Bible in a Year Series - Day #328 & #329 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible. Click here to learn more. You are most welcome to join along at any time.
Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Book of Galatians.
The book of Galatians was written by Paul somewhere around A.D. 48.
Paul's missionary journeys produced a growing church in Galatia a few short years earlier. However, a sect of "Judaizers" had infiltrated this budding church and had convinced them that salvation required faith + obedience to the Mosaic Law.
In particular, they were claiming that salvation required circumcision.
The book of Galatians has been a very important one throughout the history of the church. For example, it was the book of Galatians that prompted Martin Luther's Reformation as he argued that the Roman Catholic Church was insisting that salvation required faith + works.
From the IVP New Bible Commentary:
"Whatever else Galatians teaches, it certainly tells us in clear and vigorous language that our right standing before God can only be an act of grace received through faith in Christ. No church rituals and no human efforts can establish our justification. On the contrary, ‘The righteous will live by faith’ (Galatians 3:11)."
Here's the heart of Galatians from the ESV Study Bible:
"Christ's death has brought in the age of the new covenant (3:23–26; 4:4–5, 24), in which believers do not have to become Jews or follow the outward ceremonies of the Mosaic law (2:3, 11–12, 14; 4:10). To require these things is to deny the heart of the gospel, which is justification by faith alone, not by obedience to the law (2:16; cf. 1:6–7). In this new age, Christians are to live in the guidance and power of the Spirit (chs. 5–6)."
Ask 100 people why they think they are going to heaven and most will talk about something that they have done. For example, someone might say, "I believe in God and I live a good life, therefore heaven is mine."
Paul, however, argues that faith + nothing = justification (salvation).
"Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Galatians 3:11).
The Messiah told us that he came to fulfill the law, and if we look back to the prophet Habakkuk we can see where Paul is finding fulfillment in his claim to salvation by faith alone:
“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith." (Habakkuk 2:4)
Our "religions" and our fallen minds gravitate towards a works based salvation, but the Bible is clear: true faith + nothing = salvation.
If we fail to wrestle with and accept this important doctrine then we significantly cheapen the gospel and the substitutionary death of Messiah.
