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The Apostle to the Gentiles
You cannot earn what God freely gives.
The gospel of Jesus Christ, revealed to Paul on the road to Damascus, carried to the ends of the earth.
King James Version (KJV) Β· 1611The cornerstone of Paul's entire gospel: you cannot earn what God freely gives.
Paul stood against the dominant religious assumption of his world. The prevailing view was this: right standing before God must be earned through obedience and sacrifice. He declared the opposite. Grace is a gift, and gifts cannot be earned. The Greek word charis carried the sense of unmerited, freely-given favour β a revolutionary truth, because it levelled all human achievement and left every person standing on the same ground before God.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Ephesians 2:8β9 (KJV)Notice the timing Paul gives in Romans: while we were yet sinners. Not after improvement. Not after repentance. Before any of that. God moved first.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 (KJV)Justification before God comes through faith alone. Not religious performance. Not the keeping of the Law.
Paul's central battle was with those who insisted that obedience to the Law of Moses was necessary for salvation. His answer was direct: the Law reveals sin but cannot remove it. Abraham himself was declared righteous before circumcision, which proved that faith came first and the Law came after.
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
Galatians 2:16 (KJV)I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20 (KJV)Remove the resurrection and the entire Christian faith collapses. Paul is explicit and unapologetic.
Paul dedicates an entire chapter of 1 Corinthians to this one argument. If Christ has not risen, sin has not been conquered. Death still has dominion. Every believer who has died is simply gone. But Christ did rise. And his resurrection is the firstfruits of a coming harvest.
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1 Corinthians 15:20β22 (KJV)"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"1 Corinthians 15:55 (KJV)
Paul's hymn to love was not written for weddings. It was written to a church tearing itself apart.
The Corinthian church was gifted, charismatic, and utterly dysfunctional. They were arguing over spiritual gifts and suing each other in court. Into this chaos Paul wrote what may be the most beautiful and demanding passage in all of Scripture. The word charity translates the Greek agape: a selfless, unconditional love that acts for the good of another, regardless of feeling.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1β2 (KJV)And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
1 Corinthians 13:13 (KJV)Romans 8 sits at the summit of all Paul wrote. It is a declaration of freedom, adoption, and a security nothing can touch.
The Spirit is not merely a force that assists us. The Spirit is God himself dwelling within the believer, testifying to our adoption as children of God. The fruit the Spirit bears is not manufactured by willpower. It grows naturally from a life surrendered to God's presence.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
Romans 8:1β2 (KJV)But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Galatians 5:22β23 (KJV)The phrase "in Christ" appears over 160 times in Paul's letters. It is the ground of everything.
To be "in Christ" is not merely believing things about Jesus. It is a complete relocation of one's existence. The old self, with its shame and its striving, has died. A new self has taken its place, defined not by its record but by its union with Christ. Paul believed this with everything he had: that the baptised believer has gone through death and resurrection with Christ.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)Paul refuses to split life into the sacred and the secular. Every act, done with the right heart, can be an act of worship.
The word heartily in Colossians 3:23 translates the Greek ek psyches, literally "from the soul." Paul is asking not for grudging compliance but for full, soul-deep engagement. Because you are a new creation, in union with Christ, carried by grace, your entire life becomes a surface on which God's glory can show.
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.
Colossians 3:23β24 (KJV)Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 (KJV)"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to comeβ¦ shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."Romans 8:38β39 (KJV)