In our series of extracts during his centenary year from the works of Dr. Lloyd-Jones, we come to his series on the Sermon on the Mount. Preached during the 1950s, it is a series still memorable in the minds of those who heard it preached and is still in print from IVP.
Certain things always characterise the Christian, and these are certainly the three most important principles.
Law and Spirit
The Christian is a man who of necessity must be concerned about keeping God's law. I mentioned in chapter one the fatal tendency to put up law and grace as antitheses in the wrong sense. We are not 'under the law', but we are still meant to keep it; the 'righteousness of the law' is meant to be 'fulfilled in us', says the apostle Paul in writing to the Romans. Christ coming 'in the likeness of sinful flesh . . . condemned sin in the flesh'. Well; why? 'That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit' (Romans 8.3-4). So the Christian is a man who is always concerned about living and keeping the law of God. Here he is reminded how that is to be done.
