One Gospel, and Only One

I’ve never really been a sentimental person. Pining for the good, old days, from my perspective, is a fruitless way to spend my time. And all those sepia-toned memories of days gone by are ALWAYS only part of the story.

One thing I’ve come to learn in life is that the good, old days weren’t nearly as good as we like to remember them.

Sure, we have lots of problems in our society today. We ALSO had lots of problems back then, and some of the problems back then were worse than the ones we have now.

Furthermore, some of the SOLUTIONS we came up with for those problems back then helped CREATE some of the problems we have now.

So, for me, sentimentality is both a bit of a time-waster and a bit less than completely honest.

And one of the ways that I’ve avoided sentimentality in my life is to be very compartmentalized in how I approach new situations.

When I became pastor here, for instance, I had just finished serving six months as a missionary in Haiti. But God had called me to pastor this church, so I turned my attention from all things Haiti to all things Liberty Spring.

I’d done the same thing when I left the newspaper business and caught a flight to Haiti in 2017. Despite my great love for journalism, God had placed me in a new role — indeed, He’d placed me in a new COUNTRY — and it was THAT role that occupied my thoughts.

Now, this compartmentalization isn’t easy. It requires me to let go of any thought that MY legacy matters. It requires me to give up any supposed right of ownership of the roles I’d left or even of the roles I would take on.

But it also allows me to focus on the problems I can address, rather than to be ineffectively frustrated by things over which I no longer have any control.

I can pick up a newspaper, for instance, and be disappointed in the quality of writing and editing that I see without wasting anyone’s time by saying something like, “Back when I was a newspaper editor, this kind of mistake would never have happened.”

It’s a lot easier to remember to keep my mouth shut when I tell myself, “Not my circus; not my monkeys.”

Now, I don’t know whether the Apostle Paul was sentimental or not. And I don’t know whether he shared my compartmentalizing approach to life.

Whether he compartmentalized life the way I do or not, one thing that should become clear today as we continue our study in the Book of Galatians is that he still felt some degree of spiritual responsibility for the people of the Galatian churches.

He loved them, and he wanted them to be strong in their new faith, to be walking in the Spirit, and to experience the joy and peace of salvation in Christ.

And it was BECAUSE of his love for them and his hopes for them that Paul wrote this blunt letter.

It was BECAUSE of these things that he called them to turn away from the false gospel that had crept into those churches in his absence and TOWARD the one, true gospel — the good news that the King of kings and Lord of lords Himself has paid the penalty we owe for our sins against HIM.

THIS gospel is truly good news. But the false gospel that had crept into the churches of Galatia on the lips of the Judaizers who were preaching a corrupt “gospel” really wasn’t good news at all.

And so, as we’ll see today, whether he was sentimental or not — whether he compartmentalized his life or not — Paul felt a sacred duty to God and to the people of these churches he’d planted just a few months earlier to set them straight.

We’re picking up in verse 6 of chapter 1 today. Last week, we looked at the brief introduction to this letter, in which the parties to the letter were identified and the Savior glorified.

Today, we’re going to see the problem identified. Let’s read this brief passage together.

Galatians 1:6–9 NASB95

6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

“I am amazed,” Paul says in verse 6. “Astonished” or “shocked” may be the word you find in your own translation. This was a common Greek phrase to suggest rebuke, disapproval and disappointment in that which had caused the astonishment.

Now, you can’t tell from the way the verses are divided, but this would have been the second paragraph of the letter. And this is the place where Paul would normally offer thanksgiving for the recipient church or commend them for their faith, love or perseverance.

But not here. In just a few months since he’d left them, the Galatian readers had turned from the true gospel to this false gospel that wasn’t good news at all.

Indeed, based on the Greek word that’s translated as “quickly” here, we can infer that the Galatians hadn’t even offered a real defense of the true faith when the Judaizers appeared.

Instead, when confronted with this false teaching, they had deserted not just the true gospel, but also God Himself. And Paul’s language here is severe.

He’s telling them that in turning to the Judaizers’ works-based formula for salvation — grace through faith PLUS works — they’ve actually turned their allegiance away from God.

There is a real gospel, and there is a false gospel, and Paul can’t understand how the Galatians could allow themselves to be misled. After all, he had given them the true gospel himself.

Now, I want to remind you that there’s disagreement among scholars about the original recipients of this letter. You’ll recall that I said last week, I believe it was written to the churches Paul had planted in South Galatia (essentially southwestern Turkey) in the months after his first missionary journey and before the Jerusalem Council of Acts, chapter 15.

It might be helpful to hear a portion of Luke’s account of that trip. We’ll find it in Acts, chapter 13. We’re going to pick up in verse 13.

Acts 13:13–15 NASB95

13 Now Paul and his companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia; but John left them and returned to Jerusalem. 14 But going on from Perga, they arrived at Pisidian Antioch, and on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. 15 After the reading of the Law and the Prophets the synagogue officials sent to them, saying, “Brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say it.”

Now, Perga and Pisidian Antioch were both part of southern Galatia. These were two of the churches Paul and Barnabas planted during this first missionary journey.

And, as was Paul’s custom, they began their ministry in Galatia by visiting one of the synagogues there to try to help the Jews in that region to understand that Jesus is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament.

And the rest of this chapter is a master-class in how to present the gospel to Jewish people.

Paul walks them briefly through the Old Testament and then shows how Jesus fulfills God’s promises to Israel. And then he describes how the resurrection of Jesus after His death on the cross provides incontestable evidence that God will keep his promise to forgive the sins of those who turn to Jesus in faith.

Let’s pick back up in verse 38.

Acts 13:38–39 NASB95

38 “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39 and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.

Paul thought he’d been pretty clear about how one can be saved. LUKE thought Paul had been pretty clear about how one can be saved.

Salvation is THROUGH faith alone in Christ alone. The Law of Moses was powerless to free us from our bondage to sin and death. And furthermore, the Mosaic Law couldn’t bring forgiveness of sin. Only faith in Christ Jesus can do that.

And as a pastor, I can well imagine Paul thinking about this visit to Pisidian Antioch when he sat down to write this letter.

I can imagine him thinking, “How could I have put this better? How could they have misunderstood me? How can they have rejected this truly good news of freedom in Christ for a message that just calls them back into another sort of bondage?”

“Paul’s major struggle in Galatians was with [the] Jewish-Christian missionaries who had failed to discern the radical character of Christ’s [work of salvation]. They agreed with Paul that Jesus is the Messiah. They, no less than he, were eager to see Gentiles as well as Jews evangelized and brought into the church. They insisted, however, that in order for Gentiles to become Christians they first of all had to become Jews. They must submit themselves to the strictures of the law, especially to circumcision, and thus complete by this act of obedience what Christ had begun through his life and work on earth.” [Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 35.]

It’s clear from Paul’s defense of his apostolic calling in the rest of chapters 1 and 2 that the Judaizers’ strategy included disparaging Paul’s calling as an apostle. But he’s not trying to restore his reputation. He’s trying to restore the true gospel to its rightful place.

And in verses 6 and 7, we can see him make a direct contrast between the TRUE gospel — that we are saved BY grace alone, THROUGH faith alone, in CHRIST alone, and for the glory of God alone — and this “different gospel” they’d been hearing from the Judaizers.

Now, the Greek word that’s translated as “different” in verse 6 is heteros, which means “distinct from another.” It’s the same root we see in the word heterosexual. Heterosexual people are attracted to the opposite sex.

But then, in verse 7, Paul uses the Greek word “allos” to describe the false message the Judaizers were preaching. Allos means “another of the same kind. As in, “May I have another piece of bacon?” In other words, another like the first.

So, Paul says this different gospel the Galatians had heard was NOT like the true gospel. And the idea Paul is trying to get across is that there IS no other gospel than the one he had preached. And anybody who claimed otherwise was simply disturbing the church.

The Judaizers were causing inward turmoil and confusion among the Galatians. And this is the opposite of the “peace” Paul had prayed those churches would experience in Christ, a peace that includes harmony and assurance of salvation.

As one commentator puts it, “Nothing delights the devil more than to disrupt and destroy, insofar as he can, a true work of God. Whenever there is a genuine moving of God’s Spirit or a major advance in missionary outreach, we can be sure that Satan and his minions will have a vested interest in casting doubts, sowing discord, and wreaking havoc.” [Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 90.]

This should also be a reminder to us that new believers are in a dangerous place. And that’s why discipleship is so important.

Think of discipleship like you would think of a learner’s permit for driving. When a 15-year-old gets her learner’s permit, she’s not supposed to go driving alone. She may have passed a test to get her permit, but she still needs guidance from a veteran driver.

The same is true for new believers. They’ve been saved by grace through faith in Jesus. But they still need to be taught what that means.

They need to learn what the orthodox Christian faith believes and what it rejects as heresy. And they need to understand what that means for how they’re to live.

Furthermore, HOW we’re discipled matters. Too many followers of Jesus wind up believing the most unbiblical things because they aren’t discerning about who’s discipling them.

They’ll listen to anybody who claims to be a Christian, without ever checking to see whether what they teach aligns with what God says in His word.

We have to be better about this. And being better requires us to be a lot more like the Bereans, whom Luke describes as checking out everything they heard about Jesus against the Scriptures.

I’m never going to intentionally teach something that contradicts God’s word. But I’ve been known to misspeak and even to make the occasional mistake. So, you should be checking out even what I tell you, comparing it to what God has revealed in the Bible.

The last thing I’d ever want to do is to distort the gospel of Christ. But that’s just what the Judaizers were doing in Galatia.

Metastrephō, the word that’s translated as “distort” in verse 7, is a strong word in the Greek. Luke used it when he wrote that the sun turned to darkness in Acts, chapter 2. James used it to describe laughter turned to mourning.

As J. Vernon McGee put it: “To attempt to change the gospel has the effect of making it the very opposite of what it really is.”

Whether intentionally or not, by telling the Gentile Galatian believers they had to keep the Mosaic Law to be saved, the Judaizers were trying to flip the history of salvation over on its head.

And as one commentator points out: “‘To tamper with the gospel is always to trouble the church. You cannot touch the gospel and leave the church untouched, because the church is created and lives by the gospel. Indeed the church’s greatest troublemakers (now as then) are not those outside who oppose, ridicule and persecute it, but those inside who try to change the gospel.’” [Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 94–95, quoting Stott.]

And with the church troubled as it had been by the Judaizers, Paul now uses some of the severest language of the New Testament to show just how serious the situation was.

“Where we would normally expect to find an apostolic blessing, we hear instead an apostolic curse.” [Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 89.]

“Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed.”

Paul wasn’t asking the Galatians to be loyal to HIM. He was asking them to be loyal “to the unchanging message of Christ, Christ alone, that he had preached to them.” [Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 97.]

What matters, he said, isn’t the messenger, but the message.

And ANYBODY — whether Paul himself or even an angel — who preached a message different from the true gospel he’d preached back in Acts, chapter 13, would be cursed, anathema, subject to God’s judgment, set apart for destruction by God.

This is, indeed, strong language.

But even today, we hear the heresies of the prosperity gospel, Christian Nationalism, and others in the Church.

Folks, let me tell you this: Jesus didn’t die on the cross so you can be healthy, wealthy, and happy. And God doesn’t bless this nation because of our righteousness.

Jesus gave his life at the cross so that all who place their faith in Him can be forgiven for their sins and welcomed into the kingdom of God.

And to whatever degree God DOES bless our nation, it’s because of His grace, not because of any meager righteousness we or our forefathers might have demonstrated.

Now, are there people who truly love and follow Jesus who believe these things? Probably. But they are leading many astray, and many of those they’ve led astray will suffer in eternity because they submitted themselves to a false gospel that’s really the OPPOSITE of the true gospel.

Instead of being drawn TO God by the good news, they’re drawn AWAY from Him by lies.

And Jesus had strong words, too, for those who’d cause new believers to be drawn away from God.

Mark records His words in chapter 9 of his Gospel account.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble,” Jesus said, “it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.”

The message matters. And if the message contradicts God’s word — and especially if the message draws people AWAY from God — then the messenger will answer to Jesus.

But that doesn’t relieve US from the responsibility WE have to be discerning in what we believe.

Check out what you hear. And when you hear one of those TV preachers starting to tell you that Jesus just wants you to be happy and healthy, change the channel.

There is only ONE gospel. And we do violence to this good news anytime we try to add something to it.

This week, I want you to spend some time thinking about just how good this news really is! God Himself, in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, made a way for us to be forgiven through simple faith in Jesus.

Think on THAT this week, and then lift your voice in praise to God that He gives us true freedom in Christ.

Now, today is Lord’s Supper Sunday. This observance is important to the fellowship of the church. It brings us together in a unique way and reminds us that we belong to one another in Christ Jesus.

It reminds us of the love He has for us and the love we’re called to have for one another.

Jesus commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper as an act of obedience to Him, as a way of proclaiming that we who follow Him in faith belong to Him, and as a way of reminding us what He did for us.

The Lord’s Supper reminds us that our hope for salvation rests only and completely on the sacrifice He made for us and in our place at the cross. It reminds us that our life is in Him.

And the fact that we share bread from one loaf reminds us that we are, together, the one body of Christ. It reminds us that we’re called to unity of faith, unity of purpose, and unity of love.

It reminds us that, just as He gave up the glory He had in heaven, we who’ve followed Him in faith are called to give up any claims we might think we have to our own lives as we follow Him.

Finally, it reminds us that, as we’ve been given the testimony of the Holy Spirit within us, we are to share OUR testimony of salvation by grace through faith. We’re not to be lukewarm Christians, but people who are on fire for the Lord.

If you’re a baptized believer walking in obedience to Christ, I’d like to invite you to join us today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Now, this sacred meal dates all the way back to when Jesus shared it with His disciples at the Last Supper on the night before He was crucified.

The conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today. But the significance was the same as it is today.

Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:26 NASB95

26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.

“In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:27–28 NASB95

27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

Take and drink.

“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

Maranatha! Lord, come!

Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our commemoration of the Lord’s Supper.

Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”