Galatians # 2 Gal 1-3 thru 2-10
We’re going to pick up where we left off last week on the book of Galatians.
I. Last time we talked about why Paul wrote this letter. He mainly wrote it because of what is called LEGALISTIC JUDAIZERS.
A. These LEGALISTIC JUDAIZERS went into every city that Paul went to in the Province of Galatia.
1. There were 4 main cities in this Province, “Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra.”
a. Paul started a church and preached the Gospel in each of these cities.
2. The LEGALISTIC JUDAIZERS went into the cities after Paul left and began to teach them that “You can only have salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and by keeping the OT law.”
a. Trying to keep the OT law in order to keep your salvation, is a denial of Christ’s finished work.
i. It’s saying that what Jesus did on the cross isn’t good enough.
ii. Really that blaspheme.
B. Even in today’s church there are many teaching “salvation coming by faith and by keeping a set of rules and regulations.”
1. When we try to keep a set of rules and regulations to stay holy, be more spiritual, to receive God’s promises, to get saved or keep our salvation, WITHOUT ANY SCRIPTURE BASIS, IT IS A RITUAL and A DEAD WORK.
a. It does no good, but actually it does more harm.
i. As we said, it denies (in most part) the work that Jesus did for us.
ii. And it also takes away time that we should be spending with the Lord and doing what He has told us to do.
2. There are things that we are to do.
a. Jesus said in (John 14:21) “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” KJV
b. John said in (1 John 5:3) “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” KJV
3. Paul’s main teaching in the book of GALATIANS is salvation by grace through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
II. GAL 1:3
A. Notice that Paul already begins to bring out the Grace of God in his opening.
1. In just the beginning of Paul’s letter, he makes it clear that GRACE and TRUE PEACE only comes from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
B. GAL 1:4-5
1. In (V 4) it says that Jesus gave himself for our sins.
a. Paul brings us back to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and that it’s through his death that He took away our sins. NOT through his death and us keeping the LAW.
b. Why did he deliver us from our sins?
i. Paul then adds “That he might deliver us from this present evil world (AGE).”
ii. In this EVIL AGE sin abounds in the lives of people that don’t know Jesus, which leads them to ETERNAL DEATH, BUT Jesus has delivered us from the evil age namely SIN.
iii. It’s not our works that make us free from the LAW of SIN and DEATH, but it is the works of the Lord Jesus Christ.
c. Salvation, the promises of God and Being set free from sin and it’s bondage’s of sin did not come by something we did, but by the Lord Jesus Christ.
i. All we did was to except what Jesus did.
C. GAL 1:6-9
1. Paul said, “I marvel.” Other translations say, “I am astonished, or I am amazed.”
a. What was Paul so amazed or astonished about?
i. He could hardly comprehend that the Galatian believers could walk away from God, who called us into the Grace of Christ.
b. The Word “CALLED” that Paul uses here in (V 6) is an “Aorist Participle,” meaning an action that took place once and for all.
i. This V could be translated this way, “Who called you once and for all into the grace of Christ.”
ii. Bringing us back again to salvation coming through the Work of Jesus and not by what we have done or could do. All we did was to receive.
2. In (Vs 6-7) Paul calls the teaching the teaching of keeping the LAW or dead works “ANOTHER GOSPEL, WHICH IS NOT ANOTHER.”
a. Anything that leads you away from the truth that is in the Word of God is not another Gospel, it is a false religion.
b. The word “Gospel” in (V 7) means “Good news.”
i. If something leads you away from the Gospel it is not Good News, it’s Bad News.
3. Paul says in reference to someone teaching these false thing, “Let him be accursed,” doomed to destruction.
III. In the next passage of scripture that I’m going to read to you deals with Paul’s call into the ministry,
A. But the main point that Paul is trying to give here is a defense to those that said he was not a true Apostle.
1. He gives what you could call his “Apostolic Credentials”
B. GAL 1:10-24 (V 10 from the NIV) (“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?” NIV)
1. I’m not going to go into this in depth, but just to say that Paul received his revelation not from men but from the Lord Jesus Christ.
C. In 1st part of Chapter 2 Paul continues his Credentials, but He also talks about how the other Apostles were in agreement with him.
1. GAL 2:1-2
a. In (V 2) when Paul said that he went to the other Apostles and shared the Gospel with them what he was preaching, he said that he did it “privately.”
b. Paul did this not for the reason that the other Apostles might not agree with him.
c. So what does it mean when Paul said, “Lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.”
i. Paul went to the other Apostles privately, because if they did not agree with Paul it could hinder what the Lord was doing with the Gentiles.
ii. Paul already received what he did from the Lord, there was no changing Paul’s mind.
2. GAL 2:3-5
a. The NIV says, (Galatians 2:5) “We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.” NIV
3. GAL 2:6-10
a. In these Vs Paul stated to the Galatians that the other Apostles were with him in his teaching.
WOLCC Thurs. 1-23-97