You might prepare for this week’s lesson by reading the assigned passage and then explaining it to your spouse, your parents, your children or even a neighbor. If you find that task exceptionally difficult – join the club!

I myself read five different extensive Bible commentaries and none of them presented the contents of Galatians in a manner that could be recounted in the space of this column. We must remember, however, that Paul wrote this letter some 19 centuries ago to congregations engrossed in a crisis with which we can hardly identify.

Further, Paul is using language and ideas not similar to what we use in our churches today. No one in your parish is likely to be arguing that all your church members need to be circumcised and conformed to the rigors of Hebrew law. So, should we skip this passage – perhaps even Galatians itself – and hurry on to another book of the Bible?

No. If we get to the heart of what he is saying to the Christians of Galatia, we will find some valuable tools for the problems and concerns that are with us today.

What provides the occasion for Paul’s vigorous concern are the scheming outsiders attempting to convince the Galatians that their salvation lies in their success or failure at living by the specific requirements of the Hebrew law. While I know of no one today who is trying to sell Christians on the necessity of Hebrew law, there are those who have managed to persuade many that salvation is essentially secured for us by living in accordance with the rules and regulations that some church, churches or leaders propose to enforce.

If you score well with these legalities, they assure that your salvation is assured. If, the other hand, you don’t, they advise you to clean up your act so you can achieve salvation. Many Christians buy into this idea that we can achieve salvation if we live by the right set of rules. Unfortunately, most Christians don’t agree as to what constitutes the authentic rules that we must obey in order to ensure our salvation.

It’s all grace!

That is precisely the point at which Paul’s letter to the Galatians speaks to us in this year of 2012: Salvation is never achieved by us, but by the grace of God it is offered to us and received. Paul reminds them that under the influence of his teaching, they received God’s grace without the Jewish law. At that time they had not even heard of the Jewish law, but they nevertheless received the blessed assurance of God.

The law could not have given them anything further. God’s Holy Spirit had been visited upon them, not because they obeyed the Jewish law, but because, heeding the gospel news Paul brought them, they accepted it as the grace of God. There were no good works that could have given them more assurance of God’s salvation.

If today you and I determined to live by the Jewish law – or any manmade rules and regulations – that would not bring us one step closer to God’s salvation. Nevertheless, this “salvation based on moralism” is still a problem within Christian congregations and denominations.

Consciously or unconsciously, many Christians try to earn their salvation, living by laws and rules of some kind. Unfortunately, the gospel tells us that while it is an admirable intention, it does not, cannot, bridge the gap between “saved” and “unsaved.” Salvation costs far, far more than even the most saintly of us could pay. The law can warn us, but not save us.

What, then, can? On my grave marker, after the vital statistics, I have had inscribed: “It’s all grace.” Only three simple words, but that is what God offers us.

Paul uses another analogy: Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, had never heard of or anticipated Jewish law. Yet he was the man to whom God made the promise that all the families of the Earth would be blessed by him.

So, Abraham enjoyed God’s grace, not because of works of the law, of which he knew nothing  since the law had not yet been given, but by his steadfast faith in God’s promise.

Centuries later, many of Jesus’ contemporaries mistakenly assumed they would automatically inherit God’s grace as men of merit, because of their descent from Abraham and adherence to the law in all its complexity.

Until his experience on the road to Damascus, that is what Paul thought. So now, as one who once thought he could earn his salvation, Paul is telling the Galatians – and us – that it does not work that way. It is not our merit; it is grace alone and we have access to that grace through faith.

Unfortunately, through the long history of Christianity many have gone astray because of a misconception about the meaning of “faith.” Faith requires belief, but ideas held in the mind are not faith unless they inspire us to trust in God and live our lives accordingly.

Notice: The works come not before salvation, but after. The works we do are not intended to win the prize of God’s salvation, but are expressions of gratitude for the gift He has already given us. They confirm, but do not win us, salvation.

So we sing our faith:

Not the labors of my hands Can fulfill the law’s demands …

Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to Thy cross I cling;

Naked come to Thee for dress. Helpless look to Thee for grace;

Wash me, Savior, or I die.

-“Rock of Ages,”

Augustus M. Toplady, 1776

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.