Refuting Progressive Justification and Legalism

he said, I marvel that you've been so quickly moved from him who called you to another gospel, which is not another. Only some would trouble you seeking to pervert the gospel of Christ. In other words, they're taking the true gospel with real justification that saved you, that caused you to be baptized into Christ, become heirs of God, children of God, heirs of Abraham, the real seed, children of the promise, having begun in the Spirit, complete in Christ. But now you're being told that you have to go on to be perfected in your behavior. Now he's saying that this was through law, and that was the problem. And yet he says that Galatians, their problem actually was that they weren't progressively sanctified. Okay, so he's double talking, because on the one hand, he admits that they were bewitched, got their eyes off of Christ. But then he says, but they had problems in their living, which are solved through what he calls progressive sanctification, which he doesn't really define, other than it seems to be lumped into this idea of, well, the Bible tells you what to do and what not to do. And those instructions are how we live. No. In Galatians, justification had been redefined so that it didn't cover the Christian life. And it's exactly how the Protestant and Catholic Christians define it today, which is, oh, justification, that's just the beginning of the Christian life. That's how you go to heaven, get saved. But then you go on from justification on to so-called Christian maturity by being perfected. No, actually, he's telling them, don't go on. The problem is that you got moved off the base. Justification is how you are qualified today to receive the spirit, which is the blessing of the gospel. You're being led to believe that you could be cursed of God for your disobedience to the law or not keeping the law. But Christ became a curse for us, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the nations through faith, that we might receive the promise of the spirit. The spirit is the blessing of the gospel. And the spirit is supplied how? By the hearing of faith. That's his question. How did you receive the spirit? Was it through the works of the law or the hearing of faith? And he's not just talking about circumcision. He's talking about every point of the law. Circumcision was a problem because it introduced them to the moral law. Thou shalt not covet. Don't even have a desire. And if you pick that up, you've broken it. And if you break it, you fall under the curse, which is, I can't have fellowship with God because I am a transgressor. If I put myself on the ground of that kind of obedience in order to have the spirit, then I cut myself off from the Christian life. And the Christian life is not lived by the flesh. It's lived by the spirit.

This is the problem in Galatians, is that the redefinition of justification so that it does not actually cover my Christian life. No, the apostles never preached, if you believe the gospel, you're going to go to heaven when you die. They preached, if you believe the gospel, you receive the promise of the spirit. From Acts 2 on, everybody who believed was sealed with the spirit of promise, and that was the blessing that they had received, and that spirit is God himself. And we are to live today in the presence of God by justification. The way we live in grace, the way we are satisfying to God, is always only by the blood of Jesus Christ. It's the only way to have fellowship with him. There's no other way in the Bible. The only other way is the way of Cain, trying to offer from the fruit of the ground, from your works, your repentance, your sorrow. And so what Christians have done is said, oh yeah, it's by grace through faith to get to heaven, which is not what the Bible teaches, so it's a perversion of the gospel to begin with. It's a stripping of the gospel of its power. And then, your life on earth is by works. So having begun in the spirit, you're now going to be perfected in the flesh. And they call that progressive sanctification. This is what they teach. And progressive sanctification is an undoing of justification. It's a different definition of justification. It is law-keeping. And they try to wiggle out of it and say, no, we're not teaching law. Well, you are telling me that if I sin, I lose fellowship with God, and I'm wrong with him, and I don't have access to him, and I will lose blessings, and I'll be cursed, and I'll be punished. So how is that not law-keeping? Because what is law? Law defines sin. By the law is the knowledge of sin. And law is a covenant that says, the law is not of faith, but he who does it will live by it. But the problem is, is if you take it up in one point, you take up the whole. And if you break it in one point, you've broken the whole, and no flesh will be justified before God. Well, they say, well, that means you won't go to heaven. But that problem is solved. We're all going to heaven. Now we need to be justified before God on earth by works of the law. So having died to the law, and having been delivered from that which we were bound, we are now to go back to the law? And we're to go back and commit adultery with Hagar and produce an Ishmael and say that's pleasing to God? No!

And when I've said, if you've been with my channel for a long time, you know, that, um, my intention or commission or what I feel called to do here is to teach Christ as our righteousness to deal with the area of legalism, uh, in justification, Christ is our sanctification to deal with the, uh, area of legalism related to sanctification Christ as our reward, um, and our hope of glory to deal with legalism surrounding the area of reward, uh, the enemy has erected belief systems that are erroneous around each of these areas of the Christian life. And I always say I triggered all the traps in Christianity and, uh, in each of these areas, you can fall into legalism and bind your conscience. Um, and one of the reasons why we had to deal with these things is because they, uh, they affect our confidence before the Lord and our abiding in him and our readiness for his coming. Uh, like John said, now little children abide in him so that when he appears, you may have confidence that is coming and not shrink back in shame. And we are to hold fast to that. What, which we have and guard our crown, let no one steal our crown and let no one carry us off as spoil and let no one, um, defraud us of our prize and judge us unworthy of it. We're to hold on to what we were given. And that is the power for, uh, justification and sanctification. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for those who believe on the one hand, by believing the gospel, we were justified on the other hand, becoming fully assured in the faith is how we are sanctified or how we experience our sanctification. We are already sanctified, but there is an experience of sanctification, which is probably better called renewal or washing. And it's by the word and it's through faith and it's by the spirit. And it has to do with becoming fully assured that what you received in the beginning through the gospel is really the power for the Christian life. And what you received is Christ himself. Christ becomes your life. So it's still a matter of faith. Justification is by faith. Sanctification is by faith. And it is a matter of seeing what Christ accomplished for you, believing in it, and then even getting to the point where you're so fully assured that you're rejoicing in it and that rejoicing is your crown and that crown is your confidence at his coming. Because you've been perfected in the love of God, his love has cast out fear.

And they long to be in his presence, but they didn't have it. And Hebrews also tells us that they didn't have, uh, the perfecting of the conscience, which is not, uh, available just because of an argument, but by the blood of Jesus Christ, our conscience can be purged in his presence. Okay. As we come forward with a heart and full assurance of faith, our heart is sprinkled from an evil conscience and our body is washed with pure water. We're actually renewed and washed by Jesus Christ himself in his high priestly ministry that he's entered into after the resurrection as the sea of David. That's one of the promises that was given to him in resurrection is he's now the high priest who actually can minister his life to strengthen us, to stand in God's presence in the atmosphere of sonship with no fear that's available to us today on the basis of justification. Um, now what we are traditionally taught is that justification is the salvation message to, to, to say, how do I get saved is to teach the answer to that question is justification. And in a sense, that's true. Um, and anybody who has that message wrong has a obvious, what we call front loaded works gospel. So the front loaded works gospel is like the Arminians who say, no, you can lose your salvation. You have to earn it. I mean, it, it, the extreme is there is no such thing as justification by faith. It is by law, not all who say to me, Lord, Lord, and unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you won't enter the kingdom. And that means you got to keep the law. Okay. That's a front loaded works gospel. It's a false gospel that denies salvation and denies justification, uh, seemingly denying the same thing because in our mind, denying justification is denying the answer for salvation, but that's not all denying justification means because the backloaded works gospel, which says, how do I know I'm how do I know I'm saved now that I believe will tell you, uh, that you have to have the fruit to show that you really believed, okay, we call that a backloaded works gospel and it takes away from the power of the message itself. Um, and it takes away from the assurance that believers have before God and makes them question whether or not they're really saved by faith because they don't understand what faith is. If it's not just believing a message, but making Jesus the Lord of my life or whatever, then it becomes backloaded because again, it, it does end up undermining what justification is. Justification is for him who works not, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith has come to him as righteousness. Um, and that is how we know we're saved. It's because God's faithful to his word and he's righteous to credit faith as righteousness. Uh, and we look to the gospel as in the fact that we believe it as, um, the basis for our assurance that we have eternal life, like it says in first John five, whoever believes that Jesus is son of God is born of God. And then he says, this is, uh, if we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. This is the testimony, which he has testified concerning his son. And whoever believes the testimony has the testimony in himself because the spirit is the one that testifies. So it's the testimony of God, the gospel that is the evidence that I'm saved. The fact that I believe it is the evidence that I'm the righteous that saved, uh, is saved. And that comes from a solid understanding of justification too. Um, but then there's another, that's more really, to be honest, that is more about the redefinition of faith that touches justification. The more I know about justification, the less susceptible I am to the damage the Calvinists can do, but the Calvinists are very good at speaking about justification. Uh, initial justification, but the free grace, uh, ones of the ones I feel like do the most damage in house. Um, we, you know, when I say in house, it's like, okay, we're the community of people that we're not Armenian. We're not Calvinist. We know we can't lose our salvation. We know that believing the gospel message is the evidence that we're saved. What the free grace takes. And so we think we're free grace and, uh, somebody said on my wall, the fact that they had to qualify free grace is already a red flag. It's a, you know, to say free grace is to almost like say I'm qualifying this. This grace is free. There's another kind of grace that's earned. Uh, a grace that's not free, but we call ourselves, I mean, I consider myself free grace, you know, uh, the grace is freely given, but it's the definition of justification that's so important because it's in the free grace community where they really openly redefine justification. You know, the Armenians say it doesn't part almost doesn't even exist, but the free grace community says, no, justification is the message of, you know, is the salvation when I believe in, you can't take that away from me, I'm going to heaven and I'm assured now we need to move on to sanctification as they start defining what their view of sanctification is. They end up redefining justification and they're actually seeking to be justified, even though they are justified, if they believe the gospel and they officially teach that there's another kind of justification, another kind of righteousness to seek. And this is where it just produces so much confusion because we're so used to hearing that justification just means how I got here. Hearing that justification just means how I got saved. Then if I say, well, I, you know, those guys in Jerusalem were not clear about justification, people say, what are you talking about? They're preaching the gospel and people were getting saved. He's saying that it was, you know, no justification is more than just getting saved. Justification is the qualification I have today to enter into what the old Testament saints prophesied, but couldn't describe because they had no experience with it. Paul knows on this side of the resurrection, along with the revelation that he's been given, he's also been given comforts from God about his status as the greatest of sinners and the least of saints. And yet he's able to judge his flesh and stand with God confidently and stand before God confidently in spite of his past. And in spite of who he is, even to the point where he says, I don't even judge myself, Paul didn't live introspectively like David. Oh, cleanse me with his up and I shall be clean. And oh, that my heart was directed to know your ways and keep your ways. And there was, he was seeking to repudiate that whole thing, that whole spirit of bondage and fear that when it approaches God, the flesh starts seeking justification. Paul's saying, I'm seeking to be found in Christ, not having my own righteousness. Which is out of the law, but based on faith and, uh, and I'm forgetting everything which lies behind and I'm just seeking to know him. I have direct access now. And in his presence, I actually have the fullness of joy that David longed for and described, but I actually enjoy it to the point where he said, you know, even if I'm poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice in service of your faith, I rejoice and he wasn't being religious. He was really rejoicing, filled with the spirit because of his doctrine of justification. Your doctrine of justification is not complete. Your knowledge of the doctrine of justification is not complete until you're standing confidently before God and rejoicing until you're standing in the grace of Christ, based on the peace you presently have with God. And see, when I say those guys weren't clear in Jerusalem, they weren't, it wasn't, they were, it wasn't that they were not clear how to be saved. They were like James even said in, in Acts 15, that we didn't send the Judaizers out to Gentiles to be circumcised. He didn't support the idea necessarily, at least at that point that people had to be circumcised to be saved. That wasn't their issue. Their issue was how is the Christian life lived once you are saved. And for them, it was a matter of law. Once you're saved, uh, and you believe the gospel, then you need to work on righteousness and they didn't know what the flesh was. They didn't know the difference between flesh and spirit. They didn't know the flesh was crucified. You know? I mean, we can clearly see in Genesis six that God had repented, that he made man. And the only reason the human race survived at all was because he called Noah because Noah is, uh, carrying the seed of which is Christ. Christ is the only reason why the human race exists after the flood is because God promised everything to him. He's the seed to whom all the promises are made and he has an inheritance. So he's going to inherit the earth and he's the righteous one. Um, that's why Noah was preserved. He was perfect in his genealogy and it had to do with the birthright and the blessing that belongs to Christ. And our only relationship to the birthright and the blessing that belongs to Christ, which is the kingdom and the, uh, which is the world to come, the ages to come, but it's also righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy spirit. Our only right to have that is justification where God manifested his own righteousness in Christ, apart from the law as the propitiation for our sins. And righteously bestows this blessing on us and makes us sons and heirs, not because of anything we do, uh, but because of who Christ is and what he's done for us. And then by faith to him who believes works and not, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly blessed is he who sins are forgiven and God won't impute iniquity to it. That's the blessing. And also this blessing that, uh, of, of the spirit, which is the enjoyment of God himself. So, uh, Galatians three says that the scripture preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying in you shall all the nations be blessed. And then it says that it, that the promise would be of faith. Um, let me read that real quick. Uh, even as Abraham believed God, it was kind of to him as righteousness though. Therefore that they were faith of the children of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify, well, it's the nations. It says heathen here in the King James, but it's nations. Abraham was not a Jew. So it was all the nations, including Israel, uh, that they would be justified through faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, and you all the nations should be blessed. So then those which are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. He talks about the curse of the law. The law is not a faith. Here it is. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for his written that curses everyone that hangs on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles are the nations. It's the same word nations. Cause the way a Jew receives the spirit is the same way Gentile receives the spirit. That's the whole point in acts 15, um, that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith. What is the blessing of Abraham is the promise of the spirit, but that spirit is Christ himself multiplied. It's the multiplication of Christ. So God had told Abraham, you know, your seed will be multiplied as the stars of the heaven and the sands of the seashore. And that seed that was multiplied was a grain of wheat that fell into the earth and died according to John's 12 and does not abide alone, but in resurrection has produced something new, uh, a multitude of people in dwelt with Christ. It's this multiplication is the blessing of Abraham. The blessing of Abraham is the multiplication of Christ. And so that's why he can say, talking about the inheritance, you know, he says, if the inheritance, um, be of the law, it is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. And then he talks about how we had to be justified by faith in order to what received, he's not talking about forgiveness of sins here. He's talking about the inheritance for as many as have been baptized into Christ to put on Christ. Um, we're all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, because you've actually been clothed with Christ. And in him, there's no Jew or Greek. It's not about status, a bond or free. You're all one in Christ. And if you're Christ, then you're Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Why? Because Christ is the seed of Abraham. Everybody else has ruled out the only people that have a right to exist. The only person that has a right to exist after the flood is Christ and he inherits it all and then shares it freely with the heirs who he justifies. So, okay. Um, the message of the free grace is that we've obtained forgiveness of sins and eternal life and justification tells us how, but that's what, where justification stops, then your Christian life starts. And so this is why they can say, well, James and those brothers, of course they were clear on salvation, uh, on justification, they preached the gospel. You said they didn't believe the gospel. No, they believed it basically just about the same way. Most Christians today believe it, which is a mix of law and grace, grace to begin the Christian life law to continue it. Which is the whole point that Paul's making in Galatians three. Did you receive the spirit by the hearing of faith or the works of the law? Now what's the spirit? The spirit is the inheritance. The spirit is the blessing. There's not another blessing. It is the blessing and those who are heirs. So he takes it out of the realm of forgiveness of sins. The law is about sin consciousness and forgiveness for sins. But when you take the law out, what is justification for, if I don't need to be forgiven, why do I need to be justified? Well, justification is not just as if I never sinned. Justification is the qualification to enjoy the inheritance and the official free grace position. And when we say free grace, we mean a group of people that coined the term or say they did. And it's relatively new, you know, in the last 60 years, the official position is that the inheritance and the reward and the blessing is not secured by justification. It's secured by works. And that is their official teaching on James two that, yes, you're justified to go to heaven, but there's another kind of justification. There's a lot of wordplay going on here, uh, where they're moving the cups around like a magician with the cups and which ball is the cup on, you know, the, which ball is under the cup or which cup has the ball. And they keep moving around and moving around, moving around. What are you saying? Am I justified? Yeah. I'm justifying. I'm justifying. I'm justifying. Am I justified? Yes. Okay. But, um, the, the, the, the, you say to John Calvin is in the, in our MacArthur and the MacArthur writes, am I say they'll say, am I saying my faith, my belief in the gospel, they'll say, yes, but do you really believe? Well, I think I do. Well, where's the fruit faith without works is dead. Don't you remember what the beloved apostle James said? The most important book in the Bible. Um, and then, uh, the free grace. So you say, am I justified or not? Yes, but okay. What? Well, that justification got is free grace for you to go to heaven. When you die, I know that my sins are forgiven and I know I'm safe from hell. They make a big difference deal about that. I'm safe from hell. Okay. When the gospel was preached to Abraham, hell wasn't even mentioned. In fact, when the gospel was preached to Abraham, there wasn't even a mention of forgiveness of sins, there are two components to the gospel. There's the forgiveness of sins, which David mentions, like look at Romans four. Um, now what shall we say that Abraham, our father is pertaining to flesh is found for Abraham were justified by works. He has something to glory, but not before God for what says the scripture, Abraham believed God has come to him for righteousness. Oh, and then he, that means he's not going to hell. No. Um, now to him that works is the reward, not reckoned of great, but of debt. Now remember Genesis 15, the first thing God says to Abraham, and this is what Paul's referring to is be fear, not Abraham. I am your shield and you're exceeding great reward. And then he hasn't prepare a burnt offering and puts Abraham to sleep. And while Abraham is under a deep sleep, he walks through the pieces, the oven and the torch, two entities walking through the pieces and Hebrews six tells us that because God could swear by no other, he swore by himself saying, blessing, I will bless you. Um, and Galatians three says that God confirmed the covenant in Christ before with Abraham, that covenant was cut between the father and the son. Abraham was asleep. And not only that, but the one who said, I am your shield and exceeding great reward promised himself to Abraham because he was the seed to whom this, all the promises are made. He's the air. So he is Abraham's salvation. He is his reward and his inheritance. And it's the multiplication of the seed that represents the inheritance of Abraham. And this multiplication, blessing and inheritance, those three go together are all secured in justification. So when Paul says, um, not him, that works is the reward, not reckoned of grace, but of debt, he's ruling out working for anything as a wage or a debt paid to you by God because of your service. You cannot qualify for rewards that way. Um, but to him that works not, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also described the blessedness of the man under whom God imputes righteousness without works saying, blessed are they whose sins, whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blast is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Um, and what they do free grace is they divide blessing into two parts, uh, two pieces, one you work for, and that's the reward or the, or the inheritance, which is the same thing. But the other is the forgiveness of your sins. And that's what justification is all about. The forgiveness of your sins. And that's what justification secured. So when they say James and those guys were clear on justification, they mean those guys knew about the forgiveness of sins. Uh, they knew how to get saved, but that the average Christian knows how to get saved, but has no idea what the salvation is, you know, for them that they, they knew it was the kingdom crisis, the seat of David. I mean, they, they probably knew in some ways more than the Christians, but how is the Christian life lived? Uh, this is where it really justification extends to the whole Christian life. We don't graduate from justification. Um, see the free graces say, we know we move on from justification to sanctification. And then they set about seeking to be justified just like the Galatians were. And this is why they say Galatian error is dealing with initial salvation, not the Christian life. But because Paul is using the word justification and in their mind, justification is only about the forgiveness of sins. Save me from the lake of fire and saving me from hell. Therefore, Paul can't be talking about the Christian life. The Christian life is another matter entirely. And James and Paul agree. This is a, it's amazing what they do, what we've done, what, you know, I, I'm, I pick on pastors because they claim to be in a position of authority and they're the ones who espouse this stuff. But this is what everybody by default believes because this is the flesh. The flesh is always seeking to be justified. Even once it's justified. Abraham was an already justified person who knew that his salvation was tied up in the seed. His inheritance and blessing was tied up in the seed. And yet he didn't have a seed and Sarah's room was barren. So Galatians describes how he then as a justified person went into Hagar and produced Ishmael who was not the seed. And he said that that's an allegory of going into law because Hagar represents Sinai and engenders children to bondage. And we were all Jews. They were all under bondage to the law. They lived under a situation that was bondage because the way into the holiest had not yet been manifested. The continual sacrifices they did could not perfect their conscience. They didn't have a high priest backing all that up. They aspired and longed to be in God's presence, but they didn't have a way in and they wouldn't be able to stand in his presence. When God showed up in glory, they would say things like, Oh, wretched man that I am, or I dwell on a people of unclean lips and woe is me. And God had to strengthen them temporarily to stand. But it was a fearful, terrifying experience shrouded with the atmosphere of Sinai. Well, Paul says we haven't come to that mount in Hebrews 12 that is shrouded with the dark cloud and the thunder and the voice that was so strong, like a trumpet that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. No, we've come boldly to the city of the living God, the festal gathering, where the saints of just men have been made perfect. The spirit of just men are perfect. There's a perfecting. When we come to Zion, when we come forward, rejoicing in Christ, who's saying, Abba, father in us, presenting us to the father as the trophy of his work and declaring the name of the father in us as the spirit of the son, the spirit of sonship. This is something that no Old Testament saint could relate to. And they didn't know about this in Jerusalem either. They've already come to Zion. They were still waiting for the kingdom. And, you know, we do long for the day when we see everything subjected to him, not only by faith, but externally. But we can enjoy something now because we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have a stand in grace today to enjoy the spirit as the foretaste of the inheritance that's guaranteed. And it is the blessing of the gospel. He is the blessing. So what Christianity has done, and it's not just the free gracers, it's most disappointing that it's free gracers because they're the ones who seem to contend for the right gospel the most, right? They've made a name for themselves that they distinguish these things, and they really know what justification is. But their version of justification leaves you knowing you're saved from hell because your sins are forgiven, but working today to earn the blessing and the reward. And they tell you that God withholds his presence from you when you sin. And they tell you that you have to work for the rewards as a wage, and they literally use those words. And they tell you in their official doctrine that we have a dual status as sons and slaves. When Paul tells us in Galatians very clearly, you're no longer slaves, but sons and heirs. Now, the whole thing in Galatians is about not forgiveness of sins, but the inheritance and the blessing. That's his emphasis. How is the heir to walk? The heir is to walk as a son of the promise. The heir is to live by faith like Abraham had to learn to do and like Isaac had to do. It's not just Abraham. It's also Isaac, which means coming forth supernaturally. And Isaac in Galatians represents Christ. I know this is deep if you're not that familiar with Galatians, but Christ is the Christian life, and he's the blessing of the Christian life, and he's the reward of the Christian That's why Paul said in Galatians, I've been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ in me and the life I now live. In the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for I do not frustrate the grace of God for righteousness came through the law. Christ died in vain. Oh, foolish Galatians who bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus was set forth and declared is crucified. This I would learn from you. Did you receive the spirit by the hearing of faith or by the works of the law? Why is he talking about the spirit? Why is he talking about the spirit? Because the spirit is the reality of Christ and the the blessing of justification. See here in Romans, it says when we look at Romans, David says, blessed is the one who you will not impute sin. His sins are forgiven. Well, what's that blessing? Knowing my sins are forgiven. At least my sins are forgiven. No, the blessing is the reward. And the inheritance. The blessing is standing in a status as error. Forgiveness of sins was a qualification for that, and it required justification. But justification is more than just the forgiveness of sins. Justification allows me to stand before God as a son and an heir right now in grace, regardless of what my condition or my past is to him who, you know, if the reward. Was a works reckoned as a debt. Sorry, I always get those words mixed up. Now to him that works is the reward, not reckoned of grace, but of a debt. But to him who works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith has come to him as righteousness. There's a present tense crediting of righteousness by faith. The just are to live by faith. And if you put yourself under law, you put yourself under the curse, which means you're doomed to all the frustration of not having the presence of God. The blessing is having the presence of God. The curse is not having the presence of God. That's really what it comes down to. And the law is a thick veil, a curtain separating you from the holiest. It, you know, Christ blot out the handwriting of ordinances that was contrary to us and against us, taking it out of the way, mailing it to his cross. Why is it against us? It keeps us from the presence of God. Ephesians two also talks about slaying the enmity. He abolished in his, for he is our peace. Who's made the both one is broken down the middle wall of partition. And everybody thinks that that means the separation of June Gentile. It does, but it's more importantly, the separation between man and God represented by the holiest. The veil having abolished in his flesh, the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances to make himself of both into one new man. So making peace, he created peace and atmosphere of peace that he might reconcile both to God. That's the point. It's not reconcile them both to each other. It's reconcile them both to God in himself on the cross, having slain the enmity. What is the enmity? The law of commandments and ordinances. It's not just ordinances. It's commandments and ordinances in the King James. This is contained in, but that's in the italics, which means it's not in the Greek. It's not just the ordinances because the ordinances were not the ministration of condemnation and death that the law was said to be, uh, you look at second Corinthians three for it. But if the ministration of death written and engraved in stones was so glorious. So the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses. Could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses. See, there's a veil there. So he covered his face representing this fading glory of the law. Um, and this was to be done away. What was the ministration of condemnation written in stones was to be done away. How shall not the ministration of the spirit be more glorious, which is eternal. And it's called the ministry. If the ministry of condemnation be glory, how much more the ministration of righteousness. So there's a ministration of righteousness, which does what supplies the spirit of life, the ministry of the spirit, uh, by revealing Christ not veiled, but openly available to the sons and heirs who can come forward freely by grace based on what justification and he's their blessing there to be reconciled to him, not alienated from him and see what, what they do when they talk about Galatians and James, they start moving the cups around. Where's justification, which, you know, because while they're talking about their teaching on Galatians, they'll say, no, we're not teaching Galatian air because Galatians is talking about justification. And we all know that that's just how to get saved. And we know we're saved. So you can't accuse us of teaching Galatian air when we mix law and grace for the Christian life, because that's just, you know, Paul mentions justification there. And that's how we know we're not going to have, that's all Paul's talking about. No, we're talking about sanctification. Okay. We're talking about growing as a Christian. Okay. And then as you start talking to them about, well, how do you think we grow and we're sanctified? Well, let's look at James. James is their apostle for the most mature Christian life. He's the representation for the most mature Christian teaching. If you really want to grow is James. How do you grow by works? Okay. Well, what is this whole James two thing? Now you're no longer talking about Galatians and you're now you're really focused on Christian growth. They've moved the cups all around. You don't know where justification is anymore. And they say, well, James is actually talking about another. He's not talking about your eternal salvation. Don't worry. He's talking about another kind of justification, a justification before men. Now this sets them in a position to be the man to observe whether or not you're justified before them. Seriously. Number one. And number two, they really teach from James. And then they try to harmonize it with Paul that the reward and the blessing is not guaranteed. The presence of God is not guaranteed. The multiplication is not guaranteed. The blessing and the enjoyment and satisfaction is not guaranteed. That's not included in justification that's obtained by sanctification, which is another kind of justification. I mean, it's crazy because they'll deny up and down that they are changing the definition of justification in one set of teachings. And then they will proceed to teach officially. When Paul talked about justification, he's talking about how do I know I'm going to heaven and not going to hell? It's all focused on punishment for sin. Then when James talks about justification, he's actually talking about how do I get rewarded and blessed? And this is about my life here, how I live. And they're right in the sense that the early church in Jerusalem didn't have so much a problem with how do I get saved? Although there was some confusion about that because of the Judaizers and stuff. But James said, we didn't send those guys to go circumcise Gentiles. But we do expect that the Gentiles will learn Moses in the synagogues every Sabbath. They believed that the law was the rule of life for the Christian. They didn't come out from Judaism. They stayed associated with the temple. That was the mixture of law and grace, wasn't how to get saved, but how to live the Christian life in order to be blessed. And any of them would have taught, whether it be James or Peter or any of the other ones that stayed in Jerusalem at that time when James was written, they would have taught that the Christian life is lived by works. And if you're, you know, now James uses extreme examples and says faith without works is dead. And don't you know that Abraham was justified by works and it was his faith perfected through works and all these things he says at a time when nobody was speaking about justification apart from works except Paul. So if I have a YouTube channel and there's somebody who I kind of know who suddenly starts teaching, well, don't you know that Christ is not our sanctification? Sanctification is by works, you know, and I really hammer and I'm the only one hammering away at Christ is our sanctification. Of course, I'm going to think that guy's talking about my teaching, even if he doesn't mention my name. I mean, it's obvious James 2 is refuting an argument made by somebody and it's using the language. It's using a theological language of justification apart from works and he's arguing against it. I think it's naive to say that James and Paul at this point were in harmony. It's unscriptural to say it. Oh, they believe the same thing. James is talking about a different kind of justification, not saving, even though he uses the word. See the problem is what I'm not saying is that James is a false brother teaching falsely. What I'm saying is he's not an apostle and he's using theological language to try to address a practical problem and he's gone too far. But he's reflecting what they would have by nature agreed. Most people by nature agree with James 2, even if they would deny it up and down. You know, of course, a genuine Christian is going to bear fruit, if you really believe. I've had to catch myself many times using the phrase, you know, if you really believe, and I say, well, no, not really believe. I mean, believe the actual gospel, but we default to the flesh seeking to be justified. See, the thing is with Galatians, he was talking to a group of people that had begun in the spirit and were seeking to be perfected in the flesh. And he was calling it justification. You're seeking to be justified by works. You're seeking to be justified by law. So we all say, well, then he's talking about initial salvation. We already know how to get saved. So that's the problem that they faced. And he was just talking about, you know, circumcision and observing ordinances. He wasn't talking about moral commandments. Of course, we keep the moral commandments. That's how we please God. We take the function of the law away, which is a ministry of condemnation and death. And we keep it, prolong it, even though it's supposed to be fading away. And at that point, we stopped being ministers of righteousness and of the spirit. Because the ministry of righteousness tells ungodly people that they are qualified to be sons and heirs through faith, and that that's how they're to stand. Romans 4 leads to Romans 5. Romans 4 is Paul's doctrine about justification, which includes not just the forgiveness of sins, but the forgiveness of sins as the qualification to be the heirs and to have the reward and to be blessed. It's the blessing. When David said, blessed is the one who sins forgiven, to them, the blessing was a big deal. It wasn't like, God bless you, because you sneezed. We don't understand the significance of the word. Oh, boy, I sure am blessed today. You know, a car works. No, the blessing is the promise of the spirit. And it's given to those whose sins are forgiven, even though they're ungodly and work not. This is the basis of the Christian life. How is the Christian life lived? It's lived in union with Christ. I've been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ in me by the supply of the spirit. Did you hear? Did you receive the spirit by the hearing of faith or by the works of the law? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, you're not going to be perfected in the flesh. What Paul is calling perfected in the flesh there. Christians today we call sanctification. We're seeking to be sanctified. And we do it under the threat of cursings for those who don't and blessings for those who do. The way, how do you get God's presence in your life? I confess my sins. I repent. I go to church faithfully. I read my Bible faithfully. I don't harbor any grudges. I keep short accounts with God in order to stay in the fellowship. Well, what happens if you don't do those things? Well, I'm in darkness and God has turned his back on me until I do. Yes, I'm going to hell heaven. I'm not going to hell, but I'm probably going to not have any rewards and I'm going to get a beating, a shameful day at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And in this life, he may even kill me. This is what they officially teach that God will take you home early. And they use a couple of really bad examples from first Corinthians and Ananias and Sapphira. And I don't have time to get into it, but I have a book called messages of grace and discipline that diffuses all these things. All the sons of God, good or bad, receive discipline. It's a training in how to live Christ. It is not a punishment for your sins. See, they teach that we're to live under a threat of cursings and blessings. And they even tell you that that's the motif that James is using in their official doctrine in their seminary, where they generate the commentaries. James is, in their view, referring to the cursings and the blessings of the law, which still apply to the Christian life. So you're justified, but not justified. And you catch, try to catch them on it. They say, no, we're not teaching Galatian error because Galatians is about justification. We already know we're justified. Now let's look at James. James is how to live the Christian life. Now James is talking about another kind of justification. What are they doing? They're redefining justification to undo what Paul said it qualifies us for. Okay. So, you know, I've hammered this point home a million times, but this is, this is a real big distinction. And for this reason, we need to understand that justification is about Christ becoming everything in the Christian life. He is our righteousness. He is our sanctification. He is our redemption. He is our life and he's our reward. All of those are explicitly stated in the scripture. And anytime you talk about reward or sanctification or righteousness or life or redemption, if you're not talking about the person of Christ, you're actually talking about something else. And this isn't how we consider things. You know, the seminaries break everything up into, you've got soteriology, which is salvation, Christology, which is Christ, pneumatology, which is the spirit. And then they've got these different categories like sanctification. Why is that a different category? Christ is my sanctification. See, that's just how we're trained to think. We think the Bible has many things to say about many different things. And the volume of the book is written of him and it all points to him. And if we don't see him as the reality behind everything that we're talking about, then anything we are talking about that is void of him is really void of him and is going to be error. So you talk about sanctification and you say, well, this is how I sanctify myself. I work and I clean up my behavior. Well, Mormon can do that. There's a crisis sanctification. What makes yours better? Well, because my sins are forgiven. Now Paul, again, when he talks about justification in Galatians, if you read the whole epistle, you'll see he's not talking about how do I get saved? He's talking about how do I have the presence of God and live before him as an heir? And how do I walk in the spirit and have the fruit? The effectiveness of the Christian life. That's the course of the book of Galatians. It is a book for the Christian life in the Reformation and in church history, James and Galatians go back and forth because they're about the same size and they're dealing with the same topic from two different sides, not complimenting each other. They're clearly in disagreement. I mean, from the plain language, they're in disagreement. If James is talking about a justification that is the Christian life, and this is how I live the Christian life. And you say, that's how I approve of James and say that he's in full agreement with Paul, then you have stripped justification of its definition. Just because you call it sanctification doesn't mean you're not trying to be justified. So again, Abraham was an already justified person who went into Hagar, bound himself to law to try to produce from the efforts of the flesh, the fulfillment of the promise. And Ishmael ends up being a imitation or an emulation of Isaac. He's not the real thing. He's a son of a bondwoman and gendered by a justified person who doesn't understand what justification really secured. He doesn't really fully believe that justification secured everything for him. And that all he needs to do is wait on God and be at peace. He brings strife into his house, trying to fulfill what is his by right, that is seeking to be justified. Even though he's already justified, he was seeking to be justified and Christians do that. They were doing that in Galatia. Having begun in the spirit, are you now going to be perfected in the flesh? And he goes on for the next three chapters to talk about, look, religious flesh is like Hagar and Ishmael, and it will always oppose the spirit. It will oppose the children of promise and oppose the promise. And you bring yourself under the curse. Does he, what was he saying? You're unsaved? No, he's saying you've been moved away from him who you've been moved away from him who called you into the grace of Christ to another gospel, which is not another. Only some would trouble you seeking to pervert the gospel of Christ. And if you look all the way through Galatians, you'll see that the main thing was that they lost the sense of blessing that comes from being directly in the presence of God because they got their eyes off the crucified Christ. And they went back to law as how do I live the Christian life and maybe they called it sanctification, but they were really seeking to be justified because they were trying to earn from God what had already been given to them. And they were trying to produce through effort and emulation, the fruit of the spirit. But it was really just a sanctimoniously cultured flesh that was full of envy, strife, provoking one another, and they were going to consume each other, bite and devour one another. There was no peace. Were they unsaved? No. And the same people will argue, James is not saying people are not saved. Obviously he's not. He's calling them brethren. I mean, chapter one is beautiful. That we're the first fruits of his creatures, regenerated, produced by the word of life, by his own will, he begat us, the father of life and him, there's no variance in shifting shadow. We're children of God, according to James. But how do we live the Christian life? And what is justification? Well, you've got two options with James. Either he knew full well, Paul's doctrine in depth, because he's an apostle. So he has to be clear and he's opposing the truth and coming up with a different definition of justification or more scripturally and more true without laying that kind of accusation at his feet. You say this was written before Acts 10. And that's like historically agreed. Somebody said, well, you know, don't look at just the cross-reference about the timeline. No, these timelines have been pieced together from Paul's own narrative. And also the history in Acts gives us, okay, this guy was the Tetrarch and this guy was the king and this, it's all been pieced together. They may not have the exact year, but they've got the timeframe. And we know from Paul's own testimony and from the chronological narrative of the book of Acts that before Peter went to Antioch, he was persecuted in Jerusalem for eating with Gentiles. And after he went to Antioch, men came down from James to Antioch and Peter was so afraid of them that he shrank back from eating with the Gentiles. And it was influenced from Jerusalem. That was the climate in Jerusalem when James wrote this letter. So what we do is we don't credit him with doctrinal knowledge he doesn't have. And we say he's misusing language. People say, but it's in the Bible. It can't contradict itself. Well, why are you willing to contradict the narrative in the book of Acts? And why are you willing to contradict Paul's own testimony in the book of Galatians? He describes the whole thing. And why are you willing to contradict what justification secures and fabricate a new version of justification by works? Bible can't contradict itself. Well, what are you doing? So that's where I stand on it. No, I'm not saying that they didn't know the gospel. But if you say that they were talking about a different kind of justification, but you really mean sanctification, you've got both definitions wrong. You've got definition of sanctification that's Christless and by works. And you've got a justification of justification, a definition of justification that is Christless and doesn't include the inheritance and the blessing. Are you really willing to hold on to that? In order to say that James is an apostle who should be weighed equally with Paul when the scripture tells us otherwise. And I know people are tired of hearing about this, but there's people who are undecided and they're listening to different people. And I can make it really clear what I'm actually teaching. I'm not saying that those guys didn't know how to get saved in Jerusalem. What I'm saying is our definition of justification is so poor that we don't recognize when justification itself is being overturned. You know, because we think it only means forgiveness of sins and not going to hell. And that leaves the door wide open for wolves to abuse you and why you have to call them brother, because they've got the gospel right. No, this is the very definition of the accursed gospel or the accursed person, another gospel that Paul was talking about. It's not another gospel, only it moves you away from the presence of Christ and locks up the blessing. It shuts the door to the kingdom in terms of present tense. You need to be justified again in order to have any of that. And that is by works. And that, you know, that kind of minister is going to be very different from the one who tells you no to him. Your only solution is to come forward to Jesus Christ. Whatever you're dealing with, don't deal with it in the dark. You're not in the dark. You're in the light. You've been transferred out of the authority of darkness. You have access. Come forward. The only way you can grieve him is to not come forward and persist in unbelief, seeking to be justified.

right? Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. How do I have peace with God? Is it through my works? No, it's through Jesus Christ on the basis of justification. I, present tense, have peace with God by whom I have access through faith, not by works, into this grace, it's this grace, it's this grace in which I stand. We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. So we stand in grace and it's the only way to stand. Paul said, take heed anyone who thinks he stands lest he fall, right? Well, you better be standing in grace. Okay. We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And as you study from Romans five through eight, you understand that the glory of God is nothing other than the spirit of life, giving life to my mortal body because of righteousness. The glory is the confirmation of the children of God who were predestined to sonship. Those who justified, he also called those who he called, he justified those who he justified, he also glorified. And what should we say to these things? If God did not spare his only son, but gave him up for us all, how should he not all so freely with him, give us all things and who shall lay a charge against God's elected is God that justifies. So justification from Romans three, all the way to the end of Romans eight is all about God justifying, not you. It's to him who works not, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly. His faith has come to him as righteousness. And this righteousness qualifies me. It gives me peace with God now and stands me in the grace of God. Now it gives me access by faith into this grace in which I stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which is the blessing of the gospel, the promise of the spirit and his work in my life. So Galatians three is where we get the idea that the spirit of the son, the spirit of sonship is the blessing of the gospel, uh, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentile. God, God preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, uh, saying in you, all the nations shall be blessed. Uh, and then he says that the blessing of Abraham may come upon the Gentiles through faith that you might receive the promise of the spirit. The spirit is the promise and the blessing. And how does it come through through faith by justification? And when am I qualified for it? Now, this is grace of his fullness. We've received grace upon grace. It's a person. Grace is a person. And we have peace with God based on this person. And we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. Right? Well, Paul said, there's another gospel. That's not another only someone would trouble you seeking to pervert the gospel of Christ. So they're perverting the true gospel. And what is that trouble? We said, I marvel that you were so soon moved away from him person who called you into the grace of Christ. So it moves you away from your stand in the grace of Christ and moves you away from the person who called you into it by perverting the gospel. Now the pastors, uh, all tell us that they're not committing. They're not guilty of Galatian error when they teach a mix of law and grace for the Christian life, because Galatian error only deals with the gospel. And that doesn't have anything to do with Christians. And it only deals with justification. And that was, that's the beginning of the Christian life where we are justified. So since we're already justified, they say they can't be teaching Galatian error. And Paul's not talking about the Christian life. He's talking about the gospel that you preach to others. And he's really angry in Galatians because he's afraid they're going to preach the wrong gospel to people. But Paul said he, that the believers were moved away from him who called them into the grace of Christ through another gospel. So another gospel is a problem for believers. How can that be? If the gospel is just Christ died for my sins according to scriptures, rose from the dead. And I believe that therefore I'm saved. Now I'm going to heaven when I die. If that's all the gospel is, how could you pervert that later? You know, well, some people can do that by saying, no, you're not actually saved. Right. And those are the Arminians and the Calvinists. And they do cause believers to stumble by calling into question the gospel that they believed and saying, well, no, actually, I mean, the Arminians and which would include like Jehovah's witness, Hebrews, Israelites, most just rabid legalists who don't even know the gospel, who just pick up the Bible and say, it's law, law, law. Jesus said, keep my commandments, you know? And all they do is pick out verses to throw at you to show you that you're not saved. And they don't even know the terminology that it's justification by faith apart from works. They never heard it. I mean, there's literally people that come to our walls that have never heard clearly, or they've shut out. They'll, well, they'll say, Paul's a false apostle. You know? Okay. So we all know about those. Those are a lot of us. We'll call those Lord shippers in a way, but John MacArthur is a Lord shipper. He's the one who invented that term and he can speak the language of grace. He says, we're justified by grace alone through faith alone, but faith is never alone. That's called a backload of works into the gospel where they redefine faith and make it a work. So the Arminian front-loading of the gospel says you could lose your salvation, but the backloading of the gospel says you were never saved to begin with. Now here's the thing about the backloading of the gospel. It pretends to be an argument against front-loading of the gospel. And that's why people are attracted to it. If they've been locked up in Arminianism and charismatic circles and stuff, and having been taught that they had to keep the law to be saved or that they could lose their salvation, walk away from the faith, and no longer have eternal life, then Calvinism presents itself as the doctrines of grace and tells them that eternal life is eternal and that you can have assurance that you have eternal life. And they'll give you all the scriptures about, he believes in me, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And they can say it really good. And they can show you Paul's doctrine about justification and cause you to repudiate the flesh and say, see, the flesh couldn't do anything good. And so the law is a ministry of condemnation to even condemn the flesh. They'll say that's the first use of the law. But, and then they'll say, and if you believe the gospel, you'll be saved. But how do you know you believe? Because James says, faith alone, apart from works, doesn't save. James says, faith alone, apart from works, doesn't justify. Can that faith save him? Faith alone, being alone is dead. And so dead faith, they'll say, doesn't save. And it's a spurious faith. And they'll say, you didn't believe with your heart. You only believed with your mind and it's near mental ascent. And you're not really saved. And you can't know if you're saved unless you bear the fruit. And so it becomes a backload of works into the gospel. It's a perversion of the gospel that troubles believers. That gospel, that perversion of the gospel, which is not another gospel. It's under the guise of the true gospel. It's not Buddha. It's not Mormonism. It's, you know, presenting Christ from the scriptures that he died and rose again from the dead. But it's another gospel in that it moves you away from him who called you to the grace of Christ by bringing you back under condemnation, back under the law as the rule of life, so that you have no assurance and no confidence before God. And you're trying to live in the flesh to prove whether or not you really believe the gospel. And you can't look to the message that you believed as assurance. So they deprived the message of its power. And they do this by a redefinition of faith. So we go, okay, well, that is wrong. And there's a lot of people in this community who unfortunately got as far as arguing that eternal life is eternal. And therefore, I know I can't lose my salvation because none shall snatch me from his hand. And they can argue all those scriptures, but they're Calvinists. Well, if you're really saved, and they will go around and accuse people of not actually believing the gospel and not really being saved. They take the way of Cain, unless you really show the fruit. And they're to be accursed, whether they're saved or not. If they believe the gospel, when they got, when they believed it, they were still in the spirit of promise, but they've been carried off into Galatian error. And they're to be marked and avoided. They're accursed. You don't receive them in their teaching into the fellowship. Okay. Well, we know that. And the free gracers supposedly know that. Now, how did the Calvinists and the Arminians, where do they base their theology from? James 2. Both groups base it off James 2. The Calvinists especially, but faith without works is dead. And what do they say? The Bible can't predict, cannot, cannot contradict itself. So therefore, faith must not be just believing a message with your mind and agreeing that it's true. It's got to be something more than that. It has to work. So they attempt to harmonize James and Paul, right? Okay. But the free gracers do the same thing. But instead of redefining faith, they redefine justification. Now the pastors, the free grace pastors who insist they're not teaching Galatian error because Galatians teaches about justification and Paul's dealing with another gospel and they'll say, you know, I'm not teaching about Buddha and I'm not teaching about Mormonism. I'm not teaching another gospel. And they'll say, you know, we know we're justified. And so therefore this can't be talking about us. We can't be guilty of teaching Galatian error because we do teach people that they're justified. When they teach Galatians, that's what they say. When they defend themselves against charges of Galatian error, that's what they say. Because Galatians deals with the gospel and justification, we can't be guilty of Galatian error because that deals with the gospel and the gospels for the lost. We're talking to the saved, number one. And they pretend to not believe that a false gospel can trouble believers, which they know very well that's not true because they contend with Calvinists. But then the next thing they say is that because Paul is talking about justification in Galatians, well that's just the beginning of the Christian life. And so therefore Galatian error is talking about how to get saved in the first place. It has nothing to do with the Christian life, how it's lived. And another gospel has nothing to do with how you live the Christian life. And for us to be telling people that they need to get to work in order to earn blessings from God and avoid punishments is not Galatian error. Because we're not talking about the gospel, we're not talking about justification. Now the same people who say that, when they come to James 2, do you know what they say? They say the bible can't contradict itself and so therefore James can't be contradicting Paul and so therefore he must be talking about something else. Because the Calvinists can't be right, so he cannot be talking about saving faith and he cannot be talking about justification before God for eternal salvation. He must be talking about justification for rewards and temporal salvation. So again, please appreciate the irony that the very same people who tell you that they can't be guilty of committing Galatian error because when they teach through Galatians, you know, they defend themselves and they say, you know, we're not teaching Galatian error because that has to do with the gospel and justification. And we already know we're talking justified people and we're talking about the Christian life and we can mix law and grace for the Christian life. They call it the commandments of Jesus and commandment keeping and you know, but it's still law and grace because it's got the carrot and stick. These very same people who use that as their argument to defend themselves against the charge that they're teaching Galatian error will then proceed to tell you that there's another definition of justification for the Christian life. What is that? That's another gospel. It's not another. Only some would trouble you seeking to pervert the gospel of Christ. It's a perversion of the gospel of Christ. Now what does this perversion tell you? That the work of Christ only secured your position before God for eternity when you go to heaven in the sweet by and by. And they say that righteousness is positional, but for your life here on earth, there's another kind of justification. And that righteousness is by works and it's practical. And there's two kinds of salvation. There's salvation eternally to go to heaven when you die and there's salvation on earth. Now, a lot of them will not initially admit what they mean by salvation on earth or what they call temporal salvation. The reason they don't want to admit it is because they know that you'll know they have an accursed gospel or another gospel if they present it too early. See, the Calvinists don't come right out and tell you they're Calvinist. I spent three years in a Calvinist church before I really understood what Calvinism was. I knew everything they were preaching was wrong, but I didn't know the tenets of Calvinism. It's not like they got up and preached on the tulip. No, they called themselves a community church and talked about, they said the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, but I never heard the gospel there. It was always law and I couldn't figure it out. And when I would ask them about it, they'd say, no, it's by grace through faith. I'm like, well, that's not what you're preaching from the pulpit. They eventually asked me to leave. I found out there were five point Calvinists and I found out that it's pretty typical that they don't tell you the doctrines that they studied. They don't present what they learned in seminary. They present the cereal box version watered down for the congregation. That's why they read from these watered down translations, by the way, why they don't read from the King James. They read from ESV or NIV or these translations that are just cereal box paraphrases, you know, because they're leavening everything to make it softer and more palatable while actually giving you little by little the actual doctrine they're initiating you. And I went to a church, that Chinese church I was in for 10 years. We didn't go up to people and tell them, hey, if you want to be an overcomer, you have to join the local church. But that's not even a guarantee. You have to be transformed to become proper building materials. Otherwise, you'll spend a thousand years weeping and gnashing your teeth in outer darkness during the kingdom, which is a reward only for the overcomers. And everybody but us and not even most of us are going to get that reward. Most Christians are going to be in outer darkness during the millennium. We didn't go teach people that. That was something you find out when you've read 15 life studies of witness Lee and you stumble across it and you start asking questions and they're like, oh, you know, we can fellowship about that later. They sweep it under the rug. But I've, I read it and read it and read it. And it impacted me. And the funny thing is, is most of the people at that church, they didn't really even know about that doctrine. So they didn't understand why I was so freaked out all the time. They weren't reading the ministry the way I was. But anyway, that's called having a secret inside truth for the insiders and a palatable truth for the outsiders. Okay. So again, when it comes to the so-called free gracers, they're not going to come right out usually and tell you that temporal salvation means that you're actually under wrath as a believer and that you're not actually justified. And that when you send God's anger at you and curses come upon you and that you can't stand in the grace of God, you're not qualified for it. They don't come right out and tell you, this is our doctrine. And that we teach that, you know, at the beam of seat, most people will get beaten. And then most people will be in outer darkness during the millennium. They don't come right out and tell you that that's in their commentaries, which most people don't read. No, what they tell you, what they do is they pretend to have an argument for eternal security, just like the Calvinists. See, the Calvinists come to Armenians and win them over who the ones who've been beaten and abused in the Armenian circles that are terrified that they're going to lose their salvation, who are intellectual. And they win them over with the so-called doctrines of grace. And then they convince them that they're the only ones who have the truth. And then after a while, you find out that these aren't doctrines of grace at all. I've lost all my assurance. I don't even know if I believe the gospel. And in the local church, they came and they seem to present, they're very much like the free graces, except more sophisticated. The doctrine is more sophisticated. They don't water things down the way the free grace does. They're talking mostly to very highly educated Chinese people who are some of the smartest people on the planet. But anyway, they can't talk to them like children, like two-year-olds, five-year-olds, the way pastors do here. But anyway, they argue for justification and say, you can't lose your salvation. And you think with them, I finally have eternal security. But I'll probably be the garbage man and I'll probably be in outer darkness and I'll probably be punished for a thousand years. And I'm miserable now. And I don't know how to access God because I'm never walking in the spirit enough and I'm not being transformed. I know I'm not one of the overcomers. That's for those special people over there. And God's not pleased with me. I'm still not doing enough. It's by works. And the way this happens is they synchronize Matthew five through seven, the Sermon on the Mount, and James two, and try to synchronize it with Paul, without failing to acknowledge progressive revelation and the unique commission Paul was given and the unique set of truths that were his alone to reveal. And the fact that these things were not disclosed previously. You can't find them in the Sermon on the Mount. You can't find them in James' writing for sure. James wasn't even with Jesus, you know, during his earthly ministry. So, there's a lot of people who argue and say, you know, David Benjamin and his garbage, you know, why are you listening to that? But I'll tell you this, other than the explanation I put forth on this channel about James, which just puts it in the context of the book of Acts and the book of Galatians, which everybody else seems to ignore, I've yet to see any of these people accommodate Acts and Galatians in their explanation of James. No, they just go to James and say, the Bible can't contradict itself, so therefore James must, and the Calvinists say, James must be talking about heart faith and faith without works is dead, because that's literally what he says. The free gracers lie about what James is saying and saying, no, he's not, he can't be talking about justification in the sense that we think of it, he must be talking about a different kind of justification by works. So, but both start with the assertion, the Bible can't contradict itself. But by that logic, that is just a way to stifle dissent. All that is, is if I hold up a Bible verse and tell you, not all who say to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Bible can't contradict itself, that means you're not allowed to say, yeah, but I've been transferred out of the authority of darkness and into the kingdom of the son of his love, in whom I have redemption and forgiveness of sins, and Christ is my righteousness. Nope, Bible can't contradict itself, you know. So that, that same argument is used by the Calvinists, and it's used by anybody who wants to be dogmatic and only have you look at one little section of the Bible and not look at the whole thing. And it's a dishonest way of shutting people down. That is not, it is true that the Bible is held together as a narrative by the Spirit of God and the testimony of Christ, and on the whole, it doesn't contradict itself. But if you say the Bible doesn't contradict itself, then that means that Job's friends are right, you know. Job's friends tell him that there's no way any of that could have happened to him unless he had secret sins that he didn't confess and he was being chastened. And that's not true. That's not why that happened to Job. And yet the Bible doesn't contradict itself, you know. So it is true that the Bible doesn't contradict itself, and yet these people contradict acts that tells us very clearly that at the time James was written in Jerusalem, and it doesn't matter that it was James that wrote it. If it said Peter, it would have said the same thing, because this is what the church in Jerusalem believed. They didn't believe Gentiles could be saved without becoming proselytes to Israel, and they believed Jews were under law. That was the problem in Jerusalem. That's what the Acts 15 conference ended up being about. That's why Peter was rebuked, because he shrank back from eating with the Gentiles for fear of men from who? James, who came down to Antioch from Jerusalem after Peter had already been persecuted in Jerusalem when he ate with the Gentiles for going to Cornelius's house, which he wasn't willing to do until God gave him a vision three times and told him, don't you call what I've called clean unclean. He wasn't even going to go eat with a Gentile. That's 10 years into the church, by the way. Acts 10 is about 10 years of the apostles in Jerusalem, and they still don't understand justification by faith. Is it because they're stupid? No, it's because Paul has not been raised up yet. Now, all you have to do is catalog what had been taught about justification before Romans, and I don't understand how these cereal box seminarians, who apparently got their degrees from reading a cereal box, haven't spent the time to just catalog what was revealed by Paul. And what would we not know if we didn't have Paul? If I didn't have Romans, what would I think about justification? You know, we'd have some statements like the just shall live by faith. But what does that mean? Well, if you were born under law, you would be groaning with David, cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. You would be full of sin consciousness, longing for a deliverer, because that's why it was given. It wasn't given with a clear doctrinal teaching that Christ is the manifestation of God's righteousness, apart from the law, upon those who believe, whether Jew or Gentile, they're under the law or not, it makes no difference, because all are guilty under the law. And that's for the purpose of shutting every mouth and rendering everyone guilty. So that justification might be of faith and not of works. Now, just because they didn't have that doctrine doesn't mean that they were not justified by faith. They were justified by faith, but they didn't quite understand what that meant. Their conscience was not perfected. But after Paul came along, there was a body of truth revealed that really reinterprets the whole of the Bible. And I would say that the people who try to reconcile James in this way to Paul don't understand Paul's teaching, and that's really the issue. They don't understand justification. They don't know what justification is. And they think it's just about going to heaven when you die, when Paul's talking about it, but then they move you away from him who called you into the grace of Christ by telling you, you have no right to stand before him, he's mad at you. You can't stand before him, you're in darkness. He turned his back on you when you sinned last week. He, you grieved him, and now he's turned his back until you confess enough, or repent and keep the law. And if you don't get it right, he's going to kill you. And then what do they teach about, you know, judgments? Okay, now when they talk about James, they say he's talking about a different salvation, temporal salvation. Oh, he's talking about temporal salvation. Now, the thing is, is there's people going around wall to wall, arguing these sound bites they've heard, and they don't understand what the implications are. So, like the people who come to my channel and just say, don't you know James is written to the 12 tribes? Okay, well, do you realize that you just said that the Jews are justified by works? And guess what? If Jews could be justified by works, so could you. How do you know you're justified by faith alone? You don't know what justification is. If anyone could be justified by works, Christ died in vain. That's hyper-dispensationalism. Where does that come from? It comes from people wanting a quick answer to the problem of eternal security, and they don't want to be rooted and grounded in Christ. They want a quick answer, and then leave me alone. And they want a good argument that they can use on walls, like go from wall to wall and use their argument. But then, you know, anytime I talk about James, I get a whole slew of people that come to my channel and say, yeah, didn't you know that James is written to the Jews, is written to the 12 tribes, that's why. I'm like, if you knew what I say about hyper-dispensationalists, you wouldn't be on this channel. But what are they doing? They're triggered by the fact that somebody, a video came up that said James. They didn't listen to the video. They just come and shout their argument. What's the same thing with, James is talking about, let your faith be proper before men. James is talking about temporal salvation. You don't know what you're talking about, temporal salvation. Temporal salvation means that I still need to be saved from the wrath of God in time. That justification does not secure anything for me right now. And that I do not have access by faith into this grace in which I stand. In fact, I'm not standing in grace, I'm standing in probation. I may stand in grace if I repent and keep the commandments and do well. But there's no acknowledgment, by the way, in this doctrine of the cross that, you know, yes, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, but you will not hear a person who has this sort of view talk about their death with Christ. And when they talk about build service to God, you will hear them talk about commandments and going to church and evangelizing, which they think is only for the lost, which is sad because the evangelist was given to the body of Christ for the building up of the body of Christ. But you'll never hear them talk about the building of the body of Christ because that requires a knowledge of incorruptible materials, which is foolishness to the natural man who can't receive the word of the cross. They are stuck on milk, which is the elementary principles of the doctrine of Christ, baptisms, laying on of hands, repents from dead works, faith towards God and eternal judgment. What is that? At that time, that was all about how do I get saved and how do I know I'm saved? And there's people who all they care about when they think about the gospel is that's the message that told me how I got saved. And at least I know I'm saved. I may be the garbage man in heaven, but at least I know I'm saved. I don't have peace with God now. And I don't even think that that's an option. But at least I know I'm getting saved. I'm you know, when I go to heaven, when I die, but did you know that the people who told taught you that believe that you're going to be in outer darkness, weeping and gnashing teeth for a thousand years, a lot of them, the GES, or, or if they say, well, we don't know exactly how long that period of time is. Okay. Well, the kingdom is a thousand years. The millennium is a thousand years. That's what's called the millennium. And you guys teach that the kingdom is a reward for the overcomers and overcomers. They'll only the ones who are faithful in the commandment, keeping that you guys prescribe. So you're just doing more word play to try to soften the blow and hide the fact that you really believe that there's going to be people weeping and gnashing. They're out of darkness for the entirety of the kingdom by saying, we don't know how long that'll be. You're just denying the fact that you believe in a literal, maybe you don't believe in a literal millennium. Now that's the other thing is that when you corner these guys on their eschatology, which is important when it comes to soteriology. If you say eschatology can be a secondary issue, we can agree to disagree, but when it affects your view of the judgment seat of Christ and the impact on the believer's life, now it's important. Well, they won't be pinned down. They say, ah, no, it's all secondary. Those are secondary issues. We can agree to disagree. Good scholars have agreed to disagree. You know, that's a way for them to avoid any accountability for their doctrine because they want to be able to freely pick and choose verses from things that do not apply to you and apply them to you. Like the parable of the bridesmaids when we're the bride, uh, or the, you know, the servants in outer darkness or the, or the Matthew 25 judgment, the great white throne judgment, another great white throne, the, the, which is the glorious throne judgment when he inherits the Davidic throne and he divides the nations based on their treatment of the Jews. These people like to apply that to believers. So you might be in outer darkness and beaten because you didn't visit the poor and the needy. And when I was naked, you didn't, you know, you didn't do this and you didn't go church and you didn't die. That's what they want to translate it to. They want us freely pick and choose from any verse they can to throw at you. And this whole thing is just an excuse to bring works in. See, these are false brethren crept in unaware to spy out the Liberty we have in Christ. Then they come with another gospel, which is not another, but it's a perversion of the true gospel. Yeah. It's Jesus Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures and rose from the dead. But what does that secure for me? Well, the Calvinist will say, well, depends on if you really believe it. Um, and the free gracer will say, yeah, those Calvinists are wrong. You know, you believed it. You know, you were sealed. You're going to heaven, but God may beat the tar out of you and kill you. If you don't tithe, you don't have peace with God. Okay. Justification that does not secure everything justification secures for you right now is not real justification. If you strip it of its meaning and its blessings, you've, you've, uh, changed the meaning of the word. And now you're dealing with an accursed gospel that the way, uh, the devil works is to redefine language. Language is so important. We need to know. And I've said it so many times, if you're a good American citizen, supposedly you should have a bill of rights memorized or in your glove compartment. So the cop pulls you over, you know, okay, that's my fourth amendment, right? You can't search and seize my car. You can't do that. You can't do that. Okay. And you need to know what justification secured. So when somebody comes up to you and says, well, you don't, you know, if you do those things, you won't inherit the kingdom of God. Say, I'm sorry. I've been transferred out of the authority of darkness and into the kingdom of the son of his love. Yeah. But unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, well, right. Christ is my righteousness. And he's the manifestation of God's righteousness apart from the law, the witness by the law and the prophets upon those who believe. And it's for him who works not, but believes on him. It justifies the ungodly. His faith is counted as that righteousness. That righteousness has qualified me for a stand in the grace of Christ right now. And it makes me an error of the age to come. If somebody says, no, you're going to be in outer darkness. That's only for the overcomers. The kingdom is a reward for those who work hard enough. No, the Bible says that the great salvation subjects the world to come. Paul said to the carnal, most who the least of the saints in a first Corinthians five, that they would judge angels and therefore were qualified to judgment matters among them and set the least set the matter before the least of you, rather than take it to the Gentile courts, because you'll judge angels. If the least he means the most carnal will judge angels. We are already seated with him in the heavenlies. Uh, our life is hit with Christ in God. You know, you're trying to make me pay for sins that Jesus already paid for. I've been crucified with Christ. That judgment has been carried out. Um, and be a good cheer. I've overcome the world and who is he that overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the son of God. That's John. Who's the guy who wrote the letters to the seven churches. He defined what overcomer means. So you can't say that overcomer means working hard enough and you're definitely not allowed to redefine justification through James. Whatever you, you may say, Dave Benjamin's doctrine on James is total garbage. Okay, fine. Come up with a better explanation, but don't you dare load works into the gospel and take away from what justification secures for believers. And I have yet to find anybody who teaches James is teaching another kind of justification for rewards already. That's an accursed gospel. Read Romans four, behold, Abraham, fear not. I am your shield and your exceeding great reward. And, uh, that is from the first line of Genesis 15, which Paul uses as his centerpiece for all of his doctrine on justification. And the one who said that is the seed who promised he's the one who promised. And he's the seed who was promised. And according to Galatians three, he's the one that the covenant was cut with. He's the seed. Uh, God confirmed that covenant with Christ while Abraham was asleep in Genesis 15, the same chapter. And he's the seed to whom all the promises are made. The salvation is Christ's inheritance and it's his reward for his work. And it's called the allotted portion of the saints in the light. And it's because it's Christ's inheritance that he shares with his joint heirs. And it's called the reward. It's called the inheritance of the reward in Colossians or the reward of the inheritance. I'm sorry. Um, so you're not allowed to separate me from the inheritance. You're not allowed to separate me from the reward. Well, what about suffering loss? Yeah. Anything of flesh is going to be burned off either. Now, when I counted as dumb or then when I'm transfigured and I'm going to rejoice, are you not going to rejoice that your fleshly work? No, of course you're not. You're boasting and all your fleshly works. You don't count anything as lost that you do. You think it's all gains and you discount the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and pursuing him and call it a license to sin and say, those who are seeking it are too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. And you're the only one doing any work around here. And everything you're doing is supposedly he'd been up. You're earning wages. You're going to get a paycheck at the end of the day. Well, Paul said in Romans four, if the reward is a debt paid for a service, then it's not of grace. That's the that's Romans four, four. Before he says Romans four, five, which is, but to him who works not, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith has come to him as righteousness, righteousness and the reward are connected and it's given to the ungodly who works not. You know, there's a lot of people who want to say that they're doing all this work, but they're not running the race according to the rules. Paul said to Timothy, if anyone runs a race, you have to run it according to the rules, right? Well, the rule is to run it in grace. You have to stand in grace. You have to build in grace. You've got to edify the saints, not deflate their conscience. And you're not doing anything that is going to produce gold, silver, and precious stones. If you're damaging the building by damaging the conscience and pushing people away from the Lord, who is their right, the Christ, the blessing of the gospel, which comes upon the Gentiles through faith is the promise of the spirit, which is God in Christ. The triune God, the fellowship of the father and the son is ours. We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by faith because of justification. You're not allowed to say there's a different definition of justification. Whatever your definition of James is, you can't use it to overthrow Paul. You can say, I don't agree with anything David Benjamin teaches about James. That's fine. And there's people in the middle who says, I'm not convinced. I don't know. All right, fine. But are you willing to disagree with the gospel? Are you really willing to stand with a half justification where you don't have peace with God and you got to earn it? Or you're going to get a beating because every single one of those people that are advocating James the way they are and saying that he's talking about a different kind of justification, what they really mean is you're not justified. Not practically, not temporarily, not in their view, right? Justification before men. That's just another way of saying you've got to be justified before me. I've got to credit your work. And it's by works where Paul and John clearly teach us that the way we recognize brethren is by the testimony, not by their works. If Paul were to measure by works, he would have judged the whole first Corinthians church as unsaved. No, these, these are, these people flirt with the way of Cain. And they try to import as much works as they can while still being called grace. They want to see how much they can get away with beating you, smacking you in the face, abusing you, where you still have to call him a brother. That's what that's all about. And, you know, I want to make them mad because when they get bad, they lose control, they get in the flesh, and then they say all the things that they're keeping a secret, you know, that their secret doctrine that they didn't want everybody to know that this is what they really believe. They start coming out, they get harder and harder, madder and madder. So I just thought I would reiterate, uh, this is where I stand, you know, I don't care who it is. And unfortunately, the evangelists are the ones who do the most damage with this doctrine. And they think that they're, you know, really shoring up your security. They're not.