I’m pure as the driven snow.

Steve Brown:
I’m pure as the driven snow. I’ll explain on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life here to let Christians know that God isn’t mad at them. Keep listening and you’ll hear that because of what Jesus has done, you’re welcomed home into the family of God, because of his radical grace, free from the penalties of sin and never alone in your suffering.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. We’re studying Galatians and we’re going to look at one more thing in this macrocosm of the gospel. What we’re doing is we’re taking Galatians and Paul is incredible in the way he defines it. And we’re asking the question, how do you define the gospel? And the first thing that you notice about Paul is that he kind of gives you an overview of what the gospel is, and then he gets down and you start getting the details. And in this overview, which we’re going to finish today, we have seen that the gospel is Catholic, that is universal, it is conveyed, in other words shared, continued to the next generation, conspicuous, if you’re saved and you know what your life should really show it, compassionate, but of course, consistent because it’s a consistent gospel and it’s candid because it frees us from self righteousness, and we can be honest and accept honest love and comments from other people. But it’s, there’s one other thing. And I’m just gonna spend a fairly short time on this, because we’re going to get into some details, once we move to the next verses in the second chapter of Galatians. But it’s also, cleansing. Galatians 2:15 through 16,

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified.

So there, deal with it. That’s where we get and a number of other places, the reformation doctrine of justification by faith in Christ alone. Now, as I said, we’re going to say a lot more about this, starting tomorrow, when we move into the rest of the second chapter of Galatians. But you gotta see it, as clear. I said at the beginning of the broadcast that I was as pure as the driven snow. And some of you who said, yeah, sure you are. I am, I am, I am, when I go before God, I go pure, obedient, I fulfill the law. I go before the God of the universe as Holy as he is Holy. And you say, no, you don’t, you’re lying through your teeth, yeah, I do. You know why? Because of another doctrine, which is the twin sister of justification by faith. And that doctrine is called imputation. Not only did Jesus take my sins, he gave me his righteousness. And so every time I stand before the God of the universe, I’m clothed in his goodness and his purity and his absolute obedience. And that makes me something else. Now, if that doesn’t make you want to stand up and dance, even if you’re a Presbyterian, you simply don’t get it. And that’s what it means to be cleansed, to say I can go as the writer of Hebrews said boldly into the throne room of the God of the universe, a God who is holy and righteous and glorious. And I can do that because I have been cleansed. I sometimes will work out in our backyard. Now we live in Florida and while I’m doing this broadcast it’s summer and it’s really hot in Florida in the summer. In fact, I have taken to preaching a lot on hell, in churches where I go, they title the sermon, So You Think It’s Hot Here? No, I really don’t, but I’ll go out and I’ll weed or do some work in the backyard. And generally I come back in dripping wet and I say to my wife, Anna, hug me. And she says, when it gets cold in an hot place, you go take your shower. And then I’ll hug you, that’s what has happened to us, cleansed, a shower that is perfect and makes us perfect. And that’s the gospel. So, and when we forget, and we do. Folks, there’s something about religion, that’ll make you weird. And you forget the very essence of the gospel. You know, when people say Christian, they ought to automatically think forgiven, but they don’t, do they? You say Christian, they think of guilt and manipulation and arrogance and self righteousness and judgment. And sometimes they think about money, and it’s not about any of that. And we have made a horrible error in letting people think that. Christian equals forgiven. I am forgiven. That’s why mercy laughed in Pilgrim’s progress. She was dressed in rags and dirty and she had a dream. And she said in her dream, she looked down and she was dressed beautifully in gold with diamonds. And then she said, I did laugh and laugh and laugh. You can too, cause you’re forgiven. You think about that. Amen.

It’s Wednesday. And sometimes when I have time, I take a little bit of the broadcast to answer one or two of some of the questions that you send us, and we get so many questions from you guys. And we take you and your questions seriously. By the way, you can ask a question anytime you want, 24 seven. You can dial 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 seven, record your question. And sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to

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Or you can email your question to [email protected]. And those are all places where should the spirit move, you could help us financially. When you do that, you helped so many others because only about 10% of the people who are touched by this ministry are able to help us financially. So because of their generosity, so many others are touched. So if you can help us, I promise we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. And we’ll be as faithful with your gift as you were in the giving of it. And if you can’t, we understand that, do say a prayer for this ministry. All right, let’s turn to one or two questions. This is an email, was Jesus really slain before the foundation of the world? And if that’s true, how could that be true? Well, that comes from a phrase in Revelation 13, and yes, it is true. But you got to put on your thinking cap in order to kind of get it. And even then you don’t get it. I got this concept years ago by reading C S Lewis Mere Christianity, where he said, we look at everything on a timeline. There’s a beginning and the end you’re born here. You get baptized here. You grow up and go to school here. You get married here. You work here. Then you die here. And that’s a timeline. But Lewis said that God is not involved in time and space. In other words, he looks at everything on a plane, there’s no past or future or beginning or end. And once you get that, you get all kinds of things, the scripture says. For instance, it seems contradictory to say that at the sound and this is what Paul says in I Corinthians 15, at the sound of the last trumpet the dead in Christ will rise. And yet Jesus said to the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise. All right, which is it, today or at the sound of the last trumpet? It’s both, because when you die, you’re out of time and space and you move into another sphere with a God of the universe. Now this isn’t biblical in a strict sense that I can find verses, but it makes sense to me. And it’s been helpful to me. So there’s a sense in which God listens to Moses prayers and Jeremiah’s prayers and Paul’s prayers and your prayers and your grandchildren’s prayers and your great, great, great, great grand children’s prayers all at the same time. And so, and I’ve said this before that God is communicating a non temporal reality in time language. He’s keeping the fodder down low. Calvin said that the Bible is God’s baby talk, but there are hints and there are hints all over the place. For instance, Jesus says before Abraham was, I am. Now I am is the covenant name for God, but he’s saying more than that, he was saying, you think of me in time and space, but I’ve been forever. I am, I am with Moses and with you and with your grandchildren, you, that kind of blows you away and there are a number of other references and I don’t have time to go into them. But yes, the lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the earth. It’s always been true on the plane, but it took place in history in time and space on the timeline. When you put them together, it’ll blow your mind. Gotta go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life. Network.