Throughout the last two centuries, many have grappled with the seeming confusion portrayed in the New Testament when comparing Paul’s letters with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Paul hammers home the gospel of the grace of God, while the four gospels seem to be heavy on a kingdom message. Many have tried to rectify this problem by reading Paul’s message of grace back into the gospels. The problem with this is that in Paul’s Holy Spirit inspired letters; over and over again he claims that his message was a mystery, never before revealed until he received it. Others have tried to combine Jesus’ and the twelve apostles’ message with Paul and say that there has only been one gospel, therefore they all preached the same message. This is a grave error as well. Jesus and the apostles told the nation of Israel to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”, something Paul never once is heard to have uttered. Did Paul preach something different than Jesus and the twelve? Is there more than one gospel spoken of in the New Testament? Can all of this be reconciled? The good news is that, yes, this is all easily understood if we study the Scripture without thinking it says something that it really doesn’t. read more »
Tag Archives: gospel of the grace of God
Romans Chapter Four Versus James Chapter Two-Can They Be Reconciled?
There probably aren’t two more diametrically opposed points of view in all the Scriptures about how salvation is obtained than Romans four and James two. Over the years many theologians have attempted to reconcile these two seemingly opposite methods of salvation. Martin Luther struggled with this so much that he at one point was ready to throw the book of James right out of the Bible because it did not match up well with Paul’s doctrine of being saved by grace through faith. Paul writes in Romans four that a man is saved by faith apart from works and he uses Abraham as his example. James, on the other hand, writes in James chapter two that one is not saved by faith alone. Works are required to validate faith and James also uses Abraham as his example. Well, who is right and who is wrong?
