TITLE - Jesus: The Fulfillment of the Old Testament Law for Us
SERIES - Matthew’s Portrait of Jesus As The Fulfillment of God’s Promises
(Sermon # 5)
TEXT - Matthew 5:17–19
DATE PREACHED - February 22, 2009
COPYRIGHT © JOE LA RUE, 2009 (ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)
*************************************************************************
INTRODUCTION
A. I want you to imagine that the president and Congress decided to encourage Americans to become physically fit. They made a law requiring every American to run fifteen miles, and then swim five miles, every day. Oh, and one more thing: If you fail, you’ll be shot. Congress and the president are not playing around on this one. Get into shape, or get shot. Run fifteen miles, then swim five miles, every day, or pay the price. That’s the new law.
Now, some of us would be shot pretty quickly. Take me, for instance. I have bad knees that prevent me from running. So, they would just take me out and shoot me right off the bat. And some of you might be in the same boat. We would not last too long under this type of law.
Others here this morning might fare a little better. Perhaps you are semi-physically fit, and you might be able to run a mile or two. But fifteen? That would be a challenge for most people. Unless you were already doing serious training preparing for a marathon, you would probably find that you tired out, cramped up, and collapsed long before you hit the fifteen mile mark. You would last longer me, but not by much. You would shot, too.
But, we may have a few athletes here this morning. You would better than most of us. Let’s say that we actually have someone who was able to run the fifteen miles, and then swim the five miles. And then, at the end of the day they come back home, exhausted and dead-dog tired, only to find the police waiting at their house. One of the policemen says, “Good job. You made it today. Get a good night’s rest, because you have to do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the one after that. You have to run fifteen miles, and swim five miles, each day—every day!—or suffer the consequences.”
How long do you think anybody will last under that type of law? I suggest the answer is: Not very long.
B. Thankfully, the situation I just described is not real. However, there is an analogous situation that is real, and that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning.
I. OBEY THE LAW, AND YOU WILL LIVE. DISOBEY IT, AND YOU WILL DIE.
A. When God created our world and gave life to humanity, he imposed certain laws. He said, “Keep my laws perfectly, and live. But if you disobey them, you will die.” That’s what he told Adam and Eve when he created them. And back then, there was only one law. In Genesis chapter two, we read how God put Adam and Eve in the midst of an amazing garden, and he said to them, “16You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” (Gen 2:15-16, NIV).
1. There it was. One law. That was it. They could eat anything they wanted except the fruit from that one tree, and they would live forever. But, if they ate from the tree God told them not to, they would die.
2. You know what happened. They ate the forbidden fruit, and death, disease, depravity, and decay entered our world.
3. Years later, when God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt as we discussed last week, God gave them his law and told them to obey it. Now, though, it was a little more involved than the simple, ‘Don’t eat the fruit of one tree,’ that had been the law for Adam and Eve. Instead, it had ten foundational commandments, which we call “The Ten Commandments.”
a. Some of these commands dealt with how we interact with other people. Don’t murder, and don’t steal, and don’t lie, and don’t covet what doesn’t belong to you. Honor your parents, and also honor your marriage and your spouse. (Exo 20:12-17).
b. Other commands were directed to how we interact with God. There was don’t allow anything to be more important to you than God, and don’t worship other things instead of God, and don’t treat God as trivial or commonplace, and remember to set aside a day each week for worship and rest. (Exo 20:1-11).
c. Those were the Ten Commandments. And God gave some other laws to define what these Commandments mean, and help us get along with one another. For instance, he told us to love other people as much as we love ourselves (Lev 19:18), and to extend help and care even to our enemies (Exo 23:4-5). We are not to slander people (Lev 19:16), nor are we to take vengeance or carry a grudge (Lev 19:18). And we are not to show partiality, but instead we are to treat all people fairly (Exo 23:6–9; Lev 19:15, 33) and deal in truth with everyone (Lev 19:11; 35–36). We are to be respectful to the elderly (Lev 19:32) and generous to the poor among us (Lev 19:9-10). And we are to reverence God (Lev 19:30–31).
d. And about this law, God said in Leviticus 18:4–5, “4You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your God. 5Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them.”
(1) In other words, if you want to live, keep the laws. And by extension, if you disobey the laws, you will not live. You will die.
(2) And God here was not talking only about physical life and death. He was also talking about spiritual life and death. As I have previously explained, the Bible is clear that God is holy, and sinful man therefore cannot enter his presence. (Psalm 15; 1 John 1:5–6). Instead, sin must be punished (Rom 6:23) , and sinful man must be banished from the presence of God (Matt 25:31–46; Rev 21:8).
(3) There simply is no choice. God cannot be holy and just if he does not punish infractions of his perfect law.
(a) Think about it this way. How do you feel when you hear about a criminal who gets off on a technicality? If you are like most people, you say, That isn’t right! And, many people end up blaming the judge. They say, How could that judge let that so-and-so go free? It’s just not right.
(b) Well, the same would be true with God. God gave us his law, and the law is good (Rom 7:12). God, though, wouldn’t be good if he let sinners off the hook without punishing sin. When his law gets broken, there must be a punishment. Otherwise, he would be no different than a crooked judge who let criminals walk. And we wouldn’t respect him any more than we would respect a judge like that. Sin simply has to be punished. And the punishment sin deserves is death.
B. So, under the law, we have a choice. We can keep the law perfectly, and live forever. Or we can disobey the law, and know that we must be separated from God forever. But it’s our choice, either way.
1. And of course, you know what our problem is. None of us has perfectly kept the law. Oh, sure, we may have kept some parts of it. For instance, I have never actually murdered anyone, so I’m good on that commandment. But, I have lied. And, I’ve stolen: I’ve sometimes given less than an honest day’s work for my day’s pay, which is the same as stealing from my employer. And, sometimes I haven’t been impartial, and I haven’t treated people fairly. And I’ve even carried a grudge or two. And, I’ve even failed to treat God as holy from time to time. Those are all things that God said not to do. I’ve broken his law.
2. And it will do us no good to plead that we kept some of the law. The Bible says, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” (James 2:10, NIV)
3. No, we either keep it all, or we cannot earn eternal life. And we stand before God, condemned. That’s the deal. And so we’ve come full circle, back to the story with which I began my talk today. We are in a situation similar to the one I described, where we have to run fifteen miles, and swim five miles, every day, forever, or else die. We have to keep the law perfectly, every day, forever, if we want to earn our salvation.
a. Friends, I stand before you a broken man, and I tell you that I have already failed. If we really did have to earn our salvation this way, I’m as good as dead. Not only can I not do it, I haven’t done it. I’ve already blown it. The game is already over for me.
b. That’s why the passage in Matthew’s Gospel that we are going to spend the rest of our time this morning discussing resonates so wondrously with me. If you have your Bibles, open to Matthew 5:17–19. We are in the midst of a study of the times when Matthew tells us about something that Jesus did, or something that Jesus said, and then tells us that the action or saying fulfilled a certain Old Testament prophecy. Today, we are going to consider the relationship of Jesus to the Old Testament law. That relationship can be summed up in one sentence: Jesus has fulfilled the Old Testament law for us. Read Matt 5:17–19 with me. The Bible says,
“17Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until all is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commandments will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:17-19, NIV).
c. Now, there are two things which we must see from these verses, if we are to understand both Jesus’s relationship to the Old Testament law, and also why his relationship to the law matters for us. First, we must understand that Jesus did not abolish the Old Testament law.
II. JESUS DID NOT ABOLISH THE OLD TESTAMENT LAW.
A. It is important that we understand this concept, because many Christians fail to grasp this principle. Perhaps you have known Christians who never read the Old Testament and saw no reason to do so. Or maybe you have heard people refer to our church as ‘a New Testament church,’ or describe Christians as ‘a New Testament people.’
1. These statements are true in the sense that it is the New Testament which tells us about Jesus, and the life that is available to us because of him.
2. But these statements are not true if by them we mean that the Old Testament, including its law, no longer matters, or is no longer important for us to read and study.
B. To understand what Jesus meant when he said that he had not come to abolish the law, it is important that we recognize that the Old Testament law actually contained three different types, or categories, of law.
1. First, there was what we today call the civic law. These laws were the legal code for the nation of Israel. Examples include the specific penalties for stealing, adultery, kidnaping, rape, and murder; as well as instruction for how they were to farm their land, treat their slaves, and loan one another money. There were laws regulating marriage and divorce, as well as their judicial system. These laws were part of their national law code, and were only truly applicable to the ancient nation of Israel. We may be able to glean knowledge about how God wants us to behave from these laws. But the laws themselves have no force for us today. They were not given for us. They were given to be the ancient nation of Israel’s code of civil law.
a. Remember, Jesus said that nothing from the law would pass away until all is accomplished. As we saw last week, Jesus is the fulfillment of the nation of Israel: He accomplished what they were supposed to. With his choice to be obedient to God and become ‘the true Israel,’ the nation of Israel ceased to have any meaning within the redemptive plan of God. Thus it was that Jesus prophesied that the nation of Israel would be destroyed (Matt 21:43; Luke 19:41–44; 21:20), and in fact they were destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Roman Tenth Legion.
b. So, Jesus’ statement that nothing from the law would pass away until all was fulfilled should be understood, with regard to the civil law, to mean that so long as ancient Israel was a nation, this would be their law code. But, once God’s plan for the nation of Israel’s destruction for rejecting Jesus came about, all was fulfilled with regard to the nation of Israel, and the civil law no longer has any force.
2. A second category of law in the Old Testament is what we call the ceremonial law. These were commands that had to do with the proper practice of the Jewish religion. Examples include what types of things made them “ceremonially unclean” for worship and community life, what sacrifices they were to offer, how they were to worship, and what exactly the priestly duties and rules were. These regulations were important and binding, so long as the Jewish religion, with its animal sacrifices and Temple worship, offered the worshiper access to God. However, these sacrifices could never really take away sin (Heb 10:1–4). Rather, they merely covered over the sin for another year. They could not truly effect forgiveness of sins. That’s why God sent Jesus into our world to die for us. The sacrifice of the infinite, Almighty God-the-Son could fully pay the price for our sins. His death didn’t merely cover them for another year. His death paid the full penalty for them. As the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 10,
"11Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12But when [Jesus] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God." (Heb 10:11–12, NIV).
The phrase, “sat down,” means that his work was done. He had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, and in doing so he became the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrificial system. He is the sacrifice par excellence. And so, since the work to accomplish salvation is done, Jesus has sat down.
a. This means that the all the conditions which gave the Old Testament ceremonial law meaning have been accomplished. We now have access to God through Jesus. That’s why when Jesus died, the Bible says that the veil in the Temple, that used to separate people from the part of the Temple that was considered to be where God dwelled, was ripped in two from the top down (Matt 27:51). God did the ripping, signaling that now people can approach God completely, because Jesus paid the price for our sins.
b. So, Jesus’ statement that nothing from the law would pass away until all was fulfilled should be understood, with regard to the ceremonial law, to mean that so long as the Jewish religion, based on animal sacrifice, remained valid, the laws relating to that religion remained valid, too. But, with Jesus’ death, the goal of that religion, to make people right with God, was accomplished. It was fulfilled, and so the Old Testament ceremonial law has passed away, just as the civic law has.
3. Now, there is a third type of law in the Old Testament. This is what we refer to as the moral law. These laws do not have to do with the ancient nation of Israel, or with the cultic worship. Rather, they involve God’s overarching plan for humanity. They reveal the types of behavior that God desires from us, in our dealings with God and in our dealings with one another. I’m thinking here about the Ten Commandments—things like ‘no other gods,’ and ‘don’t lie,’ and ‘don’t murder,’ and ‘don’t steal,’ and ‘respect your parents.’ These all have to do with the behavior that God expects from all of us, not just the ancient people of Israel. And, I’m thinking about the laws that God gave us regarding our sexuality and regarding how we are to treat people. These types of laws reveal God’s will for people for all time. They were not limited to the ancient Israelite nation, nor were they limited to the ancient Israelite faith. They apply to all people because they concern how God expects people to act and behave.
a. And God’s expectations for people haven’t changed. It’s not like God changed his mind about stealing when Jesus came. He didn’t tell us, “Go ahead and steal.” No, stealing is still wrong. And so is murder, and lying, and coveting, and slandering, and all the other things that the Old Testament moral law tells us not to do.
b. Similarly, God’s “positive commands,” explaining the things we should do, are still applicable today as well. For instance, we are still suppose to be generous, and fair, and honest. We are still suppose to worship God alone. The commands about those things, found in the moral law, still tell us how God wants us to behave.
c. Nothing has altered these laws, because they were not given for a particular nation, as the civic law was. Nor were they given for a particular religion, as the ceremonial law was. Rather, they express God’s will for people for all time, in all cultures. They are universal in scope.
d. And Jesus said that, until heaven and earth passed away, nothing would pass away from the law “until all is accomplished.” That means that this so-called moral law is still in force. The civic law isn’t. Nor is the ceremonial law. The prerequisites for keeping them in force were fulfilled, and so they have passed away. But the moral law is different. It is ongoing, and eternal. It still reflects God’s will for his people. And Jesus considered it important that his followers both try to keep the requirements of the moral law, and also teach others how to keep those requirements.
C. Jesus made it perfectly clear: He had not come to set the law aside, or to abolish it. But he also had not come to merely endorse the law. No, he had come to fulfill it. And so we need to spend just a few moments talking about how Jesus fulfilled the law, and what that means for us today. There are five ways in which Jesus fulfilled the law, and I want to give them to you very quickly this morning. First, Jesus fulfilled the prerequisite of the law, by being born as a human.
III. JESUS FULFILLED THE OLD TESTAMENT LAW FOR US.
A. Jesus fulfilled the prerequisite of the law, by being born as a human.
1. You see, the law only applies to people. It was given to the nation of Israel, and they were to share it with all the people’s of the world. It applies to people. It doesn’t apply to animals. Nor, so far as we know, does it apply to angels. And it certainly does not apply to God. He is the author of the law. He stands above the law. The law is his command to his creatures. And even though he keeps it perfectly, he is not subject to it. He is over it.
2. Only a person can be subject to the law. And that’s why Galatians 4:4 is so important. The Bible says, “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law . . . .” (Gal 4:4, NIV). The great New Testament scholar, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, wrote, “Though he is eternally above it, as Son of God He came and was made under the law, as one who had to carry it out.” (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1 Studies in the Sermon on the Mount 191 (Second ed., Grand Rapids: Inter-varsity, 1999)). This is part of the mystery of the incarnation: The one who stands over the law, submitted to its commands.
3. So, Jesus fulfilled the prerequisite of the law. He was born under it. Second, Jesus fulfilled the purpose of the law, by explaining its true meaning to us.
B. Jesus fulfilled the purpose of the law, by explaining its true meaning to us.
1. The law was suppose to lead us to be holy. That is, the law was given to help us live out God’s true desire for humanity. And when Jesus came, he explained more fully than ever before what the law really meant for day-to-day life.
a. You see, some of the religious teachers tried to get around the true meaning of the law by focusing on the literal meaning of the words, much as people sometimes do today.
(1) For instance, they focused on the word, ‘murder,’ in the command, “Don’t murder.” And they declared that ‘murder’ was all God had said not to do. So, it didn’t matter if you got so mad at somebody that you wanted to kill him, talked about killing him, and even planned on killing him. As long as you didn’t actually kill him, these religious teachers said that you had not broken the law.
(2) And Jesus came along and said, You’ve got it all wrong. Listen to Jesus’ words, as paraphrased in the Bible version known as The Message:
"You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill." (Matt 5:21–22, The Message).
b. And Jesus did that—he defined the law for us, and explained what God really meant—over and over. You see, it wasn’t just that God doesn’t want us to take someone’s life. He doesn’t want us to get so angry that we would want to take someone’s life! In the same way, Jesus said that it’s not just that God doesn’t want us to commit adultery against our spouse. Rather, God doesn’t want us to be unfaithful mentally by lusting after someone who is not our spouse (Matt 5:27–30).
c. Over and over again during his ministry, Jesus explained what the law of God really means. He fulfilled its purpose. Third, he also fulfilled its promise: the law pointed to him, alone.
C. Jesus fulfilled the promise of the law: It pointed to him alone.
1. It was not only the ancient prophets who had prophesied about Jesus. The law did as well.
a. For instance, in Deuteronomy chapter 18, God promised to raise up a prophet like Moses. And God said that anyone who would not listen to him would answer to God (Deut 18:15, 17–19). The Jewish people had many great prophets down through the years. But none was like Moses. Remember, the Bible says that Moses was the one that God spoke with “face to face, clearly,” and that “he sees the form of the Lord.” (Num 12:7–8).
(1) This implied a level of familiarity that was absent with any of the other prophets. And Moses was the one who gave the people God’s law, the very words of God that he wanted his people to carry out. No other prophet even came close to Moses in terms of stature or importance. There were some great prophets, but they were not Moses.
(2) That’s why Jesus’ boldness to interpret the law and provide its true meaning was so unsettling to the religious teachers. They recognized what he was claiming: He was claiming to be a prophet on the same level as Moses. “He taught as one who had authority”(Matt 7:29, NIV)—as one who had the authority to interpret Moses. No one else, in all their history, had ever made that claim with any credibility. And the crowds were amazed at Jesus (Matt 7:28).
(3) And not only that, Jesus claimed the same type of familiarity with God that Moses had enjoyed. He claimed that he alone really knew God (John 7:28–29), because he alone had seen God (John 5:19; 6:46). And he claimed that he had spoken the very words that he had heard from God (John 8:26).
(4) Jesus went so far as to claim to be the fulfillment of the promise that God would send a prophet like Moses. Jesus said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.” (John 5:46, NIV).
b. We lack the time this morning to examine how Jesus fulfilled all the types set forth in the law. That is, how he is the perfect fulfillment of the tabernacle worship, and of the priests, and of the festivals, and of the various sacrifices. They all pointed to him, and find their fulfillment in him. Every good thing that the law talked about, Jesus fulfilled. He fulfilled the promise of the law.
2. Fourth, Jesus fulfilled the precepts of the law. He kept them perfectly.
D. Jesus fulfilled the precepts of the law, by keeping them perfectly.
1. By this I mean to say that Jesus kept all of the commands. He never once disobeyed God. He fully and completely kept the law. The Bible says that Jesus “was tempted in every way that we are, but he did not sin.” (Heb 4:15, New Century Version). And so Matthew shares with us the story about Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness. The devil tempted Jesus to abandon his mission, and instead pursue worldly fame or power. But Jesus refused to give into the temptation, and beat the devil. (Matt 4:1–11).
2. And that was just one episode. Jesus resisted temptation over and over and over. Unlike us, he never gave in. He never sinned. He kept the law perfectly. He said that he had come to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15, NIV), and boy did he ever. That is why at the end of his life he was able to challenge those who accused him to state what he had ever done or said wrong (John 18:23). He knew they would be unable to come up with a single example.
3. Jesus perfectly fulfilled the precepts of the law. And that made possible the fifth, and final way that he fulfilled the law. Jesus fulfilled the penalty of the law, by dying in our place.
E. Jesus fulfilled the penalty of the law, by dying in our place.
1. Earlier in this message I commented that God would not be good if he were to allow sin to go unpunished. There is a penalty for sin, and that penalty is death. That’s what the law said. And, if God didn’t impose the penalty, he would be no better than a corrupt judge who accepts a bribe and lets a criminal go free.
2. And that’s why Jesus died on the cross. As Lloyd-Jones, again, wrote, “What was happening upon the cross was that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was enduring in His own holy body the penalty prescribed by the holy law of God for the sin of man.” (Lloyd-Jones, 1 Sermon on the Mount, 192). He lived a perfect life, such that he did not deserve to die. And then, he died on the cross in our place, so that our sins could be wiped away, and we could be forgiven.
F. Jesus thus fulfilled all aspects of the law. He fulfilled the prerequisite of the law by being born human, so that he was subject to it. He fulfilled the purpose of the law, by explaining its true meaning to us. He fulfilled the promise of the law, since it pointed to him alone. He fulfilled the precepts of the law, by keeping them perfectly. And he fulfilled the penalty of the law, by dying in our place. And so the apostle Paul could write, in Rom 10:4, that “Christ is the end [or, the fulfillment] of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” (Rom 10:4, NIV).
CONCLUSION
A. So there you have it. I know we took a little longer than usual this morning, but I wanted to explain to you fully the relationship between Jesus and the Old Testament law. It is as Jesus said: He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And, fulfill it he did!
1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer worded it this way: “It is Jesus himself who comes between the disciples and the law, not the law which comes between Jesus and the disciples.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship 123 (R.H. Fuller trans., New York: Touchstone, 1995)).
2. By fulfilling the law for us, Jesus took it out of our way. It no longer stands between us and God. No longer must we fear its penalty. No longer must we be weighed down with the guilt of knowing that we fail to perfectly keep its precepts. No longer must we be like people who must run 15 miles, and then swim 5 miles, every day. No longer must we feel that dreaded weight. Jesus has taken all of that away. He has fulfilled the law. And now, he stands between us and the law, as Bonhoeffer said.
a. There will come a time, someday in the future, when everyone here will stand before the judgment seat of God. And on that day, we will be judged according to whether we kept the law or not. Books will be opened recording the deeds of our lives. And we will be judged according to what we did, and didn’t, do. And under that judgment, we shall all deserve death. (Rev 20:11–15).
b. But then, just when all hope appears lost, another book will be opened. This one is different. This one records the names of those who accepted Christ as their Savior. This one lists all those who let Jesus fulfill the law for them, by accepting Jesus as Savior in faith, repentance, and baptism. The Bible calls it “The Book of Life” and says that those whose names are written there get to spend eternity in the new heaven and new earth that God will create, just for us. (Rev 20:11 – 22:21). Because Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament law for us.
B. Is your name there, friends? Is your name written in the Book of Life? When Judgment Day comes, and the books are rolled out, and you know you are going to stand condemned because you have not kept God’s law perfectly, are you going to be worried about how you stand with God?
1. You don’t have to be. You can know that your name is in the Book of Life. You don’t have to be worried!
2. The Bible says that if you trust Jesus to save you, turn your life over to God by repenting and committing to trying to live life as his follower, and are baptized—that is, dunked under water—for the forgiveness of your sins, you can know! You will be forgiven. You will be made right with God. You will be saved. (Acts 2:36-38).
3. And your name will be in the Book of Life. And you will get to live forever with God and your fellow-Christians in heaven.
C. Do you need to make that decision today, friends? Some of you do. This may be your only chance. You may not have another opportunity. None of us is promised tomorrow, or even this afternoon. That’s why the Bible says, “Now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2, NIV), because now is all we can be sure that we have.
D. We are going to sing a song right now. We do this to give people, like you, a chance to make a decision for God. You have heard how you and I and everyone else stands condemned under the law. You have heard how God must punish our sins. And you have heard how the punishment that our sin deserves is death. These are not concepts that I made up. No, we have seen these concepts explicitly stated in the words of the Bible. You know what’s at stake for you.
E. But praise God, you have also heard that Christ fulfilled the law for us. You have heard that he took our penalty. You have heard that you can be forgiven, and made right with God. And that, my friends, also comes directly from the words of the Bible.
F. Now, the choice is yours. Do you want to know that your name is in the Book of Life, and that you are right with God? If you have not accepted Jesus in faith, you cannot know that your name will be there. If you have not given your life to God in repentance, you cannot know that your name will be there. And if you have not been baptized—immersed—in water, you cannot know that your name will be there. You simply cannot.
G. The choice is yours! If you want to know for certain that your name is in the book of life, come down front here to me as we sing this song. Let me share with you quietly and ascertain where you are at with God. We’ll talk about what you need to do to accept Jesus as your Savior. And you can leave here today knowing that your name is in that Book, because Jesus fulfilled the law for you.
