Paul's Warnings to the Galatians Still Speak to Us

From the Blessed Hope Podcast (Episode Two), Galatians 1:1-10, “Application”

Paul’s warnings to the Galatians should ring in our ears today. To his amazement, a false gospel arose in the Galatian churches almost immediately after Paul left the area and was widely accepted in same churches in which Paul and Barnabas had preached in person. Grounded in wide-spread Jewish customs and practices, the false message was so compelling that even Peter and Barnabas were taken in for a time. Just as no counterfeiter would make purple seven dollar bills with Mickey Mouse’s likeness on them, neither does a false teacher show up and announce, “Hi, everyone, I’m a false teacher.” They always have a hook. Luther understood well how such deception works

The ministers of Satan insinuate themselves into people’s minds by promising them something better. They admit that those who preached the gospel to them made a good start but say that this is not enough . . . . They confirm true doctrine but then go on to point out where it needs to be improved. This was how the false apostles gained access to the Galatians.

We should not be surprised when theologians, pastors, and elders, fall from grace and begin teaching another gospel. Sad to say, we should expect this to happen. It is not a matter of if, but when. Paul exhortation to the Galatians reminds us to always be on our guard against those who teach that the death of Jesus Christ is not sufficient in and of itself to save us from God’s wrath in the judgment yet to come. The false gospel–Christ plus something we do–makes a great deal of sense to those who think that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is primarily about ethics (conduct), and that sound doctrine is secondary to proper behavior. This hook is often used by contemporary false teachers.

The reason why this happens is rather obvious. If someone believes that Christianity is essentially about making bad people into good people, or making good people into better people, then Paul’s stress upon Christ crucified for sinners, will sound odd, or even seem offensive. The biblical writers tell us that the cross is foolishness to the Greek and a stumbling block to the Jew (1 Corinthians 1:23). It is both to modern Americans. The generic American civil religion is the religion of Cain; “do what is right in your own eyes” (Genesis 4:3). This is grounded in the sentiment that people are intrinsically good and fully capable of coming up with something on their own which they think will be acceptable to God. “All God wants is our best,” is Cain’s motto. No, what God demands of us under the law–perfect obedience–he freely grants to us in the gospel, which Paul defines as the good news of the death, resurrection, and obedience of Jesus, for us and in our place.

There will always be those in our midst urging us to soften the offense of the cross, or perhaps, to remove the offense altogether. Given Paul’s view of sin (“there is no one who seeks God”–Romans 3:11), it is important to remind ourselves that it is God who seeks sinners as seen Paul’s emphasis upon calling as God’s initiative, made effectual by the Holy Spirit working in and through the preached gospel. It is through the proclamation of the gospel, but only through the proclamation of that gospel, that God calls men and women to faith in Jesus. We must never entertain the thought of changing or “softening” our gospel to make it more inclusive and less offensive, lest our gospel become no gospel at all and we fall under Paul’s anathema.

It is also clear from Paul’s opening words to the Galatians that the issue here is the content of what is preached, not the reputation or the abilities of the preacher. A preacher’s credentials should have little to do with how charismatic or compelling he may be, but with whether or not he preaches the gospel faithfully. Faithfulness to the gospel is the standard by which a minister of word and sacrament in Christ’s church will be judged by the Lord of the church. Granted, there is no excuse for boring preaching. Nor is there any excuse for preaching which is poorly organized, confusing, difficult to understand, or otherwise not compelling. In an entertainment-based social media driven culture such as ours, we have been thoroughly trained to evaluate things by how they make us feel, or by how they hold our diminished attention spans, or even worse, by whether or not we are entertained. This is not a good thing because these things are obstacles to the “hearing with faith.”

Paul lost so much ground so quickly because, by his own admission, the Judaizers were more charismatic and entertaining than he. They were willing to preach what people wanted and expected to hear–the gospel of Cain, “God wants our best efforts.” We are all capable of doing our best, at least once in a while. Faith in God’s promise (which does justify) is deceptively replaced by a list of things we can do to give to God our best (which cannot justify). In the case of the Judaizers in Galatia, the list informing Gentiles how to live as Jews was drawn from the Old Testament, so it sounded “biblical” (and in a sense it was). As Paul will go on to explain, the commandments were not given to show us what to do to earn a right-standing before God through “works of law,” but instead, to show us our sins and drive us to the cross of Christ.

We live at a different time and under different circumstances than in first century Pontus Galatica, but the principle Paul hammers home remains the same. The temptation is great to tolerate a false gospel in which it is taught that our justification stems, in part, from the merit of human works, or the performance of religious rituals even if no one today insists upon circumcision as necessary for justification. Many of our contemporaries still view this matter through the lens of Cain–how can we condemn someone who sincerely tries their hardest? As seen in the recent doctrinal knowledge surveys, many Christians will tell us that doctrine does not much matter, and that what really matters is love and unity, so we must embrace anyone and everyone who claims to be a Christian, in spite of their teaching about justification by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone. We witness this today when people tell us that the Protestant Reformation is over and that we should end our 450+ year dispute with Rome about the gospel for the sake of joint co-operation in the culture wars, social justice, and third world-evangelism. But then, how do we evangelize without an evangel? A different gospel is no gospel according to Paul.

Let us carefully weigh the ramifications of the true gospel and what is lost if we capitulate to modern Judaizers. Paul’s gospel teaches us that Jesus Christ has died for all of our sins (past, present, and future), and that the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to us through faith alone received as a free gift. When we truly measure ourselves in light of our obedience to the Ten Commandments, we know that we have not the slightest chance of earning enough merit, or possessing enough good works to stand in God’s presence. Paul’s gospel shows us that every sinner who trusts in Jesus Christ alone can know that their sins are forgiven and that they are headed for life eternal when they die.

For Paul, the only way for sinful men and women to stand before the Holy God in the judgment yet to come is to possess the merits of Jesus through faith. So, it would figure that this would be the place where Satan would direct his attacks—rarely in frontal assaults, more often in subtle re-definition. For the gospel as taught by Paul is “all of Christ.” But Satan will find a way to make it “some of Christ and some of me.” Yet a gospel that is “some of Christ and some of me,” is a different gospel from that which Paul proclaimed, and tragically, is no gospel at all.

This is why we must always be willing to fight for the gospel. If we lose the gospel, we have lost everything. But if we have the gospel we have everything we need for our only comfort in life and in death. Through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, revealed to Paul, and proclaimed to the Galatians, we have Jesus and all his saving merits. What else could we possibly need?