Grace: Cultural or Absolute Truth

by E. van Gelical

Galatians has been used as a primary text to argue sola gracia or grace alone. Does this text teach faith by grace alone? Can we legitimately use Galatians to prove that Christians are saved by grace without works. This message will deal with this topic.

When interpreting the New Testament, we have several principles to consider. Is a principal universal or tied to a specific situation? Is Paul addressing a specific issue? The answer is yes. False teachers were coming in and teaching salvation by faith and works. Paul is not writing to the church as a whole, but a specific local church.

Since this was an issue associated with the Galatians church, what does it mean to us? Galatians deals with a situation only in this church. This was for the Galatians church only. We cannot in good conscience apply it to the church as a whole. Otherwise we would have to forbid women from speaking in the church, make men cut off their long hair, and make women wear head covering in church. We cannot argue sola gracia from Galatians.

Are we saved by faith alone? All of the verses that teach sola gracia are from Epistles, Romans and Ephesians. These Epistles deal with issues. Romans dealt with Jew ans Gentile clashes, as did Ephesians. We have no evidence of salvation by grace alone.

Why was sola gracia taught in these epistles? Paul wanted to balance out work and grace. The church in Galatia had mastered works. Now they needed to learn grace. James dealt with people who mastered grace and now needed to work on works. To turn this into a doctrine is unwise.

What do we do with these epistles? We need to consider our situation. As a church, do we need to learn grace, or do we need more works? What is lacking in my church? We must focus in on what we need most.