The Law and the Christian
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Welcome to Gospel and Life. Is being a Christian just about moral transformation or a pathway to the good life? Tim Keller looks at the book of Galatians to demonstrate how the Christian life is so much more than that. It's about how Christ transforms us in a radical and life-changing way. Throughout this month, Tim Keller will be teaching from the book of Galatians and how the gospel transforms us. Today's scripture is from Galatians chapter 3, verses 19 through 29.

What then was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. A mediator, however, does not represent just one party, but God is one. Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not. For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.

But the scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

For all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. This is the word of the Lord.

We've been looking at Galatians chapter 3, and it's really, we've been going through the book of Galatians, and it's actually a very hard chapter. It's the kind of chapter that does need, at a certain point, a time to stand back and make sure we don't miss the forest for the trees.

And we've been looking at the trees and they've been good trees, biblical trees, you know, Pauline trees. But it's right to stand back and say, overall, what is Paul getting at? And I'd like to pose that central question that he's asking in this chapter. I'd like to show you, first of all, the significance of it.

The significance of it culturally and emotionally and psychologically and theologically. And then essentially remind ourselves by looking everything over, what has Paul said is the answer to this question? The significance of the question and the answer. And what is the question? The question is in verse 21. Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God...

Absolutely not. Whoops, there's the answer. But he, first of all, let's look at this question. Is the law opposed to the promises? Tiniest bit of background. What he's really saying here, is the law opposed to grace?

See, a promise, I think we said this a couple weeks ago. Maybe it was last week. I can't remember which it was. But you see, if I give you money on the basis of a promise, if I say I promise to give you $1,000, come and get it, all you need to do is believe the promise in order to get it. If you don't believe me, if you say, he doesn't have $1,000 for me, forget it. If you don't believe me, you'll not get it. All you have to do is believe, and you get it. But if I say, I'll give you $1,000 if you...

my garden. Then, of course, it's conditional. Then it's a law. It's a law. I'm offering it to you on the basis of law and you have something to do. And so Paul says the fact is that promise and law, grace and law are two completely different ways of offering something. Something can only come to you by promise or by law, but not by both. Now, I think we all understand that. But here in the center, he says, therefore,

Is the law opposed to the promise? Is the law of God opposed to grace? And he's asking this question, how can it be possible to have both law and grace in your life, in your thinking, in a culture, in a family, in a relationship? How is it possible? Aren't they intrinsically opposed? Because of course he has shown you that they are intrinsically different. But is there any way in which they can be together? Or are they absolutely, do they eat each other up?

And I want you, let's take a moment, because I think the significance of this is huge. Let me give you a little bit of background. What he's talking about here is at the heart of the Christian faith, there is a very, very striking apparent contradiction, and this is it. And if you don't feel the force of it, in fact, if it doesn't create some tension in you, as I'm going to show you, it's very, very important. If you don't see the tension of it, you'll never experience the glorious release that Christianity can give. There is, though, an apparent contradiction here.

Here's a couple of books that I've seen reviewed recently and that are out on the bookstands. One book was a book written by a man named A.N. Wilson, a British author, who wrote a book called Paul, the Mind of the Apostle. Now, he's not a biblical scholar, and it shows. It's not a good book, by the way. But in it, he says, this is his book, Paul, the Mind of the Apostle. He says this. He says, no commentator can explain Galatians. Okay.

You can see right away why I don't think it's such a good book, because he's saying that what we're trying to do here for all these hours, all this year, is absolutely impossible. He says, "...no commentator can explain Galatians because it does not on any rational level make sense."

However, he says, quote, we can search for some psychological truth that might lie behind Paul's incomprehensible words. Now, isn't that amazing? He says, you can never understand it because it does not on any rational level make sense. And he goes right out and says, the things he says are absolutely nonsense. They don't make sense. They're incomprehensible. You can't make sense of them. Now, this is not the same thing as saying, I don't agree. He's not saying that. When I first read this, I said, boy, what chutzpah.

I said, now look, when I read the Koran, by and large, or I read the Buddhism, or I read the sacred writings, I look at them and I say, okay, I don't agree. I don't agree with many of the basics of them. I don't mean I don't agree with anything in them, but I don't agree with the basic message. But I would never say they're inherently contradictory. They make no sense. They're not rational on any level, no matter how you look at it. I would never do that. And I thought, boy, what arrogance. But then I began to realize, no, no, no, no, no, no, really.

The fact of the matter is he is sensitive to something that is in Galatians, it's in the gospel, it's in Christianity, and the fact is that the other religions don't have this. They are not apparently contradictory. They're not trying to do what the gospel is doing. What's the gospel doing? Okay?

What A.N. Wilson sees and why he says that Galatians, which of course is a very, very important depiction of the gospel, why he would not just say, I don't agree with it, but that it just doesn't make sense, it's contradictory, it's ridiculous, it's impossible, it's just crazy, is because the gospel insists on putting two things together that no other religion tries to put together. It insists on bringing things together that...

human beings, human categories of thought insist is impossible. They say it cannot be done. It's inherently contradictory. Now, if you want an example of this, I'm a little nervous. I won't even use the guy's name because I didn't read the book, but I read it. It's review in the New York Times book review last week. It's a book called Stealing Jesus.

And I have no idea whether the man actually says what I'm about to tell you he says. I'm telling you what the reviewer says he says. And that's the reason I'm not going to use his name because I don't know if this is true. But it doesn't matter. I'm not critiquing a person or a book. What is expressed is very typical. And I'm critiquing this basic idea. But this is very typical, this idea. The reviewer says, the book says, and from now on I'll just say he says, whoever he is. He says that originally Christianity, Jesus...

was a revolutionary religious reformer. And he tried to establish, Jesus tried to establish a church of love. And the church of love essentially says this, God radically accepts everybody, no matter who you are. He welcomes everyone. He does not make judgments. He welcomes everyone. And the only people to be rejected are people who condemn.

But, he says, the problem was very early in the history of the church, along came a group of people who established within Christianity not a church of love, but a church of law. And the church of law says this, the message of the church of love is everyone is acceptable, everyone is accepted, everyone is welcomed by God, you just have to see that you're loved, that's the important thing. But the message of the church of law is God has absolute standards for

And if you do not toe the line, you will be punished. And so the church of law says, God says, here's the beliefs you have to have. Here is the life you have to live. And unless you believe the things I tell you, and unless you believe and obey the standards, you'll be punished. You'll be lost. You'll be sent to hell. And what the guy basically says, he comes right down and says, look, you can either believe in the church of law, a religion of law, or you can have a religion of love, but you can't have both. They're both, you know, against each other.

It's, you know, you might say these are really two completely different views. The Church of Love teaches, as he says, what's wrong is people aren't free. And unless we begin to radically accept them the way God does, they will oppress and they will control each other and we will have a lousy society. But the Church of Love says that what's wrong with the world is not that people aren't free, but people aren't good. They do bad things, they break the rules, they're willful and they're selfish.

And this guy says, look, those are two kinds of religions. And basically, either you're saying essentially law is absolute or you're saying love is absolute. Now, the way this actually works itself out today is pretty profound. In America, these two views are at war and they very often are referred to as culture wars.

And you, let me just give you a little historical background. It's not just today. This has always been the problem. Always. Wolfhard Pannenberg, who's a professor of systematic theology at, well, obviously, from his name, a German university. And...

He's written a couple of very, very interesting articles. He must be way up in years now, because when I was a student, he was a big name when I was a student at seminary. But he wrote a couple of articles that were very eye-opening, and this is basically what he said. He says, you know, up until about the 15th or 16th century, it was just understood that you couldn't have a cohesive society, you couldn't have a cohesive culture, unless everybody agreed on what the religion was and what the law of God was.

It was ridiculous to even think that you could have a society with many different religions in it. Everybody has to agree on what is right. Otherwise, how in the world are you going to make decisions? How will the judges make decisions? How will laws be passed? How will we live? And he says what happened is essentially the world, most of the world, has actually rejected that idea. And he says the reason was, he thinks, and I think he's right,

you can say, ah, yes, various philosophers. Yeah, okay. He's probably smart in saying it wasn't just the philosophers. Yes, it's true that philosophers came along and said, hey, we can't believe that there's a God. We can't believe that there's a law. We can't believe these things now. But he says what really happened was, it started in the 14th century, but especially the 15th, 16th, even in the 17th century, we had in Europe what's called the wars of religion. And people got up and said, God is on my side and began slaughtering each other.

And, of course, that's always happened, but it really got pretty bad. And, of course, now I'm being pretty general. I'm not much of a European historian, as you can tell. But the wars of religion were terrible. They decimated people. And people who got their religion and said, we're right, and therefore the rest of you are trash. And it would be good for the world to wipe you out. Your understanding of God, your understanding of religion is terrible, it's bad, and so they went out and they slaughtered.

And Pannenberg says when the dust cleared, a lot of the smartest people began saying, wait a minute, wait a minute. This whole approach doesn't work for society. This idea that there's an absolute law of God that we all have to, wait a minute. People take the law of God and they say because God's on our side, we can destroy everybody else.

And therefore, he said, and this is very, it took hundreds of years, and of course, many of the philosophers thinking that they were just reading and thinking and coming to these beautiful ideas on their own because of their great minds. In many ways, he says, they were responding to the horrible, the horrible, horrible specter of war. To many people who claim to be Christians in particular, but not just Christians.

Not just Christians. Other religions, too. And not just one kind of Christian. Not just Protestants and Catholics. But everybody was in on it. But what he says, the specter of people saying that they were Christians with the Bible in their hand, you see, slaying as they slaughtered them, doing things in the name of God. And so Pannenberg says, you know, we decided, in a sense, to move away. And what has happened today, things have completely moved in the other direction.

So that the reigning idea in the West is you can't have a cohesive society if you do believe in an absolute law of God. The only way you're going to have people taking care of each other and loving each other is if we decide that all truth is relative and that everybody has to decide what's right or wrong for them and that everybody needs to be accepted and embraced and loved no matter what and no judgments should be made.

And Pannenberg says, now the problem that's happening is that we're not yet anywhere near the crisis. But he says, we're probably moving toward a crisis situation because guess what? Do we not begin to realize that it's possible that that doesn't work either? Now, I'm not sure everybody will agree with this. And we may be many years away before people do on the whole. And I'll just do this for a second. But there's a man...

I haven't referred to him in a while. There was a man who didn't believe in God. It was a very brilliant law professor, a man named Arthur Leff, who wrote a fascinating article in the Yale Law Review some years ago. And in it, he basically said it's very, very involved and it's very classic. And most people, as far as I know, most modern secular people stay away from this thing.

You know, if they even have any idea about what's in it, they kind of go like this and stay away as if it's a vampire or something. Because in it he says, he says, you know what? If there's no God and there's no law of God, there's absolutely no way for us to ever figure out what is a just law.

And he basically says, it's a very, very interesting thing. He says, back when I was a kid, when I was on the playground, if somebody would make an assertion, this is right or this is wrong, the way you could always, the way one kid would always bully another kid about that is you'd come up to them and you would say, says who? Because let's face it, left says, all authority is based on the sayer. When someone says, it is never right to do this,

The question that always comes up is, says who? And he says, you know, up until the 15th or 16th century, everybody knew...

If a law was there, the reason the law was just was because it was God's law. And if a law was unjust, it wasn't God's law in the way in which it is. And he says that was very simple. We knew who said. But he says about 300 years ago, we decided, hey, we can't have a society like that. We can't have laws based on the law of God. Who knows what the law of God is? In fact, that just creates oppression and so forth. Therefore, we're going to go out and we're basically going to figure out what's right or wrong without having any recourse to the idea of the law.

of God. And he says it's breaking down. Now, this is 1979. I think he was ahead of his time. I still think he's ahead of his time and he's dead now, so he won't be saying anything else. But at the very, very end of his article, he says this, the so-called death of God was not just his funeral, but it totally eliminated any coherent ethical or legal system. And by the way, this is an atheist talking. He says, neither reason nor

Nor love nor terror can make us good. And worse than that, there's no reason why anything should. As it stands now, everything is up for grabs. Everybody listening to me would say napalming babies is bad. Starving the poor is wicked. Buying and selling people is depraved. But okay, he says, says who? Now, you know, if you haven't read the article, I certainly am not going to take time to try to go through it. You may not feel much of the force of that. But what he's really trying to say is,

How dare you impose your cultural values on me by saying, oh, slavery is wrong. Who says? Says who? He says, now, you know what? What we basically do is we laugh at that. Modern people laugh at that. When someone says, so how do you know slavery is wrong? If there's no God and everything's wrong, why is slavery wrong? We laugh at that. He says, you're laughing, but you're not reasoning.

He says, give me a reason. You can laugh, but that's not an argument. I have given you an argument. I have said, you have no basis for moral outrage. You have no basis for saying this is how it's got to be. You can start to say, well, it's practical or pragmatic. Well, practical or pragmatic for who? He runs all through that. He basically says, in the end, he says, let's face it. The idea that there's an absolute moral law and that God is going to judge you unless...

You do it. Basically, it didn't work for society. And Arthur Leff is saying, and I'm saying, and I hope eventually other people will say, but I may not be alive to see it, that there will be a consensus to say, when you say everyone does what's right in their own eyes, there is no right and wrong, everything is relative, that that's not going to work either. Now, I want you to know that 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 years ago, the people who knew the God of the Bible had already known that.

They already knew that if you try to say law is the dog and love is just the tail, or love is the dog and law is just the tail, you'll have a disaster. If you say basically it's law, yes, God is loving, but only up to a point. You better do good.

See, that's making law absolute, and love is just the tail being wagged by the dog. On the other hand, you could say, God is really love. You can say, yes, there's a right and wrong, but when it comes right down to it, basically, everybody has to do what's right in their own eyes. You see, that's love with law wagging the tail. Years ago, thousands of years ago, the God of the Bible said, in my nature, neither of those is more primary than the other.

They are absolutely equally foundational. Now you say, where does it say that? Well, let's go back to one of the, let me go back to one of the very primal. I mean, in other words, from the very beginning, law and promise, see? Law and love, law and grace. God says, don't you ever, ever, ever choose between those two things. Those two things have got to be equal. Those two things have got to be together. Those two things have got to be meshed and reconciled. You must never say you've got to go one way or the other.

Never. So, you know, say, well, where do you see that? Well, okay. Thousands of years ago, Moses said to God, show me your glory. And God said, I will make all my goodness pass before you. All right. And he put Moses in the cleft of the rock. And it says in Exodus 34,

And God passed in front of Moses proclaiming his name. Now that's pretty interesting. Moses said, show me your glory. God says, I will show you all my goodness. And then he declares his name. Those are three things are the same. Then those are synonyms. Do you get it?

First of all, show me your glory. Now that's a typical thing for us to say. Show me your stuff. That's what glory is. Show me, give me the thing. I mean, give me the ultimate oosius. Give me the ultimate stuff of the universe. I mean, it's a very general question. Show me, what is the ultimate? And God says, I'll tell you what the ultimate is. The ultimate is I will show you all my goodness and tell you who I am. And this is what he said.

So he put him in the cleft of the rock and it says, God passed in front of Moses. And this is what he said. The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he will by no means clear the guilty, but he punishes the children and their children's children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generations. That was his glory.

How can we best understand the freedom we have in Christ?

What is the relationship between the law of the Bible and the grace that Jesus offers? In the book, Galatians for You, Tim Keller takes you through a rich and deep study of Paul's letter as he reflects on the amazing grace we have in Christ. Galatians is a powerful book that shows how people can think they know the gospel, but are actually losing touch with it. In this study of the book of Galatians, Dr. Keller helps you understand how this short book in the New Testament can transform your life.

Galatians for You is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the love of Christ with more people. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now, I don't want you to overlook this. I mean, obviously, I'm not going to let you. This is one of the most important passages in all of world literature. God comes and says, I'm going to show you all my goodness.

And then he says something that seems absolutely and fundamentally contradictory. Of course, Paul is true to it. And this is the reason why A.N. Wilson says there is absolutely no way that this is rational. You can't keep these things together. First of all, God says, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. And then he says, but I will by no means clear the guilty. Now, what's going on?

He says, I am a forgiving God. I love you. I have compassion over you. My heart just aches for you. And I absolutely will never, ever clear the guilty. And basically it says, I am a forgiving God who will never forgive. Clear the guilty. What's clear the guilty mean? It means every sin has to be punished. I won't clear it. It's got to be paid. Every sin. And now, you know why it's so important? To the degree that you understand those two things together,

I personally think that in all of our minds, we have a tendency because we're human beings and because it's only by revelation from heaven that you can understand a God of both love and fury, a God of both law and promise, a God of both holiness and compassion. We all go one way or the other. We all by temperament, by personality, by background, by culture. I don't know what.

We all go one way or the other, and God says, you will not really see my glory. You will not really sense the greatness of who I am until you see these two things are absolutely and utterly together. Horatius Bonar, what a great name, but he's a great guy. He's a great guy, a Scottish preacher in the 19th century, and he wrote this. He says, law and love must be reconciled. The one cannot give way to the other. Both must stand, else the pillars of the universe be shaken. And God comes in and says...

Don't you ever, ever, ever say one of these is the real one and the other one is sort of apparent. One of these is the basis one and the other one is sort of never, never, never. I am both. I am both. Another way to put it is this. He says, I will make all my goodness pass before you. All of it. One of the things I love about that is here's what he's saying. If a person is just, you absolutely do what is right. No matter what, no matter how you feel, no matter what the situation is, you do the right thing.

That is an expression of goodness, right? A certain kind of goodness. Good people are consistent. Good people are fair and just. But on the other hand, if you forgive, if you say, oh, let it go. I love you. No sweat. Let bygones be bygones. That's an expression of goodness too. But now look, God is saying, and you say, God is saying, I'm a forgiving God who never forgives.

basically. I am a God who punishes and a God who's compassionate. And you say, well, you can't have it both ways, God. Either you're good in the sense of being just, in which case you're not going to be able to forgive people, or you're forgiving God, in which case you're not going to punish everybody. You can be good one way, good the other way, but you can't be all good. And yet God made all of his goodness pass before Moses. And until you see that, you haven't seen who God is. And Paul says in the gospel and only in the gospel do those things come together.

Only in the gospel do those things come together intellectually and theologically. Only in the gospel do those things come together in history. And only in the gospel do those things come actually together in your heart and in your life. And I guess, but it's never really happened, it would be the only way that they would come together in a society. Let me just say something rather quickly, and I'm going to be pretty quick about all four of these things, because like I said, this is trying to give you the big pictures. I'm not sure that even I or you certainly, with all the looking at the trees, was standing back and seeing the forest.

Here's what Paul means. First of all, number one, you say, well, how in the world could that come together? This is the reason why Wilson says it's contradictory. This is the reason why you can read other religions and they're not contradictory. They're not contradictory because they don't try to combine those things. You see? You go to Islam, they'll say Allah is merciful, but really only up to a point. It's justice. And you go to Buddhism and they'll say, well, you do have to live a good life, but basically the law is an illusion. See, it's only up to a point. No other religion tries. Nobody else tries. Nobody. Nobody.

But God says, until you see that those two pillars, those two things are absolutely fundamental, you don't know my glory. And Paul says, until you understand the gospel, and only in the gospel can those things be brought together. Now let's look at it theologically and historically and practically real quick. Honest. Honest. He might actually make halftime. I mean, the reason it has to be quick is because that's the only alternative. The only other alternative is the Encyclopedia Britannica. So, first, law and love of God come together...

Theologically, because of the substitutionary atonement of Christ. I'm just going to read you a couple quotes. Other religions give you a founder. Christianity and only Christianity gives you a mediator or a substitute. We've already read these famous verses, but here's the one that's Galatians 3.13. Paul says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. 2 Corinthians 5.21, God made him sin who knew no sin.

that we might become the righteousness of God in him. 1 Peter 3.18, for Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. Boy, that's a great one. Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. And of course, you got Mark 10.45, the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Now, let me read you a great quote just to explain this. This is Horatio Spinar.

By Christ's substitution, and especially at the moment of his death upon the cross, and only at that moment, God's love and law are both satisfied. On the cross, and only on the cross, the love and standards of God perfectly and brilliantly coincide and shine forth together. Jesus was smitten to satisfy the justice of God...

Since that stroke paid for sins. And yet at the same time, he was smitten to satisfy the love of God since that stroke secured our salvation. That God might be both, this is Romans 3.26, quoting Romans 3.26, that God might be both just and justifier of those who believe. Isn't that a great phrase?

Romans 3.26, that God might be both just and justifier. You see? Paul says, that's the genius. Without the substitutionary atonement, it's one or the other. No other stroke could establish one without disestablishing the other. Now, let me just finish up. This is Horatius Benar, his book, The Everlasting Righteousness. Both love and law on the cross have triumphed. The one has not given way to the other. Each has kept its ground. No. No.

Each has come from the conflict honored and glorified. Never has there been love like this love of God, so large, so lofty, so intense, so self-sacrificing. Yet, never has a law been so pure, so broad, so glorious, and so inexorable. There has been no compromise. Law and love have both had their full scope. Not one jot or tittle has been surrendered.

to the fool the one in all its severity the other in all of its tenderness love has never been more truly love and the law has never been more truly law in the moment Christ died think of that law has never been so truly law because God takes the law and justice and holiness so seriously that it never says well just try your best you know Pharisees always say I've done my best I tried my best

I'm just asking for my rights. That's not taking the law seriously. Your best doesn't satisfy the law. It was only when Jesus died. Law has never been more truly law than when he died because that was God's way of saying, I would even go to these lengths. I would even let death come into the heart. I would let mutability come into the heart of the triune God's mutability. I would let death come into the heart of the ever-living one.

See, I will let finitude come into the heart of infinity. I would do this to honor the law of God. That's how important it is. You don't say, oops, the law. No, but love has never been more truly love because you see on the cross as, and again, we, you know, Paul, this is what the whole book of Galatians is about. On the cross, Jesus didn't just die to give us forgiveness. On the cross, Jesus was our substitute.

That means we are as free from the condemnation of the law as if we had died and gone to hell to pay and done our time. We are that free. If you, a Christian, say, well, I'm trying my best, but recently I've really been screwing up and I don't know whether God will accept me. You don't get it.

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Look, either Jesus Christ paid for the sin that you just did on last Tuesday, okay? You say, how did you know? It was Tuesday. I do that every so often. It kind of scares people. But anyway, but you know, the sin you did on Tuesday, either Jesus Christ paid for it or you're going to pay for it. Why? Because you see, God is all good.

God doesn't clear. It's got to be paid for. But what he has done in Jesus Christ is unbelievable. Because it means if you have said, Lord God, forgive my sins for Jesus' sake, that means God cannot be punishing you for the sin you did on Tuesday where God would be getting two payments. I mean, even you and I, and we're not, you know, we are not the greatest paragons of virtue in the universe, but you and I know you do not demand two payments for the same bill. Right?

Never has love been more truly love. Never has a law been more truly law at the moment Jesus Christ died. It comes together. Theologically, see? Intellectually. We got it. We got it. I mean, there it is. It's there.

There is no, I defy. Now you see, A.N. Wilson and many, many people look and they say, it can't be. This is ridiculous. All right. I mean, the problem is they have their grid. They either have a law grid or they have a love grid. And when they read Paul, this is what goes on all the time. They read Paul or they come to Redeemer. And they look around and the fact of the matter is you're going to, you are going to drop everything off of the gospel that doesn't fit your grid.

See, human beings have got a grid. And they, you know, I mean, well, we've talked about this in the morning service. But for example, for many years, you looked at the stars and you saw a body passing like this. You saw the sun going this way. And then a few months later, you see the sun going this way. And when your grid was that the sun is going around the earth, the way you interpreted that is the sun is slipping south. But when you started to say, wait a minute, the grid is that the earth goes around the sun,

Then you read the same data differently through the grid and you said, oh, it's turning into summer. No, pardon me, it's turning into winter. So in other words, the same data is interpreted different depending on the grid. If you come and say, look,

This religion is either a religion of law or a religion of love. You can't keep them together. It's impossible. Then you're going to come with your grid, and no matter what you see, gospel religion always produces both truth and love. It produces both holiness and graciousness. It produces both moral conviction and an absolute melt-in-your-mouth sweetness toward other people, whether they believe in it or not. Do you see this? But that doesn't fit in the grid. Well, now, how could that happen?

How could it possibly be that you can have this incredible moral conviction and not go to war and beat everybody up who doesn't agree with you? Only if you believe you're not saved by obeying the law. But on the other hand, you're not a relative as to say, well, the law doesn't matter, but I'm saved by Jesus' obedience to the law. The law is absolutely critical. It's very important. I no longer have to obey it in order to be saved. I obey it in order to please the one who saved me.

And that changes utterly your attitude toward yourself, toward the law, toward God, and toward people who are not listening to it. That creates the thing that, frankly, creates a human being that the societies of this world desperately need. If you fill the world with people who don't believe there's any law, society will fall apart. Right now, it's living off the capital of tradition. On the other hand, if you fill the world, and we've done this, with people who ensure that you're saved through obeying the law, society will fall apart too.

And people don't believe there's any other grid. It's one or the other, one or the other. And when they read Galatians or when they look at you if you're a Christian and you understand the gospel, they're going to say, well, you're really a this or you're really a that. When you're really a not, you're neither. Because you see, the legalist says, you're either righteous or you're a sinner. And the Christian says, I am a righteous sinner.

When I become a Christian, I am no longer a sinner who's not righteous or a righteous person who's not a sinner. I never really was that. I am now a righteous sinner. To see the law by love fulfilled and hear his pardoning voice transforms a slave into a child and duty into choice. Now, I'm not going to go much longer. Believe it or not, I went through all my points. Did you notice that? I told you it would be fast.

You see how it works together theologically on the cross? Do you see how it begins to work together in history and in your life? And do you also see how eventually it would work together in society? Let me kind of close on that one. What would actually happen then if, I mean, how will Christians save society?

And I don't know. I really don't know. And here's the reason why. I probably shouldn't be putting this on tape. This is going to sound a little pessimistic. The fact of the matter is that for brief periods of time, when the church recovers the gospel, the church always is split into fundamentalists and liberals. It always has been. You might think that's a modern, oh no. I mean, when the great awakening rose up,

Jonathan Edwards was one of the great preachers of the Great Awakening and he recovered the gospel. And what is the gospel? That it's not love or law, but it's love fulfilling the law. And then it's the law being fulfilled by love. And he started to preach it. And of course, what was he done? Well, on the one hand, he was smacked from the one side. He was smacked by the people who really were very rational and very legal and were very ethical and didn't like all this talk about being born again. He was smashed from the liberals.

On the other hand, people on the other side began to get very, very, very, I don't know how to put it. On the other side, you had people who basically men rose up and began to preach and began to dominate people.

They began to preach very, very emotionally, and that's all right. There's nothing wrong with emotion. But they began to become very authoritarian and very cultic and very domineering. And this fairly continually happens. But very often, when you actually get back to understanding how through the cross, all the goodness of God is passed before you and passes into you,

A person who really understands, has moral convictions, but then has this incredibly sweet and humble approach toward the people around is the best possible citizen. If you multiply citizens like that, the only way that the world will begin to understand us is probably not with what we say. Because when you preach the gospel, people are going to hear it one way or the other.

See, the legalist will come and hear the gospel being preached and say, well, you're not talking to people enough about what's wrong with their lives. You see, you're doing too much felt need stuff. And on the other hand, if you preach the gospel, people will come from the other side and say, what you really basically are, basically, is you're a moralistic fundamentalist and you're just not very judgmental. But that's basically what you are. In other words, they'll work you into your grid. And people will not, therefore, listen probably so much to what you say. People will watch what you do.

And when it comes right down to it, unless you're able to mix truth and love in your life, unless you're able to bust through all the categories and destroy the stereotypes, break through all their grids by your character, by the way you live, really, why should the world listen to us? We need to fill the world with servant leaders, hearts on fire with the gospel, just like Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth. Truth without grace isn't really truth, you know. And grace without truth isn't really grace, right?

But Jesus Christ came full of grace and truth, and he can fill you with the same. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for granting to us this question. Is the law opposed to the promise? By no means. And though, Lord, we haven't been able to get into all the ways in which that works, we know that as we go on with this book, we'll see more and more how those two things work together. We thank you that tonight we can stand back and look at this and ask ourselves,

Do we know this? Do we understand this? Are we amazed at the wisdom of the gospel? Are we amazed at the power of it? And have we really, do we really walk in accord with it? So I pray, Father, that you would help us to make these things more and more a part of our lives and our thinking. Thank you for giving us a gospel that nobody could have ever thought of. Nobody could have possibly invented it. It has the ring of truth.

And we pray that you'd help us to gird our loins, gird our hearts, gird our souls with that truth. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you found today's teaching helpful and something you'd like more people to hear, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel in Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people discover the hope and joy of Christ's love. Just visit gospelinlife.com slash partner to learn more.

Today's sermon was recorded in 1998. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.