Page 166 - GRACE

The Dangers of Grace

Paul wrote this epistle mainly to address this doctrinal
cankerworm. In Galatians 1:6-9 he says,

“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from
Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a
different gospel, which is not another; but there
are some who trouble you and want to pervert the
gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from
heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what
we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As
we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone
preaches any other gospel to you than what you
have received, let him be accursed.”

As you can see, Paul started right from the beginning of this
letter to deal with messages, doctrines and practices which
seemed to subtly lure the saints away from the grace of
Christ into another gospel. The people from Jerusalem
were telling these non-Jewish Christians of Galatia that
they needed to add the religious practices of the Jews to
their faith in order to be ‘fully’ saved. This actually led to
some hypocritical conduct with even Peter the apostle
who, when some of the vociferous peddlers of this strange
doctrine came in from Jerusalem (see Galatians 2:3-5, 11-
15) attempted to dissociate from the Gentile believers so as
not to offend the Jewish teachers of this false teaching.

There are some similarities in the issues Paul had to deal
with in the Galatian Church and some of the crucial things

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