Can your good works add to your salvation?

No. In Galatians 3:1-14, the Apostle Paul asks a sharp question: "Who has bewitched you?" Dr. Toby Holt explains why adding works to faith is not a small mistake but a dangerous one. The Galatians had started well, trusting Jesus alone, but were now being talked into adding rules, as if their effort could finish what Jesus began. Paul reminds them they received God's Spirit by faith, and points to Abraham, accepted simply because he believed. Holt's rule of thumb: if you hear "faith," then a plus sign — run.

Questions this study answers:

1. What does it mean to be "bewitched"? Paul means the Galatians had been talked out of clear truth, almost as if under a spell, trading a gospel of faith for a gospel of works.

2. Why is a gospel of works so dangerous? Because it steals glory from Jesus and gives it to us. Adding our effort to His finished work says His sacrifice was not enough.

3. How were people in the Old Testament saved? The same way we are — by faith. They looked forward to the promised Savior; we look back to the work Christ has finished. "But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for 'the just shall live by faith.'" — Galatians 3:11 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.