Galatians Talk 2. Galatians 1:6-9
In our first talk we began by looking at three reasons why Galatians is important:
It has made a significant impact on the history of the church
It’s the first thing Paul wrote explaining that salvation is by faith and not by works
It’s of practical relevance to our daily lives.
We then made a start on the text by reading the first 6 verses:
1. Paul, an apostle – sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead 2. and all the brothers with me, To the churches in Galatia: 3. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4. who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5. to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 6. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
We noted that Paul’s purpose in writing was to correct a serious doctrinal error that had crept into the churches since Paul had planted them. Paul had taught them that we are saved by faith in Jesus, and not by observing the law of the Old Testament, but some were now teaching that circumcision was now necessary for salvation, and Paul was amazed that they had so quickly turned away from what he had taught them (6). And that’s where we pick up the reading today. Let’s read verses 6-7.
6. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel –
7. which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.
v 6 I am astonished
After the customary greeting at the beginning of his letters, Paul usually says something to commend his readers, even if later he has to say something to correct or rebuke them, but the problem in Galatia is so serious that he moves straight into the issue he urgently needs to deal with. He is astonished, astounded, appalled at what they are doing. There are some issues in church life where we need to be direct, although the usual approach to those who need to be corrected is gentleness (6:1).
so quickly deserting
He’s astonished that they’re departing from the gospel he preached to them, but particularly that they’re doing it so quickly. It wasn’t long since they had heard and received his message of salvation by faith in Christ, but they had soon moved away from it when they heard a different ‘gospel’.
the one who called you
But they were not only rejecting the true gospel. They were rejecting the one who had called them. But what does Paul mean by the one? Does he mean himself or Christ? Of course, it is Christ who calls us to salvation and the rejection of Christ is far more serious than the rejection of his messengers. But Jesus did say to his disciples, Whoever rejects you rejects me (Luke 10:16), so is there a double – or even treble – meaning here? In rejecting Paul’s message, they were rejecting the messenger, and in rejecting the messenger they were rejecting Christ, the one who sent him.
What should we do when people reject our message? Paul was certainly exasperated by the behaviour of the Galatians, but he did not desert them. He felt responsible for them and cared enough to warn them of the serious consequences if they continued to reject his message.
by the grace of Christ
As Christ’s messenger, Paul had called them by the grace of Christ. Grace, the unmerited favour of God, was the heart of Paul’s message. On his first visit to Galatia he had preached that
Through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses (Acts 13:38-39).
And this was the message of his grace (14:3).
If the churches he is writing to in Galatians are the same as those he planted in these chapters in Acts, they had certainly already heard Paul’s message of justification by faith.
and are turning to a different gospel
But now they are turning to a different gospel. The word Paul uses for different is heteros, which means another. In Greek there are two different words for another:
heteros which means another of a different kind
and
allos which means another of the same kind.
Paul uses both these words in verses 6-7. In verse 6 he says that the Galatians are turning to another gospel. Here he uses heteros. Their so called ‘gospel’ of justification by obeying the law of Moses was a totally different kind of gospel than that which Paul preached, justification by faith. Gospel (euangelion in Greek) means good news. And their insistence that for a man to be saved he must be circumcised as well as believe was certainly not good news!
In most countries today circumcision is probably not the issue that it was back then, but any insistence that any ritual baptism, communion for example is essential to salvation is a false gospel. We should be baptised and take communion because Jesus commanded it, but it’s only faith that saves us.
v 7 which is really no gospel at all
In fact their ‘gospel’ was really no gospel at all. Translated literally, what he says is:
which is not another.
Here Paul uses allos (another of the same kind). Their ‘gospel’ is not the same kind at all. It’s bad news, not good news.
some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ
Any teaching that detracts from the simplicity of the true gospel of salvation by grace through faith is in fact a perversion and will only lead to confusion. In 1 Corinthians 14:33 Paul tells us that God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. It was God the Holy Spirit who brought order out of chaos (Genesis 1:1).
8. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned
9. As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
But even if we…
In effect, Paul is saying, Even if I start preaching a different gospel, don’t believe it! The message of the gospel is more important than the messenger, however impressive their credentials, their personality, or their presentation. It’s the truth of the message that validates the messenger.
or an angel from heaven
This may reflect the Jewish belief that the law had been given through angelic mediators (cf. Acts 7:38) but is more likely to be connected with the fact that Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). Confusion is his work and he’s still in the confusion business today. What Bible believing Christian can fail to see the hand of Satan in the upheaval of moral standards that has taken place in recent decades, as biblical revelation has been rejected, even in some churches, and replaced with the mistaken ideas of godless people? Those who bring confusion, whether it’s into the churches or into society at large would do well to heed Paul’s urgent warning in these verses:
But why the repetition? This may be just for emphasis, but As we have already said (9) may well be a reference to his teaching when he had planted the churches. However, the two verses are not entirely identical:
Verse 8 refers to the gospel he had preached.
Verse 9 refers to the gospel they had accepted.
Paul had not only preached the true gospel, but the Galatians had accepted it.
let him be eternally condemned
The word Paul uses here is anathema. He uses it in Romans 9:3 where he says that he could wish himself accursed from Christ if only his fellow Jews might be saved. The plain sense there is that he would have been willing to sacrifice his own salvation if only it could achieve theirs. And in 1 Corinthians 16:22 he uses it to say, If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ let them be accursed. So the NIV translation, eternally condemned, here in Galatians, does not seem inappropriate.
But did Paul really want anyone to be eternally condemned? If it sounds like it here, we need to remember that Paul had dedicated his life to preaching the gospel so that others might be saved. If his words seem harsh, we should remind ourselves that God himself, who is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, will not force salvation on anyone. He has provided the way of salvation through faith in the atoning death of Christ, but, if that is rejected, Jesus said those who do not believe are condemned already (John 3:18). This is because the only way of salvation is through faith in Christ – and that’s because only Christ was capable of saving us.
So here in Galatians Paul is only affirming what God has already said. Those who were teaching, and those who were believing, a different ‘gospel’ were denying the total efficacy of Christ’s death on the cross, and to reject that is to reject the salvation that it offers. And as Paul says elsewhere, Their condemnation is just (Romans 3:8).
This matter is so important, and Paul cares so much about those he had led to Christ, that he urges them to reject the false gospel of the Judaizers and to return to the gospel by which they had been saved in the first place. Salvation is dependent on accepting the gospel. We cannot lose our salvation, but this passage shows that we can reject it by rejecting the gospel we once believed.
Paul’s teaching throughout Galatians reminds us of the urgency of both believing (and continuing to believe) and preaching the one true gospel of salvation through faith in Christ. We will return to this theme again and again, but as we do so perhaps we should ask ourselves how seriously we are taking our responsibility of sharing this truth with others.