Galatians 1:6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
The utterly glorious Gospel of grace alone and how it correlates with the Five Sola’s of the Reformation and the Five Points of Calvinism (so to speak) seems to point at how this is a major point of Holy Scripture. Indeed God does all for His own glory, so of course the Gospel is to the glory of His name and so the Gospel is all about His grace which manifests His beauty and holiness in and by grace. The Gospel of grace alone sets out the beauty and loveliness of Christ Jesus because all grace is found and obtained in the Person of Jesus Christ.
The Lord Jesus Himself is the very radiance of His glory which is to say that the Lord Jesus is the very shining forth of His glory (Hebrews 1:3). When God shines forth out of Himself, the Lord Jesus is the perfect image of God and He can behold His perfections in Christ as they shine forth. This is how God beholds His perfect image. The Scriptures (John 1:14-18) also tell us that when the Word took flesh, it was in that flesh that the glory of God tabernacles and in that tabernacle of human flesh the glory of God was beheld in grace and truth. The glory, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, was full of grace and truth. It was of His (Jesus Christ) fullness that we have received grace upon grace (John 1:16). It was in Christ and through Christ that grace and truth came into reality or came in the form of Jesus Christ to this planet. Thus, we can easily see that when God does something for His own glory He is doing it by Christ alone. When God saves sinners by grace alone for His glory alone, He is doing this through Christ alone.
While human beings may be able to make distinctions between glory, grace, and Christ, they must not separate those three teachings at all. In God these are all one. The Lord Jesus is the only place where there is saving grace and He is the only One who can purchase grace. As the very shining forth of the glory of God which is a glory that is full of grace and truth, when Scripture says that God saves sinners to the praise of the glory of His grace, He is speaking of Christ because Christ is the shining forth of His glory and Christ is grace to His people.
When the Scriptures tell us (as Galatians 1:6-9) that we are not to preach a gospel contrary to what Paul taught to the Galatians, we are also to understand this that people are not to teach anything but a Gospel by which Christ alone saves sinners by grace alone to the glory of God alone. The riches of the Gospel comes to sinners by grace, but all of that is through Christ alone who is the shining forth of the glory of God. When sinners come to understand something of this great mystery which was hidden from the past generations, they come to understand that their very hope of glory is Christ in them. Their very hope of seeing and tasting of this glory of God is because of Christ who was and is the very shining forth of the glory of God dwells in them. Their hope of grace for the next moment and the next day is because of Christ who shines forth from God as the very glory of God which consists of grace and truth. God’s glory is seen in grace and truth and Christ is that grace and truth. The Gospel is the Gospel of grace alone because it is always to the glory of God alone and that glory is Christ shining forth as the perfect image of God. A distortion of the Gospel of grace alone (Gospel of His Person, works, and His shining forth as the perfect image of God) is a distortion of Christ and of His Father. Let us drink at the wells of eternal glory by grace as we receive Christ Himself.
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