The Gospel Demands a Complete Sufficiency of Justification through Faith Alone

Christians in America compete today for who can find the most encouraging and uplifting Bible verse or devotional. Ironically, as a shepherd of souls, few verses have been as encouraging to me as Galatians 1:8-9. Why? Because it can be disheartening to hear the blasphemy preached from pulpits in America these days that is leading people astray. It is encouraging to know that "the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain" (Deuteronomy 5:11). Modern-day false prophets, who peddle perversions and deviations from the Gospel, think they are so clever, all the while blaspheming the name of God. That goes into the heart of the message of Galatians that, for the believer to be reconciled to God, the Gospel, the one and only true Gospel, demands a complete sufficiency of justification through faith alone.

One of the themes in the Book of Acts is how the church which was inherently Jewish and in the fold of Judaism parted ways and became Gentile. What we see in the book of Acts is that after the ascension of the Lord Jesus, the Twelve (now with Matthias) continued to preach the message of the Kingdom of God beginning at Pentecost. Although many Jews were saved, eventually the community in general and the leadership, in particular, rejected the message of the Gospel and stoned Stephen (Acts 7). So, the message went to the Samaritans (Acts 8) and the Gentiles (Acts 10-11) instead. During Paul’s conversion (Acts 9), God revealed to him that the program of the Kingdom of God will be on hold until the new program of grace to build the church, the Body of Christ, has been completed.

By the end of Acts 14 (c. A.D. 48), the Apostle Paul had completed his first missionary journey predominately in the cities of Galatia in Asia Minor to some Jews but mostly Gentile believers. In Jerusalem, however, the believers were mostly Jews and some of them continued to be devotedly practicing Jews. Some of them did not accept the shift to the new program of the church and refused to put the program of the Kingdom of God on hold. Commonly referred to as Judaizers, these supposed believers, with pharisaic tendencies, disturbed the Galatian churches by criticizing the Apostle Paul and attempting to convince the Galatian churches that, to be saved, they must be circumcised and follow other parts of the law, like observing days and months.

This denial of the message that salvation is by grace through faith was done through an assault on the gospel as well as Paul’s apostleship, as the Judaizers had to undermine Paul to undermine his message. This two-pronged attack prompted the Apostle Paul to write this epistle (c. A.D. 49-50) to defend his apostleship and assert that salvation from the penalty and power of sin comes by grace through faith alone and not through the works of the law. That the message of the Judaizer was putting the Galatians back into bondage to the Law. His purpose was to defend his apostleship and his authority to defend the gospel of grace. His response has been called the “Magna Carta” of the Christian faith asserting a message of freedom and liberty in Christ. Galatians is the strongest part of Scripture against legalism, the belief that religious observances and rites gain favor with God.

This epistle stands apart from the Apostle Paul's other letters in that it uses a sharp and even mocking style. Paul never commends the Galatians and even calls them foolish. Although it has some practical applications in the last part of the epistle, it is mostly a doctrinal book with a theological focus on the origin, scope, and nature of the gospel and salvation vis-a-vis Law and grace. Paul’s words to the Galatians are instructive for today, especially for churches that have drifted into the Gospel of Social Justice which preaches that every social ill is "a Gospel issue."

This is why the reformers, building on Galatians and the rest of Scripture, emphatically insisted that we are saved:
                   by grace alone
        through faith alone
                   in Christ alone
according to Scripture alone
           for the glory of God alone

Are you trusting in your works for your justification before a holy God?