“No Other Gospel”
(Galatians 1:6-10)
Series: Set Free To Be Free (Galatians)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
Take your Bibles and join me in Galatians, chapter 1 (p.783; YV).
Last week we began a new series from the book of Galatians, a series entitled, “Set Free to be Free.” We’ll be learning about spiritual freedom that comes to us through the power of the Gospel. And my hope is that we discover real freedom, will be set free from the bondage of sin and, for many of us, that we will be set free from the bondage of a rules-based religion, a religion of laws and trying to earn God’s approval and acceptance through our performance.
So last Sunday from the opening verses we identified the Messenger and the Message. The Messenger is the Apostle Paul and the Message is the Gospel. Last week was largely our introduction to those two concerns: an authentic apostle and the authentic gospel. So after that brief introduction in verses 1-5, Paul gets right to the message at hand, verses 6 and following.
We noted last time that Galatians is unlike Paul’s other letters in that there are no positive words immediately following the opening verses. Only Galatians has no encouraging words of commendation, no prayer, no praise, no thanksgiving. He’s just right to the urgent matter at hand—their abandonment of the gospel. Listen for that concern now as I read.
Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel,
7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
Pray.
Before we plunge back into our verse-by-verse study, let’s recall some of the introductory material from last time. Let’s get up in the air about 36,000 feet and look down at the land. Let’s take a look at the big-picture again. We’ve got a slide here to help us again:
Slide:
Galatians
(Set Free to be Free)
Theme: Discovering spiritual freedom through the power of the Gospel.
Author: The Apostle Paul
Destination: Churches in South Galatia
Date of Writing: AD 48 (Paul’s earliest letter; only 15-20 years after the death of Christ)
Place of Writing: Unknown; possibly Paul’s home church in Antioch in Syria
Purpose: To teach the doctrine of justification by faith in Jesus Christ and to refute false teachers who were advocating a faith-plus-works doctrine of salvation.
We’ll be calling these false teachers the Judaizers. Sounds like people who are trying to make Christianity Jewish, doesn’t it—Judaizers? Well, that’s exactly what they were trying to do—the Judaizers. Everybody say, “Judaizers.” Judaizers.
They were Jewish followers of Jesus who were going into these churches in Galatia—Gentile churches; non-Jewish churches—and they were going into them after Paul left and doing to main things: 1) telling the congregations that Paul was not a true apostle and 2) then they taught their false doctrine.
The Judaizers were teaching that, in order to really be approved by God, accepted by God, have God’s favor, then you had to add works to your faith in Christ. You had to add the works of Jewish law—namely Jewish circumcision, the keeping of Jewish dietary laws, and other Jewish customs as handed down by Moses on Mount Sinai. Judaizers.
Who were these churches? These are most likely the churches of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Couple maps here:
Pic 1:
See the wider shot here…Europe to the west…Italy boot…Galatia there is in what the Bible calls Asia Minor; this is modern Turkey. Let’s zoom in a bit by looking at the second picture:
Pic 2:
So here is modern Turkey…See Galatia there in Green. By the way, see Byzantium in the upper left corner? This is ancient Byzantium. Later would be called other names like Constantinople and now called Istanbul. We have a missional team working in this area this week and you are praying for them.
One more map to see the location of these Galatians churches:
Pic 3:
Antioch, Lystra, Iconium, Derbe. These are churches Paul established during his first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-14, 28).
Because God’s word is timeless in its application, you could essentially write “Henderson” up there and imagine that Paul is writing this letter to you and me because, as it is God’s Word with universal application, what He says to the churches of Galatia applies to the church in Henderson.
Today’s message is entitled, “No Other Gospel.” When you read our text through this morning, verses 6-10, you just read it over and over a few times, you’re going to come up with either that very title or something very similar to that title: “No Other Gospel.” This is Paul’s main concern here in the passage.
If you’re a note-taker, the outline is very simple and straightforward: two main action points followed by two reminders. Here we go, number one, the Bible teaches this, God says to us through His Word first:
I. Don’t Turn from the Gospel (6-7)
Verse 6 is about turning away from the message of the gospel and, in so doing, turning away from the God of the gospel. If you turn away from the gospel, you turn away from the God of the gospel. See that as you look again now at verse 6 in your Bible:
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel,
Turning away from Him who called you and turning to a “different gospel,” which is no gospel at all, as Paul goes on to say in verse 7, see that? Verse 7, “which is not another…” It’s not really another gospel, there’s only one gospel, there’s no other gospel.
Paul says: “You Galatians, I marvel (other translations, I am astonished, I am shocked) that you are turning away so soon, turning away so quickly, turning from the true gospel.”
The Greek word translated “turning away” connotes the transferring of one’s allegiance, changing sides. The word is used to signify actions like changing political affiliations or of a soldier’s deserting the army on the battlefield. The same idea is often conveyed in the changing of sides as in team sports.
I remember when I was in my last year of baseball somewhere around my middle school years. I was maybe 12 or 13 or something. We had moved to Georgia and they had this league called “Dixie League.” It was during this season I sort of figured out I was more talented at playing trumpet than I was at hitting a baseball. But I was on this team and I didn’t much care for it. One of the coaches was a crusty old character, chewed tobacco and smoked cigars at the same time, cussed every other word. My teammates were a bunch of ragamuffin guys I didn’t know and they played better than I.
The season had just begun and the league leaders were trying to even-out the teams. One of the other teams was short a player or two. And I remember this crusty coach looking at us and asking whether any of us wanted to go over and join with the other team for the year. Well, I’ve got to tell you, that other team looked like they were having a lot of fun. They all looked like people I would have fun with, everyone was all smily, the coach was smily, too. I nearly bolted for the other side. But I didn’t. And no one else moved, either. And then that crusty coach said something like, “I didn’t think any of you would be a loser like that.” I was so glad I didn’t change teams!
Nobody likes a deserter. To change allegiances is like totally dissing the entire team. It’s like a slap in the face. It’s saying, “I don’t really care about you. I don’t need to be loyal to you. I’m heading over here because it’s all about me!”
As disdainful as it is to change political affiliations or change sports teams, what the Galatians were doing was far worse. Their desertion was not so much a desertion of a team or a political or party, or philosophical persuasion, they were deserting a person, God Himself, “…turning away…from Him who called you (verse 6).”
To turn away from the gospel is to turn away from the God of the gospel. Paul underscores the severity of such desertion by reminding the Galatians that it was God Himself who actually called them to His side in their salvation. See that stress in verse 6?
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ…
It is God who “called you in the grace of Christ.” God’s call to salvation goes out into all the world, but it becomes effectual only in those who are by grace in a position to hear it and receive it and—all owing to grace, “the grace of Christ”—respond to it. Paul seems beside himself, doesn’t he?! Like, “How can you do this?! How can you be a deserter?! After what God has done for you?!”
Remember that this is what makes Christianity unique. Other religions are about your doing something, your contributing something to your salvation, your meriting favor, earning favor with God. You do certain things, perform certain rites, and then God may accept you.
In Christianity, salvation is not found in your coming to God so much as it is in God’s coming to us. He calls us in the grace of Christ. We contribute nothing to the equation. He comes to us as we are and receives us as we are. He accepts us as we are. All we do is say, “Yes” to His call. Then we follow Him.
Now, this truth leads to our second action point. Don’t turn from the gospel. Secondly:
II. Don’t Tamper with the Gospel (7-10)
Paul says, “I marvel, I am astonished, that you Galatians are turning away from Him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel,” verse 7:
7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
So Paul says, you have turned from the only true gospel to “another gospel,” which is no gospel at all.
Then Paul puts his finger on the source of the problem: these false teachers, these “Judaizers” we mentioned earlier. Paul alludes to them in verse 7 where he writes: “but there are some who trouble you and want to tamper with or pervert the gospel of Christ.”
How were the Judaizers perverting, twisting, tampering the gospel of Christ? Well, remember what we said earlier: they were adding Jewish works to the gospel. Recall that salvation comes this way: we are saved by grace, through faith, in Christ alone. The Judaizers were saying, “No, a person is saved by grace, through faith, in Christ, plus these other things you must do.” They were perverting the gospel of Christ.
The belief of the Judaizers is captured best in Acts 15 at the Council in Jerusalem, a council that likely convened not too long after Paul wrote this letter. It’s in Acts 15 where we read of the Judaizers’ position. They taught, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved (Acts 15:1).”
The false teachers, the Judaizers, were trying to make these non-Jewish gentiles more Jewish! In doing so, they were adding to the gospel, they were perverting the gospel. The gospel means, “the good news” so the Judaizers, in perverting the gospel, tampering with the gospel, were turning the good news into “bad news.”
See, if I have to do something to earn God’s favor, that’s bad news to me. That’s really bad news, because I could never “do good enough” to please God. Think about it. How could you ever do enough to please a holy, perfect God? How could you ever be good enough, consistently enough? Even when we try to do good, it is usually self-focused or self-centered. We are hoping we will get something good out of it—like we will be seen as good people by God. Even that is a self-serving motivation, isn’t it?
Adding human works to the gospel destroys the gospel. Adding human merit changes the gospel from good news to bad news. When Jesus died on the cross, He cried out, “It is finished!” Jesus did all the works necessary. He paid it all. If we add anything to what Jesus did, it’s like crucifying Him all over again. It’s like saying, “What you did, Jesus, really wasn’t enough!” To add human works to the gospel, destroys the gospel because it destroys grace—getting what we do not deserve.
So Paul is saying here, in essence, “Don’t tamper with the gospel!” To demonstrate how concerned he is and just how much “he means business” by this concern, verse 8:
8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
That’s pretty serious. “Let him be accursed” which means, “Let him be eternally condemned by God, separated from God forever,” as in hell. Let him be accursed. Let who be accursed?—anyone who preaches (or teaches) any other gospel that the one Paul had preached. He says, “Even if I were to do it,” or, “Someone with me—we; as he says there in verse 8—even if we, or an angel from heaven were to preach some other gospel, let him be accursed.”
By the way, you can research this later if you like, but Mormonism is a religion that rests upon the revelation of an angel from heaven, an angel bringing a message that has led a number of people to turn away from the orthodox Christian faith of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, and thus is the preaching of another gospel, which is no gospel at all.
Paul’s main point here again: Don’t tamper with the gospel. So great is his concern that he repeats the teaching of verse 8 in verse 9:
9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
Paul is like, “We were clear when we were with you on that first missionary journey and we started the churches there in Galatia, and we’re being very clear again here in this letter: there is only one gospel and there is no other. If anyone preaches any other gospel than the one you received, let him or her be eternally condemned.”
While Paul is concerned about the Galatians’ holding false views, he is far more concerned with those who teach false views. It is the teacher of the false doctrine who will “be accursed,” eternally condemned.
Remember what James said in James 3:1? He said, “let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.”
For Paul, there is no room for today’s popular mantra of so-called “tolerance,” the idea that no one is to hold an opinion too strongly, nor that one dare suggest that he or she actually knows the truth and has the temerity to point out error.
Paul was concerned for the truth. Was he intolerant? Yes, the same you way you are intolerant—you will not tolerate the presence of evil or danger in your home, will you? You will not tolerate the presence of poison, for example, in your child’s bedroom or your grandchild’s bedroom. You are intolerant of that which harms and destroys.
If Paul was intolerant, it was for the good of people, not because he was unkind or self-centered. Life is at stake and Paul was concerned just as our Lord Jesus was concerned, concerned for truth.
Was it not our Lord Jesus who warned in Mark 9:42 that if a person caused others to stumble in their belief that “it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea?”
In the words of John Stott, “It seems then that Paul, far from contradicting the Spirt of Christ, was actually expressing it.”
Don’t tamper with the truth! And to the charge of his enemies, the Judaizers, who believed Paul was only going around telling people what they wanted to hear, Paul says in verse 10:
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
He’s like, “Do I really sound like someone who cares what everyone thinks? Do I sound like someone trying to win a popularity contest?!” I’m not a man-pleaser, I’m a Christ-pleaser, “a bondservant of Christ.”
Two action points: Don’t turn from the gospel; Don’t tamper with the gospel. Now:
**Two Reminders:
- To be faithful to the gospel, you have to know the gospel
Here’s the logic: the only way to know whether you are turning from the gospel, is to know the gospel—to know the true, authentic gospel message.
The gospel—good news—is that we are saved not by our works. We are not saved by doing things. Joining the church doesn’t save us. Being good does not saved us. Baptism does not save us. Reading the Bible and being nice to people does not save us. Those are all works. And we are not saved by our works.
We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Jesus lived a perfect life and died a substitutionary death on the cross, taking our place, bearing our punishment, paying our debt, offering forgiveness. He died and rose again that we who are dead may rise in life.
This is verse 4 from last week, Jesus: “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age…”
Paul says there is no other gospel. There is no other way we may be saved. Salvation is justification by faith in Jesus Christ alone. It is the only way, a narrow way to be sure, a way unlike the way everyone else is going. Jesus Himself said in Matthew 7:13-14:
13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.
14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
There is only one way.
In World Vision, Tony Campolo writes about an interesting airplane trip he once took from California to Philadelphia. When the man seated next to him learned that he was a Christian, he wanted to talk about religion. He said, “I believe that going to heaven is like going to Philadelphia. You can get there by airplane, by train, by bus, by automobile. There are many ways to get to Philadelphia.”
Campolo writes: “As we started descending into Philadelphia, the place was fogged in. The wind was blowing, the rain was beating on the plane, and everyone looked nervous and tight. As we were circling in the fog, I turned to the theological expert on my right. “I’m certainly glad the pilot doesn’t agree with your theology,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“The people in the control booth are giving instructions to the pilot: “Coming north by northwest, three degrees, you’re on beam, you’re on beam, don’t deviate from beam.” I’m glad the pilot’s not saying, “There are many ways into the airport! There are many approaches we can take!” I’m glad he is saying, “There’s only one way we can land this plane, and I’m going to stay with it.”
There is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus Christ.
To be faithful to the gospel you’ve got to know the gospel. We are saved by grace, through faith, in Christ—alone. No other gospel. To be faithful to the gospel you’ve got to know the gospel. Second reminder:
2) To be freed by the gospel, you have to receive the gospel
Salvation is not automatic. In one sense, you do have to “do” something. Not a work; again, you can’t earn your salvation, you can’t merit God’s favor. But you do have to receive it. You receive the gospel by faith, by turning to Jesus and receiving His offer of salvation. This is what repentance is, it is turning to Jesus and allowing Him to pick you up, to rescue you.
Again, verse 4 from last time: Jesus: “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us (or rescue us) from this present evil age…”
Our salvation is Christ’s rescue mission. God came to us when we were lost and found us. He rescued us from danger. We did not rescue ourselves. He rescued us. We simply said “yes” to Him and allowed Him to pull us from the danger.
And, as followers of Jesus, we now let Him use us to rescue others. Through the gospel message we share, through the invitations we give, inviting people to come be with us in worship, to come and hear about Jesus, to come to our Sunday school class and hear the Word, we are used by Christ and are part of His rescue mission.
I thought of this cartoon. I want to share just a clip from it. We’ll conclude with this. It’s one of my favorite Popeye cartoons. Now this goes back a ways. This is 1937. Black and white. This is old school Popeye, you know where he’s always mumbling to himself?!
This episode is about Olive Oyl’s little child Sweet Pea. And in this episode Sweet Pea gets away from Popeye and Olive Oyl and starts crawling around in the factory where Popeye is employed. Check it out:
**[Video Clip]**
I love that cartoon! Now Popeye eventually rescues Sweet Pea and everyone’s happy in the end.
But you know what that cartoon helps us see? It helps us see that a person can be lost and in danger and not know it. You can be lost and not realize your lost. You can be in danger and not even be aware of it. And you know what else? You can be having a really good time when you’re lost. Did you hear Sweet Pea laughing? It’s a myth that all lost people are miserable. Some are having a really good time.
Do you see how important the gospel is? We join with Jesus in His rescue mission to take the one gospel, the only true gospel, the gospel of rescue, and we go out with it and we invite people to receive it—warning them of the danger of remaining on their present course, warning them of the judgment to come, making them aware of the bad news, that we may then offer them the good news, the good news of the rescuing gospel.
Remember the hymn? Someone needs to write a new tune for it. I’m afraid the old tune has become too familiar and, frankly, sounds to cheery, like we’re marching in a Christmas parade or something. The words are serious, the words are good:
Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save.
RESPONSE:
Have you been rescued? Has Jesus Christ has raised you higher than you can imagine?
If you have never grasped the saving hand of Jesus Christ, then today reach up and take hold of the one who comes down to you. Take Him. And He will pull you up. You take Him by saying to Him:
“Lord Jesus Christ, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but, through you, I am more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I thank you for paying my debt, bearing my punishment and offering forgiveness. I turn from my sin and receive you as Savior.”
Let Jesus Christ rescue you today, rescuing you from sin, shame and guilt.
Some of you have already been rescued by Jesus, rescued from this present evil age, but have fallen back into the old lifestyle of this evil age. Repent; turn back to Jesus and ask for forgiveness, receive His pardon, and live again in the power and freedom of the gospel.
In a moment we’re going to sing our invitation hymn of response. As we sing, turn to Jesus. Some of you will come forward to join the church, you come. Others of you have spiritual questions, or you want to be sure of your salvation, you come as well. I’ll be standing up front here. You come and we’ll take time after the worship service to pray together. Before we sing let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Let’s pray.
Stand, and as we sing you respond however the Lord is leading you.
Take up thy cross and follow Me
I heard my Master say
I gave My life to ransom thee
Surrender your all today
Wherever He leads I’ll go
Wherever He leads I’ll go
I’ll follow my Christ who loves me so
Wherever He leads I’ll go
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