The way and the only way to produce the righteous deeds is. to possess the righteousness of Christ. And the only way to possess the righteousness of Christ is by faith in His redemptive work. Welcome to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.
How's this for a reason to miss work?
Someone really offered this as an excuse. He said, I lost my American Express card and I can't leave home without it.
Now, obviously, that's laughable, but sometimes we really have good reasons, don't we, for missing work or not returning a phone call or being late for an appointment? But let me ask you this. When you one day stand before God who judges sin, what excuse will you give him? And more important, will any excuse be good enough? As the title of John MacArthur's current study says, those who don't know Christ are without excuse.
So now let's join John as he identifies the people Scripture says will receive salvation and those who will receive wrath.
Now let's look at the two sides. First of all, those whose deeds manifest that they receive eternal life. And secondly, those whose deeds manifest that they are the recipients of wrath. First of all, those who receive eternal life. Verse 7.
To them, and this is a marvelous verse: to them who by patient continuance in well-doing, Seek for glory and honor and incorruption. I give eternal life.
Now, I want you to listen to this, people. This is such a critical verse, and so many people misunderstand the standard of salvation. Eternal life belongs to those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality or incorruption. That is the mark of a believer. And those three terms in verse seven are just marvelous terms.
In a sense, they're distinct, and in a sense, they're interwoven and indistinct. For glory and honor and immortality could all be wrapped up into the same thing.
Well, let me see if I can just give a shade of meaning to them. that gives them some difference. First of all is glory. The highest and most Wonderful goal of a believer is glory. He seeks to glorify God.
He seeks to attain unto the glory of God someday. He seeks, as 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, and whatever he does, to do it all to the glory of God. What does that mean? Glory basically is to manifest the essence or nature of God. And the believer seeks to be a vehicle through which God can be manifest, through which God's glory can be seen.
That's his desire.
Somebody who doesn't have the desire to glorify God cannot be truly. A Christian. Because that is basic. to the desire of a true believer. And yet so many times, you know, we say, well, I know they don't have any...
Desire to glorify God, but once upon a time they made a decision, or once upon a time they used to go to church or whatever. But the mark. says Paul. Is patient continuance in well-doing and seeking that God would be glorified. They seek glory.
They seek it even in its fullest sense, that in that incredible reality of the future day, when we see Jesus Christ, we will be transformed into his own image and eternally without flaw will radiate his marvelous glory. The goal of a true Christian, you see, is to reflect God's glory. And if that's true, then his life will manifest enough of a righteous pattern. That God can judge him on that basis and say, that's a true believer. Secondly, honor.
That's very close to glory, and I guess in a sense you could say it's the result of glory. To reflect the glory of God is to receive divine honor. It is to receive the honor that God gives, the blessedness that God gives. I don't know about you, but I seek to be honored by God, do you not? I seek that God would be pleased and say, Well done, good and faithful servant.
And so, as you seek to manifest the glory of God, that marvelous reality of what He is through your life, you also seek that God should honor and reward such faithfulness because that's what He's promised. And then ultimately, we seek incorruption when full glory and full honor is realized in the resurrection when we are like Jesus Christ. And so we could spend time on each one of these terms going all through Scripture. Marvelous terms. But he's saying a true believer?
Patiently Continues in doing good works because he seeks after glory and honor and immortality.
Now, what is this saying? Let me sum it up in one statement. His perspective is heavenly. You see? It's heavenly.
The true objective of the saint is to live for that which is eternal. As Colossians 3 says, he sets his affections on things where? Above That is a God word perspective. These three terms describe a person with divine aspirations. The highest level of the Christian's life is to aspire to glorify God, to receive honor from God, and to enter into the incorruption of ultimate immortality and being transformed into the image of Christ.
This is not only the goal of our life here, but the goal of our life in the future. Yeah. When God looks at a life And he sees a life that seeks glory, and he sees a life that seeks to be honored by God. And not men. And he seeks a life that longs for immortality, that isn't bound to this earth.
It longs for incorruption. It isn't engulfed in corruption. It seeks the heavenly dimension to that he gives eternal life. That is the standard by which God will judge.
Now, Paul isn't saying anything about how a person like this is produced. He just says you can judge that person by their works and say they have been redeemed. He's not talking about how they got that way, he's just saying it's fair to judge them by those righteous works. Patterns. And he gives them eternal life.
Sometime we'll have to do a whole study on what eternal life means. But basically, eternal life means The life of God. In the soul of man. Forever. I love what it says in 1 John 5:20.
This is the true God and eternal life. Who? Jesus Christ. What is eternal life? Jesus Christ.
What does it mean to have eternal life? To have Jesus Christ living where? In me. Christ liveth in me and the life I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I.
But Christ living in me. You see, eternal life is the life of God in the soul of man by the presence of the indwelling Christ. And it goes on throughout eternity. Basically, people, eternal life is not a quantity of life, it's a quality of life. It is the life of God and the soul of man and mark it.
The life of God and the soul of man will always produce A righteous pattern. And if you have an unrighteous pattern in your life, you are fighting against the very nature God has created in you. In salvation. It's like holding your breath. It's a lot harder than breathing.
Mm-hmm. Once Christ comes to live in your life, there's a sense in which the flow of God's life should dominate, and we fight it and resist it in our human sinfulness.
So to begin with then, God says in the final judgment Ultimately, when we say eternal life or eternal death, eternal life, and this is talking about it in its fullness because a Christian already has eternal life, right? He that believes has eternal life. But in the ultimate sense, in the final sense, when the final sentence is given, we who receive eternal life will receive it because God has looked at our life. From this perspective, and seen a patient continuing in well-doing. as we have sought for glory and honor.
and in corruption. There is a perseverance there. There is an obedience there. There is a constant seeking of God. John Murray said something that I think sort of simplifies this whole thing.
He said this. Works without redemptive aspiration. are dead works. Aspiration without good works is presumption.
So there are people whose aim is heavenward. And they will be judged By the life that God has produced in them. Because they have done well. And you can start even with Adam, and you can go all the way to today, and there will be a patient, continual seeking to do what is right in the heart of God. of a true believer.
They are made manifest by their deeds. That is a pattern of life.
Now look at verse 10, and this is the corresponding verse. They seek glory, honor, and immortality. And verse 10 says, Glory, honor, and peace. shall be given to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. All that we seek, we receive.
We seek glory, he gives glory. We seek honor, he gives honor. And then there's a change. We seek incorruption and he gives peace. And in a sense, I guess there's a parallel there for when we enter into eternal.
Holiness. Utter holiness in the presence of God. The battle with our corruption will be over and the result will be eternal peace. We seek for those things, and He gives us those things. What a thought.
At the time of judgment in the future, When God Sends the righteous into his eternal heaven and the unrighteous into an eternal hell. The ones who enter into eternal heaven will be those who have sought. You see it there? They have sought. They do seek for glory.
That doesn't say they've deserved it. They just sought it. They had aspirations for what was heavenly and godly. They sought for glory and honor and incorruption, and they'll receive the glory and the honor and the peace of eternal life. For they are the ones that have worked good.
And I submit to you that if there is no such good work visible in a life, then there is no genuine salvation. If this text says anything, it says that. And if it doesn't say that, it doesn't say anything. We will be rewarded then for our deeds because they are the proof of the righteousness within us. And in the third chapter, he'll tell us how to get the righteousness of God within us.
And this applies to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. God will give Heavenly and eternal blessing to the Jew and the Gentile. The Jew thought the Gentile would be shut out. No, the Jew had a priority in the covenant. The Jew was first in the priority of the covenant.
The Jew was first in chronology as Christ came first to the Jew. May I hasten to add that because of their priority in salvation, they also have a priority in judgment. And theirs will be a severe condemnation. If they reject, and that is the meaning of Amos 3:2, where the prophet says, You only have I known of all the families of the earth. And most people stop there, you only, he speaks to Israel, you only have I known of all the families of the earth.
You're the family that I have made my own. And the word no means an intimate love relationship. You only have I loved as my own of all the families of the earth. And then he says, Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. There's a severe punishment on Israel because of the Intimacy they had with God.
So they are first in salvation opportunity and they are first in judgment responsibility. There's no exemption for the Jew or the Gentile. No exemption for the moral man, the religious man. They don't make it any easier on him, they just make it harder. Let's look at the second group.
The works of those who receive wrath, verses 8 and 9. And they're kind of sandwiched in the middle of those other two verses. But unto them that are contentious. That's the authorized translation. And do not obey the truth, but obey in righteousness.
Indignation and wrath. Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first. and also of the Greek. Those who by their good works prove they have sought God. Are contrasted with those who, by their evil works, prove they have sought.
Self. And they are characterized by three terms or three phrases. First one. Verse 8, look at it. The word is contentious in the authorized.
Arathea. Is a Greek word, and there is a lot of discussion about what its original root is. It seems best to take this as coming from a root which means a hireling. And the basic concept of the word is self-seeking. And the first characterization of an unrighteous person is that he is utterly wrapped up in what pleases him.
What pleases him? What satisfies me? What makes me feel good? What makes me happy? What feathers my bed?
2 Timothy 3:2 says that men will be lovers of their own selves. And this is the basic problem of unregenerate man. He is totally wrapped up in himself.
Okay. The Lord died, it said in 2 Corinthians 5.15, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves. Because that's man's basic bent.
So, you have a person then who is totally self-seeking. And of course, that would lead to a contentious attitude toward the Lord. That would basically lead to a spirit of rebellion. And that's what you have in the second thought. Look at it in verse 8: they do not obey the truth.
You know, if you're self-seeking, You're going to resist what God says. God speaks the truth, and you say, I'm not interested in what you want, I'm going to do what I want. They don't obey the truth. It doesn't say why in this passage, it just says they don't. We're only looking at the deeds, they just don't obey the truth.
Man rebels against God. His reaction is against God. He is quarrelsome with God, if you will. And this reflects the basic egotism of sinfulness. There's a third phrase.
Not only does he not obey the truth, but he does obey unrighteousness. No man lives in a vacuum. You either do right or wrong, you just don't go down the middle. This is the flow of life. First, there is rebellion, and out of that rebellion comes disobedience, and then comes.
Dire sinfulness. As the life simply goes toward unrighteous behavior. The road to hell then. Is basically very simply defined. It is a spirit of antagonism toward the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Do you get that? The road to hell is basically a spirit of antagonism toward the Lordship of Christ. You will not respond, you will rebel. You will not obey, you will disobey.
Now, listen carefully here. I want you to get this point. If the road to hell Is a spirit of antagonism toward the Lordship of Christ, then the road to heaven. must be the opposite. It must be.
An attitude of submission. to the Lordship of Christ. And that is precisely what it is saying. God wants you to seek for glory and honor and incorruption. God wants the heart to seek heavenward, Godward.
Above. And even though we don't always attain, there is that seeking heart. And when we fail, there is that brokenness. If an unregenerate person is one who rebels against the lordship of Christ, then a Christian has to be the opposite of that. By character.
That is clearly the message of this text. Eternal life belongs to those who show the work of God in their hearts by living under the obedience of the Lordship of Christ. Those who refuse to do so. Or the unregenerate. And those who receive wrath.
You can see that sin is basically an attack on God. And calls for his holy reaction. Look back at verse 8 for a moment. To those people, he gives indignation and wrath. Kind of interesting words.
Indignation. The Greek root means to rush along To be in a hurry, to be in a heat or a sweat, to breathe violently, to someone moving fast, breathing violently, hurrying, sweating. It was used from Homer in the classic Greek writings through the centuries of the spirit panting in the body and the rage of a man that pants and swells. It is the word, by the way, describing Pharaoh's desire to kill Moses. Hebrews 11:27.
It is the word used in the fourth chapter of Luke to describe the fury and the rage of a mad crowd that wanted to throw Jesus off a cliff. It is the word used of the Ephesians when they heard the gospel and started a riot filled with fury in Acts chapter 19.
So it is a word of fury. It is a word of fervor. And it is saying that toward those whose works are against God and the Lordship of Christ, God will burst out in a heat. He will burst out like a consuming fire against those living in such rebellion. And then it adds the word wrath, which is another term for anger, a little differently.
It means to reach a pitch of fury. It is the end of mercy, it is the end of grace. It's just all over with. In terms of God's patience and God's tolerance. A swelling, furious, final anger.
And so you can see by these terms that God is talking about a Great. Fury of anger. Against those whose works reflect an earthward attitude. and a denial of God. Verse 9.
Tribulation and anguish. He adds those as if we don't have enough words. Tribulation, eclipses. It means to put pressure on something or to press it. It is used in Acts 11:19 of the crushing persecution of the early church.
It is used of the struggles of saints in Romans 12:12. It is used of Paul's being persecuted nearly to death in 2 Corinthians 1:8. It is used of Christ's sufferings in Colossians 1:24 as He was put through tribulation, pressing, pressure, oppression. It always carries the idea of affliction. Affliction.
It can refer to an inner or an outer affliction, but affliction is the idea. And then anguish. Is a most interesting word, a common Greek word for narrow, meaning the narrowness of a place. A confined, narrow place, limited. Think of it this way.
God is going to be angry. His fury is going to reach a fever pitch in verse 8. In verse 9, the result of that is going to be affliction in a narrow place. I can't think of a better definition of hell than that. Affliction in a narrow, confined, imprisoned place.
A confinement and imprisonment that produces a powerful, fearful pain. That's why the New Testament says hell is an everlasting punishment, an everlasting fire, a furnace of fire, a lake of fire, fire and brimstone, an unquenchable fire, a place of suffering where the worm dies not, the fire is not quenched, there's weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. It is anguish in a confined imprisonment. And it will come upon every soul of man that doeth evil. Everyone whose life pattern is continually evil.
Everyone whose mode of living is that of an unrighteous behavior. People filled with selfish ambition, refusing to obey the Lordship of Christ. Wrath and anger.
So God judges. And he judges according to deeds, just as he judges according to guilt, as he judges according to truth, and he judges according to knowledge. And a person's deeds, as we said long ago, are the inflexible, infallible indicator of their life. Look at David. David committed terrible sins.
But the direction if not the perfection of his life. Was God word, wasn't it? On the other hand, Look at Judas. Judas was outwardly attached. to Christ.
But the direction of his life Was self-centered rebellion and disobedience. All the while. You see, the key thought is that true righteousness produces true. Good deeds. And God can judge them on the basis of those deeds.
And unrighteousness, no matter how religious it gets, will produce only evil deeds. And God will have no respect For any person. He will judge all equally. There will be an absolute equity in ultimate judgment. Yeah.
Just one question and I want to close. How, and we have to answer this question, even though it doesn't come until chapter three. How can a person Produce the good works that gain for him glory and honor and peace and eternal life. That's the question, isn't it? We started with the fact that God's going to judge.
We saw something about that judgment. We have now seen criteria by which God will judge. The question is, now I know that I must produce the righteous works to avoid the eternal judgment of God, but how?
Well, let's jump the gun on Paul a little bit. And go over to chapter 3, verse 21. The righteousness that God desires, the righteousness of God. Yeah. Apart from the law is manifest.
In other words, it isn't going to happen through your own self-effort of trying to keep some rules. Even though they be the right rules. It is the righteousness of God that comes, verse 20 to by faith. In Jesus Christ. unto all and upon all them that what?
Believe. Verse 24 says, We're justified freely by his grace. through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Now that's really all I need to know, beloved. The way and the only way to produce the righteous deeds is. to possess the righteousness of Christ. And the only way to possess the righteousness of Christ is by faith in His redemptive work. Do you believe that he died?
God incarnate for your sin? Do you believe that He rose again? For your justification. Do you believe that he ever lives to make intercession for you? Do you believe that he'll come back to complete?
that this the redemptive Plan If you believe. and you receive Christ. He gives you the capacity. by the implantation of his own eternal life. to produce righteous deeds.
And when the day comes, The judgment is to occur. God will see the record of a righteous life. And know that such a life could only be the product of the indwelling presence of the living Christ. and grant eternal life. Let's bound prayer.
Father, we pray. that no one in this place would come short. of the standard. But that all of us would enter in to the righteousness of Jesus Christ by faith in him. and in such entering in, escape the wrath to come.
and enter into your gracious, merciful plan. for eternal life. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Today we continue John's study on the judgment of God called Without Excuse.
Well, there's something we can't say often enough, and that is thank you to the people who run this radio station. Without their partnership, we would not have the effective reach in your community like we do.
So, friend, if I could make a suggestion, contact this radio station and let the people there know that you're thankful for all the work they do and for airing programs like Grace to You. You'll encourage them more than you know. And keep in mind, we'd love to hear how God is using these broadcasts in your life. When you can, send a note our way. Our email address is letters at gty.org.
Once again, that's letters at gty.org. You can also send a letter by physical mail addressed to Grace2U. P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. And be sure to visit our website, gty.org.
You can check out the various opportunities to take in John's verse-by-verse teaching. You can download 3,600 sermons free of charge in audio and transcript format. That's every message from John's 56 years of pulpit ministry. And if you're not sure where to start listening, log on to Grace Stream. That's a continual broadcast of John's teaching through the New Testament.
It takes you from Matthew through Revelation, verse by verse, and then it starts over again. It's an excellent way to spend a few minutes or a couple of hours. You'll find GraceStream and much more at gty.org. And now, for the entire Grace DU staff, I'm Phil Johnson with a question. If salvation comes by hearing the word of God, is it fair for people who've never heard the gospel to be sent to hell?
Find out in John MacArthur's lesson tomorrow. It's another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth, one verse at a time. on Race to You.
