A Wonderful Contrast: Under the Curse of God, or a Child of God. Which Are You?
“For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law, to do them.” — Galatians 3: 10, R. V. (t UT as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name” — John i: 12.
What a sermon these two passages preach when thus placed side by side? They need little comment. They tell their own story and ought to produce their own effect.
I. All Who Are of the Works of the Law,
Under the Curse of God
Let us look first at the dark side of the contrast, Gal. 3:10, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law, to do them.” Every man who is “Of the works of the law,” rests under a curse.
I. Here a question of vital importance arises. What Is Meant by Being of the Works of the Law I The context in which the words are found answers the question clearly and definitely. To be “of works of the law” is to be seeking the favour of God and consequent salvation, life and blessing by keeping the law of God; to be seeking salvation, life and blessing by our own good deeds; to be seeking the favour of God by our own righteousness; to be seeking “salvation by character”; it is to be seeking salvation as something due us because of our own righteous works, instead of seeking it as a “free gift of God” by the “grace” of God, the unmerited favour of God. Those who are “of the works of the law” are all those who are seeking the favour of God and His blessing and His salvation by their own good deeds, by their own righteousness, by their own character; and as many as are doing this are under a curse. “Everyone” who is doing this, every man and woman here to-night who is seeking “salvation by character,” seeking salvation on the ground of anything that you yourself are or do, is “under a curse.” So God Himself declares, and therefore we may be sure it is true, in spite of all the reasonings and philosophizings of men, even though those men are leaders of thought in this “Wonderful Twentieth Century”: wonderful in the self-satisfied conceit of its “Scientists” and “Philosophers” and essayists and novelists, if in nothing else. Listen again to God’s Own Words: “As many as are of the works of the law are under a curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things
HOW TO BE SAVED
that are written in the Book of the Law, to do them” (Gal. 3:10, R. V.).
2. But, Why are Those Who are “Of Works of Law” “Under a Curse”? It is perfectly proper for us to ask that question, and God has been pleased to answer it even before we ask it. It is answered right here in our text, “As many as are the works of the law, are under a curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them The reason why those who are u Of works of law are under a curse” is because the law, in order to get its blessing and the blessing of the Author of the law, that is God, demands absolutely perfect obedience. The law says, “Keep me perfectly and you shall be blessed, keep me perfectly and you shall live; but break me at any point and you shall die. He that doeth these things shall live by them, but cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them,” and there is only one member of the human race who has ever perfectly kept the law of God, and that Person is Jesus Christ. So no man but Jesus Christ can find life by his own doing, no man but Jesus Christ can be “saved by character.” To talk about anyone but Jesus Christ being saved by character is to talk the sheerist nonsense. If any of us should keep the Law of God perfectly, absolutely perfectly, from the hour of our birth to the hour of our death, we would thereby obtain the favour of God and win Eternal Life by our own doing, by our own character, but not one of us has ever done it. No human being but Jesus Christ has ever done it.
The moment any man, woman or child breaks the Law of God at any smallest point, that moment “Salvation by character,” salvation by our own doing, becomes an absolute impossibility. And every man, woman and child has already broken the Law of God at some point, and therefore if we are seek¬ ing God’s favour by our own good deeds, by our own righteousness, by our own character, we are “Under a curse.” No man here to-night can stand up and say, “I have kept the Law of God perfectly. I never broke God’s law at any point.” There is not a man or woman here to-night but has not only broken God’s law but broken the first and greatest commandment of God at some time. What is the first and greatest commandment of God’s law? Listen to our Lord Jesus’ own answer to that question, Matt. 22:37, 38, “And Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.”
Who here to-night can say, “I have always kept that commandment, I have always put God first in everything, I have always put God first in business, I have always put God first in politics, I have always put God first in home life, I have always put God first in social life, I have always put God first in pleasure, I have always put God first in study, I have always put God first in everything”? Who can say it? Be honest now, be honest with yourself, be honest with God. You know you cannot say ft. Every one of us has broken this great and first comu
HOW a?0 BE SAVED
mandment. There is, then, no hope for anyone of us on the ground of “the law,” no hope for anyone of us on the ground of our doing, no hope for any¬ one of us on the ground of our own character or morality or merit. “As many as are of the works of the law are under a curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law, to do them.” If we cannot get out of the sphere of the law into some other sphere, into the sphere of Grace, we are doomed, and will ultimately be damned.
How utterly foolish, then, is the man who expects to be saved by the law, by his own good deeds, and win Eternal Life by his own good character or by his own good deeds. “For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law, to do them.”
Every man here to-night who is counting on his own good deeds, on his own morality, on his own good character, to recommend him to God’s favour, is “Under a curse.”
II. All Who Receive Jesus Christ, Children
of God
Now let us turn to the other side, the bright side of the contrast, Jno. 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name.” The first side of the contrast is very dark, dark as midnight, pitch dark, but the other side of the contrast is very bright, bright as the full noontime sunlight of the eternal day. While “every man who is of works of law,” every man who is de¬ pending upon his own deeds and his own goodness for salvation, every man out of Christ, is “Under a curse”; on the other hand, every man who has thrown away all confidence in himself and his own doing and his own character, and who has accepted Jesus Christ, is given the “power to become a child of God.” The word translated, “power” in the authorized version of this verse (Jno. 1: 12) means more than the sense that we usually give to the word “power.” It means the “authority” or the “right.” The one who receives Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, has not merely the ability to become a child of God, but he has the God-given authority to become a child of God. It is the Divinely be¬ stowed prerogative of everyone who receives Christ Jesus, to call himself a “Child of God.” As John puts it in his first epistle, I Jno. 3:1: “Behold, what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us (that is upon believers in Jesus Christ, those who have received Jesus Christ), that we should be called the children of God; and such we are.”
There is just one condition of attaining to this immeasurably exalted authority prerogative and honour of becoming a “Child of God,” and that is receiving Jesus Christ. Whosoever, anybody and everybody who, receives Jesus Christ the Son of God, instantly becomes himself a child of God. It matters not what his past history may have been, he may have been a very bad man or he may have been a very good man, he may have been a very religious man or he may have been an utterly godless
HOW TO BE SAVED
and profane man, he may have been very orthodox, an intelligent believer in all the great fundamental doctrines of our faith, or he may have been an utter heretic or rank infidel, but the moment he receives Jesus Christ, he instantly receives authority to be¬ come a child of God. “But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name 99 (Jno. 1:12). Any man or woman in this audience to-night can get the God-given “right” to become a child of God in an instant. All you have to do is to receive Jesus Christ.
2. What does it mean to “receive” Jesus Christ? We need to be very clear and very sure about this. The Greek word translated, “receive” means simply “to take” or “to take to oneself,” to receive (or, accept) what is offered. So, then, to receive Jesus Christ means to take Jesus Christ to ourselves, to take Him to be to ourselves all that He came into this world to be to us.
What did Jesus Christ come into this world to be to anyone who would take Him? The Bible answers that question with great plainness and great definiteness.
1. First of all, Jesus Christ came into this world to be our Sin-Bearer, the One who bore our sins in our place, so that we would not have to bear them ourselves; and to pay the penalty of our sins. We read in the twenty-ninth verse of this same chapter from which our text is taken,/* Behold, the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!”
So then, to receive Jesus Christ means to take Jesus Christ to he our Sin-Bearer, the One who paid the penalty of our sins for us, or as Paul puts it in the thirteenth verse of the chapter from which our other text was taken, Gal. 3:13: the One who “Redeemed us from the curse of the law (that we were under, because we had broken it) by becoming a curse for us (that is, in our place); for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.”
2. In the second place, Jesus Christ came to be
our Deliverer, not merely from the guilt of sin, but from the power of sin. We read in the eighth chapter of the same book from which our text is taken, Jno. 8:34, 36: “Jesus answered them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. ... If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
So then, to receive Jesus Christ means to take Him to ourselves to be our Deliverer from the power of sin, to give up all our self-efforts to deliver our¬ selves from the power of sin, and just look up to the Risen Christ, Who has “all power in Heaven and on earth” to deliver us from the power of sin.
3. In the third place, He came to be our Divine Teacher and Absolute Lord, Who has a right to the absolute control of all our thoughts and desires and purposes and actions. In the thirteenth chapter of this same book, verse 13, our Lord Jesus is recorded as saying, “Ye call me, teacher, and Lord, and ye say well; for so I am.” Even in the Revised Ver¬ sion we have not in this passage an accurate translation of the Greek. What Jesus really said was, “Ye call me the teacher, and the Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.”
So then, To “receive Him” means then, to take
HOW TO BE SAVED
Him to ourselves as “the Teacher” the One and Only absolutely authoritative Teacher, the One Whom we shall believe against the whole world (if the whole world says one thing, every philosopher, scientist and university professor and sage and poet in it, and Jesus Christ says another, we shall believe Him against them all), and “The Lord,” the One Who is our Divine, and Absolute Lord to Whom we hand over unquestioningly and unhesitatingly the absolute control of all our conduct in every relation of life, and to Whom we bow the knee and “Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the father” (Phil. 2:10, 11).
When anyone thus receives Jesus Christ, takes Him to be to himself his Sin-Bearer, and trusts God to forgive him because Jesus Christ made a full atonement for his sin by dying in his place, and to be to himself his Deliverer from the power of sin, giving up all his self-efforts to overcome sin, and trusting the risen Christ Jesus alone to give him victory over sin, and to be his inerrantly authoritative Teacher, Whom he will believe against the world, and to be “The Lord” (not “A Lord,” but “The Lord”) to Whom he unquestioningly and unhesitatingly surrenders the absolute control of all his conduct in every relation of life, and to Whom he will bow the knee, “confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord” (cf. Rom. 10:9, I0)> the moment that any¬ one does this, that moment that person gets the right, the authority, the authority which God Him¬ self bestowed upon him, to call himself “God’s child!” Anyone here to-night who will, can thus become God’s child, and become so at once.
We do not become children of God by praying or by reading the Bible, or by turning over a new leaf, or by quitting our sins, or by doing good deeds, or by leading holy lives, as good as all these things are in their place, we become children of God by the one simple act of receiving Jesus Christ, of taking Him to be to ourselves what He came into the world to be. “As many as received him, to them gave He the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name.”
Even if we have never been to church before in our lives, even if we have never read a verse in the Bible in our lives, even if we have never said a prayer in our lives, even if we have never done one single good deed in all our lives, even though our lives have been full of sin and vileness every day of our lives, the moment we thus receive Jesus Christ we get the right, the authority, the authority given to us by God Himself, to become “children of God”
If, on the other hand, we go to church several times a week, if we read the Bible every day, if we pray every morning, noon and night, if we give up our every bad habit, even if we give much to the poor, even if we do all sorts of good deeds, and avoid all sorts of sins, if we do all these, and do not receive Jesus Christ as our Sin-Bearer, as our Deliverer from the power of sin, as our Authoritative and Final Teacher, and as our Divine Lord, we are not and cannot become “children of God.” The right to sonship is in Jesus Christ, and you only get the right by receiving Him. If I put $1,000 in a certain package and then say to you, “Here, if you
HOW TO BE SAVED
take that package you can have what is in it,” if you took the package you would get that $1,000, but if you did not take the package you would not get that $1,000, no matter how many other great and good things you might do. Now, God has put the right to sonship in a package and that package is a per¬ son, Jesus Christ. If you take Him you get it; if you refuse Him you cannot get it, no matter how many other good things you may do.
God makes this very plain in another place, I Jno. 5:10-12. Here He says: “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the testimony in Him: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar because he hath not believed in the testimony that God hath borne concerning his Son. And the testimony is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son, hath the life; and. he that hath not the Son of God, hath not the life.”
Look squarely, seriously and intently at the contrast, “As many as are of the deeds of the law,” as many as are trusting in their own doing and not in Jesus Christ, as many as are out of Christ, as many as have not definitely “received” Jesus Christ, good and bad alike, are “under a curse”; but on the other hand as many as receive Christ, regardless of the past, the vilest as well as the best, get the authority to become children of God. To which class do you belong to-night? I do not ask you whether you have been good or bad, moral or immoral, religious or godless, orthodox or heretical, but are you trying to get to Heaven by your own doing, or by trusting in what Another, Jesus Christ, has already done, are you “of the works of the law,” or are you of those
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who have received Christ and put their trust in Him, and Him alone? If you are of the former, God’s Word for it, you are, “Under a curse.” If you are of the latter, God’s Word for it, no matter what the past has been, you are a child of God to-night.
“Under a Curse!” What an appalling phrase! How those words make a thoughtful man shudder. “Under a Curse!” What curse? Whose curse? The curse of the Law of God, which you have broken, and the curse of the God whose law you have broken, under the curse of the Infinite, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Eternal, Infinitely Holy God, Who made all the great worlds that go to make up our universe, Who upholdeth and absolutely controlleth that universe and all things in it, Who holds the destinies of all individual men and all nations, the destinies of time and the destinies of eternity in His hand, under the curse of “the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways” (Dan. 5:23). “Under the curse of God!”
It is awful. It is appalling. It suggests that solemn and terrifying word spoken by Jesus Christ Himself, in Matt. 25: 41: “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Now turn to the other side of the contrast, “Authority (the divinely given right) to become children of God.” How those “God-breathed” words make the intelligent heart bound and throb, “The authority to become children of God.” Whose children? “Children of God.” Ah! What would it be for a ragged, starving street urchin to become a child of
HOW TO BE SAVED
a king? But that is nothing, nothing at all, in comparison with this, for you and me, moral derelicts such as we have been, “sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore,” to “become children of God”; not slaves, mind you; not servants, mind you; not retainers, mind you; not representatives, mind you; but children, “children of God.” I thought it quite fine once, when Mrs. Torrey and I had the privilege of sitting at table three times a day for a week or two, right beside the son of one of Europe’s reigning monarchs, the Prince, and his wife, the Princess; but to be a “Child of God /” Think of it! We cannot take it in, — but I know that I am a “Child of God.” Do you know that you are a “Child of God?” You may become one and you may know it, inside of five minutes. Listen, “But as many as receive him, to them gave he the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name” (Jno. 1: 12).
Can it be true? Yes, beyond all peradventure or question it is true, God Himself says it. And it is not only true, but it is open to you, open to any one of you, no matter how poor, ignorant and wicked you may be, open to you right now.
Oh, men and women, and young men and maidens, step out right now from “under the curse” of God into the glory of becoming “children of God.” What must you do? Only this, receive Jesus Christ, that is all. Take Him to be your Sin-Bearer and trust God to forgive you because Jesus Christ died in your place; take Him to be your Deliverer from the power of sin, and trust the Risen Christ, Who has “all power in Heaven and on earth,” to keep you day by day from sin’s power; take Him to be your Absolutely Authoritative Teacher and your Divine Lord, to Whom you surrender the entire control of your life in all its relations, and to Whom you bow the knee and confess that He “is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.” That is all. Will you do it? Will you do it right now? There is no greater folly that anyone can be guilty of than this, by our own free choice, to remain “under the curse,” rather than to enter into the glory of becoming a “Child of God,” by just receiving Jesus Christ. No inmate of any insane asylum ever did an insaner thing than that. Will you receive Jesus Christ and become a “Child of God” right now?