Sermon Tone Analysis

*Grace Versus Law*

*Primary Biblical Text: Galatians*

 

After Paul had evangelized the churches of Galatia, he received disturbing news that they were falling away from the gospel he had taught them (Galatians 1:6).

Certain religious activists had visited Galatia after Paul’s departure and persuaded Believers that the gospel presented by Paul was insufficient (Galatians 1:7).

They sought to entangle them in the Law by insisting a person must be circumcised according to the law of Moses (Galatians 5:12) and must keep the Sabbath and other Jewish holy days (4:10), including the Jewish ceremonial law (5:3).

These “troublers” as Paul calls them (Judaizers), taught that both faith and works—belief in Jesus and obedience to the Law—were necessary for salvation.1

While this may not seem to be a relevant issue for the church today, one merely needs to look at the numerous instances of supposedly “free” churches adding their own form of legalism to their membership.

Most of us have seen churches who will not marry a couple where one or both were divorced; but the same church welcomes the couple already divorced and remarried by someone else, so they can receive the benefit of their financial gifts—as well as adding one more family to their legalistic aquarium!

Or the stringent rules applied to dress and hairstyle—woe to the woman who wears pants to the legalist church, or the longhaired teen who dares to darken their door.

Let’s not be deceived into thinking legalism is dead—it is alive and well today, and it was very much alive in Paul’s day.

Most often we deal with the subtle form rooted in traditional excesses; Paul dealt with another form of deadly legalism—the mixing of the Mosaic Law with Grace.

We will seek to answer three basic questions to get at the root of the issue:

 

1.

What was the purpose of the Law?

2.      Does the Law produce a righteousness that Grace could never produce?

3.      Are those who live under the Law more “spiritual” than those who live under Grace?

By answering these questions, my intent is to, (1) cause us to recognize the purpose of the Law and its role within our faith, and (2) to see that other forms of legalism are just as destructive and deadly to one’s faith.

We will conclude that salvation that adds anything or any work is not salvation at all—but another, different gospel from the one given to us by Paul.

To add to grace, is to place a weight on the shoulders of adherents, which the Lord Jesus Christ neither intended nor taught.

Further it distorts the Gospel into just another man-made religion and brings into question the genuineness not only of those who perpetuate it, but those who follow either willingly or blindly!

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Question One: What was the purpose of the Law?

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*The “Believer” Under Law: *