The Epistle to the Galatians is directed just as much against the modern notion of “salvation by character” or salvation by “making Christ Master” in the life or salvation by a mere attempt to put into practice “the principle of Jesus,” as it is directed against the Jewish ceremonialists of long ago: for what the Apostle is concerned to deny is any intrusion of human merit into the work by which salvation is obtained. That work, according to the Epistle to the Galatians and according to the whole New Testament, is the work of God and of God alone. (J. Gresham Machen, What is Faith?, pp. 192-193)
