The error into which the Galatians allowed themselves to be drawn, was the addition of something of nature to what Christ had already accomplished for them by the cross. The gospel which had been preached to them and which they had received, was the simple presentation of God's absolute, unqualified, and unconditional, grace. "Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth crucified among them." This was not merely promise divinely made, but promise divinely and most gloriously accomplished. A crucified Christ settled every thing in reference both to God's claims and man's necessities. But the false teachers upset all this, or sought to upset it, by saying, "Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." This, as the apostle teaches them, was in reality "making Christ of none effect." Christ must either be a _whole_ Saviour, or _no_ Saviour at all. The moment a man says, "Except _ye_ be this or that, ye cannot be saved," he totally subverts Christianity; for in Christianity I find God coming down to me _just as I am_, a lost, guilty, self-destroyed sinner; and coming moreover with a full remission of _all_ my sins, and a full salvation from my lost estate, all perfectly wrought by himself on the cross. Hence, therefore, a man who tells me, "You must be so and so, in order to be saved," robs the cross of all its glory, and robs me of all my peace. If salvation depends upon our being or doing aught, we shall inevitably be lost. Thank God it does not; for the great fundamental principle of the gospel is, that God is ALL,--man is NOTHING. It is not a mixture of God and man. It is all of God. The peace of the gospel does not repose in part on Christ's work, and in part on man's work; it reposes _wholly_ on Christ's work, because that work is perfect,--perfect forever; and it renders all who put their trust in it as perfect as itself.