161: Richard Morgan - The Blood of Christ

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   Welcome to Good Christadelphian Talks. I'm Levi. And I'm Chris. And I'm Brian. Thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post a new episode at the start of each week, with a short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you're about to listen to.

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   And now, let's talk more about this week's talk. This week's class is called The Blood of Christ by Brother Richard Morgan. He gave this class at the Idlewild Bible School. This year, in 2021. I actually had the privilege of hearing this class in person. This was a really good series, but really interesting that Richard was doing a study of Ephesians, which coincidentally, we've had probably four Ephesians series at Idlewild in the last five or six years.

3. 1:15

   But he was doing a study in Ephesians where he was covering it kind of thematically. And the six classes all don't really relate to each other because he's going through different themes through Ephesians. And so it's an interesting series because class two, which was the Tuesday, he did Predestination. And that's a really great class.

4. 1:42

   You could look it up. It's on the Idlewild website. It's very kind of wonky, nerdy, but good. It's a solid question, and Richard answers it really well. But this class is called The Blood of Christ, and I thought this was absolutely fantastic. Very encouraging, very uplifting, and kind of revealing to what does it actually mean, again, for us that Jesus died and rose again.

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   So I think it's a really useful class, very compelling, very easy to listen to. And yeah, it's rare that I, you know, nowadays, especially in the pandemic, that I get to share a class that we heard ourselves. This, you know, was not a suggestion. It was a real blessing and a treat to have the Bible school in person this summer.

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   The pandemic, at least locally, was in a much better place, and it felt very safe to be outdoors, mostly at Idlewild. The cases have risen locally here since then. I'm not sure we could make it happen, but everything was legal, and it was a great school. So here is The Blood of Christ by Brother Richard Morgan, Class 3, in his series on Ephesians.

7. 3:03

   This is Day 3 of the 2021 Idlewild Bible School. Our first period teacher is Brother Richard Morgan. His general subject is Ephesians, the manifold wisdom of God. Today's topic is The Blood of Christ. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Another beautiful day to gather together and open the Word of God. Brothers and sisters, 2,000 years ago, a man was crucified.

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   Now, in the Roman Empire at that time, that was not an unusual event. It's important that because of who this man was, and because of the events that led up to his crucifixion, its effects have reverberated through time to our day. And it's so important that our Lord has said we need to remember that event every time we meet together by breaking bread and drinking wine.

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   And what the Apostle Paul says about the blood of Christ in Ephesians is such that it becomes the seminal moment in human history. It's the crucial event. Everything in God's purpose depends upon the blood of Christ. You remember back in chapter 1 that Paul defines the ultimate purpose of God is to unite all things in Christ, in heaven and in earth.

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    And that's Paul's emphasis when he comes to the blood of Christ in Ephesians chapter 2, which is a very sobering exhortation, brothers and sisters, because we in our community sadly have had a history of dividing over the topic of the blood of Christ. And yet it was designed in God's purpose for the opposite, to unite, to, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, to bring Jew and Gentile together as one in Christ Jesus, to create peace, to be the object lesson, the biggest object lesson of history to explain what God's purpose is all about and how we can participate in that purpose.

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    So let's have a look at what the Apostle Paul says running up to where he says in verse 13 that we have been made nigh by the blood of Christ. In the first 10 verses, have a look at the emphasis of the Apostle Paul here. He says in verse 1 that we were dead.

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    He repeats that in verse, a little bit further down, about verse 4 or verse 5. We were dead in our trespasses. Now if you're dead, brothers and sisters, there's absolutely nothing you can do. You have to depend on God. And that's what we talked about yesterday with the Apostle Paul. He was dead, wasn't he?

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    In effect, spiritually, they're going in completely the opposite direction. The Gentiles were spiritually dead and it took divine intervention. It took the will of God to turn that around. And not only that, but it requires the mercy of God in verse 4. That's the richness of God's mercy and His great love is what makes us alive in Christ Jesus.

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    And at the end of verse 5, what Christian's been talking about this week, by grace you have been saved. And He repeats that. The riches of His grace and kindness, He says in verse 7. Verse 8, by grace you have been saved. This is not your own doing. It's the gift of God.

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    You can't boast. We're God's workmanship, verse 10. You see the emphasis of the Apostle Paul here. There's nothing we can do to save ourselves. And in the first century context, that was very important for the ecclesia to hear because of course, they were living at a time where the Jews did boast that they were the people of God, that they had the ability because they were the ones that God had chosen that they could, by keeping the law, save themselves.

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    And Paul says, no, you are God's workmanship. So with that in mind, he comes then to this division that existed in the first century between Jew and Gentile. And it's something that maybe we don't fully appreciate today because we don't have that same kind of division, but it becomes for us, brothers and sisters, a very, very crucial exhortation.

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    Even though we don't talk about the division between Jews and Gentiles so much today, some of us are more Jewish in our thinking. We tend to be more conservative. We tend to be focused more on structure and procedure and ritual. And some of us are more Gentile in our thinking. We tend to be more out of the box, liberal in the way we approach matters.

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    And that can create friction in our ecclesial environments. I'm sure we're all aware of this. Some ecclesias tend to be more Jewish. Some ecclesias tend to be more Gentile. And it can create division. So what the Apostle Paul says here in Ephesians chapter 2, even though initially it applied to the first century, in bringing Jew and Gentile together, that God purposefully had separated for 2,000 years, in which they went in completely the opposite directions.

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    And now in the first century, God says, come together as one in Christ Jesus. It becomes a huge object left and exhortation for us to be united as one body in Christ. That we might be part of that fulfillment of God's purpose to unite all things. So what we're talking about this morning, brothers and sisters, is absolutely fundamental and crucial.

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    And Paul is going to use very powerful arguments here to emphasize the importance of what the blood of Christ should mean to us. So as we read yesterday, he talks in verses 11 and 12 about the separation that the Gentiles had experienced from the Jews and from Christ. You Gentiles in the flesh, verse 11, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, called names by those xenophobic Jews.

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    You were, verse 12, separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world. I mean, Paul didn't need to use all of those phrases, did he? But he wants to emphasize the point, you were absolutely separated from the Jews and separated from God.

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    But now, in verse 13, in Christ Jesus, you Gentiles who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Now, how can that be? How can the blood of Christ bring the Gentile near to God? Have you ever really thought about that? How does that actually work that the blood of Christ can facilitate this?

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    And he goes on to say in verse 14 that He, Christ, is our peace. The idea of the word peace is to do with reconciliation, of bringing those who are once enemies together as friends, that they might live in harmony.

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    Natural enemies brought together. So, it's Christ that solves the problem of what Paul calls in the context enmity or hostility. And, in verse 14, He has made us, Jew and Gentile, both one. And has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility. So, there's something about the blood of Christ that solves the problem of hostility.

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    Evident in the first century between Jew and Gentile and evident in all sort of aspects of life, including in our ecclesia, sadly, hostility. Verse 15, By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace. So, no longer people identify themselves as Jew or Gentile or conservative or liberal or right-wing or left-wing, but that we might be all one at peace in Christ.

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    In verse 16, And might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. So, let's try to figure this out, brothers and sisters. How is it that the blood of Christ solves this problem of hostility? How did it work in the first century? How does it work today?

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    How does Jesus, dying on the cross, kill hostility, deal with this fundamental problem which would otherwise frustrate the purpose of God to unite all things?

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    Well, let's first of all have a look at what He says in verse 14 there, that the blood of Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility. Well, you might have in your version something like the middle wall of partition. Now, this was, as you are probably aware, a reference to an actual physical wall which became an emblem of the division between Jew and Gentile in the first century.

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    So, in the temple, and Paul's topic, if you go to the end of chapter 2, Paul talks about the spiritual temple that becomes a house of prayer for all peoples, Jews and Gentiles. So, Paul wants us to think about the temple, and in the temple, there was this dividing wall. Paul calls it a dividing wall of hostility.

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    And only Jews were allowed in this central precinct, near to the temple. This was the court of the Gentiles. This was far off. That's why he uses the language that the Gentiles were far off. And they were not allowed past this wall. There was a, etched into the wall was a notice for the Gentiles.

31. 14:10

    You cannot pass beyond this point under pain of death. And so, it became an emblem then of how the Jews thought about the Gentiles. It became an emblem of the self-righteousness of the Jews, the xenophobia of the Jews, of the holy of the now attitude of the Jews, of how they looked down on those that were not part of their group.

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    And so, Paul says, this is an emblem of hostility. But the blood of Christ brings that wall down. It demolishes it. So, how does that work? How did the blood of Christ break down that wall? How does the blood of Christ bring Jew and Gentile together? Now, there's some irony here.

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    We read this verse yesterday from Acts chapter 4. Remember, this is where the apostles quote Psalm 2, which prophesied that the rulers and the kings would put Jesus to death. And having quoted in this verse here, Psalm 2, in verse 27, they say, For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod, who would represent the Jews, and Pontius Pilate, who would represent the Gentiles, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel.

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    So, the blood of Christ in this very ironic way did bring Jew and Gentile together. They were gathered together. What I think the message is that comes from this, brothers and sisters, and what I think Paul is driving at in Ephesians chapter 2, is that the blood of Christ Christ, and everything that that represents, places Jew and Gentile on a level playing field.

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    It's like what Paul says in Romans. He talks about the Gentiles, the Gentile world of sin in chapter 1. Then he talks in chapter 2 about how the Jews are no better. And then he sums it all up in Romans chapter 3 by saying, whether you're Jew or Gentile, it doesn't matter. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

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    And really, in effect, what Paul is saying is that the Jews don't even belong on the other side of that wall, near to the temple. They belong where the Gentiles are. They're no different to the Gentiles.

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    And so the blood of Christ provides for us this level playing field. And what was exposed at the cross was the sinfulness of both Jew and Gentile together. They are fundamentally no different. And whether you're more conservative in your thinking or more liberal in your thinking, it's the same lesson for us, brothers and sisters.

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    We cannot say, my way of thinking is better than yours. My approach is better than yours. Because we have all sinned. We all fall short of the glory of God. It wasn't just the Jews. It was the Gentiles, too, who put Jesus to death. Now let's think about this idea of hostility. Paul mentions it twice there.

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    We've read it in verse 14, this dividing wall of hostility. In verse 16, he says that through the blood of Christ, that hostility is dealt with. It's killed. Now that word hostility, or in your version you might have something like enmity, it's an unusual word in the New Testament. And here's some more irony.

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    Come with me, if you were, to Luke chapter 23. Just look at one verse here. This is in the context of the events that lead up to the shedding of the blood of the Son of God. And look what happens. Paul is talking in Ephesians chapter 2 about how the blood of Christ creates peace, deals with the problem of enmity, brings natural enemies together as one.

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    Well, in Luke chapter 23, it says in verse 12 that Herod and Pilate, as too mentioned in Acts chapter 4, became friends with each other that very day. For before this, they had been at enmity, same word, hostility, with each other. So it's the same point, isn't it, brothers and sisters, that the blood of Christ and everything that revolves around the events that lead up to it and the antagonism that was created by everything that Christ did and said, it caused, in this very ironic way, peace, friendship between Jew and Gentile.

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    It solved the problem of hostility. Of course, we want to think of this subject in a more positive light. So if you come back to Ephesians chapter 2, so it wasn't just this physical wall that divided Jew and Gentile, it was something else, wasn't it? In verse 15, he also says that Christ's death has abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinances.

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    And it was the law that divided Jew and Gentile. The law was given specifically to the people brought out of the Gentile world at Sinai. There, Israel, were declared by God Himself to be a peculiar people, a people separated from the Gentile world. And that's what happened for 2,000 years and the law became an emblem of that separation.

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    The Gentiles went their own way with their own culture, with their own identity. And the Jews were identified by that law of Moses. So the law itself was a barrier to unity with the Gentile people. And really, the law itself could not solve the problem of hostility. Now, to illustrate this, brothers and sisters, I'm going to have a look at a little Bible echo.

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    What I think Paul is referring to here when he talks about hostility and so forth and the law, I think what Paul is doing is he's referring to a specific law called the cities of refuge. And you know this very well. This is found in both Deuteronomy and in Deuteronomy and Leviticus? No.

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    Where? Somewhere else. My mind... I have a mind blank, but it's in Deuteronomy at least. So the law of the cities of refuge, as you know, is to do, interestingly, with the shedding of innocent blood. So the very topic that Paul is dealing with, the shedding of the most innocent blood that has ever lived.

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    Jesus was murdered in cold blood, premeditated, planned murder. And under the law of the cities of refuge, there was no way anybody had access to one of those cities. The law said that if you kill somebody by accident, you didn't mean to kill that person, that you could flee to one of these cities of refuge and you could live and then come out of the city of refuge after the death of the high priest.

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    But what that law also says is if you killed that person on purpose, it was deemed as murder and then you were at the mercy of the avenger of blood. And it says, oh, Numbers, there it is. In Numbers chapter 35, look at the language here. it says that if you in enmity struck that person down with your hand, it wasn't an accident, you did it in enmity or hostility, that he who struck the blow shall be put to death.

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    He is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him. Well, that's a good solution, isn't it? That's very clean. And that's typical of the law. The law's way of dealing with sin is, oh, put the sinner to death. Sort of that problem out. It's very clean.

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    It's very consistent. It deals with sin very completely. The problem is all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All are condemned by law. So while it solves the problem of sin, it doesn't really promote the ultimate purpose of God to unite all things. So the cities of refuge is a great example of the problem of law.

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    And what Paul is getting at in Ephesians, brothers and sisters, is that something that is illustrated by the blood of Christ is the problem of a law-based religion. And what we're going to have a look at in a moment is that a law-based religion, even while it might look like it solves the problem of sin, in effect, actually creates a hostile environment.

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    Now think of this from the point of view of the Jews who thought that they were on that side of that wall near to the temple. The temple itself was a place of refuge. You could flee to the temple and grab hold of the horns of the altar and have refuge. But wait a minute, the Jews are guilty of the blood of Christ.

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    The Jews are guilty of the shedding of innocent blood. They don't belong there. They belong with the Gentiles on the other side of the wall. I think that is Paul's point. Now have a look at this language here and see how Paul alludes to it and contrasts it with the blood of Christ.

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    So if there is enmity, you put the murderer to death. What does Paul say in Ephesians chapter 2? Look at the contrast here between Numbers 35, which is the old covenant solution, the way that the law dealt with sin. How does Christ deal with sin? The law dealt with sin by recognizing enmity and slaying the murderer.

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    What Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, though, in verse 16, is God's purpose is to reconcile us both to God. Now, look at that first of all, brothers and sisters. He doesn't say reconcile the Gentiles to God because the Jews are already reconciled to God. No. Reconcile us both to God. We both have a problem.

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    Because our problem is that hostility. And what Christ has done, as that verse says, is to not slay the murderer, but to slay the enmity itself. And that is the problem with law. Law doesn't get to the root of the problem. Law deals with symptoms. It's a band-aid solution. It can't get to the root, the core, of our problem, which is the hostility.

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    But there's something about the blood of Christ that drives deeper and gets to the heart of the problem and deals with the problem of hostility itself. And if you could solve the problem of hostility, brothers and sisters, then you solve the problem of what hostility leads to, which is the sin. So let's explore this a little bit more.

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    Now look carefully about what he says regarding the law in verse 15. Strictly speaking, what the apostle Paul is talking about here is not the law itself, which Paul says elsewhere in Romans, was right and just and true and the principles, the spirit behind that law came from God. It's good. To understand those principles, to understand the spirit behind those laws is what God wants to deliver to us.

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    But what Paul actually says in verse 15 is the problem is the law of commandments expressed in ordinances. Now that's a very, very interesting phrase that Paul uses. What does that mean? The law of commandments expressed in ordinances. And that word ordinances doesn't mean the way in which the law was divided up into, you know, the various different rules and statutes and so forth.

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    That word ordinances is a word which we'll recognize that comes through into our English language. This word dogma. And what it literally means is what seems to be right or an opinion. When we think back to the first century, this was what the Jewish people were exactly like. They had a lot of opinions about the law.

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    A lot of things that seemed right to them. And so, they expressed the law of commandments in ordinances. How do you keep the Sabbath? And they defined it down to the tiniest detail. You need to wash before dinner. And when they talked about washing before dinner, it wasn't just going to the faucet and washing your hands for cleanliness reasons.

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    And so, this was a whole ritual where you had to wash one arm and the other. You had to wash your dominant arm first and then your non-dominant arm and you weren't allowed to speak. And all of these things connected with washing, which was just their opinion. It had nothing to do with what God said.

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    And yet, what the problem with the Jews is that they raised these opinions and they became dogmatic about them and it became the definition of their religion. And it created a hostile environment. So, you can see they're illustrated. Here is somebody eating without having gone through that ritual of washing and you can see the scowl of the Pharisee there in the background.

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    And we know from reading the Gospel records that hostile environment that was created by the law of commandments expressed in ordinances. And what did that hostile environment lead to? The shedding of the blood of the Son of God. Cold-blooded murder. This is no small thing, brothers and sisters. This is serious. It led to the murder of the Son of God.

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    And if we develop a religion, brothers and sisters, where we raise our dogmatic opinions to the level of Scripture and define our religion by our traditions, by our way of doing things, and look down on those who don't keep up with our particular standards or way of doing things, well, we know where that leads to.

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    It creates hostility. The very antithesis of God's purpose. And it caused the cold-blooded murder of the Son of God. Now, turn with me if you were to Colossians. Colossians chapter 2. Colossians, interestingly, has a lot of very similar language to Ephesians. They're parallel in a lot of ways. But what's interesting about Ephesians and Colossians is that they were letters written to two very different ecclesial environments.

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    Ephesians was written to a Gentile ecclesia. He keeps referring to Gentiles all the way through. So very liberal in their thinking in general. Whereas the ecclesia in Colossae was very conservative. We might say legalistic. More Jewish in their thinking. And yet, despite these very diverse ecclesial environments, the Apostle Paul gives the exact same exhortation.

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    Put off the old man and put on the new. Which I think is an exhortation in itself. So in Colossians chapter 2, Paul uses this same word dogma. It's used a number of times. Once they're in Ephesians, twice here in Colossians, a couple of times to do with the decrees of Caesar. and then if we have time, we'll have a look at this one in Acts chapter 16.

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    So in Colossians chapter 2, it's the parallel with Ephesians chapter 2. He's talking about the same thing. He's talking about the core meaning behind the blood of Christ. What impact is the blood of Christ meant to have on us? Look what he says here in Colossians chapter 2 verse 14. He's talking about Christ on the cross.

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    Verse 14, and what he did is to cancel the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside nailing it to the cross. So there's something about the blood of Christ then that deals with what Paul calls here legal demands. Dogma. So just think about that for a moment.

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    How does the blood of Christ solve the problem of dogma? I mean, we're all dogmatic from time to time. It's hard actually to stand up here and not sound dogmatic. I don't mean to be dogmatic. What I say is just my opinion from my reading of Scripture. But sometimes, brothers and sisters, we can be dogmatic and we can insist on this is the right way.

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    This is how we ought to conduct our ecclesias. This is the way we ought to dress on a Sunday morning. This is the version that we ought to read. This is the language we ought to have in our prayers. And we raise these opinions to the level of divine Scripture. Not voicing it like that, but in effect, that's what we do.

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    And it creates that hostile environment. Now, if we step back, brothers and sisters, and look at what that kind of religion, what that kind of attitude caused in the first century, it should make us stop and think, wait a minute, what am I doing? I once witnessed a brother speaking to a young person and saying, if you break bread at our ecclesia, you will offend some of us.

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    Please don't break bread. That brother might as well have been nailing a nail into the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that sort of thing happens in our ecclesial environments, brothers and sisters. We've got to step back and think, is that promoting the purpose of God to unite all things, to create peace, to create harmony, to create an ecclesial environment that is free of hostility?

75. 35:16

    So that's what, that's the impact that the blood of Christ should have on us. And it should cancel and nail, what should be nailed to the cross is this dogmatic way of thinking. Look what he says in verse 20. If with Christ you die to the elemental spirits of the world, why as if you are still alive in the world do you submit to regulations?

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    That's the plural of the word dogma. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. And that's the sort of thing the Jews were saying in the first century, wasn't it? If you dare handle that thing, if you dare taste pork for instance, you are unrighteous and unworthy. Verse 22, referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings.

77. 36:10

    And that's all these dogmatic opinions of the Jews were. They were human precepts and teachings. And it's fine if you recognize that, if you think it's important for instance, to wear a suit and tie on a Sunday morning, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you raise that opinion to the level of divine teaching, then you're going to create a hostile environment.

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    And look what he says in verse 23. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom. And they do. They appear to be wise. It looks like if we have enough rules to deal with different situations that we can solve the problem of whatever situations that might arise. They have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severities of the body.

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    But look what he says at the end of the chapter here. He says they are of no value. No value. In stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Not they might help a little bit. He says they don't help one iota. In fact they can have the opposite effect. They can create hostility and spiritual persecution judgmentalism and murder.

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    It's a huge problem brothers and sisters and I think it's something we really really need to think about. one example just off the top of my head.

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    We know what Jesus says about in Matthew chapter 5. He says a man should not lust after a woman and men throughout history have realized the problem of men lusting after women so they've made rules for women to stop me lusting after you I want you to dress in this certain way and it's gone to ridiculous extremes in some cultures where women are dressed from head to foot and all you can see is the slits of their eyes and Paul says that kind of thing has no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh it doesn't solve the problem it doesn't get to the root of the problem what is the root of the problem it's not how our sisters dress our young ladies dress the problem is with our lust that's the problem it's not them it's us and the blood of Christ should help us focus on our problem what is the root and we need to deal with ourselves and not make excuses it's them causing me to sin so that's what the blood of Christ should do for us now look what he says in verse 15 so he says in verse 14 that these things have been nailed to the cross and verse 15 I think is very telling he says he disarmed this is Christ on the cross now he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to an open shame by triumphing over them in him you look at that you scratch your head and think well no that's not right who is the one being put to an open shame on the cross like a common

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    criminal nailed to a cross where everyone could see this man who was going to be taken off that cross normally and just thrown into a garbage dump a shameful way to die and yet Paul turns it around and says that what the cross in effect does is to disarm the very rulers and authorities that put him to death in the first place and he put them to an open shame well think about that what does Paul mean there when we step back and look at the situation who were the ones who should be utterly ashamed of what happened well it's those who because of their dogmatic opinion in cold blooded murder crucified the son of God and brothers and sisters it is shameful for us when we create a hostile ecclesial environment of judgmentalism and persecution of those who don't quite keep up with our dogmatic opinions now to close brothers and sisters we have a couple of minutes left to close this thought I want us to look at the other side of the coin just to provide a little bit of balance here the problem here is not in having opinions and things that seem to be right I'm not saying that we should never have rules we should never have ways of doing things the problem is when we don't admit it's just an opinion now to illustrate this come with me to Acts chapter 16 that's this other occurrence of this word dogma and what we find in Acts chapter 16 is that it's used in a positive sense so this is just after the Jerusalem conference in Acts chapter 15

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    and we know the result of the Jerusalem conference we'll look at it briefly in a moment that the apostles were given a letter to take to the Gentiles because of some friction that had been caused in the first century because of dogmatic opinions by the way but there was dogma that came out of it so Acts chapter 16 verse 4 says as they went on their way through the cities they delivered to them to the Gentiles for observance the dogma same word that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem and the result of that in verse five was positive the ecclesiast was strengthened in the faith and they increased in numbers daily so it's not as if this word dogma in and of itself is a negative term we do need to make decisions in ecclesias we do need to come up with procedures sometimes we even need rules but look at the difference in Acts chapter 15 we know the background of this controversy is in verse one there were those who were teaching unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses you cannot be saved and it created a hostile environment verse five some believers who belong to the Pharisees rose up and said it is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses talking about the Gentiles this was the problem in the first century wasn't it that this was the division between Jew and Gentile how do they sort the problem out verse six the apostles and elders were gathered together to consider this matter and they have

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    all of this debate and Peter stands up and says God made a choice let's submit to God's way of doing things isn't that a good idea God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe and God who knows the heart bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us and he made no distinction between us and them having cleansed their hearts by law no by faith now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear I mean it makes sense doesn't it the Jews couldn't keep the law the Jews were condemned by law why put the same yoke on the Gentiles you can't be saved by law but we verse 11 that would be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ just as they will exactly the message of Ephesians the assembly fell silent and then Simeon in verse 14 comes up and he delivers to them the mystery of the gospel he quotes from Amos and says back in Amos in that passage about the tabernacle of David and how the Gentiles will be called by my name in verse 17 look God already talked testament and so they made their decision in verse 20 to abstain from things polluted by idols from sexual immorality from what has been strangled from blood so it's not as if they just said to the Jews the law has been done away with we shouldn't

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    have these rules they still came to a decision but look at how they expressed this decision this dogma verse 28 for it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements it seemed good to us not that this is the new ecclesial law but it seems like a good idea and if we can frame our decision making in that way brothers and sisters when we talk to our young people about sometimes rules that we have to make because of situations !

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    if we seems good to us that this will help promote ecclesial harmony and unity it puts those decisions on a completely different level than this is the way walk in it and so the blood of Christ brothers and sisters levels that playing field helps us realize that we are all in need of the grace of God and by illustrating this principle in the first century by bringing Jew and Gentiles diverse couple of people together we have a magnificent illustration of the manifold wisdom of God!

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