Daily Bread 2010 - Galatians 1
No Other Gospel
6I 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— 7which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But 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! 9As 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!
10Am 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.
In each letter Paul writes to the churches in Asia Minor and in Greece/Corinth, he is confronting a particular issue. In the case of the church at Galatia, he is confronting the fact that the Galatians are asking male adults who come to Christ to be circumsized according to the OT Jewish Law. Paul clarifies that the when we add the Law to the Gospel it is not the Gospel anymore.
It is not Jesus died for you and you are completely one with God because of his death for your sins and his resurrection, AND you need to do this to be a true Christian. In this case they were wanting to keep the Jewish rite of circumcision, which marked young Jewish boys and set them apart in the community as God’s children. Circumcision was a sign that these boys were of God.
Again Paul has to confront yet another church and he concludes that he is not trying to win the approval of men but of God. It would have been easy to go along with the Galatian’s practices to keep the peace, but he realized the very essence of the Gospel was at stake. If you can add one law plus the Gospel to be saved, what is to say you won’t add another!
In the church today we must be ever wary of this tendency to add laws to the pure Gospel of Grace. The Gospel of Grace sets apart Christianity from every other religion, worldview, even the self help movement. Every other form of religion says you have to do this to get right with God. Whether it is praying, meditating, do good works, or going through some ritual, all those efforts are in vain because they don’t deal with the problem of sin.
If we could do enough good things to earn God’s love, Jesus wouldn’t have had to die. To say what I do, whether it is circumcision, or any or human act of striving to please God is to say, I really don’t need Jesus sacrificial death for me because I have a better way. The problem is this is not the Gospel Paul preached that was revealed to him by grace. We see in his own life, Paul did nothing to deserve the gospel, but was knocked off his horse on the way to Damascus and God called him out of pure grace, nothing Paul did.
We pursue God and follow His commands in our lives as a response to the Gospel not to earn it, and we must forever be diligent in keeping this order straight. The Holy Spirit will help us to discern this as we continue to be faithful to Paul and the other apostlic teaching and preaching of the Good News, until all have been able to clearly hear the Good News articulated in their language. That is our Great Commission and Jesus promises to be with us until the end of the age as we fulfill it in the power of the Spirit.
Jesus, thank you for saving us not because of what we have done or could do, but just because you loved us and wanted to be in relationship with us. As we accept this free gift of salvation by your grace through faith, may we never confuse the gospel with the things we do in your name, Amen
6I 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— 7which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But 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! 9As 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!
10Am 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.
In each letter Paul writes to the churches in Asia Minor and in Greece/Corinth, he is confronting a particular issue. In the case of the church at Galatia, he is confronting the fact that the Galatians are asking male adults who come to Christ to be circumsized according to the OT Jewish Law. Paul clarifies that the when we add the Law to the Gospel it is not the Gospel anymore.
It is not Jesus died for you and you are completely one with God because of his death for your sins and his resurrection, AND you need to do this to be a true Christian. In this case they were wanting to keep the Jewish rite of circumcision, which marked young Jewish boys and set them apart in the community as God’s children. Circumcision was a sign that these boys were of God.
Again Paul has to confront yet another church and he concludes that he is not trying to win the approval of men but of God. It would have been easy to go along with the Galatian’s practices to keep the peace, but he realized the very essence of the Gospel was at stake. If you can add one law plus the Gospel to be saved, what is to say you won’t add another!
In the church today we must be ever wary of this tendency to add laws to the pure Gospel of Grace. The Gospel of Grace sets apart Christianity from every other religion, worldview, even the self help movement. Every other form of religion says you have to do this to get right with God. Whether it is praying, meditating, do good works, or going through some ritual, all those efforts are in vain because they don’t deal with the problem of sin.
If we could do enough good things to earn God’s love, Jesus wouldn’t have had to die. To say what I do, whether it is circumcision, or any or human act of striving to please God is to say, I really don’t need Jesus sacrificial death for me because I have a better way. The problem is this is not the Gospel Paul preached that was revealed to him by grace. We see in his own life, Paul did nothing to deserve the gospel, but was knocked off his horse on the way to Damascus and God called him out of pure grace, nothing Paul did.
We pursue God and follow His commands in our lives as a response to the Gospel not to earn it, and we must forever be diligent in keeping this order straight. The Holy Spirit will help us to discern this as we continue to be faithful to Paul and the other apostlic teaching and preaching of the Good News, until all have been able to clearly hear the Good News articulated in their language. That is our Great Commission and Jesus promises to be with us until the end of the age as we fulfill it in the power of the Spirit.
Jesus, thank you for saving us not because of what we have done or could do, but just because you loved us and wanted to be in relationship with us. As we accept this free gift of salvation by your grace through faith, may we never confuse the gospel with the things we do in your name, Amen
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