T HE K I N G ’S B U S I N E S S atived both demands, and the new law of love was Invoked that Gentile con verts should abstain from things espe cially offensive to Jewish believers (Acts 15:28,29). But the confusion of these two diverse principles did not end with the decision of the council. The controversy contin ued, and six years later the iioly Spirit, by the Apostle Paul, launched against the legalistic teachers from Jerusalem the crushing thunderbolt of the Epistle to the churches in Galatia. In this great letter every phase of the question of the respective spheres of law and of grace comes up for discussion and final, authoritative decision. The Apostle had called the Galatians into the grace of Christ (Gal. 1:6.) Now grace means unmerited, unrecompensed favor. It is essential to get this clear. Add never so slight an admixture of law- works, as circumcision, or law effort, as of obedience to commandments, and “grace is no more grace” (Rom. 11:6). So absolutely is this true, that grace cannot even begin with us until the law has reduced us to speechless guilt (Rom. 3:19). So long as there is the slightest question of utter, guilt, utter help lessness, there is no place for grace. If I am not, indeed, quite so good as 1 ought to be, but yet quite too good for- hell, I am not an object for the grace of God, but for the illuminating and con victing and death-dealirfg work of His law. The law is “just” (Rom. 7:12) and therefore heartily approves of goodness, and unsparingly condemns badness; but, save Jesus of Nazareth, the law never saw a man righteous through obedience. Grace, on the contrary, is not looking for good men whom it may approve, for it is not grace, but mere justice, to ap prove goodness, but it is looking for condemned, guilty, speechless and help less men whom it may save through faith, sanctify and glorify. Into grace, then, Paul had called the
649 Galatians. What (1:6) was his contro versy with them? Just this: they were “removed” from the grace of Christ into “another gospel,” though he is swift to add, “which is not another” (Gal. 1:7). There could not be another “gospel.” Change, modify, the grace of Christ by the smallest degree, and you no longer have a gospel. A gospel is “glad tid ings”; and the law is not glad tidings. “What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19), and surely that is no good news. The law, then, has but one lan guage; it pronounces “all the world”— “good”, bad, and “goody-goody” — “guilty”. But you say: What is a simple child of God, who knows no theology, to do? Just this: to remember that any so-called gospel which is not pure unadulterated grace is “another” gospel. If it pro poses, under whatever specious guise, to win favor of God by works, or goodness, or “character,” or anything else which man can do, it is spurious. That is the unfailing test. But it is more than spurious, it is ac cursed-—or rather the preachers of it are (Gal. 1:8,9). It is not man who says that, but the Spirit of God who says it by His apostle. This is unspeakably sol emn. Not the denial of thé Gospel even, is so awfully serious as to pervert the Gospel. Oh, that God may give His people in this day power to discriminate, to distinguish things which differ. Alas, it is discernment which seems so pain fully wanting. If à preacher is cultured, gentle, ear nest, intellectual, and broadly tolerant, the sheep of God run after him. He, of course, speaks beautifully about Christ, and uses the old words—redemption, the cross, even sacrifice and atonement— but what is his Gospel? That is the cru cial question. Is salvation, perfect, en tire, eternal,—justification, sanctifica-
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