The Tuckasegee River, beautiful, flowing through Dillsboro, North Carolina. I made this photo yesterday afternoon as Debbie and I rode to Church.

This morning we left Dillsboro, North Carolina, the Revival having ended there last night. We drive home and repacked the car … and now I am in Knoxville, Tennessee (Alcoa really) ready to preach tonight. Wow, God is good!

TODAY’S BIBLE STUDY LESSON …

Paul is aghast!

Could anyone forsake the Grace of God and revert to a complex system of laws, 613 of them to be exact, in order to go to Heaven when he or she dies?

Yet some of Paul’s church-members in the Roman Province of Galatia had done that, or were on the verge!

So Paul earnestly asks: “For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” Galatians 2:18

Wow!

If Paul (making himself an example to those Galatians) should go back to the observance of the Law of Moses, as a means of salvation … spurning (renouncing) in the process the Gift of God (salvation) that is offered to every man and woman, boy and girl … Paul would have (automatically) become a “transgressor!”

This noun, “parabates,” simply means one who has “stepped” back across a “line!”

The English etymology of “transgressor” is … one who “goes” (Latin “gradi’) “across” (Latin “trans”) a questionable barrier, maybe even a dangerous demarcation!

Paul is NOT going back!

He will NOT digress!

He will NOT frustrate the Grace of God!

What a lesson for us!

NEVER go back to … anything less than Jesus Blood and Righteousness!

Amen!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell