The Grace o f God THE THREE ERRORS
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In the Epistle to the Galatians the Holy Spirit through Paul meets and answers the three great errors into which in different degrees, theological systems have fallen. The course of this demonstration is like the resistless march of an armed host. Nothing can stand before it. The reasonings of ancient and modern legalists are scattered like the chaff of the summer threshing floor. We have, most of us, been reared and now live under the influence of Galatianism. Protestant theology, alas, is for the most part, thoroughly Galatianiz^d, in that neither law nor grace are given their distinct and separated places, as in the counsels of God, but are mingled together in one incoherent system. The law is no longer, as in the Divine intent, a ministration of death (2 Cor. 3 :7 ) , of cursing (Gal. 3 :10), of conviction (Rom. 3:19), because we are taught that we must try to keep it, and that by Divine help we may. Nor, on the other hand, does grace bring us blessed deliverance from the dominion of sin, for we are kept under the law as a rule of life despite the plain declaration, “Sin shall not have do minion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). THE FIRST ERROR The Spirit first meets the contention that justification is partly by law-works and partly by faith through grace (Gal. 2 :5 to 3:24). The steps are: 1. Even the Jews, who are not like the Gentiles, hopeless, “and without God in the world” (Eph. 2 :12 ), but already in covenant relations with God, even they, “knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 2:15, 16), have believed; “for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
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