Galatians 1 - What is a False Gospel?

No Other Gospel

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who calledyou to live in 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. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 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 them be under God’s curse!
10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Today we start Paul's letter to the Galatians.  Galatia was located in modern day Turkey.  Paul started the church on his first missionary journey, and he is now writing this letter to confront teaching that was going on in this young church.  This is what he and others call a "false gospel".  We also call this "heresy" or "false teaching".  Most of Paul's letters were either encouraging believers in their trials, or warning them about false teachers that were working their way into the early church. 
In this case false teachers were perverting the gospel by requiring new Gentile Christians to become circumcised.  They were adding back the Law to the gospel. The true gospel is that Christ plus nothing equals everything.  Meaning the essence of the Christian faith is our trust in what He did for us on the cross, and this is ALL we need to be made right with God.  If we add anything to what we need to be right with God, we have turned the true gospel into a false gospel.  Christ plus anything we need to do to be approved by God equals false gospel.
Paul had so much passion about this because he had lived for years as an observant Jew under the burden of a false Gospel   He tried and tried to do enough to merit God's favor but never had peace with God.  He knew he could never do enough until he found the grace of God in Christ Jesus.  When he truly understood it was Christ plus nothing, the burden of guilt and sin fell from him.  He was set free.  Therefore, when the false teachers tried to add the Law back to the Gospel in the form of requiring the new Gentile Christians to be circumcised, Paul said "NO!" may it never be.  Don't go back to slavery when you have been set free.
Have you every experienced the freedom you have in Christ?  Are you still trying to do enough good deeds and minimize the bad deeds in order to be accepted by God?  That is a false gospel. Don't believe it. Run from it if someone preaches it to you.  It will never give you what you need which is peace with God by grace through faith.  When Paul discovered it he was willing to die for it.  

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