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CPC Sunday School | Law and Gospel #2 (11-19-2023)
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The speaker begins with a prayer, acknowledging the gift of life and the opportunity to gather in a church. The sermon is part two of a series on the law and the gospel. The goal of the sermon is to help people see God rightly and understand how Christ fulfills the law. The threefold use of the law is discussed: as a guardian, a restraint, and a guide. The threefold division of the law is also explained: moral, civil, and ceremonial. The Pharisees and scribes, who are supposed to be guardians of the law, are criticized by Jesus. Jesus emphasizes that he has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. The sermon focuses on the Sermon on the Mount and the importance of understanding what it means for Christ to fulfill the law. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we have breath in our lungs, and this in and of itself is a gift from you. We have a church to be at this morning where you have seen fit to build your new temple with your people. And to be here and be part of this is a great gift. We give you thanks for these things. May we never hold them lightly. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. As we're now in part two of our series last week, we looked at the law and the gospel. We looked at distortions of that. And so we come to week two, which is how did Christ fulfill the law? And our hope is, last series was in the attributes of God, and we talked about how distortions of the attributes of God, that God is my buddy, that God is like me, leads to heresy, that if we don't see God rightly, that that is a good way to have heresy. And then like that, we have a great quote by Newton here that not understanding the law correctly is also a good feeding ground for distortion of how we see God. And therefore, if we do not see God rightly, then that's going to distort how we see one another. And so my hope this morning is that everybody here, that if you can hear my voice, that you take away one thing, one little nugget in terms of seeing God rightly, seeing him greater, seeing yourself rightly, that will impact how you see others. This is the goal of today. So that's the goal of just taking away one thing. Our overview is, we'll do a quick review of last week of what we looked at. We looked at the threefold use of the law, threefold dimension of the law. We looked at concepts of legalism and antinomianism, fancy word for anti, against, nomianism, the law, so that perspective. We looked at the distortions there and that being a bit of a seesaw, that sometimes the more legalistic we are then the less we are in the antinomial world. So we'll look at that briefly. And then we'll get into our study this morning of how Christ fulfills the law. We'll dig into the Sermon on the Mount. We'll look at Christ fulfilling the ceremonial law, the civil law, the moral law, and hope to save time at the end for discussion. So in terms of our review, we looked at the threefold use of the law. The law has three purposes. They are a guardian or another way that it's put. They're a mirror. Many of you this morning looked at a mirror. The encouragement of parents to young kids is to look in the mirror because I think the older you are, maybe the more you look at the mirror and the more that you see things that need to be adjusted or fixed. And the mirror is not creating anything. The mirror is reflecting something. And so this morning I told one of my kids that they have their hair just sticking up. A look in the mirror would help them see that. The mirror didn't make the hair stick up. And so in many ways the law, that as we look at God's law, it reflects and it helps guide you in what is going on in your life. The second way was that it is a restraint. The law is a useful thing to curb evil. That men do not love the law. We saw this a few years ago with a very vocal and I think unique time when the law itself was criticized in a way that we saw the consequences of that. We saw for a period of months where law enforcement was criticized in ways that it really wasn't that if we boiled it down, I would submit to you a critique on law enforcement, but there was a critique underneath it of the law itself. And when we look at the usefulness of the law, just take away that law enforcement for a period of time in certain cities fast forward two years and they are asking for more law enforcement. They are in need of more law enforcement because they've seen what happens when we remove the law. You remove that curbing and that restraint of law in a way that has very real consequences for both God's children and for just people that are walking around in the common square. Lastly, it's a guide. So that for all of us, this is the Galatian heresy that we talked about last week, that when you become a child of God, there is a Galatian heresy which says, well, it is for freedom that Christ has set me free. Stand firm then. Do not be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. I am free from the law. And the idea that when we are a child of God, and we'll get into this a little bit, that God writes His law on your heart, that God changes your heart towards the law to want to obey Him, and that that is a great gift of what we have in being a child of God. And so if in your heart you rebel against God and His law, that is a good litmus test for where you are in terms of being a child of God because a promise of being a child of God is that God writes His law on your heart. Something to think about. The guide that it is, is that then as a child of God, it's our family code. We walk together in this family code of God's law. Any questions on last week's before we get going here? Seeing none, we are going to move on to, oh, we did talk about, let's not move on, the threefold division of the law, quickly, moral, civil, ceremonial. Moral, thou shalt not murder. Civil is all the Mosaic laws. I think there's 613. If your ox is a wild ox and gores people, you have a responsibility for that as an owner. Here's how you should build a house. And we talked about maybe some of the translations of that, that the civil law is no longer binding, but the general equity of it is. We'll get into that a little bit more. And then the ceremonial law. Did anybody bring any lambs this morning to sacrifice? We don't have an altar anymore. That God's temple is now no longer needed, but we have the church. The church is His new temple. You are the temple, and we'll talk about that. Talked about legalism and antinomianism. That legalism, there's that great quote, is separating the law from the character of God. Antinomianism, we talked about the distortion that because God has saved us, we are no longer under the law and that that is not true. And so those are, like we said, a seesaw. Noah last week brought up the good example of the woman that was going to be stoned, right? And Christ writes something in the dirt. She is going to be killed. Everybody leaves. What does He say to the woman? Where are your accusers? Then go. Grace, go. Your life has been spared. And then the law. And sin no more. So you see in that really a concise summary of this entire doctrine. Okay. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at and park ourselves here for a while on the Sermon on the Mount. Has anybody done a deep dive into the Sermon on the Mount and remembered that or gone through a sermon series on it? I'd say it's one of probably the richest parts of preparing for this Sunday is looking at this. And in Matthew 5 you have Christ talking about to his disciples at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, what does it mean to be a Christian, the blessings of a Christian? So you have the summary of blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit. Blessed are those in this series of blessings that he goes through. And then he has that if the salt loses its saltiness or if the light loses its light, right, the section of how to be in the world and out of the world, that you guys are light and you guys are salt. How do we do this? And then he moves into what we're going to be talking about. This phrase, which seems really simple at the outset but is complex. So just, you know, that this should not, these are weighty words and take a lot of effort to unpack them. And we're going to hopefully do some of that this morning. When Christ says in 17, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. So that's what we're going to spend a great amount of our time on. So let's just think about the, let's visualize together what's going on here as Christ is talking to his disciples. You have Christ and what is his relationship with the Pharisees during that time? Option A is good. Option B is bad. So by show of smiles, is it good? Is it bad in a way that you hear him criticizing the Pharisees, right? Who are the Pharisees? Who are the scribes? Who are these people? They are supposed to be the guardians of the law. So you have this situation in which, can you hear me okay, in which Christ is saving some of his harshest rebukes for the Pharisees. The Pharisees are supposed to be the guardians of the law. So what is, if you're the disciple walking with Christ, what is an inference that you may get from that? Is Christ for the law or is he against the law? He is criticizing the people that are supposed to be the guardians of the law. So perhaps Christ is against the law. And so here's Christ very emphatically saying, I'm not against the law. In fact, just the opposite, I'm here to fulfill the law. And so we ask ourselves the question then of, let's look a little bit more about the Pharisees and then we'll ask ourselves the question of what does it mean to fulfill? So who are the Pharisees and who are the scribes? Pharisees, again, we just said are the guardians of the law. The scribes are people, maybe the equivalent of lawyers, and so they're people that would be sitting there writing. And so you'd be recording the law. And they know the law well enough that if they're writing the law and it's wrong, then their ears are going to perk up. And so in this knowledge of the law, they're able to teach the law. And so the Pharisees and the scribes, you have this great quote by Mason, in what is the critique of the Pharisees? Were they too much? And this brings out, I think, a really good nugget. They were really trying to take away from the heart of the law by saying, here's how many letters are in this book. Here is on the external how you follow the law. And that they in and of themselves, in that standard of relaxing the law, felt pretty good about themselves. And here you have Christ entering under the law as a man, knowing the full extent of the law. And seeing these men that are supposed to be the guardians of the law, just talking about window dressing, having relaxed the law. So if the law is a reflection of God and his character, and you have men that are supposed to be the guardian of it, relaxing it and changing it, then it's not surprising that his critique and his rebuke would be harsh towards the Pharisees. If we think back at where was the first time that God's law, that somebody relaxed God's law? It's a five-point question out of a total of ten possible points in Sunday school. Where was the first time that this happened? In the garden. So a lot of times we think about God's law and we think that that started with Moses. God's law started in the garden, and Pastor Mark covered this last week, that in the garden there was law and there was grace. You can eat of anything you want. Adam was made holy and happy, and we'll talk about Adam in this way. But he was in a covenant of works. There were requirements on him. And the law that was on him was to not eat of the tree. One tree, a singular tree. You can eat of everything you want. And who came along and said, did God really say to not eat of that one tree? Who came along and relaxed, lessened what God said? The serpent. And so you have this posture towards God in the serpent that's also inside of the Pharisees in their posture towards God's law. And so we see then the setup of Jesus saying that I haven't come to abolish the law, as you know it, within the Pharisees and the scribes. I've come to fulfill it. What does the word fulfill mean? We talked about this briefly last week. And so we have the Greek word here, a useful definition. I found a better definition, but we'll start with this. To fully exemplify. That's not something you may use in normal, everyday language, to fully exemplify. But it's the start. We're going to start here of what it means to fulfill. So it does not mean that he came to abolish something. It does not mean he came to change something. It meant that he came to fully exemplify it. So we look at this exact same Greek word to get a better understanding of what fulfill means and how it's used. Romans 15, 13, you have that word, that may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace. So if he's saying abolish or change something, is Paul saying to us, may the God of hope abolish you with all joy and peace, right? In the same way in Colossians 1, 25. To fulfill the word of God, that is why he's a minister. Is he saying that he wants to change the word of God? Is he saying that he wants to abolish the word of God? So we see a sense that fulfill really means to fully exemplify something. And really I thought helpful is Martin Lloyd-Jones studying the Sermon on the Mount. He says, look, the real meaning of the word fulfill is to carry out, to fulfill in the sense of giving full obedience to it, literally carrying out everything that has been said and stated in the law and in the prophets. So if Christ comes as God and as man and the law is a reflection of God and his character as given to man, then Christ is going to, it would make sense as God, fully follow and obey, joyfully submit to God the Father, right? Doesn't that fit when we see it that way? I'm going to stop here and see if there are thoughts, questions on where we are so far. Brian? How does the concept of fulfilling the law relate to the spirit of the law versus the flavor of the law? Yeah, so if you tell your kids to clean their room, I know this probably is not a good example because this will not happen in your household, but perhaps in our household. And you see that you walk in and the floor is immaculate. There's nothing on the floor. And then you walk over to the closet and you open it up and it all comes out, right? Have they fulfilled the letter of the law or the spirit of the law? And so when we think about what we hope for with our children, that as we train them to fulfill the spirit of something, it's very easy to fulfill the window dressing. And in many ways, that is what the Pharisees were doing. And Christ is coming, and we'll see later in the Sermon on the Mouth, saying that you may not have been indicted in federal court, but that that is not the standard for fulfilling God's law. You may not have murdered somebody, but that is not the standard. Like we're talking about anger towards your brother. So that is the spirit of God's law. And so you've got all these people walking around patting themselves on the back because they haven't murdered anybody. You've got all these people walking around having fulfilled the law according to how they've carved it and whittled it and narrowed it, but they're not following the spirit of the law. And Christ not only puts himself under the law, not only explains what the fullness of the law is, but Christ also follows that fullness. And we'll get into that in a little bit. And to continue the analogy, some analogies break down sooner than others, but he opened and cleaned. So tangent really fast, there's so many different facets to this, but when Christ says that he came to fulfill the law or the prophets, essentially talking about all the Old Testament, that's how they would have comprehended all the Old Testament, how does Christ fulfill the prophets, the prophecies? So we won't get into this, but briefly you see in Psalms 22, you see a play-by-play of Christ on the cross. You see him fulfilling that prophecy and the prophecies of all the Old Testament. There are great books that look at all the prophecies of the Old Testament that somebody is coming, and then Christ fulfilling and checking those boxes. So this is a tangent. You see in Isaiah 53, I believe it is, the life of Christ and how Christ fulfills every bit of those prophecies. So it just says a tangent here on how Christ fulfills the prophecies, but we're going to go back to how Christ fulfills the law and we're going to get into ceremonial, civil, and the moral law. So let's park ourselves here for a while before we discuss those three aspects of the law. In Corinthians, we have Christ referred to as the second Adam. What does this mean, that Christ is the second Adam? We've heard this term before. What does this mean? And who didn't do that? The first Adam. So you have in the covenant of works or the covenant of life, you have Adam. And here Adam is, and there are three things that are important to know about Adam. First, that he was a federal representative. So in the same way that Adam was a federal representative, in that what he does or says is going to impact all men. Christ was the second Adam, the federal representative for all of his people. Everything Christ does is going to affect all of his children. So when we talk about federal representative, that needs a person. Every aspect of our government, our executive branch, on its own is just a set of documents until a president comes along to execute within the executive branch. The legislative branch needs representatives. The judicial branch needs representatives. So federal prosecutors stand up and say their name for the United States. They represent the United States, for better or worse, so that what they say, what they decide, what they bring charges against or don't, is the representation of the United States. And so Adam was the federal representative of all of humanity. And so the old Puritan quote that, in Adam's fall, sin we did all, I think is the way it goes. So that here Adam is promised, is the federal representative, and Adam is in a legal binding, this is the second thing, a legal binding relationship in which what he does or doesn't do has legal consequences. That's the second thing. And the third thing is that Adam is enabled to, he's holy and happy, enabled to live perfectly. He's able to follow this out. And so those three aspects of the covenant of works also apply to Christ, that Christ, there's a legal component to it, that Christ, in fulfilling or not fulfilling, has very legal and very real ramifications, that Christ is the representative, and that Christ, that the consequence of that has eternal ramifications. There's a promise in there of eternal blessedness or not. Okay, any questions on that? Okay, so let's look at the ceremonial law. So here we are, we're talking about, Pastor Mark talked about this last week. We're in the Leviticus. You have laws that are divided basically into sacrifices of thankfulness, sacrifices of sin, making atonement for those things. And so these sacrifices required death and they required blood. You know that we sometimes distance ourselves from this requirement because we don't really think about it. We don't think about, you know, what it means to kill something. You know, why should we kill animals, you know, just as a tangent here. That's something that should be done in a way that is weighty to provide food, you know, for ourselves, to, you know, if an animal is in suffering, you know, there may be a way to handle that. But we are being purposeful in that. And in doing it, if anybody has ever had to put down an animal or has anybody even had to take a cow, you know, for food, you know, that there's a weighty part to this. There's a hard part to this because, you know, something that you saw that's alive, you are now taking the life out of it. And that is a hard thing and that should strike us as being hard. This is what would happen regularly in Israel, that you would have a cute lamb like this go from this to being dead, visibly symbolizing that the penalty of sin is death. And Israel was constantly reminded by this. And I would submit to you maybe even with the fullness of what we have in that Christ this morning that we will celebrate communion together, that regularly and visibly seeing animals killed and sacrificed, that sometimes we can lose sight of the cost that Christ gave on the cross because we're not confronted by that regularly and visibly. And so that as we're at the communion this morning later, to remind ourselves that what we're able to do and what we're invited into in this feast of Christ had very visible of the God-man consequences of him obediently giving up his life. And that's something I think that we cannot remind ourselves of and we get to do every Sunday here at Cornerstone, and that's a great gift. All of Hebrews is talking about Christ as the high priest. What was going on in the Old Testament was necessary. There was sin and there was necessary blood to pay for that sin, but it was a shadow of the good things to come as Hebrews 10 starts off. But it was impossible, in verse 4, for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. All throughout the Old Testament, there's a sign and a signaling of what's to come. The high priest in Israel, once a year, they call Yom Kippur. Once a year, they would make sacrifice for themselves, the high priest, and then for the people, and then walk into the Holy of Holies. In one hand, the blood to sprinkle that. In the other hand, incense symbolizing the prayer. The prayer is for the people, and the priest would go in there, sprinkle, and then get out. That was the annual entrance into the Holy of Holies. Leviticus 16 lays out the play-by-play requirement of what is to happen. And we're going to see later that Christ goes and he sits at the right hand of the Father. Christ is the high priest that fulfills the ceremonial law because he is the perfect sacrifice. He's not only the high priest, but he is the sacrifice. No high priest has ever done this before. And so he gets to go in and sit at the right hand of the Father. He gets to go in with the work being complete and not leave like the Old Testament priests would have to do. This is because he offered, as Hebrews 7 says, a once-for-all sacrifice that in the old days it was fitting that you would, or it says indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need now like we're talking about the Old Testament, those high priests, who offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and those for the people, since he did this once and for all when he offered up himself. It goes on in Hebrews 10 to say that this wasn't just a once-for-all sacrifice, a worthy sacrifice, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, that it is a perfect sacrifice. I want to spend some time with what time we have left, the Sanhedrin, Christ on trial, and bring through this Christ fulfilling the ceremonial law. Who are the Sanhedrin? They are 70 men like the Supreme Court, if we think about it. There are 70 members altogether and presiding over that, let's say you had 35 going one way, voting one way, and 35 voting the other way, the high priest would kind of be like the vice president breaking in the Senate. You've got an accused that would come before the high priest. They had all power over judicial law except in Rome of the power of life and death. You see this playing out with Christ, them demanding death, going to the Romans. You've got a setup where the accused comes before the high priest and all the members, and you've got these clerks. You've got a clerk at the right hand of the high priest and a clerk at the left hand of the high priest, and as they would present their cases and as they would have witnesses, kind of like we do today, they would tally the votes. Who votes to condemn this person? Who votes to free this person? And the clerks would tally those votes, and if it was acquittal, that would be your clerk on the right. If it was guilty, that would be your clerk on the left. They would tally, and they would also say and announce the verdict. So they have this trial on Christ, and they bring Christ to the high priest with a Sanhedrin, and they are looking for witnesses, and they cannot find any. So what they find is somebody to come and say, this man said I'm able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. And Christ did say that. And that same word destroy, if we look back to Matthew 5 where he says, I did not come to abolish the law, it's the same word, abolish. But here's Christ saying that he is going to destroy the temple of God. So does Christ abolish the ceremonial law? Does he destroy the ceremonial law? Or does he fulfill the ceremonial law? So when we look at this question, I think we have in here, we could park here for days, an incredibly rich statement that Christ is saying that he is abolishing the temple that you see around him. Why do we no longer need the temple? What is Christ's new temple in fulfilling the ceremonial law? Here he is, the once and for all perfect sacrifice. So you don't need the temple to go in with the lamps. The once and for all perfect sacrifice that allows for these ceremonial laws and the temple to no longer be needed. The new temple is, by God's grace, us here this morning, the living, breathing temple of God. What happens in the trial? Christ is silent throughout a majority of his trial. Interesting side note that it is common in court, in criminal court, for defendants to be silent because why? They have a very long criminal history. And so if they get to talk about how they're innocent, then we get to talk about the other things that they did. And so very often you have criminals be silent because of how bad they are. That's just the way it is. Christ here, in fulfilling this obligation, is silent for a majority of his trial, not because of how bad he was, because he's exactly where he wants to be. And he has lived a perfect life as God and as man. And so what do they say? What do they decide? Where do they cast their votes? You see there in verse 66, he deserves death, right? They're going to hand him over to the Romans so that they can carry out that death sentence. And so the clerk on the left is announcing that verdict. What does Christ say where he is at now? Romans 8.34, the one who has died, who is at the right hand of God, who is indeed interceding for us in Ephesians 1.19. He is seated at the right hand in heavenly places. Christ himself, when we think about the significance of being on the right hand, we think about before the Sanhedrin Christ says, but I tell you from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. And here we have Christ seated at the right hand of God the Father for his children making intercession for you. And I want you guys to grab this and take hold of it. What is Christ announcing over and over for your sin throughout the week? Acquittal. Acquittal, acquittal at the right hand announcing that this is my child, that the penalty of sin, this one does not have to pay for it by blood because my blood is sufficient for this one. So acquittal, acquit, acquit, acquit. And that is what Christ is yelling through the weighty sacrifice that he gave through his own blood. Don't lose sight of this, that the kindness that we have, the graciousness that we have of Christ our Lord. Questions or thoughts on that? Amen. All right, let's move on to the civil law. So we talked about civil law being the Mosaic laws contained in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. And so the Martin Lloyd-Jones I think is really helpful in this in saying that the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10 makes it abundantly clear that the new nation is the church, not Israel, that there is no longer a theocratic nation. So the judicial law has likewise been fulfilled. He uses judicial here, meaning the civil law. So if we think about Israel being a unique people of God and within Israel having a unique set of laws, and Christ then expands and changes it from Israel being his unique people to the children of God in every tongue, tribe, and nation being his unique people, then you also have the laws of those tongues, tribes, and nations following through to not apply the laws of Israel. So you have the Great Commission here. You have very clearly in the Westminster Confession of Faith talking about that these civil laws are no longer binding, but does that mean that we don't extract the goodness of them? Does that mean that the general equity of these laws don't apply anymore? And the Westminster clearly says no. The goodness of these laws clearly apply. We talked about that good quote. That's why we want just and good men to be in our legislation. How often are we praying for those that are in power over us? How often are we praying for our school boards, for those that are enacting the policies that affect you? And if they don't affect you, they're going to be affecting the person that your child is playing with on the playground. They're going to be affecting our common space. And so we want just people to be making these laws. Exodus 21-29, we used this as an example last week, that if you have this law that is unique to the nation of God's unique people, Israel at the time, if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, if the ox has been warned and it kills somebody, then you not only kill the ox, but you kill the owner. So do we then just say, well, this no longer applies to us, and so we just turn and walk away? We have a Texas House Bill 365 in 2021 that basically provided protection for farm owners and ranch owners so that if people come on their land, they're offered certain protections. But interesting, you have to post this sign in front of your farm or your ranch that, hey, look, there are dangerous animals on this farm, and you're going to enter at your own risk. We have a picture of – does anybody know here? Ryan of the Bulls, okay. And we have a guy that's – okay. He might – I don't know what his preparation physically was for this event, but I think he's about ready to be gored. I had other pictures of people being gored, and I spared you those. But fast forward about one minute, I think we'd have that picture with this man. So now let's move into, with the time that we have left, Christ fulfilling the moral law. And so first and foremost, if somebody comes to our country, they are from fill in the blank, another country, and they come to our country and they get to the Statue of Liberty and they get that photo, one of the things that they may not realize is for the first time, the laws of the United States apply to this person. Now, I cannot charge somebody under Title 18 of the United States Code, 922, unless they are in the United States. And so that Christ himself – this is what we want to just extract from this – came to earth as a full man and put himself under the laws, the law as it is, the authority of what it means to be on earth. Have you ever thought about, you know, God himself, the kindness of putting himself under submission and putting himself under the laws of our earth? So let's start there. And then let's look at how Christ, in not only putting himself under the law, but the latter sections of the Beatitudes fulfilled this moral law. You've heard it said that you shall not murder, but whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Right? Anger. We talked about that. Lust. You've heard it said you shall not commit adultery. But if you look at a woman and lust in your heart, you've already committed adultery with her. So is he changing the law or is he saying, no, this is the heart of the law? You know, it's not that I'm such a great guy because I've never committed adultery. No, no, no. You're not. Let me tell you about what this law means. It means that your eyes and your thoughts are pure in a way that to fulfill this law, that you don't even look at a woman with lust. Right? That's the meaning, the heart of this law. We look at love your enemies. You've heard it said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. No, no. Love your enemy. And then he gets to the very end. You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. So you look at this example and you think, man, that is a high standard. Good. That should be your response. You look at the Ten Commandments and you think that is a high standard. We will read throughout the month. We will read the commandments. And what that is meant to do is to draw your heart towards the grace of Christ. You should read the Ten Commandments and then it should be as that term is a schoolmaster to take you to Christ. In the same way, Christ's example, people say, follow Christ. What would Jesus do? Well, you can try and you are going to fail. You cannot follow the example of Christ but for starting off and saying, I can't do this. I need something outside of myself. And so both the example of Christ and the Ten Commandments drive us to needing something that is not ourselves. And that is, as we get into what was the consequences of Christ fulfilling the law, that he writes his law on our hearts. He writes them on our minds. And so this isn't the sense of Romans where the law is written on the heart of men. That all men know that stealing is wrong. And all men know that murdering is wrong. That this common grace to all people. This is his special gift to his people. That he writes it on our hearts. And when we think about heart, and oftentimes we think about feelings and how we are using about heart. And the Bible is saying this is what you want, what you wish for, what you desire. That he enables us to want to obey his law. And this is the great gift of what it means to be a child of God that he has written his law on our hearts. And so with that perfect sacrifice, within his living temple, then we're able to do his law. With the time that we have left, what are your guys' thoughts? A picture of Aquinas who says, has a whole perspective on natural law. How to apply just and unjust laws. Not an actual Polaroid of Aquinas, but a depiction of him. What is the relationship between the moral and the civil law? One thing that we talked about is that these are useful categories. The reformers did not create these categories. Let's just start with that. These categories are seen as far back as the second century. But because they are categories, it doesn't mean that they are always distinct from one another. So there is an overlapping that as we saw the ox in the Mosaic law. That if your ox is known to gore people and you just leave him out. And he kills somebody, then not only is your ox dying, but you're dying too. So you have in there, you have together, do not murder, and you have a civil law. So what is the relationship that as we try and make civil laws, first and foremost our civil laws should reflect our moral laws. And so that if we're creating laws that are just for law's sake. When you walk into Cornerstone, you are only able to walk on that red line back there. That is a law. And from there you've got to create a red line, and then you've got to hop to the rug, and then you've got to lay out red carpet to get to your seat. That's the law. Is that a good law? And so we have men that want to, in a sense, over-regulate. And the question we have to ask ourselves, how do we fulfill the law? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Is that law loving to our neighbor where we can't walk? And so this brings up an interesting conversation of what are just or good civil laws, and what are laws that are maybe unjust or not necessary. Does that get at some of what you're thinking? Well, I was thinking more from the standpoint of moral law as the grand expression of And then seeing the moral laws in the Ten Commandments and the civil law in Israel as individual expressions of one particular or a constellation, rather, of moral law. And that though that has passed, the moral law still, we're still bound by that because it is prior to Moses. And so, in a sense, it's an expression of creative reality. And if we try to go against that, we can simp up a building and think that we're a bird and we're going to fly. But we can't deny that we're going to hit the ground. Yeah, we haven't done away if the moral law is the Lagos. And we've taken the Lagos off now with new nations and new people. We haven't eliminated the Lagos. The general equity of those Lagos still apply. So it is incumbent on us for our nation and for where we're living to create Lagos extracted from the moral law and what is good and right for our country, for our city. So to your point, the general equity of those hasn't expired. And the reason is that those are extracted from what's good and right, reflections of God's character, and God's character never expires or changes. Like you said, you asked the question a minute ago, what does it look like to love your neighbor as yourself? How do we work that out in terms of legality, what you're allowed to do versus what you're not allowed to do? Yeah, that's right. Always a good litmus test for how we interact with others. Are we binding others' conscience in a way that is promoting legalism in a way that isn't loving neighbors as we love ourselves? So these are all good questions to ask ourselves. Any other final thoughts or questions? Andy? I don't know if I've heard this articulated quite like how you explained it before. Let me just pull this thread a little bit. So with the Holy of Holies, right, with the tabernacle and the temple, and once a year the high priest would go in and do the prayer. Is it important that no one else would go in and tie a rope around and pull them out now that there is no Holy of Holies physically other than now you're saying that sets believers? There is a Holy of Holies in that distinct section of the temple where the holiness of God resided. The holiness of God still resides today. So that hasn't changed. It's just not in a physical temple. The once a year symbolizing the sacrifice, that, as Calvin says, we haven't gotten rid of the ceremonial law. We've more looked to Christ as now continually that he has once and for all fulfilled that ceremonial law that when we come to Christ in 1 John 1, 9, confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. So now we're able to go to the high priest, go to Christ. He's saying acquitted, acquitted, acquitted because of that blood. So instead of a once a year thing, it can be a once a morning thing. We go to Christ and we say, look, I come before you that this day I'm entirely dependent on you. I can't do this in and of itself. Forgive me, Lord, for this. And we are, you know, now welcoming to the holy of holies in that expression of prayer. OK. That's right. That's the riches of him not having to leave. That he sits and the work is done and that he then is the work has been complete. So that's right. That's a good way to understand interceding for us, yelling acquitted, acquitted, acquitted. Let's pray. Our father in heaven, by your grace, we are able to stand before you. And by your blood, we're able to in great gratitude say thank you, Lord, for our position in you. Our Lord, may we take what we have learned today and apply it to our hearts and how we think about you and think about others. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.