Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Who is Christ? He was the eternal God before he ever came into this world. He was one with the Father from all eternity. His coming to this earth was planned in the heart of the Godhead before there were any material things.

I believe that Jesus came into this world in order to accomplish divine purposes, some of which have been revealed to us. Chiefest, from the human point of view, is that which we read in 1 Timothy 1:15, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio outreach which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled, Change of Administration.

When the words, "The End", appear on the movie screen, there is no doubt what this means. The movie is over. But there has been much confusion and misrepresentation about the Scripture verse that states, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."

Stay tuned as Dr. Barnhouse shines biblical clarity and insight upon this difficult passage. The Scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible: Romans chapter 10 and verse 4. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with today's message entitled, Change of Administration.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We pray thee that thy word may go forth in this hour in the divine power that our faith may not stand in the wisdom of men, but in thy power, oh God. Use it to thy glory, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

We're studying in our studies in the Epistle to the Romans in the 10th chapter and the fourth verse: "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." Now this very important verse has had a variety of interpretations, generally depending on what the reader wanted to find there to bolster his own preconceived opinions.

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. What does this verse mean? Now, in order to find out, we must proceed by a process of elimination. One of the most remarkable misinterpretations is that of A.T. Robertson, who certainly was one of the greatest Greek scholars of all history.

This fundamental Southern Baptist has written, amazingly, that, "Christ put a stop to the law as a means of salvation." Now, surely he knew that the law had never been a means of salvation. The work of his entire life was against such an idea as that which he has suggested in his comment on our text.

Perhaps he was misled by Denney, who evidently made this same mistake, as Robertson uses his name without quoting him to express the thought that here Paul's main idea is that Christ ended the law as a method of salvation for everyone that believeth, whether Jew or Gentile. Christ wrote "finis" on law as a means of grace.

Now, let's face it. Law never was a means of salvation. Law never was a means of grace. The law, the law of Moses, the law was given that every mouth might be stopped and all the world become guilty before God. Now we've covered this so fully when we studied Romans 3:19 that we do not need to enlarge upon it here.

So the meaning of the word "telos", the end, depends always on the context. The end of life is its termination. The end of troubles is their transformation. The end of a promise is its fulfillment. The end of our faith is the salvation of our souls, as we read in 1 Peter 1:9.

Now, what is the end of the law? And our text says, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." As I pondered deeply over the meaning of this text, I began to think of it as it affected me personally.

I am included in the last line of the text, for I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Even in the strongest definition of the word "believe", I am to be included. I believe with my intellect that the Lord Jesus Christ was here upon this earth as a historical character.

I believe that he passed through the experiences that are described in the four Gospels. I believe that wicked men took him and nailed him to a cross, and that Jesus hung there and died. I believe that his body was placed in a tomb and remained there for three days and nights.

I believe that on the third day the Lord God Almighty raised him from the dead, and that his spirit and soul came back into that same body that died, and that Christ made himself known to his disciples. I believe that this same Christ, body, soul, and spirit, ascended into heaven to take his place on the throne of the Father.

All this I believe. I believe it with my intellect. But in addition, I must be accounted as a believer because I believe that all of these things had a divine and a spiritual meaning. This rises out of my belief in Christ's identity. Who was he? That's the most important question that you will ever have to face.

I believe that the death which Jesus accomplished when he died upon the cross was part of an agreement between the Father and himself whereby my sins were put upon Jesus as my Savior, and his righteousness was put to my account by the Father. All of this I believe not only with my intellect but with my whole being.

Yet, I am not to be counted as a mere intellectual believer or as one whose relationship is that of dogmatic credulity. I find it difficult to express, but I know that I am a believer in the sense of having made a full commitment of myself to Christ so that I, who am nothing apart from him, may realize his fullness.

And thus my belief must become operational in my life, so that I'm seeking to be yielded to Christ in such a way that my voice shall carry the tone of his voice, that my hands may touch people with his compassion, that my life shall show forth his life, and that the fruits of his presence in me shall manifest love and joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control.

Now, in the light of all this, it can be seen that I certainly am included in that last line of our text: "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for me.

Now the sinner who lived under the law of Moses had strivings that could not be fulfilled. The man who lived four or five hundred years before Christ in the time of David and Solomon, he had strivings that could not be fulfilled. But the man who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior finds that he can enter into the rest, the peace, that was provided by Christ.

The central section of the Epistle to the Hebrews sets forth these truths in such a way that it might be considered that the writer to the Hebrews had taken our text as a point of departure. Listen to these words, I'm quoting from Hebrews 7:

"Quite plainly then, there is a definite cancellation of the previous commandment because of its ineffectiveness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect. It was incapable of bringing anyone to real maturity. But the bringing in of a better hope did."

And it is Christ, this better hope, who is the end of the law, the end of its methods, the end of its priesthood, the end of its purpose, who is made unto us righteousness and who brings us to this better hope.

Now, it's evident therefore that with Christ, with the coming of Christ, there was a complete change of administration that introduced new principles and methods. The change from Old Testament times and methods to those which are in force today was a far greater change than that which was accomplished in the field of government when our land stopped being a dominion that was a colony of England and became a free republic responsible to the people.

Now, this change from Old Testament to New Testament times is illustrated in the book of Hebrews by a comparison between two orders of priesthood. Every Jew was familiar with the priesthood of Aaron. It was the priesthood which governed the religious life of Israel.

One of the priests of the tribe of Levi offered the morning and the evening sacrifice every day in the year. The priests were headed by a man who bore the title of high priest. The Old Testament contained whole books that had to do with the foundation of this priesthood and the maintenance of its work.

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are filled with details concerning the consecration and service of these earthly priests. Suddenly, the New Testament announces that this priesthood is to be abolished.

And that's why we who are evangelical and who go to the New Testament alone for our faith, that is why we are not called priests. For the New Testament announces that the priesthood that was in the Old Testament was to be abolished.

At the moment Christ died, the great curtain in the temple, which separated the holy place from the holiest of all, was torn in two from top to bottom. As there was an earthquake at the moment in which Jesus Christ died, and God announced that he was through with priesthood and liturgical service.

A few years later, God saw to it that the prophecy which had been made by Jesus Christ was fulfilled, and that the Jewish temple itself was destroyed by the Romans, to the extent that not one stone was left upon another.

Still later, in the providence of God, Mohammedanism captured the land of Israel and built its mosque on the very spot where the tabernacle and the temple of Israel had stood. And that building, the mosque of Omar, stands there today, making it impossible for any member of the people that had the covenant with God to approach the one place where the Mosaic sacrifices could be fulfilled.

The first time I ever went to Palestine, I saw that unforgettable scene of the scores of elderly Jews beating their heads against the wailing wall at the foot of the place where the mosque was far above them and where they could never enter. It was a sad sight but one which fulfilled all the prophecies of the Old Testament.

Now, at this same time that Jesus Christ came into the world, God announced that he, Christ, was a priest, but not a priest after the order of Aaron, Levi, but a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Let us look at this man Melchizedek for a moment.

If you were reading the Bible for the first time, you would discover that at the very beginning in the book of Genesis, longer and longer paragraphs were given to the characters as they are introduced on the first pages of Scripture. Adam has a brief notice, then Enoch. A longer paragraph is given to Noah, and still more space is devoted to Abraham.

The uninformed reader might well draw the conclusion that with Abraham he had reached the central figure of the Bible and that the plot would revolve around him. In a spiritual sense this is true, for Abraham is the most important human character in the Bible, far more important than Moses, Aaron, or Paul.

But suddenly, however, in the story of Genesis, Abraham comes home after winning a battle against several kings who had made an alliance between themselves. And as Abraham is on his way home, he's met by a strange figure who appears out of nowhere and, after a moment, disappears into nowhere.

The brief interval in which this figure appears shows him as greater, as superior to Abraham. The name of this figure is not given; he's merely called by two titles: King of righteousness and King of peace.

Now the Hebrew words for King of righteousness give us what commonly passes for the name, Melek-tsedeq, Melchizedek. And this man, this being, without a recorded past or recorded future, sets out bread and wine, the communion elements, and Abraham gets down on his knees in front of this man and partakes of this food.

And Abraham then divides all the spoil that he had won in battle, divides it into 10 parts, and gives one of these 10 parts to this man Melchizedek. Now the New Testament appraises this standing figure of Melchizedek who is giving his blessing to the kneeling figure Abraham. And in Hebrews 7:7, it says, "And no one can deny that the receiver of a blessing is inferior to the one who gives it."

Now the uninformed reader will be forced to think that here is a character that will play a great part in the development of the Bible revelation, for when we see Abraham down on his knees in front of Melchizedek, we think, well, here is indeed a superior character.

But then as the story unfolds in Genesis, there is no further mention of Melchizedek. He's not to be found in the remainder of the Mosaic writings. His name is not mentioned throughout the whole history of Israel. He's not found in the prophets. There is one cryptic sentence in the Psalms which says, "Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."

But by this time the casual reader would have forgotten Genesis and would place the Psalms in the company of the hundreds of other passages which cannot be understood on the first or on the 101st reading of the Bible.

Then, coming to the New Testament, the reader would find no further mention of Melchizedek in the four Gospels, in the Acts, or in the epistles of Paul. Then suddenly, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we find several chapters written about this character. He is in no small sense the key to the understanding of the whole Bible.

As a Bible teacher, I make bold to state that if the relationship of the two priesthoods, that of Aaron and Melchizedek, if this relationship is understood, the Bible will be understood. And that if the relationship of these two priesthoods is not understood, the Bible will not be understood.

So let us then clarify the situation simply. Israel had operated under the law of Moses throughout the 15 centuries between the giving of the law and the coming of Christ. Now this was by the order and the plan of God.

When we come to the New Testament, we discover that the Old Testament was an object lesson, a temporary picture of that which was to be permanent. The Old Testament was the shadow of something that was to be substance.

The New Testament, in its relationship to the Old Testament, might be summarized to say, instead of the temple, it's to be Christ. Instead of Moses, Christ. Instead of Aaron, Christ. Instead of the law, Christ. Instead of ceremonies, Christ. Instead of a worship localized in a building, there is to be the eternal omnipresent Christ.

Melchizedek was to represent eternity as well as eternity can be represented in time. A man appears out of nowhere and disappears into nowhere, and in the brief moment of his appearance, Abraham gets down on his knees in front of him.

And when Abraham was on his knees, all his unborn children were in his loins, and they were on their knees before this unknown eternal figure. This included Abraham's son Isaac, his grandson Jacob, and his great-grandson Levi.

Levi included his son Aaron, and Aaron included all the priests who should ever come from the tribe of Levi. And therefore the whole religious life of Israel was on its knees to the man who appeared in front of Abraham. And this, says the New Testament, was a pageant of Jesus Christ.

Here we have one who is quite independent of Levite ancestry taking a tenth from Abraham and giving a blessing to Abraham, the holder of God's promises and a partner in the covenant that God had made to Christ and him, as we read in Galatians 3:16.

One might say, we read in Hebrews, one might say that even Levi, the proper receiver of tenths, has paid his tenth to this man, for in a sense he already existed in the body of his father Abraham when Melchizedek met him.

We may go even further. If it be possible to bring men to spiritual maturity through the Levitical priestly system, for that is the system under which the people were given the law, why does the necessity arise for another priest to make his appearance after the order of Melchizedek instead of following the normal priestly calling of Aaron?

For if there is a transference of priestly powers, there will necessarily follow an alteration of the law regarding priesthood. Christ, who is described as our high priest, belongs to another tribe, no member of which had ever attended the altar.

For it is a matter of history that our Lord Jesus was a descendant of Judah, and Moses made no mention of priesthood in connection with that tribe. How fundamental is this change becomes all the more apparent when we see this other priest appearing according to the Melchizedek pattern and deriving his priesthood not by virtue of a command imposed from outside but from the power of indestructible life within.

Quite plainly then, there is a definite cancellation of the previous commandment because of its ineffectiveness and uselessness. So our text in Romans, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth", it is a trumpet shout of triumph that a revolution has taken place and that an entirely new manner of life has been set before men by God.

I go back to the illustration of human law and government. The colonists in America felt themselves aggrieved under the colonial administration from England. A great revolution took place; there was war. George Washington led the movement to destroy colonial power and established an entirely new government based on a new constitution.

Now we might say that Washington was the end of the law for government to everyone abiding in the colonies. So we may understand that Christ was the end of the Mosaic law and all its bondage in order to bring in the New Testament as an entirely different constitution from which true liberties could flow in the lives of those who believe.

And that the righteousness of God which he wished to make effective in the lives of men might be made available under the new conditions of the risen Christ coming to live his life in the heart of those whom he has redeemed and in whom he is working out his purposes.

I am therefore no more under the law of Moses as a Christian than I am under the government of England as an American citizen. There has been a revolution. Christ has died. Yes, he's risen again and he lives.

It can readily be seen that the fact that I am delivered from the government of England does not mean that I am no longer governed, but rather that I am governed by a new constitution, the American Constitution. And the fact that I am delivered from the law of Moses does not mean that I am lawless, but that I have an allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the very righteousness of God.

And that this righteousness shall flow throughout my life and abound because he is the spring of all righteousness and has established a freely flowing spring of righteousness within my being. We can praise God for the deliverance and we can praise God for the new life.

And our God and Father, we pray thee that the Holy Spirit shall take the message to many hearts this day. And those that are under the bondage of trying and trying and trying to live right may learn that they no longer have to try but that they may commit themselves to Christ and that he will come in the heart and furnish the power for victory and life and joy and peace. Bless each listening heart in this hour. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Guest (Male): Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. We can now come to God and find grace and mercy through faith in his son. You have been listening to Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. We hope you've benefited from today's message entitled, Change of Administration.

To listen to more Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, tune in anytime via the internet by visiting us online at Alliancenet.org. Again, our website address: www.alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is also available by calling us toll-free: 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled, Change of Administration, or simply request message number R10-4.

We would also like to make available to you our free booklet entitled, Death is Swallowed Up in Victory. In this four-chapter booklet, Dr. Barnhouse answers such questions as, "What happens the moment you die?", "Where are the dead right now?", "Is there such a thing as soul sleep?" These and many other questions on the subject of death are treated with profound biblical insight.

Are you grieving the loss of a loved one or struggling with the issue of death? Ask for your free copy of Death is Swallowed Up in Victory when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

The Alliance also produces the radio broadcast, The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teaching of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a complete list of radio stations carrying our programs, please visit our website at Alliancenet.org.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air.

For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling toll-free: 1-800-488-1888. Again, that's 1-800-488-1888. You can also write us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at Alliancenet.org.

Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teaching, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding Reformed teachers and theologians, including Donald Grey Barnhouse, Dr. James Montgomery Boice, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening, and please join us again for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.