Galatians 1:3 - Homiletics

The apostolic benediction.

"Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ." This benediction is a proof of the hearty love of the apostle, as well as a mark of his unswerving loyalty to the doctrine of salvation by Christ only.

I. THE BLESSINGS WISHED FOR . "Grace and peace." Nearly twenty times in Scripture are these two graces linked together, but never so significantly as at present, when the Galatians manifested a disposition to return to the Law with its terrors and disquietudes.

1 . Grace is free , undeserved love manifesting itself in a free gift. ( Romans 5:15 .) It is the foundation of our redemption. It is also an operation of that free love in our hearts—grace, quickening, sanctifying, comforting, strengthening. It is the first blessing the apostle asks for; it is what we all need; it is but the beginning of blessings innumerable.

2 . -Peace is not peace with God ( Romans 5:1 ), but the peace that springs from it. The true order of blessing and experience is not peace and grace, but grace and peace. Grace is the root of peace; peace is the inner comfort that springs from grace. The apostle desires that the Galatians may not only share in Divine grace, but possess the assurance of it. Without peace, thousands are unhappy, and the desire of it causes many a pagan to bear labour and pain in the vain effort to enjoy it. The worldly man longs for peace without grace. But the two are inseparably linked. Without it there is no progress in religion, and no real test of the value of a man's religion. Luther says, "Grace releaseth sin, and peace maketh the conscience quiet. The two fiends that torment us are sin and conscience." Another says," If you have peace, you are rich without money; if you have it not, you are poor with millions."

II. THE SOURCE OF THESE BLESSINGS . "From God the Father, and from cur Lord Jesus Christ"—from God the Father as Fountain, and Jesus Christ as the Channel of conveyance to us. The highest blessings of the gospel, as well as the appointment to apostolic office, spring alike from Father and Son. They are here both associated as objects of Divine worship, and as the sources of spiritual blessing. This proves Christ's Deity. "The living fountain of grace which ever flowed and never ebbed in the bosom of our God has been gloriously opened to a thirsty world in the bleeding side of Christ."