Informed preaching from Galatians...

THE PURPOSE OF GOD’S CALL TO PREACH

“God … called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles” (vv. 15, 16). The purpose is simple and specific. We are called to preach Christ. Anything and everything else is either irrelevant or merely secondary. To help us understand this important facet of the call of God, Paul employs definitive language. He insists that to fulfill the purpose of the call of God;

We Must Preach the Gospel

“God … called me … that I might preach Him,” who is the gospel (vv. 15, 16). Paul’s gospel was a direct revelation from heaven. He declares, “I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ” (vv. 11–12). While Paul’s experience was unique in this respect, he also was affirming a fundamental fact for all time. That fact is that the gospel is wholly apart from man’s philosophical ideas, scientific methods, or religious efforts (see and 2; ; ). The gospel of salvation is by grace alone, in Christ alone, through faith alone. This calls for faithful, fearless, and fervent preaching. Look carefully at the context:

We Must Be Faithful in Our Preaching. “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another.… But even if we, or an angel.… preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed” (vv. 6–9). Paul uses a special word to describe those who had so soon changed their position on the fundamentals of the gospel. He calls them “turncoats” because, under pressure of the Judaizers and perverters of the gospel, these Galatians had espoused “a different gospel.” With a play on words, Paul scolds them for substituting the real for the false, the orthodox for the heterodox.

Two things must be noted about faithful preaching. The first is that the truth of God always exposes the characteristics of heresy—“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ” (vv. 6–7). Commenting on this verse, C. I. Scofield notes: “The test of the Gospel is grace. If the message excludes grace, or mingles law with grace as the means of either justification or sanctification (; ), or denies the fact or guilt of sin which alone gives grace its … opportunity [to function in our lives], it is ‘another’ gospel, and the preacher … is under the anathema of God (vs. 8–9).” The second thing is that the truth of God always discloses the consequences of heresy—“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” (v. 8). To preach or propagate heresy has serious consequences. Without contrived diplomacy, the apostle bluntly says, “Let him be accursed [or damned]” (vv. 8, 9). The word anathema was used both in the Old and New Testaments to denote that which is devoted to destruction because of its hatefulness to God. So Paul sums up his condemnation of heresy by saying, “If we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (v. 8).

We Must Be Fearless in Our Preaching. “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” (v. 10). In the light of these solemn words that Paul boldly asserts, the matter of fearless preaching becomes a “must” to the authentic preacher.

We live in an hour when peer pressure—leave alone satanic opposition—tempts us to compromise. Popularity, power, and position are often prized higher than the quality of integrity. If we are called of God, we must face the challenge once and for all. Like the saintly martyrs of the past and the sovereign Master of the present, we must draw a line in the sand and declare with the holy courage of Martin Luther, “Here I stand; I can do no other.”

The ancient King Redwald of East Anglia once built a unique sanctuary. At one end was an altar for the worship of the true God, while at the other end was an altar for the worship of false gods. Tragically, the church today is making similar compromises.

We Must Be Fervent in Our Preaching. The Christians of Paul’s day were saying, “ ‘He who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy.’ And they glorified God” (). If we want to find out how he persecuted the church, we have only to look back at verse 13: “For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.” The two words persecuted and destroyed are in the imperfect tense, which denotes continuous action. It describes the fervency and fury with which Saul, “the zealot,” devastated the church of Christ. Paul describes these activities to highlight the radical change that had taken place in his life. Now with “sanctified fervency” he was preaching the gospel with such unction that believers who heard him glorified God (see ; ; )!

There is no other way to preach the gospel if we are going to beat the devil at his own game. We have to pursue him with-in the words of G. Campbell Morgan-“truth, clarity and passion.” The old masters called it “logos, ethos and pathos.”

Yet the call of God goes even further beyond preaching the gospel.

Olford, S. F., & Olford, D. L. (1998). Anointed Expository Preaching (pp. 14–16). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.