Book Summary
This book shows how we are saved by faith alone. Paul passionately defends the gospel of grace, fervently declaring that it is only by faith in God that can save. The cross is complete, nothing can be added to it, to think you can add something to the cross is to insult the spirit of grace because grace means underserved favor. To think that we can add anything to the cross is to think that by our own effort we can get to God. All we can do is receive what he has done and what we receive is His fullness, the fullness of God.A gospel mixed with law and grace has no power, the only thing that we can mix God’s word with is faith (Hebrews 4:2) and when it is mixed with faith we will see God. The fact that salvation is by grace means that God gets all the glory, it means that we are secure in our salvation and we can just rest in the finished work of Christ.
Salvation has always been by faith alone whether before Jesus died on Calvary you look towards the cross or as today when we look back at the cross. Abraham was accounted righteous by faith alone. Of course faith works, this was shown in the life of Abraham by his willingness to sacrifice Isaac. Faith is not just an idea but a lifestyle and that is why it works because it moves through life – “faith working through love.” When we step out in faith we are not stepping out alone but into His grace because it is only by faith that we access the grace in which we stand.
In Galatians Paul defends His apostleship declaring that he received the gospel from Jesus Christ Himself. He rebukes Peter for his legalistic approach and this shows that Peter was not a superior apostle.