The Centrality of Grace to the Very End Text: Galatians 6:18
Introduction: A Final Salvo of Grace
We have come to the end of what is perhaps the most pugnacious, sharp-edged, and white-hot letter in the New Testament. Paul has been fighting, not with fists, but with glorious, sledgehammer doctrine. He has been contending for the very heart of the gospel against those he calls "false brothers," who were trying to smuggle the poison of works-righteousness back into the bloodstream of the Galatian church. They wanted to put the new wine of the gospel back into the old, brittle wineskins of Mosaic legalism. They wanted to supplement the all-sufficient work of Jesus Christ with the filthy rags of human effort, specifically circumcision.
Throughout this letter, Paul has not minced words. He has pronounced a double anathema on anyone, including himself or an angel from heaven, who preaches another gospel. He has called Peter a hypocrite to his face. He has declared that if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. He has been relentless, because the central issue was not a matter of liturgical preference or some minor point of systematic theology. The issue was the gospel itself. The issue was freedom versus slavery, grace versus law, Christ alone versus Christ-plus-anything.
And so, how does he end such a letter? After all this thunder and lightning, after drawing the battle lines so starkly, what is his final word? It is not a final rebuke. It is not a summary of his arguments. It is not an "I told you so." His final word is a benediction. It is a blessing. And it is a blessing that perfectly encapsulates the entire argument of the letter. He ends where he began, and where he remained throughout: with grace.
This is profoundly instructive for us. We live in a time of intense spiritual and cultural warfare. We are called to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We must draw sharp lines. We must be willing to identify and refute error. But we must never forget that the whole point of the fight is grace. The fuel for the fight is grace. And the goal of the fight is that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ would be with our spirit. If our contending makes us graceless, then we have become the very thing we were fighting against. Paul ends his firefight with a benediction, reminding us that the whole war is waged for the sake of this peace.
The Text
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.
(Galatians 6:18 LSB)
The Subject: Grace
The first and most important word here is "grace."
"The grace..." (Galatians 6:18)
Grace (charis) is the sun around which every planet in this epistle orbits. Grace is God's unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor toward sinners. It is not just a pardon; it is a promotion. It is not just God overlooking our sin; it is God imputing Christ's perfect righteousness to us. The Judaizers wanted to make grace a starting point, a booster shot to get you going, after which you had to take over with your own sweat and religious effort. Paul says this is a damnable lie. Grace is not the diving board; it is the entire swimming pool. Grace is not the first step; it is the entire path, from beginning to end.
Notice how comprehensive this is. Paul is not praying that they would simply understand the doctrine of grace, though that is essential. He is praying that the grace itself, the active, powerful, transforming reality of God's favor, would be with them. Grace is not a mere concept; it is a dynamic power. It is what saves us (Eph. 2:8), it is what sanctifies us (Titus 2:11-12), and it is what sustains us (2 Cor. 12:9). The entire Christian life is a life of grace. To preach law-keeping as the means of sanctification is to fall from grace, not into sin, but into the pride of self-effort, which is the root of all sin.
The Source: Our Lord Jesus Christ
This grace is not a free-floating cosmic force. It has a specific source.
"...of our Lord Jesus Christ..." (Galatians 6:18)
Grace is not an abstract attribute of God that He dispenses from afar. Grace is located in a person: the Lord Jesus Christ. John tells us that the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). You cannot have God's grace while bypassing God's Son. He is the sole mediator of it. Every drop of grace that has ever fallen on a sinful human heart was purchased by His blood and flows from His throne.
Paul uses His full title: Lord, Jesus, Christ. "Lord" (Kurios) is a declaration of His absolute sovereignty and deity. He is the master, the owner. We are His slaves. This is the death of all spiritual autonomy. The Judaizers wanted to be masters of their own righteousness; Paul reminds the Galatians they have a Lord. "Jesus" is His human name, Yeshua, meaning "Yahweh saves." It points to His incarnation, His real, historical, flesh-and-blood humanity. He is not a disembodied principle. He is our kinsman-redeemer. "Christ" is the Greek for the Hebrew "Messiah," the Anointed One. He is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises, the prophet, priest, and king. All the ceremonies the Judaizers were trying to reinstitute were just shadows; the substance, the reality, is Christ.
This grace comes from Him because He is the one who accomplished the work. He lived the perfect life we could not live and died the substitutionary death we deserved to die. Grace is free to us, but it was infinitely costly to Him. Therefore, to add our own works to His finished work is not just a doctrinal mistake; it is an insult of the highest order to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to say that His sacrifice was insufficient.
The Location: With Your Spirit
Where is this grace to be operative? Paul is specific.
"...be with your spirit..." (Galatians 6:18)
This is a crucial distinction. The false teachers were focused on the flesh. Their entire program was about externals, about what you did with your body. "Get circumcised," they said. "Observe these days, these rituals, these dietary laws." It was a religion of the flesh, for the flesh, and by the flesh. And Paul says its only fruit is to puff up the flesh with pride (Gal. 6:13).
But true Christianity is a religion of the spirit. The grace of God does its work not on the skin, but in the heart, the spirit, the innermost part of a man. This is where the Holy Spirit dwells. This is the command center of your life. Paul's prayer is that the grace of Christ would permeate and rule in that central place. When grace rules in your spirit, it will inevitably work its way out into your life, producing the fruit of the Spirit, not the works of the flesh. But the action is inside-out, not outside-in. Religion is man trying to clean up the outside to impress God. The gospel is God cleaning the inside, which results in a transformed outside.
This is why legalism is so impotent. It can modify behavior for a time, through fear or pride, but it cannot change the heart. It is like trimming the weeds but leaving the root. Grace, working in the spirit, pulls the weed up by the root. It gives you a new heart with new desires. It makes you want to obey, not in order to be saved, but because you are saved.
The Recipients: Brothers
Finally, to whom does he address this benediction?
"...brothers." (Galatians 6:18)
After all the harsh words, after calling them "foolish Galatians," after expressing his bewilderment at their doctrinal drift, he still calls them "brothers." This is remarkable. It shows us that true theological controversy must be conducted within the context of covenant love. Paul is not an angry blogger firing off anonymous insults. He is a father, a brother, pleading with his family.
His use of this word is a final, subtle reinforcement of his whole argument. How are they brothers? Not by blood, not by ethnicity, and certainly not by sharing a common circumcision status. They are brothers because they have been adopted by the same Father through faith in the same elder Brother, Jesus Christ. Their brotherhood is a product of grace, not race or ritual. The Judaizers were trying to tear the family apart, creating two tiers of Christians: the circumcised "haves" and the uncircumcised "have-nots." Paul insists on the unity of the family. "There is neither Jew nor Greek...for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).
This is a word for us. Our unity as believers is not found in our political agreements, our cultural similarities, or our stylistic preferences. It is found in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. And because we are brothers, we must speak the truth to one another, even when it is hard, just as Paul did. But we must do it for the sake of preserving this grace among us, and we must do it with the heart of a brother.
He concludes with "Amen." So be it. Let it be so. This is not just a way to end a letter. It is an expression of faith. Paul has made his argument. He has poured out his heart. Now he commits them to the God of all grace, confident that God's grace will indeed be with their spirit, and that this grace will ultimately triumph over all error and all sin. It is a final declaration of confidence in the power and sufficiency of the gospel of grace.