Grace of God Almost 1900 years ago a brilliant Jewish rabbi wrote a document which has become one of the most important pieces of information the world has ever known. I refer to the Apostle Paul and his letter to the Galatian Christians. For the believer it ranks above our Constitution or the Bill of Rights. As the Holy Spirit moved upon him, Paul sets forth the true principles of liberty and free dom. No wonder this little epistle has been called “the Magna Carta of the Christian faith.” Problems of legalism had entered into the churches Paul had been hu-
many enemies. You see, the Galatian Christians had been told erroneously that they had to become circum cised, carrying out the law of Moses, going through all of the rituals, in order to be true Christians. This is completely false. Paul’s second purpose is to defend his apostleship. There were false in sinuations that his teaching was not really tha Word of God. This is re futed in the first two chapters. In this manner he authenticates the en tire gospel. His third purpose is to teach the doctrine of grace. Salvation from be ginning to end is all and only of the pure grace of God. How grateful we
GALATIANS: MagnaCartaoftheChristianFaith by Dr. James Borror Pastor First Baptist Church of Lakewood
manly instrumental in founding. It was an extremely serious situation calling for drastic action. Without the book of Galatians, Christianity, from a human point of view, would have been nothing but a little sect of Judaism. The book was written approxi mately 48 to 50 A.D. in Antioch, a town in Palestine. The reason for its writing has several bases. The first was to counteract the Judaizers — those of the Hebrew race who be lieved that in order for a man to become a Christian he had to first become a Jew. God, through the Apostle, wanted to point out that Christianity is completely separate, being the gospel of die grace of God. Because of this Paul encountered
can be for His undeserved, unmer ited favor. There are no strings at tached to His grace. The theological key is found in 5:1, while the practi cal key is 2:20. If we were to take a birds-eye view of all six chapters, an easy outline could be adopted. Chapters one and two are Paul’s biographical argu ment. Three and four give us the theological argument presenting the truth that salvation has always been by the grace of God through faith. Finally, five and six show us the practical argument as Paul applies principles to our own individual lives, enabling us to walk in a new liberty through Him. Another simple outline sets aside the first two chapters as the authen- Page 7
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