The world is filled with the religiously sincere. People very sincere in their religion, make great effort, personal sacrifice, high cost, pay the price, wanting to please God, very sincere. God is not impressed. You can have a lot of zeal and be absolutely wrong and Paul says, I thought it was right, I considered it garbage when I met Christ. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.
I'm Phil Johnson, your host. From Wall Street to Main Street, the recession of 2008 hit people hard. Many saw their retirement savings dry up. Tens of millions lost their jobs and nearly everyone had to reconsider how they used their money. The recession was a stark reminder that losing resources that have value and that create stability, it's a painful experience. Yet, if you look at the Apostle Paul's life, you see that he actually rejoiced when things that once held great value to him lost all of their worth.
The reason? Paul found a far greater treasure. And the question for you is, have you discovered that treasure?
John MacArthur will help you determine that as his study called The Road To Nowhere continues. And so with that, here's John. I'd like to entitle this message, Religious Credits That Don't Impress God. Paul is saying, in every sense, I am an authentic Jew. I have a consummate pedigree.
I have had it all, but I consider it worthless when it comes to Christ because none of it can gain salvation. Do you understand that's his point? And he is saying how foolish it is to boast in your religious credits.
And by the way, listen to me carefully when I say this. Most of the people in the world believe they will attain eternal life by accumulating religious credits. Most of the world believes that. The only people who don't are Christians.
The rest do. They are deceived. And that is particularly true among Jews because there is Old Testament precedent for their religion.
And so they believe if they live by that, they are amassing in the prophet column the credits that impress God and by which he will grant them salvation. Paul says, not so. It is manure. It is waste. It is garbage.
It's worthless. So, here is his list of things once considered profit, now considered loss. And they are all his Jewish credentials. Look at verse 5. And I'm going to give you seven points. I want you to get them very carefully.
They go by very fast. Just brief. Number one. Salvation is not by ritual. Salvation is not by ritual. He says, the first thing that was profit to me and I came to count as loss was that I was circumcised the eighth day.
Now the literal Greek reads this way. With respect to circumcision and eighth dayer. With respect to circumcision, I was an eighth dayer.
So what does he mean by that? Well, in Genesis 17, 12. Genesis 21, 4. Leviticus 12, 31. God institutes circumcision. That physical operation as a sign of his people. And he said it is to be done on the eighth day after a male child is born. That was a strict Jewish rite.
And what is Paul saying? He's saying, hey, with regard to me, I went by the mosaic book. I was circumcised on the eighth day. I went through the basic ritual of Judaism. The rite and ceremony by which you are initiated into the covenant people.
So he said, I look at that circumcision that you see is so vital to salvation and I'm telling you it's rubbish. It's rubbish because salvation is not by ritual. It is not by rite. It is not by ceremony. It is not by symbol. It is not by sacraments.
It is not by masses. It is not by routines and rituals and washings and baptisms. Ceremonies, rites and rituals don't bring salvation.
That's what he's saying. So I considered that truest Jewish rite of all rites, circumcision, as manure. As far as salvation is concerned, it's useless. It's waste. It's garbage.
Throw it out. It can't help. Secondly, he says salvation is not by race either. If anybody had a right to boast, I might because not only was I circumcised the eighth day but I am of the nation of Israel. The implication here is that some of the Judaizers probably were Gentiles converted later. They were circumcised later in life and they weren't really of the nation Israel.
They were proselytes. But Paul is saying, I'm of the people of Israel and you know as well as I do that the Old Testament is filled with the teaching that the children of Israel were the covenant people. They were God's chosen people.
It was on them that he said his love. Could all the Judaizers claim such religious heritage? Did they possess by race the rites of God's chosen people? Paul did and Paul understood the meaning of that. So Paul is saying, I am pure in terms of my Jewish heritage. Pure descent from God's chosen people.
That's a credential. And I'll tell you right now, the Jews believed that if they were circumcised the eighth day and if they were of the pure line coming out of the loins of Jacob and coming through the twelve tribes that were the children of Jacob, they were therefore the chosen people of God who were the saved, the redeemed, the inheritors of eternal glory. Paul says the fact of the matter is that's useless. That is absolutely useless. No religious virtue is gained by birth.
Understand that? Thirdly, salvation is not by rank. Salvation is not by rank. He says in verse 5, circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin. Now this is a ranking tribe. Of all of the tribes, certainly the two most elite were Judah and Benjamin. We talk a lot about Judah because out of the line of Judah comes the Messiah but we can't forget Benjamin. Benjamin was a very, very elite tribe.
Let me tell you why. Benjamin, first of all, was the younger of two sons born to Rachel and you will remember the story in Genesis chapter 30 that Rachel was Jacob's favorite wife and that made Benjamin a favorite child. In fact, he was the last and thus he was the baby of all and the baby of the beloved wife, the tenderly beloved Benjamin. Benjamin furthermore, according to Genesis 35, 9 to 19, was the only one of the sons of Jacob born in the promised land and thus he had a very unique identity and title to that land. Benjamin furthermore, was given unique military priority. Read Judges 5, verse 14, Hosea 5, 8 and you will find that apparently when the troops went to battle, Benjamin was the front line.
They must have been loyal, courageous, great soldiers. Furthermore, when they went to find a king, to what tribe did they go? Benjamin. And they found Saul, 1 Samuel chapter 9, who was out of the tribe of Benjamin. You remember when God divided up the land, the promised land, he gave certain sections of the land to the tribes? I don't know if you remember this but the section he gave to Benjamin included the city of Jerusalem. So the holy city itself was in the territory of Benjamin. And thus Benjamin was a very, very noble tribe for in their territory was the great holy city of Jerusalem.
Judges 1, 21 points that out to us. Furthermore, according to 1 Kings 12, 21, you remember after Solomon the kingdom split because there was a revolution and the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom were divided and Benjamin stayed loyal to the Davidic dynasty and stayed with Judah in the south? And Benjamin and Judah formed the legitimate southern kingdom.
The northern kingdom went off in rebellion and eventually was carried away into captivity in 722 BC. So Benjamin was loyal to David at the time of the kingdom being split. Benjamin and Judah then forming the southern kingdom. A very famous man came out of the tribe of Benjamin. The man that God used to spare the entire nation of Israel from being massacred, that man's name was Mordecai. And Mordecai was used by God in the story of Esther to preserve the people of Israel. Mordecai was of the tribe of Benjamin. So it was a noble group for a number of reasons. It stood above the other tribes.
Not perfect by any means and I don't want to be misunderstood. Shimmi, that fool who cursed David and threw rocks at him was a Benjamite. 2 Samuel chapter 16 and 19 record that.
He did repent later on. But Shimmi was a Benjamite, certainly not someone you'd want to claim. And maybe the worst of the activities of the Benjamites is recorded in Judges 19 and 20 where they perpetrated a gang rape that ended up in a victim being chopped into little pieces and mailed around to all the tribes.
A gross thing. It ended up, actually 25,100 Benjamites were massacred. So not all of the history of Benjamin is worthy of copying, but they were a noble group. They were considered a ranking tribe. What is also interesting is this. By the time Paul wrote Philippians, most of the Jews didn't know their tribe.
Two reasons. The records were lost in the Babylonian captivity and secondly, intermarriage had blurred the lines, the tribal lines. What Paul is saying is I have never been involved and my family has never been involved in intermarriage.
We have stayed pure Benjamites. So he is really a blue blood. He is a Jew in the purest, truest sense who even knows his tribe, which was not the case for all the Jews and perhaps the Judaizers in this case. None of them may have known their tribe. None of them been from the tribe of Benjamin perhaps as well.
So what's he saying? I come from ranking tribe. I come from ranking people.
I come from privileged class. That means nothing. That is not adequate to save me from sin. That is not adequate to make me right with God.
That is worthless in that regard. The highest aristocracy in Israel couldn't make me a child of God and that's obvious even for us today. No noble religious heritage can make you right with God. Being right with God is not gained by ritual, ceremony, right. It is not gained by race.
It is not gained by rank. Now all three of those are received by inheritance. Paul got all of those. He really couldn't earn them. His parents circumcised him.
His parents determined that he was in the nation of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. So he says this I received by inheritance. But now he says here are four things I achieved by effort. So he adds to his inherited prophet, his achieved prophet and then says I consider this rubbish too. Number four. The last four he achieved.
Number four. Salvation is not by tradition. Salvation is not by tradition. He says a Hebrew of Hebrews.
Now there might be several ways to understand what he means by that. I prefer to think along with a number of commentators that what he is saying here is I am a Hebrew child of Hebrew parents. In other words I have maintained my tradition.
I have maintained my tradition. This is directed by the way at the dispersed Jews who had been scattered all around including perhaps these in Philippi. And having been scattered around they were greatly impacted by Greek culture. Many of them lost the Hebrew language and when they lost the language they lost their tradition. You have a lot of Jews today who are trying to get their tradition back but they'll never really get it back without the language. But they in those days had the same problem. They had become Hellenized from the Greek word Eleni which means Gentile. They had become victims of Greek culture. So they lost their language.
They lost their tradition. He is saying not me. I had Hebrew parents. I'm a Hebrew child. I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
I maintained my tradition. You know what God said? I'm not impressed.
I'm not impressed. No amount of loyalty to your traditional religion can save you. No amount of loyalty to your ancestral worship can save you. This is worthless. This is rubbish, manure, garbage. Get rid of it. There's no treasure there.
There's no pearl there. Just because you're loyal to your parents Catholicism or your parents Judaism or your traditional Protestant background. You're a Lutheran because your parents are Lutheran or you're a Presbyterian because your family's always been that way. Or you're Baptist because everybody's been Baptist. That kind of loyalty through a tradition is worthless as far as a means of salvation. It's worthless. Salvation doesn't come in those terms.
Number five. Salvation is not by religion. Not only not by tradition but by religion. On a religious level Paul had really achieved, look at verse five, as to the law of Pharisee. He says when it comes to the law I was a Pharisee. In other words when it comes to my view of God's word I took the Pharisaic perspective.
What does that mean? That is the highest level of religious achievement in Judaism. You can't get any higher than being a Pharisee. The Pharisee was the religious radical fundamentalist. That was the Pharisee. The narrow minded legalistic literalist fundamentalist who interpreted the word of God specifically directly to life. They were a very elite group. During the time of Christ the best estimate is that there were no more than 6,000 of them. That's all.
No more than 6,000. Because it was such a strict, demanding, circumscribed, legalistic lifestyle that very few people desired to live according to that standard. Paul says my view of the law? A Pharisee.
That means I know the law, I can interpret the law, I have guarded the law, and I have lived by its strictest interpretation. Not all of the Pharisees were snakes and vipers and fools and hypocrites and blind leaders and robbers and envious, jealous, proud fakers. Some of them were serious minded.
They were trying their best to achieve status with God through religion. So this little small group of elite people included in their number Paul. And not only Paul but apparently he says not only was I a Pharisee but I come from a line of Pharisees. We don't know whether he's talking about other Pharisees in the line of Pharisees or the fact that his father may have been a Pharisee as well. But you read it in Acts 22-3, Acts 23-6, Acts 26-5, Galatians 1-14, he often refers to his Pharisaic background. So he said I took religion to the highest level, very religious. Paul says I considered my Pharisaic devotion to the law of God as rubbish.
Rubbish! Number six, salvation is not by sincerity. Salvation is not by sincerity. In verse six he says, as to zeal, boy if anybody should have confidence I should because as to zeal I was a persecutor of the church. I was a persecutor of the church. How zealous were you Paul? So zealous I killed Christians. That's pretty zealous. By the way, to the Jews, zeal, zealous, zeal was, mark it, the single highest virtue of religion.
Did you get that? What is zeal? It's two sides of a coin, okay? Zeal is the coin. One side is love, the other side is hate.
What do I mean? Zeal says I love God so much I hate whatever offends him. That's zeal. I love God so much I hate whatever offends him. Paul loved God. He loved the law of God. He loved the community of God.
That's the Jewish people. He loved all that God had revealed to such a degree that he hated anything he thought offended God and he thought Christians offended God. Why did he kill Christians?
Because of zeal. He loved Judaism so much that he hated anything that threatened it and Christianity threatened it. So he persecuted Christians.
To what degree? Read the book of Acts. He breathed out threatening and slaughter on them. He created havoc in the church. He killed Christians. He pursued them. He chased them. He wanted to take their life. Hey, he's one up on the Judaizers.
All the Judaizers did was proselyte. He persecuted. You think you've got zeal? I've got more.
I went after them to kill them. You know what? He was sincere, wasn't he? I hear people say, well, it doesn't really matter what religion you are as long as you're sincere. It's like saying it doesn't matter what poison you drink as long as you're sincere, you'll be alright.
Mental attitude has nothing to do with it. It's a matter of truth. Paul was sincere. He was zealous for God.
He was so zealous for Judaism that there was nothing he wouldn't do and relentlessly, unsparingly, untiringly, and mercilessly, he tried to stamp out Christianity because of his zeal for God. Very sincere. The world is filled with the religiously sincere. People very sincere in their religion. Make great effort, personal sacrifice, high cost, pay the price, wanting to please God.
Very sincere. God is not impressed. Salvation is not by ritual. Salvation is not by race. Salvation is not by rank. Salvation is not by maintaining tradition. Salvation does not come through religion. And salvation does not come by sincerity. You can have a lot of zeal and be absolutely wrong and Paul says, I thought it was right.
I considered it garbage when I met Christ. Lastly, salvation is not by law righteousness. Salvation is not by law righteousness. Or you could say righteous works. Verse 6, as to the righteousness which is in the law.
What was my approach? I was found blameless. What does that mean? Found has the idea of those who watched his life couldn't find anything to hold against him as a transgression. Outwardly the man lived according to the law. Now he's not saying I was sinless. He's not advocating sinless perfection. He's not saying before I was saved I was sinlessly perfect. Otherwise he wouldn't have needed to be saved. But what he is saying is this, that in general with regard to the righteousness which is advocated by God's law, or the standard of righteous living advocated by the law of God, no one could find me blamable. I lived a blameless life. By human judgment I was a model Jew and lived by God's law. Boy, this is some testimony. Listen, if you could be saved by works he would have been saved, right?
What a list! This guy's got the prophet column filled. And he says, look, I was fine. I had filled up my prophet column with all the things that earned my salvation until I met Christ. And I found out that the righteousness of my own wasn't adequate but there was a righteousness in Christ by grace given to me by faith received. And that was the pearl of great price and that was the true treasure.
And so I counted all this other stuff as manure and I came to Christ. Verse 7, whatever things were gained to me, all the stuff of verses 5 and 6, those things I have counted as loss. They aren't a plus. They aren't a positive. They are a negative.
Why? They damn you. They send you to hell under deception, under an illusion. And so I saw them for what they were.
They were detractors. They were loss, not gain for the sake of Christ. And I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I might gain Christ.
That's it. Paul said I got all these credentials. Man, I got race, rank, ritual. I got tradition, religion, sincerity, works, righteousness. I got my prophet column filled up. Jesus said drop it all and follow me.
Paul said yes. And he counted it as all but loss to gain Christ. When you meet Christ, you either drop all the stuff that you've been counting on for your salvation and take Christ alone or you hold to all the stuff you've been holding on to for your salvation and turn your back on Christ. Those two categories, you're in one of them. Everyone is.
That's it. What are you counting on? Who are you counting on for your salvation? You're either trusting yourself and your achievements or Christ. And when you come to trust Christ, all the achievements become rubbish. That's the exchange. Father, we thank you for your word.
Such a clear cut text. Such a great testimony from this marvelous man as you moved in his life. Father, thank you that you have shown us again the rubbish that most people count valuable and they are accumulating manure, waste that will buy them nothing when they could drop it all and turn to Christ and receive everything. Thank you for the gift of salvation which we can receive as you offer it to us. To that end we pray that many may receive it this day, that it might be to your glory in Jesus' name. Amen. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current study here on Grace to You is titled The Road to Nowhere. Well, John, as we're focusing on the subject of what it means to be a Christian, I want to consider a related question that listeners often ask.
In fact, this is probably the most frequently asked question on our Q&A line. It goes something like this, I'm doubting my salvation, so how can I be sure that I am saved? How do I know I'll be in heaven when I die?
How do you respond to that? First of all, I want to say you can be sure. You can be sure. The Lord wants you to be sure. The Lord didn't save you and then leave you in a life of doubt.
That is a ridiculous notion. He wants you to know you're going to glory. He doesn't want you to fear. He doesn't want you to doubt.
He doesn't want you to wonder. So that is at the very foundation of the question. The Lord wants you to have that assurance. The question then is where does that assurance come from? One, it comes from understanding the Gospel. And the Gospel, as revealed in the New Testament, says, if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, in other words, you confess Jesus Christ as God and Lord and believe in his death and resurrection as a sacrifice for sin, you are saved.
You are saved. So the external objective proof that you're a believer is that you believe the truth. But on the other hand, there's an internal assurance that the Spirit gives you, listen, when you are obedient. It's part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, all of those things are products that the Holy Spirit produces in us as we walk in obedience. So there are two ways that your doubt can be assaulted. One, somebody attacks the Gospel and says, well, you can't trust it. That's a satanic attack.
Or somebody attacks you on the inside and makes you feel guilty. That can only be successful if you're being disobedient and walking in the flesh. As long as you walk in the Spirit, you'll have the internal confirmation. As long as you understand the Gospel accurately, you'll have the external confirmation.
Thanks, Jon. And you know, friend, another evidence of salvation is hunger for the Word of God. To help cultivate that hunger and draw you into God's Word every day, let me recommend the Grace To You app.
You can download it today. Just go to our website, gty.org, where you can download the Grace To You app on your smartphone and your tablet, even your smart TV. You can access all of Jon's sermons, that's over 3,600 messages, right from the app.
That includes lessons from popular studies like the Fulfilled Family or Q&A sessions and much more. To learn more about the free Grace To You app, go to gty.org forward slash apps. And when you visit our website, gty.org, be sure to dig into the Bible study tools available there. You can read three daily devotionals written by Jon. You can keep up with the regularly updated Grace To You blog. And of course, you can also download all of Jon's messages, the MP3s and the transcripts.
Those Bible study resources and many more are available at gty.org. Now for Jon MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace To You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378. And join us tomorrow as Jon looks at the doctrines that no follower of Christ will reject, teachings that are essential to believe in order to be saved. Be sure to tune in when Jon returns with another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You!
