There is no other way to salvation except through Jesus. Anointed to come into this world to suffer and die that through His blood mankind would be offered the gift of being made right with God. We who choose this gift are resurrected in Him, through Him and with Him to eternal life.
Praise and thanksgiving to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Faith manifests in good works. Because God loves His creation enough to allow Jesus to go through all that He did for us…out of a changed heart we love them also. We can love others because He first loved us!
Merry CHRISTmas!
At this point in his letters, Paul typically offers a prayer of thanksgiving for his audience. But with the Galatians, there is no cause for thanksgiving; they have turned to a different gospel. Faithlife Bible.
To please men was neither Paul’s motivation nor the source of his authority. Paul continually sought the approval of God. He did not base his decisions on the opinions of other people. Instead he single-mindedly aimed at pleasing God. As an apostle Paul was a leader, but he was always a bondservant of Christ. NKJ Bible.
Those troubling the Galatians were saying, “You need Christ; you need to be on that team. But what really makes the whole thing work is how hard you yank on your bootstraps. It’s what you do for God that counts.” And if we’re honest, we probably speak this way (to ourselves and others) far more than we’d like to admit. Do you see how distorted this picture of the gospel is? Because from this view, there’s no true end to the boot tightening. Where do you find hope that your laces won’t become untied as you walk? When do you know that you’ve done enough work? How do you know you’ve prayed enough, said the right prayers, used the right words, had the right motive, prayed out of a pure enough heart? And, worse still, because it is a gospel of self-effort—with you and your commitment at the center, rather than Christ—it can never lead to true adoration, only to self-righteousness. It spawns pride, not doxology.
Grace undercuts all human pride, so we don’t really want it. We want reward and glory—and grace doesn’t give us these. So we functionally oppose Christ because our hearts will not allow us to be totally, radically, and completely wrong. We still want an island—even a little one—on which we can plant our flag and recommend ourselves to God and each other. Who gets the glory if we follow a legalistic, self-justifying path? We do. Yet Paul is adamant: The glory belongs to “God the Father … forever and ever”.
Don’t we need to obey the law, do some righteous things? Ah, that’s the stealth of it. Legalism gains its power by appealing to the Christian’s passion to obey God, to fulfill the law. But it also appeals to the sinful passion within us that wants to earn our acceptance before God. There is a place for active righteousness, but it’s got nothing to do with your standing before God. If you drive down Interstate 75 at 88 miles an hour, you won’t end up Back to the Future in 2025—but you will have a red light in your rearview mirror. Though you cry out, “I’m righteous in Christ,” the state trooper will still give you a ticket. But your obedience to the law in any of its forms isn’t what saves you, nor does it keep God loving you. He loved you even before you knew the obedience of faith. Obedience is only ever a thankful response to being saved, and if anything—even obedience—is added to the equation of grace, it’s no longer grace. We can’t get the gospel a little bit wrong; to distort its freedom results in losing it entirely.
Only Christianity places grace at the center of salvation; every other worldview places obedience to the law at the center. Jesus nipped a “law versus grace” question in the bud when he was asked: “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” He responded, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:28–29). Justification is based on faith in Christ’s work, not faith in yours. Bush, D., & Due, N. (2015). Live in Liberty: The Spiritual Message of Galatians (pp. 18–19). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Galatians 1:6–10 (NKJV)
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
Acts 15:1 (NKJV)
15 And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”
Romans 8:28 (NKJV)
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
No comments:
Post a Comment