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Colossians chapter 2. I'm going to begin reading in verse 9,

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For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in him you have been made

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complete, and he is the head over all rule and authority. And in him you were also circumcised

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with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the

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circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also

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raised up with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. And when

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you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive

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together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having cancelled out the

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certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us. And he has

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taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When he had disarmed the rulers

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and authorities, he made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through him.

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Of all the confusion that reigns in the realm of religious thinking, perhaps there is none

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greater than the confusion over the law given by God to Moses. That law is given primarily

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in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. The Mosaic Law provided for the ceremonial,

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social, and personal regulations for the people of Israel as they became a nation. Within that

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law of God, he revealed to Israel, and for that matter to the whole world, his moral standard

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for righteous living. The moral law is perhaps summed up in the Ten Commandments of God.

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Now because that moral law reflects the Creator God's eternal nature, it is timeless and it

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is universal. It applies to all people in all ages. The Ten Commandments or the moral law of God

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is as relevant in the 1990s as it ever has been. It is important to understand that the

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moral law of God is good. As a matter of fact, if people would only keep the Ten Commandments,

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it would revolutionize human society. Have you ever thought about that? It would end

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in justice. It would bring to a conclusion poverty and crime and war, exploitation, oppression,

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and every other human ill, if only people would keep the Ten Commandments. The moral law of God

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is good. It is good for man, except that there is a problem. And that problem is man. Humans are

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sinners by nature and will not and cannot live by the Creator's moral law. God gave us the moral

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law to expose the sinfulness of our hearts to ourselves. God gave the moral law to us to show

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us our own rebellion and self-centeredness. It was God's intent in doing so to bring us to the

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recognition of our need for a Savior. The Apostle Paul calls the law a school master, a teacher to

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bring us to Christ. A dear friend of mine who is now with the Lord, evangelist Fred Brown, said

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regarding the law that it's like a dentist's mirror. The dentist, you know, shines that, puts

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that mirror in your mouth and shines the light in there so he can see the flaws in your teeth,

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but that mirror can do nothing to correct the problem. It only shows the problem. That's what

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the law is like. He said, further, the law is like a flashlight. The electricity in your house

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goes out, you grab the flashlight, you turn it on to try to find what the problem is. The

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flashlight can't correct the problem, but it can show you what the problem is. Thirdly, he said

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it's like a plum line that a builder uses. It can show where the building may be wrongly

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constructed. It can't correct the problem, but it can show the problem. That's how the law is, and

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that's why God gave it. And yet there are many who are confused about the moral law of God. They

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think that by trying to keep the Ten Commandments, or by keeping man-made religious rules and

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regulations, they can somehow make themselves righteous or can curry favor with God. But you

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see, trying to keep the Ten Commandments or to keep rules is not enough. God cannot accept

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into his fellowship even one sin. God is holy and righteous and just, and his nature demands

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that he punish each and every sin. And so if a person fails but once to keep God's moral

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law, he's disqualified from fellowship with God. And yet this idea persists that by keeping

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rules and working hard, human beings can gain merit with God. And that understanding, that

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notion is what might be called legalism. Legalism is really a doctrine of demons, as our text

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suggests. Satanic spirits promote works as a means to righteousness, and they encourage

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human-originated religions built around the idea of keeping rules to please God. The

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Colossians were being enticed by false teachers to turn aside from their faith in Jesus Christ

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and to adopt rule keeping, or at least to add it to their faith. They were being tempted

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to embrace the concept in the notion of keeping rules of legalism. As a matter of fact, adding

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rules to faith nullifies the gospel. The gospel is salvation by grace, through faith, apart

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from rule keeping and human works. And to add human works or to add rule keeping nullifies

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the gospel. Furthermore, when one has trusted Jesus Christ and then turns to legalism to

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try to become more holy, it does not produce holiness, and it does not produce maturity

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in his life. It produces frustration, or perhaps even worse, self-righteousness. That's why

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I'm saying to you today, based upon our text, that Jesus Christ is supreme over legalism.

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Now there are three significant results that come out of that statement and flow out of

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our text. The first result is this, that Jesus Christ is God, and in him we are complete.

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The apostle says in verse 9, in him in Christ, all the fullness of deity dwells. That is,

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all of the nature of God resides or finds a home in Jesus Christ. This is one of the

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most marvelous statements of Christology, or the doctrine of Christ in the New Testament.

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It is a clear assertion on the part of the apostle of the deity of Jesus Christ. It

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means that he was and he is absolute and perfect God. What Paul says in verse 9, uses some

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of the familiar language of the false teachers and applies it to Jesus Christ in a way that

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attacks and completely destroys what they were saying, for they denied the deity of Christ.

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They like to talk about the pluroma, the fullness. Paul says, look, all that God is, is in him.

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He lacks nothing of deity. And not only that, it resides in him in bodily form. You see,

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the false teachers had some concept of dualism, philosophic dualism, which teaches that spirit

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is good, matter is evil. That's why in their religion they had to concoct some sort of a

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connection between God who is pure spirit and man. And they said God could not fellowship

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with man or dwell with man, so there have to be all of these layers or emanations between

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God and us. And they said Jesus Christ is a high emanation. He's one of the emanations

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God created between himself and us, along with all these others. And what the apostle says

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here is that all the fullness of God dwells in the material body of Jesus Christ. He destroys

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the concept here of dualism that matter is evil. And in doing so, he not only asserts

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the full deity of Jesus Christ, but his full humanity as well. For the humanity of Jesus

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was not merely a shroud for his deity. He was fully man as well as fully God. And having

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asserted that, the apostle goes on to say, and in him you have been made complete. The

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word complete is related to the word fullness. All the fullness of God dwells in Christ and

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in him you have been filled up. You have been made full. You have been made complete. In

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him, in other words, by our union with Jesus Christ, the Christian is accepted by God as

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much as Christ himself. The Christian lacks nothing that is needed for God's full approval

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and acceptance. For in him, the Scripture says, we are complete. Now if you're thinking with

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me, you'll remember the back in verse 28 of chapter 1, the apostle said that his goal was

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to present every man complete in Christ. In other words, it was not yet attained. He says,

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I am pushing for that, that all might be mature, complete in Jesus Christ. But here in verse

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10 of chapter 2, he says, you've been made complete, which is true. And the answer is

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both. The English translation uses complete in both places, but it's two different Greek

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words. Back in chapter 1, he says, we want to present every man mature, full grown in

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Christ. Here the apostle uses a different word that means that we have all that we need

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in Christ. In other words, it is possible for one to be complete in Christ and yet not to

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be mature. And that is the case indeed with all of us. To some degree, for none of us has

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arrived yet to complete maturity. Hopefully we're on the road in that direction. And so

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the apostle is saying to them to add law keeping to completeness is superfluous. Why do you

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need the law? Why do you need to keep rules and regulations? For in Jesus Christ, who is

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full God, you have been made full. You lack nothing. Curtis Vaughn writes in the expositor's

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Bible commentary, in union with Christ, our every spiritual need is fully met, possessing

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him. We possess all. We need nothing more than Jesus Christ. And so don't allow anyone to

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come to you either and say, you need something more in your religious experience. Oh, you

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save by faith in Christ, but you need to do this as well. The apostle says no. Jesus Christ

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is God, and in him we are complete. We need nothing more. John Calvin said, you are made

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full. It does not mean that the perfection of Christ is transfused into us, but that there

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are in him resources from which we may be filled that nothing be wanting in us. Now there's

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a second significant result from this idea of Jesus Christ supremacy over legalism. It

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is this. He wrought salvation, and in him we are forgiven. He is God, and in him we are

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complete. Secondly, he wrought salvation, and in him we are forgiven. Christ accomplished

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on the cross the work of salvation on behalf of sinners. His death was a substitutionary

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death, a vicarious death. He died for us. He was buried for us. He was raised again for

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us. Those are historic facts. The gospel rests upon them. There's another half to that truth,

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and that is that when Jesus Christ died, we died with him. And when he was buried, we

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were buried with him. And when he was raised from the dead by the power of God, we were

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raised with him. Those too are historic facts. So the apostle claims the rituals and rules

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of the law have no claim on us, therefore. And he picks out perhaps one of the most well

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known symbols of the law, and that is circumcision. Circumcision was commanded of every male child

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in Israel. It was the sign of the covenant. And the apostle says in verse 11, in him,

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you were also circumcised, but with a circumcision made without hands. In other words, he says

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it wasn't the kind of circumcision that's a part of the law, physical circumcision. It's

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a different kind of circumcision, spiritual circumcision. He says it's the removal of

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the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. The body of the flesh refers to

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all that we were in Adam, our old nature, the sinful self with which we were born, the

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uncleanness of our first birth. The totality of all that we were in Adam, he says, was cut

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away from us by the circumcision of Christ, talking about Christ's death. He's using it

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there as an analogy. He says you were buried with him in baptism. Now baptism in the New

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Testament becomes something of a corollary to circumcision in the Old Testament in this

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sense. Circumcision indicated being a part of the covenant of the law. Baptism is the

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outward sign of being a part of the covenant of grace. But behind the physical act of

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baptism, which does not save the soul any more than physical circumcision, saved people

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in ancient Israel, behind baptism is the truth of identification. We are identified with

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Christ in his death, his burial, and his resurrection. That's what Paul brings to the

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forefront. He says, buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised up with him

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through faith, not through the act of baptism, but through faith in the working of God who

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raised him from the dead. What he's saying here is that what happened to Jesus happened

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to you and me. He was crucified. We were crucified with him, the old people that we were, the

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old nature, the old Adamic eye was crucified with Christ. And I was buried and you were

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buried and I was raised and you were raised, if you believe in Christ, raised a new person

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in Christ. It is this gospel truth of our identification with Christ that secures our

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salvation. He absorbed into himself all of the penalty of the law. When he died upon

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the cross, he died as one who was condemned by the law in our place. You see, the law

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had put us into debt. The apostle talks about that in verses 13 and 14. We had transgressed

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the law because of our sin. We were deep into debt. The law not only pronounced us guilty

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of transgression, it demanded justice. It demanded that we pay for our sin. It condemned

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us to death unjustly. But that debt of our sin was eliminated through Christ's full

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payment. It says in verse 14, he erased, he rubbed out, he cancelled out the certificate

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of debt consisting of decrees against us. It was hostile to us. The law opposed us because

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we were sinful. It says he's taken it out of the way, having nailed it to his cross.

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See it this way. Jesus Christ picked up that statement of debt, what you have owed due

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to your transgression of the law. And on the cross, he nailed that certificate of debt

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there saying, paid in full, so that we are forgiven. He wrought salvation. And in him,

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by our union with him, we are forgiven. Having forgiven, I like that next word, having forgiven

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us all our transgressions. Let me ask you a question. How many of your transgressions

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had you committed when Christ died for you? You weren't even alive, and yet he forgave

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you for all of them. See the word all embraces all time. It means before you were saved.

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It means after you were saved. It means that all of your transgressions that you've committed

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up until this very moment are all forgiven by Christ. And it means that every transgression

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that you've not yet committed but will today, tomorrow, and every day until the day you

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see Christ, they're all, all, all forgiven. That's how complete Christ's work of salvation

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is. In him, you are forgiven. His work resolves all of the issues between God and man.

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Why do you need the law? The law only condemns. The law can only shine its light on the problem.

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It can't do anything about it. Why do you want the law, says Paul? Christ has paid the price

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the law demanded. Don't return to the law. Don't return to rulekeeping. Jesus Christ is

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supreme over legalism. Don't add it to your faith. That's not the gospel. First result

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of Christ being supreme over legalism is that he is God, and in him every believer is complete.

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Finally, he wrought salvation at the cross, for he paid the debt of the law, and in him

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every believer is forgiven of all of the transgressions that the law shows. The third significant result

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is that he conquered satanic powers, and in him we are victors. It says, when he had disarmed

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the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them, having triumphed over them.

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The rulers and authorities in this context refer to demonic spirits, to cosmic spirits,

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to fallen angels who have followed Satan. These beings promote the idea of legalism.

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They promote the idea of religious works, and they do that in order to confuse people's minds

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and to cloud the issue of grace. They also do it to increase bondage of sinners to the law,

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and the debt that sinners owe to a hostile law. Demons love to promote works and rulekeeping,

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but Jesus Christ has removed that weapon from their wicked hands. He has taken the bondage

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of the law out of the way. He has disarmed the rulers and authorities. He has stripped them

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of what they could use against us. The law's claims were destroyed by the cross of Christ,

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and the powers of darkness can no longer use the claims of the law to confound us. Christ

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has publicly shamed them and humiliated them. The picture in verse 15 is a very clear picture

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of a victorious general, in this case Jesus Christ, leading his troops, his procession

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in victory. The stripped, captured enemy soldiers being brought along and being displayed openly

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in their shame, as defeated and humiliated. Jesus Christ has conquered Satan, and in him

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we too are victors. We share in that victory, and we do not need to listen to the whispering

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voices of demonic spirits anymore that bring condemnation and shame and guilt to us. We

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don't have to listen to them when they say that we are worthless. God can never use you.

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Look what you've done. In Jesus Christ we are victors. They have been stripped of their

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powers. Let's give them no authority. Give them no heed in our lives, because Christ

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has conquered them, and in him we too triumph. Jesus Christ is supreme over legalism. He

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has destroyed it as a means to gain a right standing with God. Legalism is not a proper

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expression of the law or of religion. The believer is saved by faith in a Savior who

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bore on the cross the weight of his transgressions. He is saved by faith in a Savior who

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lived righteously and who gives his own righteousness to the believer, so that in God's eyes

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God sees us as those who have perfectly obeyed the law. He sees us as perfectly moral people

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in Christ. Do not mistakenly think that any good deeds or any rule keeping that you may

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do will gain you heaven or improve your standing with God. That is an eternal and a deadly

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error. If you are here today and you think that somehow yes it's God's grace, but I

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have to do my part. Listen, Christ has done it all. All you have to do is receive it.

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H.A. Ironsides tells the story of a young man who went to a meeting and gave his testimony

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about how he was saved by the grace of God and that the person who was in charge of the

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meeting was a legalist. When the young man was done he got up to correct him and he said

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well young man we appreciate what you said. But before God did his part you had to do

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your part. The young man stood back up and he said you're absolutely right and my part

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was to run from God for 30 years. And he chased me down and found me. That was my part. God's

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part was to intervene and to save me. Your part my friend is but to receive as a free

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gift what Christ has done for you. Picture it in these elements that we remembered this

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time. If you've done that and you are a believer in Jesus Christ these final words to you seek

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nothing beyond Jesus Christ. For in him you have all that you need. You don't need another

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experience. You don't need something more to make you complete. You have in Jesus Christ

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all you need draw upon his resources. Secondly enjoy your freedom from the law's indictment.

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No longer live under guilt for sins that Christ has paid for that are under the blood of Christ.

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Don't try to make yourself guilty for things God's forgotten about. And certainly don't

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listen to the devil as he tries to make you feel guilty over things that he enticed you

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to do in the first place. The devil is tricky that way isn't he? He'll say oh well go ahead.

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He won't make any difference. Everybody else has done it and you do it and he says now look

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what you've done. That's the way it works. Some of you are still listening to the voice

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of the devil and you're laboring under guilt that God's long ago forgiven. So enjoy your

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freedom from the law's indictment. The law is satisfied with you in Christ. And claim

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your victory over the powers of darkness. For in Jesus Christ you are triumphant. In

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Him you are more than a conqueror. Back in 1929 on New Year's Day Georgia Tech played

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UCLA in the Rose Bowl. Some of you though you may not have been there have heard about what

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happened in that game. There was a man named Roy Riggles who recovered a fumble for UCLA.

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After recovering the fumble he got confused and ran 65 yards in the wrong direction and

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would have made a touchdown for the opposing team if one of his own players had not intercepted

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him and tackled him. He became known as I think it was wrong way Riggles wasn't he?

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And you know in half time that happened in the first half. At half time he was thoroughly

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embarrassed. He sat over in the side of the room the coach came in you know he didn't

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know what to expect. The coach didn't say much. All of his teammates sat there in quietness

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and finally the coach said well men let's get out there and let's play this second

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half. The team got up to leave and they did but Riggins sat there on the floor weeping

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out of shame and embarrassment. He said coach I can't do it to save my life. I've ruined

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you. I've ruined the University of California. I've ruined myself. I couldn't face the crowd

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in the stadium to save my life. Can you identify with him? Then the coach his name was Nibbs

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Price put his hands on the man's shoulders and he said Riggles get up and go on back.

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The game is only half over. And Riggles went back out and the coach put him in the game

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and those who saw the game said they never saw a man play as hard as he did in the second

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half. And some of you are saying to yourself I just can't go on. I've blown it too big.

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What I'm saying to you this morning is my friend in Jesus Christ you're complete. You have all

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you need. You may have blown it. The game is only half over. Get out there and go on.

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Let's pray. Father for that brother or sister who's here this morning who feels he or she

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can't be used. They've made too many mistakes. If you're guilty under condemnation. Oh I pray

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that what Paul says in this paragraph may grip their hearts. They may see that in Jesus

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Christ they're complete in Jesus Christ they've been forgiven in Jesus Christ they are victors.

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And may they get in the rest of the game of life and give you everything give their best.

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Drop on the resources in Christ and know the victories you intend for them to know.

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Thank you for Jesus. Thank you that he on our behalf satisfied the demands of the law

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so that we might be forgiven and saved by grace. Amen.