Gooding, David: 3 - Argument 2 Continued

When we broke off, gentlemen, we were considering Paul's lengthy argument from church history. The common point is that he is arguing that he got his gospel direct from the ascended Lord. He didn't get his apostleship, uh, from man or even through man. The gospel was revealed to him from the risen Lord. It was, uh, his apostleship from God the Father and his dear Son. And so he cites some epochs in his history. What happened, uh, what was his style of life before he got converted, and the persecution of the church and so forth and so on shows that he wasn't in close contact with any of the apostles to be taught by them what the gospel was. Then he talks about what happened, uh, uh, uh, three years after his conversion when he went up to Jerusalem. He wasn't there long enough to see anybody, uh, other apostles except James, the Lord's brother, and so forth. He went in order to make the acquaintance of Cephas. He was only there for fifteen days, and so forth and so on. Then another visit to Jerusalem, chapter two, that happened fourteen years after his conversion, presumably, uh, after the space of fourteen years. Now, I said that this is the third, uh, uh, the, the, the, the second visit, uh, to Jerusalem. I mean the second one that he now records. Whether it was in the absolute sense the second or third or so forth, i- i- is a matter for interest, uh, not immediately relevant now to exposing this passage. It was fourteen years, uh, after his conversion. He went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus with him. Now, taking Titus with him was a provocative thing to do in one sense, because Titus was a Gentile. And as you see from the subsequent, uh, uh, uh, uh, discussion, uh, the presence of Titus as a Gentile in Jerusalem with the Apostle Paul raised the question of whether, uh, Titus ought to be circumcised or not. He then says he went up by revelation. That is significant, it seems to me, his claiming, therefore, that he, he wasn't summoned to Jerusalem or invited to Jerusalem by the other apostles to come and discuss the gospel and so that he could be straightened out on anything. He didn't come at their invitation or command. He went up by revelation. And his purpose in going up, uh, was to lay before them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before them who were of repute, lest by any means I should be running or had run in vain. That phrase needs to be pondered. Is Paul admitting that he went up because in his heart of hearts he wasn't quite sure of the gospel he was preaching, and he went up to get it confirmed by the apostles, uh, and feared that if they, uh, disagreed with him and showed him that his gospel wasn't what it ought to be, then he had wasted the intervening years by preaching an inadequate gospel. Is it that? Well, from the context, I suggest to you, obviously not that. Eh, running in vain and so forth and so on, eh, seems to me to involve the following. That suppose the, uh, opponents of Paul had been right, and the apostles at Jerusalem were preaching another different gospel from what Paul preached. That would have had serious repercussions in the assemblies that Paul had founded. He went up, therefore, by revelation, God showed him this is a wise thing to do, laid before them his gospel, and gained from the apostles, uh, their statement that, uh, they agreed with him totally. Which would, uh, show that those who maintain that the, uh, apostles at Jerusalem preached a different gospel from Paul were false. It was not true. So he went up, uh, and he says in verse three, not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. People have argued that again. What does he mean? He wasn't compelled to be circumcised, but we circumcised him anyway, just to be nice, or, uh, as a tactical, uh, device. For you will remember that later on in the gospel, when on their second missionary journey, Paul came, uh, to a place and needed, uh, uh, another fellow worker. The local brothers recommended Timothy. His mother was a Jewess, his father was a Greek. Uh, but he wasn't circumcised. He was a believer, well reported of. But Paul took him and circumcised him. Uh, whatever for? When he had resolutely, uh, opposed those that said you had to be circumcised in order, uh, to be saved. Luke himself, by the very ordering of his material, invites us to raise the question. Why did Paul on one moment resist circumcision and on the other go and voluntarily circumcise Timothy? The answer lies, of course, in the reason why. If it were a question of you must be circumcised to be saved, Paul would fight you every inch to the North Pole and round by the South Pole and up again. He wouldn't cede you a centimeter. Circumcision is not necessary for salvation. But when it was a question of taking Timothy with him, and in many places they would go to the synagogue and preach, then it was a matter of Christian, uh, wisdom and tactics to circumcise Paul, uh, Timothy, not to get him saved, of course, but not unnecessarily to offend the conscience of J- of of Jews in the synagogue. For instance, if fifty years ago you had gone to the outer islands of Scotland, you'll see, where the dear folks are uh uh uh Calvinist in the extreme, though many of them were not saved anyway, eh, where they kept the Sabbath religiously. Now you, uh, as believers know that, uh, you don't have to keep the law to be saved. But these folks think that s- the Sabbath keeping is part of the moral law. It isn't part of the moral law, is it? Not keeping the Sabbath isn't. Because you notice what the Lord Jesus said. In the temple, the s- priests on the Sabbath day break the Sabbath and are guiltless. Can't be a moral law, can it? Substitute any of the other ten in that context and see what you come at. In the temple on the Sabbath day, the priests commit phony, uh, commit adultery and are guiltless. Oh dear, dear, dear. Or have images or tell lies or something. None of the other ten could be substituted there. But in the temple on the Sabbath, our Lord says, the priests break the Sabbath because they're serving God, not themselves. Yeah? So then, here you're going to these out islands to preach the gospel, to have a campaign, and the folks are very religious, and they think that you have to keep the law to be saved, and in particular you have to keep the Sabbath. And you come driving your car into this little town on this island to preach the gospel? Well, you might as well rob the bank on the Friday and start preaching on the Sabbath. To them, this is outrageous, you see. And you would close their ears completely. So you might decide to walk into the town instead of driving your car on this Sabbath day, not because you think it's necessary for salvation, but that so that you shouldn't unnecessarily worry their consciences. They may keep their ears open so that you could preach the gospel to them. So some people hold that what Paul is saying is that Titus wasn't compelled to be circumcised, but we did circumcise him. But that is not necessarily, uh, the inevitable deduction to be made from Paul's statement, is it? We can leave it as it stands. They tried to compel him to be circumcised, but we refused the compulsion, and he wasn't circumcised. Do you see? Paul standing now as he stood in chapter fifteen at the council in Jerusalem, that circumcision was not necessary to salvation, and therefore he was not going to get anybody, uh, allow anybody to compel Titus the Gentile to be circumcised. Uh, do you see, um, it was false brethren who tried to seize on this, uh, to see our liberty in Christ, and then to denounce us, to see, and we didn't put up with them. Why didn't he put up with them, to whom we gave place in the way of subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. Well, these folks were in Galatia, and Paul is talking about what happened in Jerusalem. But you notice his motive. He had to stand clear on this matter, for if he hadn't have stood clear on this matter, the people in Galatia, when they heard of what happened, wouldn't now know for certain what the gospel was. Was it necessary to be circumcised in order to be saved, or wasn't it necessary? Paul stood his ground so that the truth of the gospel might continue right up to you. And Paul is standing his ground, has the effect of maintaining what the gospel is right to our day. That's a thing to be pondered, isn't it? The necessity to stand so that what we do and say and the stand we take preserves the truth of the gospel, not only for our immediate context, but throughout the generations. It's the truth of the gospel that is in question. But then he turns to the, uh, um, people whom he accounted, uh, who counted to be something James, Cephas, and John. Known throughout the Gentile churches, of course, as the leaders of the faith in Jerusalem. As distinct from false brothers, you will see. The reaction of the leaders, the true believer, the true apostles, true believers, they did not demand that Si- Titus be circumcised. Secondly, they added nothing to the gospel which Paul preached. Verse six, they imparted nothing to us, or to me. Thirdly, they simply exhorted Paul and Barnabas to remember the poor. Verse ten. But that I was already zealous in doing, says Paul. Fourthly, they were happy that we had been entrusted by God to take the gospel to the Gentiles, while they themselves took the gospel to the Jews. And fifthly, they signified their total confidence in us and their unreserved fellowship with us. They gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision. And we notice from this, Paul's going up to Jerusalem, what he achieved was that the apostles at Jerusalem, uh, publicly recognized him and agreed that they preached the same gospel as Paul preached, and he preached the same gospel as they preached. They did not demand the, uh, circumcision of Titus, and certainly not as necessary for salvation. From chapter two verses eleven to twenty one, Paul now relates another period of church history. When Peter, and he calls him here Cephas, came to Antioch. He doesn't specify exactly when that was. From verses one to ten, he'd been talking about, um, his visit to the apostles in Jerusalem. Now he talked about what happened when Cephas came to Antioch, whenever that was. So far from Pete- Paul getting his gospel from Peter, or needing to have Peter's sanctioning of his gospel, on this occasion the point of the thing is that Paul had to resist him and rebuke him public- publicly to his face. You'll see, up to this point, Peter had been taking his food along with the Gentile believers. Even though there were Gentile believers had not been circumcised, and they didn't keep, uh, the cleanliness laws, the ceremonial washing of hands and things that Jews did. Nevertheless, Peter had been happy to have table fellowship with them. But when these certain people came from James, he did, he did, uh, uh, before they came, he ate with the Gentiles, but when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation. It was a form of hypocrisy. The Greek word uses the term hypocrisy. Hypocrisy comes in two forms, gentlemen. You can pretend to be and to believe what you are not and what you don't believe. So you're a hypocrite. When you say you believe, you're just play acting, you see. The opposite can be true. To behave in such a way that gives the impression that you don't believe what you do believe. And with Peter, of course, it was the second of these two, that form of hypocrisy. Peter believed that these Gentiles were saved, and because they were saved, their hearts purified by faith, because they possessed the Holy Spirit, God had received them. It was perfectly all right to eat your food with them. Peter believed that. We know that from what happened when he was first sent to the house of Cornelius. He knew that and believed it. But when these people came down, ostensibly from James, he took panic and withdrew. You'll see. And Paul, rebuked him publicly. Why? Because he was fluffing the gospel by his behavior. He was acting inconsistently with what he believed. And, uh, Paul started to argue. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. Pray notice that again, the second time he remarks about this being loyal to the gospel, the basic gospel. I said to Cephas before them all, in front of everybody, if thou being a Jew livest as do the Gentiles and not as do the Jews, how do you compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? Peter had been freed from the ceremonial laws and from the food laws. Witness Acts chapter ten. He'd been happy to go to Cornelius's house and eat with him. That's how he normally lived. He had been living like that in the early days of this conference in Antioch, until he changed his behavior out of fear from these people, of fear of these people from Jerusalem. If then Peter had normally ate with the Gentiles and didn't demand, uh, uh, uh, uh, that they fulfill the Jewish laws, how do you now turn round and compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? That would be inconsistent, wouldn't it? Then he adds, we being Jews by nature are not sinners of the Gentiles. So what's our sinners of the Gentiles? Well, Jews would have admitted that they were sinners to some extent, but they weren't sinners like the Gentiles. The Gentiles were unclean in their sight. They didn't go in for the ceremonial washings. They were not circumcised. They didn't keep the Sabbath. And here, to the Jewish mind, these were outrageous things that made fellowship with them impossible. Oh, they would do business with them, of course. But they wouldn't eat at the same table with them. So, verse fifteen: we being Jews by nature are not sinners of the Gentiles, yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law and only through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed on Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Jews say, we're not sinners like the Gentiles, we Jews. In spite of that, we know very well that a man is not justified by the works of the law. As believers, we might, because it's our tradition, we might carry on be, uh, uh, receiving circumcision. We might carry on the ablutionary laws of the Old Testament, but we jolly well know that a man is not justified by those works of the law, but solely through faith in Jesus Christ. We know that. And what is more, we personally have believed. Even we believed on Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. Paul's sentence seems to be a little bit complicated, but he is making two logically separate points. First of all, we know what the gospel is, that a man is not justified by the works of the law. But more than that, we have believed, personally believed ourselves in Christ, do you see, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. For the fact is that no, uh, body, no flesh shall be justified by the works of the law. So he's arguing with Peter. Can you see Peter? You see, he's been at the table, and then these chats from James come down, and he he rises up from the table. You you're leaving, Peter? Yes, got a stomach ache. Oh, I'm going, I'm going to my room. Oh, you are, are you? No, you don't, says Paul. Oh, no, you don't. I'll have a word with you before you go, boy. Stomach ache or no stomach ache, brought on by tension or nerves or whatever. There's more in it than meets the eye, Peter. You were quite content to eat with these gentiles before these chaps came down from James, weren't you? Now you're getting up and withdrawing from them, and you're doing it out of fear of these folks coming from James. But Peter, to do that is to deny the gospel. You know what the gospel is. People are not saved by the works of the law, but through faith, and you have yourself believed, haven't you, Peter? Isn't that what you believed when you got, you got, uh, put your faith in Christ? This is what in your heart of hearts you believe. Why are you now behaving as if you didn't believe it? This is making Peter face what he actually in his heart of heart believed about the basic gospel. Now look at verse seventeen. If while we sought to be sa- sa- justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor. Now these verses have been the subject of much dispute as to what they actually mean. John Stott, in his, his book on the Epistle to the Galatians, is a beautiful book and a very helpful book, but he plunks for one view, so do read him, uh, because I hold the other view, you see. So you must decide, perhaps you hold a third view. Uh, who knows, do you see? What did Paul mean by these words to Peter, do you see? We start in verse seventy. If, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid. What I take him to mean, and you should challenge it as you do ordinarily everything I say, but you should challenge this in particular, because I might be wrong. I take Paul to be saying, we believed, didn't we, Peter, and you believed that you're justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. That is what you believe, isn't it, Peter? You did believe it. Now wait a minute, Peter, my boy. We believed in Christ for salvation through faith and not by the works of the law, and now you're saying, in spite of that, through faith in Christ, we are still left sinners before God, and uh, in need of keeping the food laws and circumcision before we can be saved. Is that what you're saying, Peter? That faith in Christ is not enough to deliver you from the guilt of sin, not enough to give you peace with God and acceptance with God. It leaves you still a sinner. You cannot be saved except in addition to faith in Christ. You have to be circumcised and keep the works of the law. Then Christ is a minister of sin, isn't he? That all this gospel of faith in Christ leaves you a sinner still. That is the seriousness of behaving as though something... something is necessary in addition to faith in Christ. Yes. I was in East Germany a long time ago, when there was still a wall between East Germany and West Germany. And I was invited to go to a prayer house, as they're called, uh, you see, uh, and to to preach on, uh, for a week on the Acts of the Apostles. Now these prayer house thing- things, they are generally believers, and for many decades, uh, they are, are, have come into being, these prayer houses, Uh, Josie. They are basically Lutherans, but they tend to be believers who have, um, got to themselves their own places to meet in, and they run their own meetings, and they're not in that sense, controlled by the parson in the Lutheran church, do you see? They're free of that. They can do what they like in their own place. The only thing is they don't have a meeting on Sunday mornings so that they who feel the need can go to the Lutheran church to attend the liturgy there. And they, of course, uh, get their children as infants baptized by the Lutheran pastor, you see. That's their situation. But otherwise, they're out of sympathy with a lot that goes on in the Lutheran church, and they have their own meetings and their own building, and they run their own place, you see. And this was in the days when communism ruled, and I was invited to go along and, uh, to preach, you see. Uh, uh, uh, uh, um, excuse me, this was, this is in the days when there's still a war, but I was in, this was in Western Germany, at Western Berlin, actually, do you see, not Eastern Berlin. And, uh, when I went, the leading dear brother, he said to me, he invited me to preach on Acts. He said, now look here, try to go easy on baptism, says he. You see, we do have, we do have a lot of dear believers, and they're really believers, but they were brought up in Lutheranism, and they were baptized as infants, and uh, uh, you know, they find difficult the preaching of believers' baptism, he says, you see. Uh, don't provoke them, uh, more than you have to, uh, do you see? He said, because you know what? Uh, we've now got permission to have the Lord's Supper here in the, in the amongst ourselves, you see, and and we're going to get them towards being an autonomous assembly, you see. So don't go easy on them, these elderly folks, you see. So I went easy, compromising the truth of the gospel, I don't know, but I went easy, you see. Mightily difficult in the Acts of the Apostles to to go around baptism every time you meet it, because, dear me, do say. After one session, two ladies came up, senior women, believers they were. What do you think of baptism? So I was on the spot. And the, the dear leader was standing nearby. I said, well, uh, uh, you know, different believers, uh, to my knowledge, hold different views of this. Yes, but what do you believe? So I was on the spot, wasn't I? I said, well, madam, uh, uh, let me think, for instance, you as infants, you were baptized? Yes. Well, I said, I wasn't, you know. And that wasn't exactly my fault because I didn't understand. I was only just born, you see. And I said, picture the scene. There were you in your pram as infants, and you'd been baptized. And there was me in my pram, and I hadn't been baptized. And if you had died, you'd have gone straight to heaven. And if I had died, I would have gone to hell. Wouldn't be my fault, would it? My parents didn't baptize me. Do you really believe that? Well, of course they didn't believe it. Mm-hmm. Paul's tactic with Peter is to say, look here, you're saying faith in Christ is not enough. That still leaves you in a point where you have to be... keep the food laws, be circumcised. So faith in Christ lands you up simply as a sinner subject to the wrath of God, to be excluded from God's heaven eternally. Is that really what you believe? That's what you are implying if you're telling us that self- to be saved, you must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. That is what it comes to, doesn't it? What an insult that all is to Christ and his work. The faith in Christ and his work at Calvary leaves you in a position where it needs to be supplemented by the works of the law and by circumcision and what have you. Otherwise, you are still under the wrath of God in spite of having put your faith to salvation in Christ. Wow. What is in actually involved, Peter, he says, look at verse eighteen. If I build again those things which I destroyed, I proved myself a transgressor. Meaning, well, Paul applies it to himself to spare Peter's blushes. And if having shown that salvation is not by the works of the law and by circumcision, I give all that up. In that sense, I destroy it as a condition for salvation and put my faith in Christ only. And then I rebuild what I destroyed and start behaving as if, as if the food laws and circumcision and all the other things were necessary for salvation. If having taken the one position and destroyed it, I build it again, Peter. I make myself a transgressor. And he is indicating the imprecation of P- Peter's behavior. He's just made him face the fact that in his heart of hearts, he knows that salvation and justification is by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. He knows that as a gospel. Yes, but he has believed it. You believed it, Peter. That you might be saved through faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. That is what you believe. And by saying that, you were saying that circumcision and so forth and so on, and those works of the law are not necessary for salvation. That's what you believe, Peter. Now, in your behavior, you are building again what you destroyed. You make yourself a transgressor. That's serious, isn't it? Now he gives his own personal testimony, his attitude to the law. For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live, and necio longer I. So let's pause on the tenses of his phrase. I, through the law, died to the law. What does he mean? When did he die to the law? Notice the past tense. He died to the law when God revealed his son from heaven to him on the Damascus road. Because, as he's about to explain in, uh, this chapter. He who before had given his utmost to try and keep the law, exceeded in his performance many of his contemporaries, and had persecuted Jesus and his, uh, and his believers. When he saw that Jesus was risen from the dead... and had to face the question, if Jesus is God incarnate, what was he doing allowing himself to be crucified and coming under the curse of God? Saul saw it. It was because all Paul's frantic effort to keep the law and achieve a righteousness which is of the law was so defective and came so far short that the only solution of the problem was for Christ to bear the curse of the law that Paul had broken on Chri- on Paul's behalf. And Christ died for him. I died at that moment to the law, he said, when I saw that. I saw that however I tried to keep the law, I would come short. And the only solution was not my effort to keep the law, but to accept that Christ bore the curse of the law I had broken for me. I died to the law. And then he adds, I through the law, died to the law. What do you mean you, through the law, you died to it? Well, he came to see that he broke the law, he'd come short of the law, and it was the law himself- itself that condemned him. So through the law, I died to the law. His best efforts to keep it left him short. And the law's penalty was death. He died to the law then, because of what the law demanded. Except this, that Christ died in his place. I have been crucified with Christ. If you are reading the authorized version, I am crucified, do bear in mind it's Old English. It's not a present tense. It's not saying I am daily being crucified with Christ. It's a perfect tense. I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me. And that life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. He died, then I died. As Paul explains in Romans six, Christ was then buried, I was buried with him. Christ rose. In my baptism, we symbolize this, that I've risen with Christ to walk in newness of life. That's not an aspiration, that's a fact. What we're symbolizing is that Christ bore our penalty, therefore he died and was buried. Because it was our penalty, we see that we died with him, and we were buried, that we symbolize in baptism, but we symbolize the extra thing, that Christ rose again, and that new life he gives us too, and comes to live within us. That's a new life. And we have it not because we have kept the law, we have it as a gift through union with the risen Lord. Yes? It's a very personal thing too, not merely a doctrine. The life I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. Notice the personal expression. This is not just abstract theology. For Paul, it is absolutely personal. And he must live on these terms. I do not make voice- void the grace of God, for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ has died for nothing then. He needn't have died. If all that was required was that Christ should come alongside of us and give us a little helping hand so that we should keep the law, by his grace, of course, but with his help, but thereby, by keeping the law, be saved, then Christ need not have died. The serious implication, therefore, of teaching that, that these works, circumcision and the food laws and the law of Moses are necessary for salvation. One of the serious implications is what it implies for the death of Christ. If that had been true, the death of Christ would not have been necessary. So this is a very solemn passage, what happened at Antioch when Cephas came to Antioch. He did really believe the gospel. He behaved as if he didn't. He had been eating with the Gentiles at the table because they had been justified by faith in Christ. God had purified their hearts by their obedience to the truth. They had received the gospel. God had received them. Christ had received them. Peter was happy to eat with them, but then withdrew. Gentlemen, Paul is here talking about an incident that occurred over eating your meals at the table with Gentiles. But it naturally raises in our minds, doesn't it, a deeper matter. That is our Lord's Supper. On what grounds do we receive anybody to the Lord's Supper? And more importantly, on what grounds would we deny anybody the right to partake of the emblems? I leave outside the question that would come through church discipline, that if a man who professes to be a believer behaves so shockingly badly that it calls in question whether he is a believer at all, then he must, of course, be excommunicated from the church. But what happens if it's not a question of a believer who sinned in that outrageous way, but a person whom you know to be a believer, who's living a godly life, and he wants to break bread with you and partake of the emblems that speak of Christ's death on our behalf, his body given, his blood poured out. And this man is a true believer. And therefore you do believe, must believe, that since he is a true believer, he is covered by all the value of the death of Christ. After all, the bread and the wine on the table are but symbols of the great reality, symbols of the body and blood of Christ, and of all the value that comes to us through those, through that sacrifice of our Lord's body and blood. And you believe and know in your heart before God that this man in question is a believer like you are, and is in the good of what those symbols represent. On what ground would you deny him the right to come and remember the Lord and take those symbols. Is it not enough that he has genuinely repented and put his faith in Christ? Would you add other conditions to it? You don't add other conditions if it's a question of his benefiting, benefiting from the reality of which those symbols speak. But would you add other conditions that he must fulfill in addition to faith in Christ, so that he might partake in the symbols? Knowing, I repeat, that the man in question is a genuine believer and living a godly life. We have to behave, gentlemen, in a way that is consistent with the gospel we preach. For if it was a serious mistake of Peter not to be willing to eat socially with Gentile believers, even though they were believers. It seems to me ad minore, a a a minore ad maiu, I should say a minore ad maius, from the lesser to the great. It would be a more serious thing to deny people eating and drinking of the symbols of Christ's death and sacrifice, if they are genuine believers. Ponder the matter, gentlemen. And let God exercise our consciences, consciences as to what our behavior should be. But in wider circles, it seems to me there is need for great clearness of thought. In the current ecumenicalism, we must not behave in such a way as to deny by our behavior what we actually believe in our hearts. The question has arisen, of course, with dear folks that have been converted and still remain in the Catholic Church. As for those converts themselves, let God teach them, and even if he pleased, so use us to teach them the gospel and the way of God more perfectly. But for a true believer, understanding the gospel, to join in the celebration of the Mass, the meaning of which is officially laid down by the Roman Catholic Church, that it is a sacrifice offered for sins, to join in it, is by our behavior to deny what in our heart of hearts we believe the truth of the gospel is. That is the other extreme, isn't it? We must therefore do what Paul twice over states in this chapter. He did what he did that the truth of the gospel might continue and not be fluffed by our inconsistent behavior. Mm-hmm. At least you perceive, as some nations have the expression, where I'm coming from. But it is a serious matter. We must not fluff the gospel. Mark what I say. I didn't say you must not fluff assembly truth. I'm saying we must not fluff the gospel by our inconsistent behavior. Let's leave it there then for the moment, and in our final section, we'll try to move on, uh, to th- uh, two more basic arguments.