The person is a Christian who trusts completely and only in Jesus Christ for his salvation. If they believe that they earn any merit with God that is a part of their salvation, they're lost. Where there are works, grace is no more grace. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Since you've tuned in to this Bible teaching radio program, perhaps you have definite beliefs about what God is like and what it means to be a Christian and how you can make it to heaven. The question is, how do you know that what you believe is right?
How can you be sure that you're not deceived, that you think you're on your way to heaven when you're really on a much different path on the road to eternal separation from God? I urge you to take a close look at the picture Scripture paints of true believers as John MacArthur continues his study, The Road to Nowhere, and now here is John MacArthur with the lesson. Paul writes, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
To write the same things again is no trouble to me and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the mutilation, for we are the true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. The heart of what the Apostle Paul is saying here can be understood in this way. He is helping us to see who is the true child of God. It is a clear and penetrating distinction between the false circumcision and the true circumcision, between those who profess to be the people of God and those who are the people of God. It is a distinction between those who are religious and those who are righteous.
It is a distinction between those who have an outward mark that identifies them with God and those who have had an inward change. To the Jews of the time of Jesus and the time of Paul and even before and even now, circumcision is a very important mark. It is the badge of their Jewishness. In fact, it has always been important to the degree that the Jewish Talmud says this, and I quote, the commandment of circumcision is more important than all the other injunctions of Scripture, end quote.
Interesting. In other words, the most important thing a Jew can do to secure a relationship with God is have circumcision. Obviously, it's only for men, but that is the sign of God's favor on them, they believe.
They have attached their spiritual hope to this sign of Jewishness, and that is what they hope in for the future. So they were very serious about this matter of circumcision. It was not some trifling thing.
It was very important. In the time of David, Michael, Saul's daughter, loved David, 1 Samuel 18, 20. When they told Saul the thing was agreeable to him, and Saul thought, I will give her to him that she may become a snare to him and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Therefore Saul said to David, for a second time, you may be my son-in-law today. And it says Saul commanded the servants, speak to David secretly saying, behold, the king delights in you and all his servants love you, now therefore become the king's son-in-law. So Saul's servants spoke these words to David, but David says, is it trivial in your sight to become the king's son-in-law, since I am a poor man and highly esteemed, and the servants of Saul reported them according to these words which David spoke? Saul then said, thus you shall say to David, the king does not desire any dowry except a hundred foreskins of the Philistines to take vengeance on the king's enemies. I'd like to circumcise a hundred Philistines, he says. That's what he wants to give up his daughter, Michael, to David. Saul planned, of course, to have David fall by the hand of the Philistines. He thought he was going to go out there and try to get a hundred Philistine foreskins by himself. No way!
Ridiculous! When his servants told David these words, verse 26, it pleased David to become the king's son-in-law. Before the days had expired, David rose up, went, he and his men, and struck down two hundred men from the Philistines and brought in their foreskins, a rather bizarre thing, and gave them in full number to the king that he might become the king's son-in-law. So Saul gave him Michael, his daughter, for a wife. Saul saw and knew the Lord is with David, and that Michael, Saul's daughter, loved him.
And Saul was even more afraid of David than Saul was David's enemy continually. Here again, you see that there was almost...it was almost a war to circumcise Gentiles. They took the circumcision thing as a very serious issue. They used it in very bizarre ways, and we don't defend these ways, but it points out how significant it had become. Now what is interesting, keep this in mind, is that already in Genesis 34, and certainly by David's time, the sign of circumcision has lost its spiritual significance, okay? It has come to be some kind of a weapon, some kind of a way to inflict pain. You say, well, didn't God just give it as an outward sign? Was there more to it than that?
Oh yes, much more, much more. Leviticus 26, 41 talks about the circumcised heart. Deuteronomy 10, 16, the circumcised heart. Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, the circumcised heart. Jeremiah 4, 4, the circumcised heart. Ezekiel 44, 7, the circumcised heart. That starts all the way back in Exodus 6. Leviticus, Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch, already when God said, I want an outward sign, He was saying, I also want an inward reality. A circumcised foreskin can only be a sign of the need for a circumcised heart, a cleansed heart. But it wasn't long after God instituted it that they had already begun to deteriorate and that's why you have those passages where God says, Circumcise your hearts.
That's why those are there because already the thing began to deteriorate and all they were living by was the physical sign and disregarding the spiritual counterpart. You see, the point is this, these people were religious to the T in terms of external ceremony, but they were not righteous. Their hearts were wicked. Their mouths were wicked.
Their ears were wicked. Oh sure, they very dutifully circumcised their little boys on the eighth day. They very dutifully circumcised anybody that came into their land to live with them. But they had skewed the whole thing so that all they had left was the duty of the external and there was no reality of the internal. In other words, they were religious on the outside and they were not spiritual on the inside. They could do the natural fleshly thing, they could not do the supernatural spiritual thing. They were cleansed physically, they were never cleansed spiritually. Notice Romans 2, Paul sums up their whole problem. Verse 25, "'For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the law.'"
Did you get that? You say, what good is circumcision? It's of value if you practice the law.
Why? It's a symbol. It's a symbol of the need for cleansing if you're obedient.
And then he says, "'If you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.'" In other words, the symbol isolated from the reality is meaningless. What would it matter if you came here on the Lord's Day and took communion if you denied the crucifixion and the resurrection? What would it matter if you came in here and were baptized in water if you didn't believe in Jesus Christ?
Absolutely pointless. The symbol means nothing without the reality. And so if you are a transgressor of the law and you've never been cleansed on the inside by the grace of God and made righteous to become obedient to the law, circumcision is useless. If you have come to righteousness and if you have been cleansed on the inside and you're a new creation on the inside, then the outward sign means something to you. It demonstrates outwardly what has happened inwardly. Verse 26, if therefore the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the law, which he can only do because he's had a changed nature, he's been saved, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?
Of course. The Jews were very concerned to circumcise all the Gentiles. He's saying, look, an uncircumcised Gentile who has been transformed and cleansed to obey My law doesn't need circumcision and a disobedient, lawless, unsaved Jew with circumcision will find it useless. Verse 27 says, and will not he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the law, will he not judge you who through having the letter of the law and circumcision are a transgressor of the law?
Boy, what a statement. He is saying the uncircumcised but saved and obedient Gentile will judge the circumcised, lost and disobedient Jew. Then he sums it up in verse 28 and 29. For he is not a Jew who is one...what?...outwardly because circumcision is not that which is outward in the flesh. He is a true Jew, implied, who is one inwardly and circumcision is that which is of the heart by the Spirit, not by the letter of the law, implied, and his praise is not from men but from God.
There you have the sum of it all. The Jews were circumcised on the outside, not the inside. And God was more pleased with Gentiles who were not circumcised on the outside but circumcised on the inside. And again, remember, circumcision is the symbol of cutting away sin. It's the symbol of salvation. So, circumcision is the external symbol depicting the need for a deep, total cleansing from sin.
But Israel had reduced it to a tribal tattoo, that's all, with nothing of spiritual significance. Now what do you have in the era of the early church? You have Christians and Jews, the Jews still claiming to be the people of God, right? We're the people of God. We're the people of God.
They claimed it, that's why they killed Jesus because they didn't want to accept what He said about the fact that they weren't the people of God. So the Jews are claiming to be the people of God, the church is claiming to be the people of God. And Paul wants the Philippians to be sure they know the difference.
So go back to Philippians chapter 3 and note again the contrast. He says, beware, verse 2, and then he describes the Jews that are still holding on to circumcision and ceremony, religion on the outside. They are dogs, evil workers, they are the false circumcision, or better mutilation. Then on the other hand, he says, we, verse 3, are the true circumcision. And how are we identified?
We're not dogs, evil workers, and mutilation. We are identified as those who worship in the Spirit of God, glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh. That's the distinction. Paul then is again describing the difference between the true and the false. And that is the age-old issue in New Testament concern. Who is real?
Who is not? And beloved, I submit to you that this goes on and on through all the ages of life on this earth until Jesus comes, the false religionists up against the true. They have their mark, we have our mark.
We must know the difference. Now what made this exceedingly relevant to the Philippian church is this. When the time Paul started his ministry really began, it wasn't long before his steps began to be dogged by the Judaizers. And they were coming behind Paul who was preaching the gospel of grace, the gospel of grace, salvation by grace through faith, plus or minus nothing, all of grace, all of grace. And all we have to do is believe. You can't be saved by circumcision, you can't be saved by keeping ceremonial law, you can't stay saved by circumcision, you can't stay saved by obeying tradition, ceremonial law, or in your own flesh keeping the law of God.
That was grace. But along came the Judaizers and behind Paul, they would come into the church and they would say, no, you must be circumcised. And they would show them Old Testament passages.
You must keep the law of Moses and they would show them Old Testament passages. Not understanding that the Old Covenant had been set aside in favor of the New Covenant and being somewhat confused, many of the Christians would buy into the lies of these false circumcision. And it was confusing the church. In fact, it was so confusing to the church that the letter of Paul to the Galatians is basically all about this one subject. It's all about these people who preach a false gospel. Verse 7 of Galatians 1, they are disturbing you and they want to distort the gospel of Christ.
And what was their distortion? You must be circumcised physically and you must keep all the law of Moses, the ceremonies of Moses. You've got to have this outward sign and then you've got to do all the ceremonies, all the sacrifices, all the offerings, all the holy days, all the Sabbaths, all the feasts and you've got to do good, do good, earn your way. And these Judaizers were a burden of immense proportions to the Apostle Paul. You say, well how is it relevant to us we don't have any Judaizers running around?
Listen, what we have running around is the same thing. People who are saying all the time, if you want to be right with God, you've got to do this, do that, do this, light this candle, bow down, go through this ceremony, say this prayer, do this ritual, buy this absolving. Or you've got to join this organization, be a part of this, have this special kind of baptism.
You've got to work your way into the kingdom. I've said this many times, there are only two religions in the world, the religion of divine accomplishment, salvation by grace, and the religion of human achievement and that is every other religion on the face of the earth. People who are buying offerings, buying sacrifices, buying flowers, lighting incense, bowing down, doing whatever they had to do to appease the gods, trying to do more good than they did bad, weigh the balance of the scale in their favor. Buddhists trying to do the same thing, sitting on the floor in a trance, genuflecting while incense rises up, hopefully by their religious activities and their duties and by their good works and their good deeds, God will be pleased with them and accept them in.
That's all the same kind of stuff. And there are people who want to come along to those of us who believe in grace and believe we're saved by grace and impose on us some kind of legalistic code by which we earn our way to heaven. Some would say you have to be water baptized or you can't get into heaven.
That's a necessary work. Some would say you have to pray a certain amount of time or you have to have certain prayers that you say. Some would say you have to engage in certain absolution or certain types of confessions where you release your sin and when you do that, God will accept you. Some believe that if you take communion on that basis, God accepts the merit of that. So there are always going to be the people around who will say that, who will want to impose works, symbols, systems on grace, whether they come as Judaizers or Buddhists or Shintoists or whatever they are, animists, whatever cult or occult, whatever system of religion that puts anything in there that you do, convulates the pure grace of God.
So the battle is still there and this question still comes all the time. People ask me this very, very often, frequently about Seventh-day Adventists, for example. They say our Seventh-day Adventist Christians, and my answer is a person is a Christian who trusts completely and only in Jesus Christ for His salvation. If they believe that they earn any merit with God that is a part of their salvation by going to church on Saturday, they're lost because that's a work. And where there are works, grace is no more grace. But you see, you still have that same thing. People are believing they can earn their way into heaven.
That's the same lie. Paul says, anybody who comes along and tells you that stuff, label as dogs, evil workers, the false circumcision. The true circumcision, hey, they're not marked by the external, they worship God in the Spirit. That's internal. They glory in Christ Jesus, not in their own works. And they put no confidence in the flesh.
See the difference? We'll go into that in detail in our next study. So Paul is calling us again to the same basic recognition that we have had all through the New Testament. Who is a true believer and who is not?
And I guess the question that we have to ask ourselves is, where do I fit? Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 says, for by grace you are saved. That not of what?
Yourselves. Not of works, lest any man should boast. For by grace are you saved through faith?
That not of yourselves? It is the gift of God. That's the heart of that verse. It is the gift of God.
If you receive salvation in Jesus Christ by His death and resurrection as a gift from God, you received it, confessing your sin and turning to Christ, you're the true circumcision. If you're doing anything to earn favor with God, you're the false. The Philippians needed to know the difference. They needed to be careful. In fact, he says in verse 2, beware three times because these will confuse people.
They'll confuse people. And certainly the Judaizers would have used Bible verses from the Old Testament without understanding their significance. So beloved, again we say then as we look at this passage in more detail next time, here are the distinctive qualities of a true Christian. Their life is a relationship, not a ritual.
They possess righteousness, not religion. And we'll see the outworking of that as we look at it in further detail. Let's pray it again. Lord, we who know You in a true way know You because You have redeemed us out of Your sovereign love, not by virtue of anything which we have done or could have done or would have done.
And so we give You all the glory and all the credit. We have come today to worship by the Spirit of God internally, not in some external ceremony. We have come to glory in Christ Jesus, not to boast about our flesh and what we've accomplished in our good works. And we have come with no confidence in the flesh, not for a moment believing that there's some good thing in us whereby we can please You.
That's just not true. So we're the true circumcision. We thank You for that. But Lord, we know too that there are some who are not true, who do not worship by the Spirit. They worship externally through forms and rituals and the means that men have designed, who do not glory in Christ Jesus but boast as it were in their own accomplishments, their own religiosity, their own good deeds, and who mistakenly have confidence that in their flesh, in their humanness, they can do things to please holy God. Lord, awaken them to the lie that that is. And may they cast themselves at the merciful feet of Jesus Christ who in grace will forgive them for such an affront as to think that an unworthy, ungodly sinner could do anything to please a holy God. Father, we pray that You'll save those who are only religious and make them righteous.
For Jesus' sake. Amen. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. The title of John's current study, The Road to Nowhere. John, you said today that there are no works that can earn us any favor with God, and that message comes through loud and clear throughout the New Testament. But what about the Old Testament? How does that no works principle square with the Old Testament covenants that include a lot of, if you do this, then God will do that elements?
Works do seem important there. Well, the whole point of the law, as you know, was to demonstrate man's inability. In other words, God lays down his law and it has massive components, as we all know, reading in the Old Testament.
And no one is capable of keeping that law perfectly in any of its elements. And this is a demonstration of the sinner's inability to please God by keeping the law. In fact, if you just took the moral and spiritual aspect of the law in the Old Testament and gave a summation of it, that summation would be this. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself.
Nobody can do that. The point of giving the law was to demonstrate the sinfulness of man. And that is the message of the Old Testament, that no one can achieve a relationship with God, which promises heaven by keeping the law because no one can keep the law. And the New Testament says, if you offend in one, you've shattered the whole law. In the Old Testament, a person then would come to the realization that they couldn't keep the law and they would cry out for mercy. They would cry out for forgiveness, asking God to forgive sin and to give grace and mercy to the penitent sinner. That's Old Testament salvation. Believing that God was a forgiving and gracious God. So that in the Old Testament, one was saved by believing God and seeking His forgiveness, and that was counted as righteousness.
Thanks for that, John. And now, friend, to learn more about the relationship between law and grace and the roles faith and works have in the Christian life, I would suggest John's book, The Gospel According to the Apostles. It answers some of the toughest questions you may have about the gospel, so order your copy today. You can call us here at 855-GRACE or visit our website, GTY.org. The Gospel According to the Apostles costs $11 and shipping is free.
It's a sequel to John's landmark book, The Gospel According to Jesus, and it addresses important issues such as cheap grace and whether being a Christian means submitting to the authority of Christ. To order The Gospel According to the Apostles, call 855-GRACE or go online to GTY.org. And while you're at GTY.org, that's our website, make sure you take advantage of the thousands of free resources that are available to you there at the website, including the Grace to You blog. There are daily devotionals. We have more than 3,600 of John's sermons, all free to download in MP3 and transcript format. All that at our website, GTY.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, or catch any episodes you may have missed at GTY.org, and then be back Monday when John shows you three qualities that should characterize every Christian as he continues to map out the road to nowhere. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
