Galatians 1: (1-) 3 - 5 3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Here is the Gospel. Read verses three through five and decide what more there is to say? What is left out? Yes there are teachings that are not there concerning the end time but what is not there?
“Who (Jesus) gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age” tells us everything that we need to know about what God did for us in Christ. What do we need in life that is not taken care of in the offering of Christ? Is there one need left unsupplied through His sacrifice? Aren’t satan and every other power included as part of this “present evil age?” Where is the power of the enemy against believers? Where is the power of curses? Where is the threat against our lives? In fact, since the work of Christ delivered us from this evil time, why do we listen or worry about satan and his powers at all?
Colossians 1: (12-)13-14 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Through the work of Christ we do not even need to worry if God the Father would withhold anything from us because this work was “according to the will of our God and Father!”
Luke 12:32 32 “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (NKJV)
Romans 8:32 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Every ill in our lives is due to the power of this “present evil age” that began when Adam would not believe God and took his life into his own hand! All of man’s work from that time has been to deliver us from evil – death, sickness, poverty, the fear of and from such things, crime, war, deviancy, want, need, and all that goes with and comes from sin! Yet in His one work God broke every claim of sin from those that believe on His Son!
Mark 9:23, 11:22-24, 16:17-18; John 14:12-14, I Corinthians 15:50-58, Colossians 1:192-23; Hebrews 4:15-16, 13:5-6; I Peter 2:24
Now, if everything is found in the work of Christ to deliver us from this present evil age, what is left to preach and why would we preach or believe anything else but Christ, no matter how it might sound or who says it? If in Christ we are delivered from this present evil age, what is there for us to do to overcome the evil one and to present ourselves acceptable to God but to believe on the one that He sent! (John 6:28-29)
Thus the Gospel is presented as all of God being found in Christ and as accessible only through His work. There is nothing beyond the work of Christ of God, (works of righteousness, blessing, penance, or any turning to the flesh or man for anything), for there needs to be nothing else and all else is but the work of this “present evil age.”
Chapter 1 – A Defense of the Gospel
Galatians 1:(6-) 8-9 8 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! 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 him be eternally condemned!
Before we look at the plain intent of the statement that the Holy Spirit made through Paul, let us look at the Gospel that Paul preached.
1 Corinthians 15:(1-) 3-4 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. (See Romans 3:19-26)
As we looked last week at Galatians 1:3-4 we saw the Gospel. The Gospel is this and there is nothing else; Jesus did it all. If Jesus did it all, then what else is there to preach and teach? All that is left to preach is what is added by man, that there is something for man to do that Jesus did not do! Yet the Gospel is that Jesus accomplished everything for us and all we must do to receive what Christ did is to believe that He did it! Christ died for our sins. There is nothing else to say on the matter. Christ rose on the third day, overcoming death and presenting Himself to the Father on our behalf so that we may have permanent entry to the Father. Our only work is to believe that God did everything through Christ! (See John 6:29)
Romans (4:13-)5:1-2
5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
If Christ accomplished this for us, what is left? All that is left is to take away from the work of Christ! If we take away from the work of Christ then we have nothing left from God. If we have nothing left from God then all we have is the work of man. If the work of man could have reached God, why would Christ have come? As it is only the work of Christ that comes from and accomplishes anything for us before God, then anything else that is taught is not from or of God. To follow these other messages is to be removed from the truth! To preach one of these other messages is to preach a message of man and it has no standing before God! If it has no standing before God then everyone that follows another “gospel” has no standing before God and therefore those that teach another “gospel” have doomed their hearers and they have brought worse condemnation upon them selves for their denial of Christ! (See Matthew 18:6-7) While most that add to, (which is really taking away), the message of Christ would say that they believe in Jesus, their faith is not in Christ but only uses Christ as a beginning. Christ is either the entire message or the message is not Christ. (See Revelation 1:8) Paul made no compromises and sought no other common ground but total and complete faith in Christ because there is only one truth – the work of God through Christ!
Yet we have in the next verses the reason that people teach other “gospels,” they seek to judges of others and to be approved by others rather than to seek only the approval of God. Yet Paul is again very plain spoken, if we seek approval through the flesh we are not servants of Christ.
Galatians 1:10 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.
Chapter 1 – A Defense of the Gospel
Galatians 1:10-12 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. 11 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.
The words of man pervert the Gospel. Yes, men and women teach the Gospel but when anyone embarks on more than teaching what was first given, then all they have is what comes from man. Man makes religion. Jesus gives life. Paul had lived religion and had greatly prospered in religion but he only found life in what was given to him by Christ. (See Galatians 1:13-17)
In Isaiah 44, (vs. 6-20), you can tell the frustration of God over those that make idols and then say that these gods are deliverers when those same men know they made the gods out of trees! It is the same with man’s additions and subtractions to the Gospel, They conceive theories and thought and it is nothing more than the blind trying to lead the blind. We have no need to make salvation any easier on man’s part just as we have no need to supplement the perfecting power of the Holy Spirit. (Hebrews 10:11-18)
Man has no way to save himself through himself, and so why do we try? God has revealed salvation in His Son, (Romans 1:16-17) and we need nothing else but the revelation of Christ. Yet, the revelation of Christ alone does not satisfy those that desire the ways of man. Because of this men feel they must step in to clarify, correct, and control. In so doing they remove the Holy Spirit from overseeing His own Church, (see Acts 5:1-11, 13:2, 15:28), and since God has been replaced by the false god of human wisdom and with man’s anointing, man must step in more and more to bring about the changes in people that they seek. [The changes are only changes in learned behavior as there is no power to deliver outside of Christ! (See Acts 4:12)] The more they preach their words the less they can preach Christ, thus moving further and further from the Gospel - which is the only power that will change the hearts of men! Their doctrines begin to be an idol to their hearers and all is measured by the words of a man instead of the Word of God. The doctrine of Christ becomes the “old” way and the new idols are sought. Preachers of the world’s false gospel, like Dr. Phil, even gets to appear as an authority on Christian television and in Christian churches! And of course, if a preacher of the Gospel corrects the idol makers, that person is condemned as being judgmental. Here is the word of the Holy Spirit on the matter; what man makes up is idolatry and it leads the very people to hell that they are trying to save.
Man is called to preach the Gospel, not to improve the Gospel or to create something new. The Gospel is the Good News of Christ and it is found in the Word of God and it is all that we have from God and it is more than enough! (2 Timothy 3:14-4:5)
When you live, speak, and teach only the Gospel of Christ you will be called both a fool for believing that such things could be true and narrow minded for not allowing any other thought. Sometimes both sentiments from the same person! (See 1 Corinthians 1:22-24) Our emotions tell us that we are then pushing people away from Christ and yet if we go to their false gospels haven’t we shown them that Christ is less to us than the opinion of others?
We can receive the same revelation that Paul received and all that truly and fully believe upon Christ have or else they could not believe. [See Romans 10:8 (5-13), see also Matthew 16:17] What man has to say is nothing. The Good News is Jesus Christ and all that God has for us in Him, by Him, and of Him! (Ephesians 1:3-13, see also Colossians 1:12-21, 2:8-10)
