Works out your own Salvation

Introduction

The wolf in sheep’s colthing by Aesop

Galatians Summary

Paul wrote this letter to group of churches in an area then called Galatia, now a region in modern day Turkey. Paul wrote this letter at some point between A.D. 48 and 55. He wrote initially in defence of his apostolic authority and then proceeded to disassemble the evil teaching of those whom infiltrated the church that attempted to sway the the churches away from the gospel of truth.

Galatians 1

1 Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me,

To the churches of Galatia:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

No Other Gospel

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble 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 the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Paul Called by God

11 For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. 12 For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. 14 And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, 16 was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. 19 But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. 20 (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!) 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they glorified God because of me.

Initially I will shed light on some things in this epistle. so we have a clearer understanding as we move forward in this series through Galatians.

Apostolic Authority

What is it? And Where does it come from? From the onset of the letter Paul defends his apostleship, the message, its power and where it came from. Paul States clearly that his apostleship came NOT from men NOR through man. But through Jesus Christ and God the Father.

Paul expresses why the church must obey the words of the apostle rather that those coming with a different message.

Paul shows how he recieved the message of the gospel, in Galatians 1:11 he said “For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but recieved it through a revelation of jesus Christ.

The scriptures give us 2 understandings of the word apostle or the greek apostolos.

1: The widest used version of Apostle referring to a special office “apostle of Jesus christ

2: a broader sense of greek word apostolos is simply messenger. Like Epaphroditus. Interestingly this name means saint.

For understanding I will only be referring to the first definition of apostle when the word is used.

The word of God gives us a definition of the Office of Apostle

Apostleship has 2 qualifiers

1: Must have seen the resurrected Christ with ones own eyes

2: have been commission by Christ as His apostle.

We glean these two pieces of information from scripture

Examples of seeing the resurrected Christ.

Acts 1:21–22 “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.””

1 Corinthians 9:1 “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?”

Examples of Christ commissioning the those to be apostles

Acts 1:24–25 “And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.””

This is showing is that the disciples did not take the responsibility on themselves.

Acts 26:16–17 “But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you”

Time and again Paul refers to his and the other apostles apostleship, because he is urging his readers to grasp what that entails. Apostles had a “unique authority” in the church. The office carried the authority to speak and write “words of God” that would become scripture.

Wayne Grudem writes

“To disbelieve or to disobey them was to disbelieve or disobey God.”

The book of Revelation 21:14 “And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

Ephesians 2:20 “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,”

An apostle of Jesus Christ is no small matter.

Now the question that all religion seeks to answer is

“How can man be right with God?”

Juxtaposed to the message of the apostles, is “man’s gospel” so before we unfold the right message let’s get an Idea of the wrong one.

The purpose of digging into wrong teaching is so we are able to identify it when shows up.

Examples of wrong teaching

There are some obvious examples and some not so obvious. Some teachings are so obfuscated in wording it is often difficult to decipher.

An obvious example

Hinduism: Beliefs in the religion do vary from sect to sect but the primary belief structure follows this model.

The body dies but the spirit is eternal

good and bad deeds are dealt with and spiritual development is facilitated by Karma

Hindus believe that they will reincarnate, experiencing the results of good and bad deeds over a series of lives.

Each good action one is lifted up and each bad one is degraded.

all this to become selfless and loving enough to end the cycle of reincarnation and attain moksha or complete spiritual existence.

Hindus do have a Jesus, they place him among their teachers and gods, similar to how the Philistines placed the Ark of the Covenant in the room of Dagon.

Another obvious opposition to Christ’s message is that of the Islam faith.

Quran 2:82 states “but those who have faith and work righteousness, they are companions of the Garden: Therein they shall abide forever.”

A Muslim website states “Major ways to get to Heaven”

Have faith and do good deeds

help an orphan

be lenient with people

go to mosque

recite the Aytayul - Qursi, basically saying allah is the true god.

The Muslims also have a Jesus, and they place him among their teachers and prophets.

Now I am going to point out a teacher that is a little closer to home, a teacher that has many books and is very popular among evangelicals. so popular that his books are suggested material on my Logos.com software.

Let me know if you have heard of N.T. Wright?

Much of what N.T. Wright says and writes is agreeable, but obfuscates his beliefs with biblical word salad when one is trying to truly understand what N.T. is really saying.

In his book The Day the Revolution Began: reconsidering the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion

he writes:

“a view of “salvation” in which the “punishment” for moral failure is meted out elsewhere while the “moral achievement” that was lacking in everyone else is supplied by Jesus himself. Some versions of this, I have suggested, are closer to the pagan idea of an angry deity being pacified by a human death than they are to anything in either Israel’s scriptures or the New Testament.”

He says this in denial of substitutionary atonement which the bible clearly teaches.

Wright also said on another platform

“I must stress again that the doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’. It is implied by the gospel; when the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But ‘the gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved.”

UUMMMM… 1 Corinthians 15:1–2 “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved,…”

“N.T. Wright is N.T. Wrong”

When we break down what is being said by teachers that change the work and role in salvation, what they are actually giving us is a different Jesus, they are diverting us from truth, they are blaspheming Christ.

Looking into what man’s gospel teaches we find The wrong Jesus and we find Works righteousness. Every-time we run into a teaching that gives us a wrong Jesus, the only way to heaven is by works. It is crucial that we adhere to what the Word of God says pertaining to the person and work of Jesus Christ. There are some difficult passages, but the gospel of Jesus is clear and simple.

There are far more deceivers in the world than I could possibly list. Many sincerely believe what they say is true, they have deceived themselves and seek to deceive you, they are sincerely wrong.

What is the message of the apostle?

The message of the gospel. This is the only message that answers the question on the heart of every person involved in any religion.

Paul gives a perfect yet simplified version of the right message in his greeting to the Galatians.

“… Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”

The Scriptures give us the message of the gospel, the message of Jesus Christ, the same message that the apostle Paul and the others spread throughout Israel, Samaria, to the Greeks. The message that has power unto salvation, that is being spread to all the nations of the world. The message that brought you here today.

Gospel meaning good news, then we must start with the bad news

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death,”

Man has sinned against The Thrice Holy infinite God of the Universe.

How simple a sin will separate man from God?

Adam went off his diet, seriously he disobeyed the word of God/

Man must acknowledge his sin, being finite he must see that there is no way he could ever redeem hisself for sinning against God.

Romans 6:23 “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

According to God’s love He made a plan of salvation and redemption of man. He gave man a picture of this salvation by way of sacrifice. In the old Testament

This sacrifice, the perfect, spot free Lamb of God.

John 1:29 “The next day [John] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Jesus Christ Colossians 2:9 “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,”

Jesus being all God and all man, the one and only son of God, living a perfect and sinless life

1 Peter 2:22 “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.”

He laid down His life 1 John 4:10 “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

That propitiation being the atonement to please the wrath of God.

Jesus took on the full wrath of God to Himself in our place. What man could not pay for in eternity in Hell, Jesus the God/Man did in 6 hours. to the commending of His spirit.

Jesus died on that cross so that His blood paid for the ransom that sin and the devil had so enslaved man. And my favorite word for which we have redemption in the Greek is exagora. or out of slave trade.

1 Timothy 2:6 “who gave himself as a ransom for all”

Jesus resurrected thus conquering death showing He truly is God.

Matthew 28:5–6 “But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.”

Revelation 1:17–18 (ESV)

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

Jesus is the key to salvation, John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

John 1:12 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,”

This is the essentially the message that was given to the Galatians. They believed this message and then another message came and they quickly turned away from the grace of Christ. There is only one gospel, there are none that are like it.

Paul said to them Galatians 1:8 “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”

This is a hefty charge, one that is far more serious than I had ever realized. Sin is a serious crime against God, but God commands his people to deal with false teachers even more seriously. Scripture calls them ravenous wolves. God did not curse man in fall, but the ground. But one coming with another gospel Paul says let him be anathama. accursed! this is a serious charge against the perverters of the gospel. Anathema, there is no stronger word in the Greek. If even an angel comes down with another gospel you throw him out of the church with the curse of God on his head.

Matthew 18:6 “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

I urge you beloved keep your eyes and ears focussed upon Jesus Christ and His word, so that when a predator comes stalking, you may catch its scent and flee quickly, thus warning others of the danger.