Because the scripture only ever speaks of the law as one. All of it is one. It makes this void, it's lawless, it's antinomian to split it up, says Christ, or says the witness of the spirit of Christ, the law was given by Moses. Then all of it as such, everything that was given by Moses in total on Mount Sinai, the law was given by Moses. But in total, absolute contrast, as a separate thing altogether, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And they want to bring them together and get away with it. And in order for them not to get away with it, this has got to be taught to you. And you've got to get your doctrine right. And know what you believe. And receive the form of sound words. Because you needn't think that these things have been sounded out over the realm of Britain, or over the capital London, for many a long generation. But you won't stop the mouth of God. And you won't stop Christ speaking peace to his people. And they can't. They can kill us. And they would if they could. I can tell you that. You might think that's exaggerated, but it isn't. But God will raise up another, and another, and another. They'll never put out this light. When they burnt Latimer and Ridley, they cried out in the midst of the fire. When his body dripping away in burning fat, fear not Master Ridley. We shall this day light a candle in England, which shall never be put out. And they poured these churches, and these theologians, and these universities, they poured bucket after bucket after bucket after bucket of water for generations. But the Lord, says David, shall light my candle. And God has given Christ the light in the sanctuary, which shall never be put out. And of the Lord liveth. That's the light that's flickering in this hall tonight. And if I said otherwise, I should be a liar against my own soul. Determined to reintroduce the law into a free grace gospel, they, I say, discover a difficulty. They won't fit. They can't do it. Because the scripture speaks of the law as one. All of it. It makes it void to take a bit of it and leave the rest. It's not the law anymore. Because the law was given by Moses. It's antinomian to split it up. The law, however, includes animal sacrifices, a single exclusive temple at Jerusalem, which was the one place where God would put his name and show his presence. And nowhere else. And all nations must go there under the law. Animal sacrifices, a single temple at Jerusalem, circumcision at the time of being a Jew, or being circumcised in order to become one, without which you didn't keep the law, you broke it and were cursed. Clean and unclean meat, you couldn't eat unclean meat without being shut out of the house of God and the congregation of his people. The feasts at Jerusalem, up to which you must go three times in the year, all the males thereof. Hosts of other laws, such as being excluded for an issue, for childbirth, for touching the dead, for contracting leprosy, and many, many more. Now, clearly they couldn't reintroduce these into the gospel. So what are they going to do? Tell a pack of lies, that's what. And what do you expect from religion? When he came unto his own and his own received him not. When Stephen testified by the Holy Ghost, he spit neptune rebellious to the priests, to the scribes, to the Pharisees, to the rulers and the hierarchy of the people. He spit neptune rebellious, he do always resist the Holy Ghost, and it is so to this day. They're just the same. But the law is one, and you can't copy that. Clearly the animal sacrifices, clearly the temple at Jerusalem, clearly circumcision, clearly the feasts, clearly the laws of clean and unclean meat can't be introduced. But these just as much as the Ten Commandments of the law. And you'll be just as much damned for eating meat that is not clean, such as that which cheweth the cub but doesn't part the whole. You'll be just as much damned as you will for bowing down to a graven idol. You'll be just as much damned for adultery as going into the house of God when you've got an issue upon you if you're a woman, or you've had an issue as a man and you're not clean for seven days. Just as much damned because the law is one. Whosoever offendeth in one point breaketh the whole law. Not some of it, but they can't break it all in. Hence they misrepresent the law by hacking it without the least divine authority. Oh, will you listen? You go into these places and there you find written what they call the Ten Commandments. You go into your liturgy and there you hear and even you recite like a parrot the thing that's chanted to you, the Ten Commandments. They misrepresent the law by hacking it without any divine authority into three parts with lawless presumption. They throw away two of the parts, throw them away. Called the ceremonial law and the judicial law, but they're never called that in your Bible. Search from cover to cover. What says the Scripture? They hack it into three parts. They rename without authority two of the parts. They then pick them up and throw them out. Lawless presumption. They throw out which they call, but Scripture does not, the ceremonial law together with the judicial law, then without Scripture, without right, without precedent, they borrow from heathen Greek philosophers, put it in their universities to teach their priests in the world when Christ never went to the school. How has this man left it, never having learned? They took knowledge of Peter and John, but they were unlearned and ignorant men. God taught them, my doctrine says Christ is not mine, but he's the same. But these go to their schools, they learn this trash, they put you under darkness, and why don't you open your eyes and have some guts and zeal and fire about it? If anybody did it to your wife or your children, you'd be up in arms. They don't mind those Jews, do they? They borrow from heathen Greek philosophers in order to call what is left, the Ten Commandments graven on stone, the moral law, a word that never occurs in the Holy Bible. As if the two parts they arbitrarily discard weren't moral. Are they immoral? Amoral? Perhaps one is immoral, the other is amoral. Or as if they had the slightest right to jump, fragment and change the law. Scripture only ever, ever speaks of one law, the law, in the integrity and entirety in which it was delivered on Mount Sinai. They mutilate and they make voiceless integrity, and no one has the right to do that. Scripture never recognizes their laceration, much less initiated it. But without it, they can't reintroduce what they call the moral law into the Gospel and put the believer back under bondage, and you under doubts and uncertainties about salvation. And they need to do that to keep the lolly roll. Because you're frightened. The perfect love casts it out for you. Therefore what they try and reintroduce is not even law, because two parts are missing. Both are wrongly named, and the third part that they've got left is wrongly named as well. It's named by Heathen Greek philosophers. It's unrecognizable, this rump left over from their theological butchery. As to the real, entire, true and only law of God, God says that it brings the knowledge of sin. It's a killing sentence. It's a damning curse. It's a sentence of death. It could not make known either the Father or the Son. It was hidden behind the veil as God was hidden under the name Jehovah, unrevealed. Not even the high priest could see the presence, much less any of the people. It brought flatness, darkness, the tempest, the sound of a trumpet, the voice of words which they could not stand, and a yoke that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear, said Peter. It brings servitude, fear, wrath. It works rebellion, unbelief, desperation and hardness of heart. And if some of these things are not your experience, your religion is nothing worse. But if some of these are, then don't be confounded, and don't let the devil deceive you, and don't let these dead dogs blind your eyes and throw sand in it. You're in the way of salvation, and the devil is in the way of bringing you out of it. But he won't succeed. Yes, it's saying none, but it's damned all. And will the butchers, who make boy the law by this carnage, reintroduce their mutilation to bring us all out of grace and under it? As the law lives, they will not. So they misrepresent the law. Secondly, and that's how they've begun, they want to bring it into the gospel. They make boy the law by bringing it into the gospel as the basis of justifying righteousness. Now this isn't difficult to follow. You can clearly follow this. There's no problem, don't think you can't. They make boy the law by making the law the basis of justification. This is an unlawful proposal, which teaches that the righteousness by which God justifies or reckons righteous his people, the ungodly, without worth, without merit, without any change in themselves, who earn nothing but wrath, but who receive everything full grace. I say, this is an unlawful proposal which teaches that the righteousness by which God justifies his people resulted from Christ during his entire lifetime, actively keeping the law on their behalf. They say, you didn't keep it, but throughout his lifetime, he kept it on your behalf. That's what they teach. So that this vicarious or substitutionary law keeping of Christ produced for you, they say, the righteousness which God puts to your account to justify you. So that this vicarious, sorry, in a word, Christ is said to live our lives for us, instead of us, and put that to our account instead of our own, in the eyes of the law. But such a view is at once illegal, irrational, unevangelical, unsafe, unscriptural, inconsistent, and unreformed. I could think of a few more, but I don't do. But it's no right matter. It's a saving matter. One, it's illegal. The law demanded thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thine understanding, and with all thy strength. Now we're talking of Christ in his manhood being made under the law. However wonderful, perfect, and unique that manhood, all of its heart, all of its mind, all of its understanding, and all of its strength was perceived, demanded to be rendered continually by the law. That's what the law required of manhood. No matter that Christ's manhood was worth more than 10,000 times 10,000, all was demanded of him, all thy strength, all thy mind, all thy heart, all thine understanding. That's precisely what he rendered, that nobody else did, but he did, in his manhood. But, if all was demanded, and all was given, as it must be, or the law would find fault, how can a superfluity be produced on behalf of others? How can a superfluity be produced on behalf of others? If all is demanded, what is left over to reckon to others? Nothing. Otherwise it wasn't all. Were there any superfluity, law would demand that as well, of his manhood, from his manhood, all thy strength. Then it's illegal to propose that the law allowed of that over and above all, on behalf of others, so that that would be counted to them as if it were their life, instead of his. It's simply illegal. So they may void the law. But we don't. Secondly, it's irrational. By this scheme, Christ, by his life, would have secured a substitutionary righteousness for his people, in his lifetime, living his life for them, or their life for them, right? He would have secured a substitutionary righteousness by his lifetime, before the cross. Then why die for them? Then why die for them? Why die for what? For those deemed by his life to be perfectly righteous? Die for that? Why? They're already deemed perfectly righteous if these are right. Then why die? You don't die for those who are deemed to be perfectly righteous by virtue of the life? If believers are reckoned as if they've perfectly kept the law, and they say that Christ perfectly kept the law instead of them on their behalf as a substitutionary life, if they're deemed as having perfectly kept the law, then they're deemed as being perfect. So why didn't Christ die as if they'd not kept the law and as if they were not perfect? Black as the ace of spades, what? Yeah? Black as the ace of spades. You say you shouldn't say ace of spades. Well, you're there and I'm saying ace of spades. Black as the ace of spades. Right? That's your life. That's my life. That's how your life stands in the sight of God under the law. White as snow. Right? Yeah. Now, that's my life. I'm there saying that's his life on my behalf. So why die for someone as white as snow? Can you tell me? Well, I can tell you the scheme must be wrong, because he did die, and Christ died for sinners according to Bibles. Amen. But they wouldn't have been sinners if a life of righteousness had been put to their account before. No black, white as snow-blind life lived on their behalf. Why die? It's irrational. That's what I'm saying. It's irrational. It would make void the law as if the law had not been kept when it had, according to them. They make void the law. That's the thing. And they're accusing us of doing it. And until you get these things clear, you'll never separate cleanly and clearly your gospel. But you know the first thing God did after he created the world was to say, let there be light. And he called the light good. And he called the light pain. And he called the darkness night. And he separated the light from the darkness. That's what happened. Alright, next thing. Thirdly is that it's un-evangelical. It's not the gospel. Christ's obedience was not called obedience to the law by which we're justified, though he did obey the law. But Christ's obedience by which we're justified was called the obedience of faith. But, says Paul, the law is not of faith. The law says this, do and thou shalt live. Faith says this, believe and thou shalt be saved. The law is not of faith. But Christ's obedience was the obedience of faith. The law demanded works from a servant. But Christ gave obedience as a son. And the obedience of a son is the obedience of faith. Besides, legal obedience couldn't save even. Were it so, Moses was a whole world after Adam. But it's the fall of Adam that plunged mankind into ruin. It's the fall of Adam that opened the great gap between God and man. It was the fall of Adam that brought in inbred sin and inbred bit-supremacy that caused man to slide down and down and down and down and down into the pit. And after a world of sliding down, then the law came in. But there's still all the way back. There's still the great gulf. There's still the offended holiness, righteousness and justice of God, the other side of the gulf out of sight. The law doesn't even address these questions. But the gospel does. The law doesn't even address these questions. But the gospel does. So it's unevangelical. Legal obedience couldn't save. Moses was Christ's whole world after Adam. But the fall of Adam, the great gulf, the offended righteousness of God, the other side of the gulf, that's the gospel piece. But the law can't. And even if it could, and even if it were lawful for one to keep the law on behalf of another, it would only bring man back from the bottom of the pit up to the point where Moses gave the law, which was a whole world of falling since Adam. It wouldn't bring even up to Adam in innocence. It wouldn't cross the gulf. It wouldn't fill the abyss. It wouldn't reach to God. It couldn't touch his nature. It couldn't bring him back from infinity and eternity to which in his holiness he'd withdrawn. Unevangelical. But all these things the gospel of Christ does. He reaches to God in his divinity. He reaches to man in his humanity. He reaches to his depravity in being made sin on the cross. He kept the law of Moses in the perfection of his human nature. He met the curse when he plunged over the gulf. He bared his bosom to the righteous wrath of God when all God's waves and billows fell over him. He met God's righteousness from the other side quite apart from the righteousness of the law. And when he'd done it he laid dead in a tomb saying it is finished. And the third day God raised him from the dead and gave him glory and justified his guilt. That's what the gospel does. And satisfied the law and made it honorable. So it's unevangelical. Fourthly, it's unsafe. It makes void the law. It utilizes the system, right? It utilizes a legal convenience. The right of proxy. In a way never intended by the law and truly unsafe to all legal rectitude. Proxy is simply a legal arrangement for a very limited number of civil transactions in the absence of one party through circumstances beyond their control whereby another can sign in their behalf by written consent. This is in precisely defined circumstances so that the proxy can act for the appointee. But this rule never applies to legal obligations or to criminal law. Otherwise you could go and commit a murder while your proxy is going to church. I mean it's fantastic, it's incredible, it's against all reason, it's against all jurisprudence. It's against the foundations of the law. What wretches these people are. Proxy can't apply to legal obligations, criminal law or legal duty. It's utterly contrary and unsafe by legal jurisprudence. To allow a counterfeiting to the law to be transferred by proxy to another in any case or any circumstances and most of all in salvation. And it won't work. It's wholly unsafe, it makes void the law but it's the basis of their whole legal system. It is unscriptural. How could anyone contend for proxy legal righteousness of man by the law when Romans 3.21 says that but now the righteousness of God, not man, of God without the law is manifested. That's what's in the gospel. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For there it is, the righteousness of God, not man, not even the righteousness of Christ. The faith of Jesus Christ brought forth the righteousness of God by the shedding of his blood to impute the same unto those lost sinners for whom he died. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. Being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, Romans 3.22. It's unscriptural. Just as it is in the Bible and it defies what is in the Bible. Justified righteousness is not called Christ's righteousness by keeping the law but the righteousness of God by Christ dying under the law on our behalf. Romans 1.17, I've quoted you, not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For there it is, the righteousness of God revealed. Well, when have you heard the gospel revealing the righteousness of God? You've never heard it at Haringey, I can tell you that. No. Or any other of these chomped up Yankee personality money-crabbing evangelists. And you don't hear it in the churches either. No. But you'll hear it from heaven and you'll hear it from the lips of Christ. And you'll get it from your Bible. And it's by believing this and this alone that you'll be saved. Amen. And you won't be saved without faith. Go into all the world and preach the gospel. That's not preaching Christ merely. It's preaching Christ in terms of intelligible doctrine about himself. Preach the gospel. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that does not believe shall be damned. But they've separated Christ from the gospel. And they've separated the spirit from the gospel. And where does that lead you? Wacko. That's where it leads you. So get back on the old book, man. And get back on the old authority, woman. And get under Christ and his truth. For if any man come unto you and bring not this doctrine, don't receive it into your house. Neither been in God's speed. He that hath the doctrine, he that transgresseth the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that hath the doctrine of Christ hath both the Father and the Son. Unscriptural. Philippians 3.10. It's said to be the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. Not the righteousness of Christ revealed by the works of the law. But the righteousness of God revealed by the faith of Jesus Christ, namely in his death. Romans 10.4 says Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Well how could you bring it back then? And again. Philippians 3.9. By not having my own righteousness which is of the law, either of my attempting to keep it or of Christ keeping it for me. Though dying under it for me. Not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Jesus Christ. Even the righteousness of God which is by faith. Again. 2 Corinthians 5.1. We are made the righteousness of God in him who has made sin for us. God has made him to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And I can't stand by and see that sunning by legal confusion, can you? Can't. And if it doesn't matter, then the fidelity of your wife doesn't matter. Then the morality of your children doesn't matter. Then the shocking debts and poverty of the country doesn't matter. Then the fact that the vilest of men are exalted over us to rule over us doesn't matter. But it does matter. Then death doesn't matter. Then cancer doesn't matter. Then sickness doesn't matter. But it does matter. But none of these things matter of wheat besides the pure doctrine being clear in your mind that you are hearing tonight. Unscriptural. Romans 3.25.26 says the gospel of Christ declares God's righteousness for the remission of sins. Not Christ's righteousness for keeping the law in life. But God's righteousness through Christ's death to remit our sins in consequence of his death in our behalf. Not Christ's proxy living for a legal fiction but his death bringing in God's righteousness to justify the ungodly. Every scripture declares justifying righteousness, the righteousness of God to be by the faith of Jesus Christ through his death. Not the works of Jesus Christ by the law for his life. That makes void the law. It makes void the scripture and it also makes void the gospel. I pass on. Sixthly, it's inconsistent. The word sacrifice and the word substitution are always found together in the word of God. But they render part sacrifice and substitution because they make it substitutionary law keeping. Sacrifice doesn't come into it, not only doesn't come into it, but if that's successful it isn't even necessary. So they absolutely render, I might as well take this book. I remember seeing in London, by the Tower of London, some of these, a couple of these chaps tearing a telephone book in half. It's not very difficult, you've just got to get the pages right. But I saw this strong man tearing the telephone book in half, finally in half. If you say it doesn't matter, throw your Bible away, you better eat and drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die. Inconsistent, because the word sacrifice and substitution always go together in the word of God. But they render them apart and they join substitution, which is the putting of one in the place of another to stand in his behalf. Because he can't pay, and because he can't render the price that he's demanded from him. And one who pities him and loves him takes his place as a substitute. But the reason for the substitution in the Bible is sacrifice, not law keeping. Always go together in the word of God that they render them apart and they join substitution to law keeping. Look at the sacrifices in the Old Testament, the burnt offering, the meat offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering. They're all sacrificial. They're all the shedding of blood. Without the shedding of blood there's no remission of sins. It's all sacrificial. In no case was the life of the beast a substitute. And if those sacrificial beasts were a figure of Christ in his death or Christ in his salvation, and in no case were the lives of the beast in behalf of the offerers, then their scheme can't be right because it would deny the whole Old Testament. And since in every case the moment of substitution came, when the hands of the sinner or the sinful people was laid on the head of the beast, immediately after which the axe fell and the blood gushed, then substitution and sacrifice go together. But they say it doesn't. But the New Testament says it does. Hebrews 7.27, Christ needed not daily to offer up sacrifices, for this he did once when he offered up himself. That's what it says. Hebrews 9.26, once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. No question of law keeping. Hebrews 9.28, Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. Hebrews 10.10, was sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, that's in sacrifice once for all. Not day after day, month after month, year after year, without death at the end. Once for all. Again Hebrews 10.12, this man after he'd offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, that offering perfected people now in their sin and in their ungodliness. Just as they are, God justifies the ungodly. Christ died for sinners. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance, and repentance means believing this gospel. Have another mind about it. Daniel 9.24, he finished the transgression, he made an age of sin, end of sin, he made reconciliation for iniquity, brought in everlasting righteousness, and that by a substitutionary death. Well, none of this is by false proxy legal obedience, but every substitutionary truth from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation is by blood sacrifice in death. And then the righteousness of God freely bestowed unto all and upon all, men that believe not work. At least unreformed, sensibly rather it's unreformed. Bear with me, help me along. It's unreformed, it's really the concoction of the non-parliament, if you know what that means. It's not very different from the parliament you've now got except it lasted longest, that'll give you some idea of it. It's really the concoction of the non-parliament ages after the reformers, cooked up by one party out of many among the Puritans. The reformers, ages before, were vague, but they all held to salvation by the death of Christ alone, and by Romans 5.9 justification by his blood. As Calvin says, quote, to justify is nothing else than to acquit from the charge of guilt, not to live the life by proxy according to the law. Calvin didn't hold that. Never said a word about it. And again he says in another place, by pardoning God justifies, not by Christ living a life by proxy, by pardoning God justifies. So Luther said, leave Moses, I like Luther, he suits me, leave Moses and his people together. Well you know where you are with that, don't you? Leave Moses and his people together. Law has nothing to say to me, said Luther. How could he be justified by it? It's by Christ without the law of Moses, quote Luther. Then the people who claim the name reformed are nothing but fraudulent, because it isn't what the reformers taught. It's what one small party among the Puritans taught in the long parliament. Thirdly and lastly, they made boy the law by enforcing the law as the believers' rule of life. They say the Ten Commandments are that by which you should live, but we've already shown you the Ten Commandments are not the law. If you're not circumcised, you're not keeping the law. If you don't go to the temple but it isn't there, a mosque's there. You're not keeping the law. If you don't attend the feasts, perhaps you attend them. You're not keeping the law. But they say the Ten Commandments which is not the law. They say the law is the believers' rule of life and he should walk by them. Well if you walk by them, no wonder you're under bondage, darkness, rebellion, self-righteousness, self-justification, legality, censoriousness, criticism, a bitter spirit, a dead cold heart, no wonder you're like it. Have a look in the mirror and old Moses will be looking back at you with his face veiled. By enforcing the law as the believers' rule of life, huh? The law is not a rule of life. It's a sentence of death. Paul says, for verily if there had been a law given, where my righteousness might have been attained, sorry, for verily if there had been a law given which could have given life, then righteousness should have been by the law. But there wasn't. It can't give righteousness and if it can't give righteousness, it can't give life, because righteousness must precede life. And you can't have life without righteousness. That's why we've got eternal life as a free gift, because when we were sinners, when we were black, when we were in our filth, when the chains hung heavy upon us, when the yoke was on our shoulders, when we reaped and oozed in every flaw, black and vile filth, when we stunk with our dirt, when we were rung with the disease of our corruption, God really justified us by His grace without works or merits. And then He gave us the gift of eternal life because righteousness merits life and if it's eternal, everlasting righteousness, it merits eternal life. But the law can't give righteousness, so the law can't give life, so the law isn't a rule of life. It's a sentence of death. It couldn't give life any more than it could bring righteousness. Sublimest rule of life? The law is called a killing letter to Corinthians 3.6, the oldest of the letter Romans 7.6, a ministration of death to Corinthians 7.5, a ministry of condemnation to Corinthians 3.9, a dreadful curse Galatians 3.10, the strength of sin 1 Corinthians 15.56. By it comes the knowledge of sin and by it comes condemnation to death and by it comes a cursing which sounds you out through the door of death to go damned into eternity. And where's the rule of life in that? The legalists mangle their legal rule by saying, oh yes, but it has no penalty. The law is a rule of life, but the believer has no penalty, they say. Oh, what wicked people these are. Fools and blind, if it has no penalty, it's not law. Law without penal sanctions is a contradiction. They may void the law with their lawless antinomian butchery. If the law be without penalty, it ceases to be law and degenerates into advice. And if it's advice, you can take it and leave it. So again they mangle the law, these butchers who know not the law. You can't do it. Where's your rule? You may void the law. To do that's one thing and damnable enough, but then to voice this mutilation on the gospel and to put believers under it, because whether they say the penalty's not there, when you fail and the ten commandments condemn you in your own conscience, you feel the penalty's there all right in your own heart. And no amount of theological, priestly, pastoral talk can make you feel any different either. You need a word from the Son of God to show you're delivered from the law and that's the only thing that'll get you out of the bondage of guilt. To voice this on the gospel, this mutilation, it's an outrage and it'll ring an echo from the sides of eternity. For by doing so, they add to their anarchy the mutilation of the gospel. Paul says we're not under the law but under grace. He exhorts being not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. He asks receiving the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. The Spirit's for believing, not doing. Christ says he shall glorify me, not Moses. The legalists tell us that spirits come to help us keep Moses' words, but Christ flatly gives them the lie saying, John 14, 26, he shall teach you all things whatever I have said unto you, not what Moses has said unto you. These men can see no man but Moses only. They tell us the Spirit's come to testify of Moses, but Christ says he's come to testify of himself. Why has the Spirit come? Christ tells you. When he, the Spirit of truth has come, he shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and show it unto you. Then what are you looking to Moses for? Because these priests have deceived you. You say you're going to be in trouble for that. I say, look, I can't be in any more trouble than I am. And a little bit more here or there, even if it comes to that, they might as well get it over. Because it's not going to make any difference to me. Because by the grace of God, by this gospel, I live and die. And I'm not shutting up about it either. Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. I'm nearly done in more ways than one. He shall receive of mine and show it unto you. John 16, 13, and that's the believer's rule. And when you walk by it, you're comfortable, and you're happy, and you're satisfied. And you're established, and you've got peace, and you've got life, and you've got joy. Their scheme, I say these legalists make more than all. They abrogate the gospel. They deny the work of the Spirit. They put Moses in place of Christ, Sinai instead of Zion. And they've got the cheek to ask us, do we make void the law through faith? Their scheme destroys the law, destroys the gospel, destroys the faith, and destroys the believer. What it does is make void the law by lawlessly removing its penal sanctions. What it does is make void the gospel by substituting legal works in place of faith as a basis of justification. What it does is make void the believer by putting him under the old yoke of bondage. And they've got the source to say, we make void the law through faith. They make it void through their works. They make it void through the law, and they disestablish the gospel. But as for us, as Luther said, Moses has his place, Christ has his. And the twins shall never meet. Why won't they meet? Let's come in on it with a great clemency. Because we're justified by his blood. Because we've got the righteousness of faith. Because we have reckoned to us freely by grace without works or merits or changes. The righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ. In which one, we are dead with Christ, Romans 6, 8. And if so, we're dead to the Lord. Because when the law finds a man dead, all charges are laid aside and nothing more is required of them. The law requires nothing of a corpse. And if that corpse is found during his lifetime to have killed two men and been put to death for one of the murders, that other murder is written off because you can't bring the law through the tomb to death. You can't charge a dead man. The law's nothing to say to the dead. Well, let me tell you some good news. We're dead with Christ. Amen. Romans 6, 8. And if so, dead to the Lord. 4. Secondly, the law hath dominion over a man so long as he liveth and no longer Romans 7, 1. But ye, thirdly, are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. Colossians 3, 3. For I through the law have been to the Lord. Galatians 2, 19. But how, Paul? I am crucified with Christ. Galatians 2, 20. When Christ died, I die and therefore, fourthly, I am become dead to the law by the body of Christ. Romans 7, 4. Fifthly, hence we're crucified to the world and into us. Galatians 6, 14. We're delivered from this present evil age. Galatians 1, 14. We are, sixthly, not in the man of sin and death, but in the man of righteousness and life, in the counsels, purpose and reckoning of God. Romans 5, 12 and 21. We're not under condemnation. Romans 8, 1. We're not in the flesh. Romans 8, 9. And if not, we're beyond the reach of God. 4. Seventhly, we're dead to the whole realm of this present world by the body of Christ. The whole age, the whole law, we're beyond the reach of it. A man of a deceit being crucified with Christ and raised for the world to come with everlasting glory for the glorious inheritance of the glorious gospel of the blessed God and for Christ and his everlasting kingdom. We're dead to the age that now is. We're dead to the man that's alive in this world. We're dead to the law given to this present realm and period of life and time. We're dead to the period of this passing world and we're dead to the body of sin and death. We are passed from death into life. John 5, 24. We are buried with him by baptism into death. Romans 6, 14. Our own man has been crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed. And we are raised with him, seated with him, settled in him, satisfied in him, and awaiting his return and glory. Who did it all for us and we did not at all. Except if we could, we'd have stopped it, but we won't. Praise be unto him and blessed be the name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. No man shall love out of my hand. And what can the law say to all this? That we establish the law by this glorious gospel, in the faith of which we're saved with an everlasting salvation, world without end. Do we then make void the law through faith? Not through faith. We establish the law. And that with an evangelical everlasting witness. Amen. Amen.