Series Title

Paul had gone to Galatia on a missionary journey where he preached and taught the Gospel, the “good news” about Jesus. Many people were converted to Christianity, and churches were started.

Soon after Paul left, false teachers began filling the heads of the young Christians with all sorts of myths about the Gospel. They set about to enslave the new believers with all sorts of rules they said would win favor with God, and thus destroying the message of freedom that the Gospel is.

When Paul caught wind of this, he sent an urgent letter—pen aflame—to shake the Galatian church free of this slavery. In other words, Paul urged them to be intolerant of this false teaching about the Gospel.

Paul had taught the Galatian churches about freedom, about how to live as free people. He taught them the Gospel message, the message that the only way man can be made right before God is by believing in Jesus Christ, and the event of the cross. And that the only way man is able to obey God and live a holy life is through the power of the Holy Spirit.

“The Gospel is the incredibly good news that the only way a person can get right with God is through the cross. By the cross we mean that great historical event where the Son of God in human flesh, Jesus, died for our sins and rose again from the dead. The only way a person can get right with God is by putting their faith in the Jesus who died on the cross and rose again from the dead.

…And once being made right with God through the cross, the only way a person can live a holy life and obey God is through the Holy Spirit which Jesus has poured into our hearts the moment we become a Christian.

This is what was under attack among the young Galatian churches. This is what Paul is so jealous to preserve in Galatians.

You may be sitting there thinking, “Yeah, but the issues Paul was addressing was for a church that existed 2000 years ago. It was about gentiles being forced to become Jews. This is not our issue; we don’t face those challenges here today.” I would say you’re right! But we can make no mistake about the truth that everywhere we look today, the gospel of Jesus Christ is being diluted.

This is a series intended to help lead us back to the heart of the Gospel. This is a message today about truth. We’re going to take the first part of the message to look at the question, “Where did Paul get the message of the Gospel”, or Paul’s defense. The second half of the message we’re going to look at why Paul is so angry. Are you ready? OK, here we go…

“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—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion (slavery) and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ” (vv 6-7, parenthesis added).

Look at the word ‘astonished’. “I am astonished”, Paul says, “That you are buying this doctrine of slavery when you have been taught and believed the message of freedom!”

In this context, ‘astonished’ brings to mind someone choosing to eat dog food off the floor instead of dining on gourmet food at a finely laid table. Or someone choosing to sleep in a pile of filthy, odorous garbage at the city dump, when there is a king size bed with a down-filled comforter in a cool, fresh bedroom waiting for him or her. Or someone choosing to be chained by the ankles and be led around by a slave-driver all day long when they had been set free to live free! “I am astonished”, Paul says.

What’s the most effective way to discredit someone’s message? Attack them personally. Jesus knew this full well. When Jesus went to his hometown to teach and heal, he was ridiculed and put down because he was only a carpenter’s son. Similarly, Paul endured personal attack. The false teachers in Galatia planted seeds of doubt about Paul’s credibility in the minds of the Galatian Christians: “He wasn’t one of the disciples! He was a Pharisee, a persecutor of Christians! He didn’t know Jesus, how can you be sure of what he says?”

Paul’s defense is based entirely on the truth that the gospel he received came directly from Jesus himself. Therefore, the Galatian letter we read here today is from a direct representative of Jesus. [iii] Let’s look at the text:

“I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. (12) I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.”

At some point in your life, if you’ve come to be a Christian, had to come to the point where you believed, by faith, that God revealed the Bible. The scriptures say, “all scripture is God breathed…”(1 Timothy 3:16 ).

“But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles…”(1:15-16)

Underline these words in your Bible: “But when God…” This is the doctrine of DIVINE ELECTION. This is the theological truth that God chose Paul, as he chose you and I, to become a Christian.

You say, Shaun I don’t like that! I want the freedom to choose God myself! You do have the freedom to choose God. In fact, if you’re ever going to live as a Christian, you have to. But before you ever had or have the opportunity to choose him, he chose you.

Paul says in verse 16, “he was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles.” Paul is set apart by God, and called to ministry by God. He responded to God’s activity, God’s initiative, and God’s call.

“For you have heard my pervious way of life…I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews my own age…”( 1:13 -14).

Paul hated Christianity. He was anti-Christ. He hated Jesus. He was a well-known, high-ranking Pharisee. Paul persecuted Christians—even overseeing the execution of Stephen. In other words Paul was the most unlikely to ever be converted to Christianity, and everyone knew it!

One day, on his way to Damascus, God knocked him off his horse and declared, “Paul it is I, the one you are persecuting, Jesus Christ, now go and do what I tell you” (Acts 9, paraphrase mine). The rest is history.

The conversion of Paul was miraculous. It was a God-initiated moment. No one could have expected it because of what they knew of Paul. It would be like Osama bin Laden becoming a Christian. A hater of all things Christian, encountered by Jesus, and his life radically altered.

What’s Paul’s point? Only God can convert someone. Only God could bring about a change of heart in someone. Only God could convert Paul, Osama bin Laden. Only God could convert you, me. Why? Because our hearts are the same.

Look at what happened once people started learning what happened to Paul: “They heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And the praised God because of me”( 1:23 -24).

What’s Paul’s point? Everything good that happens—conversion, repentance, freedom—is to God’s Glory. When we become a Christian, we stop getting any of the credit. It all belongs to God. Who did the people praise when they saw Paul’s transformation? God!

If we have a good day and follow God’s way more than we sin, who gets the credit? God! God gets the credit!

God made known his truth to Paul personally. God himself converted and called Paul. It was an encounter with the risen Christ where Paul got the gospel.

How did Paul get this gospel? BY DIVINE REVELATION! As we read the story, it becomes clear that Paul went to great lengths to deflect any sort of personal credit. He did not make this up, he did not manipulate anything in his favor, and he did not do anything to earn God’s favor. God did it. God gets all the credit!

Remember the sailor and his maps? Remember how even the slightest error in direction could doom the voyage to peril? This is what Paul was facing. “A lie about God becomes a lie about life, and he would have none of it.”[iv] Paul is so angry because the Gospel is being perverted and as a result, lives are threatened! Heaven and hell hang in the balance.

This is why he says: “Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 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” And in case you thought Paul was using Hyperbole, he repeats himself: “As we have already said, so I now say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned” (Galatians 1:7-9, emphasis added).

This is Paul calling down curses on anyone who twists the truth of Jesus. This is Paul saying, “May God damn anyone who messes with the truth of Jesus, who enslaves God’s free people…damn them.” This is righteous anger we’re reading here.

Paul is saying there is only one Gospel, one God, one savior, one way…many religions, philosophies, ideas…only one God, one gospel! This is particularly applicable to us who live in an age of pluralism.

The Judaizer’s suggested that there was more than one way to be made right with God. Their “Jesus plus” thinking said that the gospel was good, but there was another way, more than the gospel. In other words, the Judaizers were promoting a form of pluralism. And this is very relevant to us today given that we live in a country where pluralism is a core value. We are, as someone put it, “The Champions of pluralism to the world…that is why we are so politically correct. ”[v]

Simply put, pluralism says that everyone is equal, and everyone’s opinions are equal, and that what matters is not logic, or reason, but experience.

Now, on one level, I’m happy that we live in a pluralistic society. The part of pluralism that says everyone is equal, and valuable is good. That is an important element of a healthy society. Pluralism is good when we agree that all are equal BUT the ideas we believe are not all equal. All people are equal but not all ideas are equal. Pluralism tells us that truth cannot be measured logically, absolutely. Truth is relative! What is true for you is what is true for you. My experience of truth is good for me…let’s just live harmoniously.

Now if you’re not a Christian but are looking to become one and seeking God’s way for your life, getting over this philosophical hump is very important. Because, like Paul said, not all opinions are true. There is only one gospel, only one way to God.

If you came up to me after the service and asked me, “Shaun, what’s the best way to get to Calgary ?” And I said, “well, you get in your car, drive straight north through Alaska , and keep hoping, keep devoted to the journey, eventually you’ll end up in Calgary .” Now you may like me, and respect me, but you’d be right if you thought my opinion was foolish.

If you asked John here what the best way to get to Calgary was and he said, “You know, Shaun’s a nice guy but his opinion is all wet! To get to Calgary you go straight south on Highway 2 for about 300 kilometers, in about 2 ½- 3 hours, you’ll arrive in Calgary .” Whose opinion is best? We’re both nice guys, we’re both worthy of respect as human beings, but our opinions are not equal.

This is what Paul is saying to the Galatian church. Their opinions about the gospel and how to find favor with God are all wet! They’re false, foolish, and will lead to death because anything added or subtracted to Cross and Spirit is sheer peril.

If there was another way to be made right with God, then why did God go to the lengths he did to secure freedom for us? If Buddhism, Islam, the New Age Movement, or simply living morally could make us right before God, then God is a fool for sending his son to die! If there is another way, then God is an idiot for choosing such a drastic, painful way. But brothers and sisters, there is no other way.

This is one of the great criticisms of Christians that we think there is only one way to get to God. I’ve heard people say, “you guys have a lot of good ideas, but I could never buy into the idea that there is only one way to get to God, that Jesus is the only way.” And as a result, we water down the gospel, dilute Jesus’ teaching, and miss out on true freedom.

Look at Paul’s response to this ( 1:10 ): “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

You know, when we obey God by following what he says in the Bible, we find ourselves becoming free. Isn’t that strange? Subject to God, obedient to him, yet free to love, free to act in a godly way, free to give, free to live at peace with our neighbor. God knows us best. He knows what makes us free and what makes for peace in our world. Diluting and ignoring the gospel, thinking and living like we know best, leads to slavery and death. This is what Paul was so passionately in defense of.

Paul’s defense took the focus off him and placed it squarely on the sovereign and holy God. His conversion, his calling, his preaching, his life was a divine gift. It was not manipulated or conceived or won by any human effort. God’s grace is GOD’S grace. Thus is the gospel, the only Gospel.

Paul’s anger was leveled at those who sought to add to the gospel by suggesting there is more than one way. Instead of “Jesus only”, it was “Jesus plus”, that a person could somehow please God by “doing”. Paul raged against that because it made people slaves to duty, service, and performance thus diluting the gospel message. We are forgiven because of what Jesus did on the cross, and we live because the Holy Spirit lives in us. Therefore we are free. Thus is the only gospel.

Coming back to the Heart of the Gospel (Galatians) ( North Shore Alliance Church , North Vancouver , September 29, 2001 ).

CRUX: Coming back to the Heart of the Gospel (Galatians) ( North Shore Alliance Church , North Vancouver , October 06, 2001 ).

[i] Peterson 34

[ii]Buhler, “Only One Gospel”

[iii] McKnight 67

[iv]Peterson 35

[v] Buhler, “Only One Gospel”

The Only Gospel

Galatians 1:6-24

August 18, 2002

Introduction

Paul did not tolerate any sort of addition or subtraction of the gospel message. When it happened in the Galatian church, he became irate and sat down and wrote the letter we see in our Bibles today, the Book of Galatians.

Last week we began a series on the Book of Galatians. I spent some time teaching about the context of the book, why it came to be written, and what the Galatian letter means for us. I won’t take the time to recap it all here today, but I’ll highlight the big ideas:

“I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. (12) I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.”

Paul says in verse 16, “he was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles.” Paul is set apart by God, and called to ministry by God. He responded to God’s activity, God’s initiative, and God’s call.