2:21 <\/b>I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.\u00a0<\/b>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version<\/i>. 2001 (Ga 2:21). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.<\/p>\n

Grace! What a simple, yet powerful word.\u00a0 The act of getting what I do not deserve is grace.\u00a0 The favor with God that I experience that is unmerited is grace.\u00a0 The forgiveness of my sin, both past and future, is offered by God’s grace.\u00a0 The position of righteousness that every believer rests in is made possible through Grace.<\/p>\n

Grace is a beautiful gift.\u00a0 In Galatians 2:21, Paul poses the scenario of rejecting the grace of God.\u00a0 As he concludes a major section of his letter to the Galatian believers, Paul summarizes his discourse on grace vs. law by suggesting that if we were able to acquire right standing with God through adherance to the Law, then Christ’s death was a waste.<\/p>\n

To grasp this statement one must be reminded of why did Jesus die?\u00a0 We have a sin problem that is rooted in the fall.\u00a0 Hebrews 9:22 reminds us that because of the Law, blood must be shed for the forgiveness of sin.\u00a0 And God sent His Son Jesus to live the perfect life so that He could be the atoning sacrifice for our sin by shedding His blood.\u00a0 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.\u00a0The Holy Bible: English Standard Version<\/i>. 2001 (2 Co 5:21). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.<\/p>\n

Christ went through the agony and pain of His sacrificial death with us in mind.\u00a0 He suffered, bled, and died so that we might be justified.\u00a0 For us to assume any responsibility in that process by requiring works of the Law, we undermine His compassion and commitment to willingly follow through with his crucifixion.<\/p>\n

Grace is a powerful word and a wonderful thing to experience.\u00a0 By His grace we have become the righteousness of God.\u00a0 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ^{31\u00a0<\/sup><\/b>so that, as it is written, \u201cLet the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.\u201d\u00a0The Holy Bible: English Standard Version<\/i>. 2001 (1 Co 1:30\u201331). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.<\/p>\n}

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2:21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.\u00a0The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Ga 2:21). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. Grace! What a simple, yet powerful word.\u00a0 The act of getting what I do not deserve is grace.\u00a0 The favor with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194,"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions\/194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rlsmith.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}