No Other Gospel

Today begins a new series on Galatians. I chose this book to follow on the heels of Habakkuk for three reasons. One, in Habakkuk, we identified that the people of Israel had wandered from the true faith in God, and were worshipping other gods, as if there were such a thing. So God was going to bring them back to truth, to truly following Him by taking them into exile in Babylon. Second, we are living in the midst of a global pandemic, and if we honestly assess where North American Christianity is at, we can see that we have drifted from our mission, we have drifted from the simple truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So, we need to be reminded of what the gospel is. Third, the evil one, the devil, never stops sowing seeds of doubt, “Did God really say…” remains one of his best tactics. To be able to withstand the devil’s doubts, we must know the truth.

The apostle Paul wrote his letter to the churches in the region of Galatia. He had heard reports that agitators had come into the churches and were convincing the Christians to abandon the true gospel preached to them by Paul in favour of a false gospel the agitators were promoting. In this way, the devil was sowing seeds of doubt among the Gentiles, “Are you really saved by Christ alone? Don’t you need to do something to prove your love for Jesus?”

The result was the Galatians were in the process of trading truth for a lie. Their eternal salvation was at stake. This is why Paul wrote the letter. This is incredibly, utterly important. If they lost the true gospel, they would be lost. Not only were these false teachers, agitators attacking the gospel, they were attacking Paul and his reputation. So Paul employs very, very strong language and literary style in his letter to make his point, as we will see.

Take a moment and turn to Philippians 1:3 “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,”. Or Colossians 1:3 “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,”. Or 1 Thess. 1:2 “We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers,”. Or 2 Thess. 1:3 “We ought always to give thanks to God for you, bothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing.” Or 2 Timothy 1:3, “I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.” And finally, one more example, Philemon verse 4 “I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers,”.

Now, what’s missing from Paul’s letter to the Galatians? What’s Paul totally skips the thanksgiving section in his letter. After opening with his usual greeting, though there are differences there, which we need to look at, he jumps right into the heart of his letter. He does not give thanks to God for the Galatians—why? We’ll answer that in just a second.

Look at verse 1 and following, “Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—and all the brothers who are with me.” Paul takes the time in his opening words to remind his readers of his apostolic authority. He wasn’t called by a man, or a group of men, he was called by Jesus Christ himself. If you have a problem with Paul’s authority, you actually have a problem with Jesus’ authority. Clearly, the agitators were trying to make the Galatians stop trusting Paul’s teaching and authority.

Now, why does Paul skip his thanksgiving section? He skips it because, if they are indeed abandoning the true gospel for a false gospel, then they are effectively choosing to walk out of the body of Christ, they are choosing to leave Christ, hence the choice of words in verse 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.”

Brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, hear this truth. God initiates action. God calls you first. He does not call you based on anything you have done, based on your church attendance, your goodness, your purity, your lovingness. He calls you based on his grace, his willingness to overlook your sinful rebellion and look instead at his Son, Jesus, who died to save you.

What the Galatians were contemplating doing was abandoning that free gift of grace, and were now trying to earn their placement in Christ by listening to the agitators.

Who were these agitators? They were false teachers, who were peddling a hybrid Christian/Jewish religion. They were saying that in order to be saved, in order to be right with God, you had to be circumcised. And, since most Greek believers were not circumcised, they would have to go through that process. And, since most Jewish men were, they would not. So, like the Pharisees, they were putting an extra burden on the people.

But that’s not how grace works. Grace and mercy are gifts. They cannot be earned. Grace is not a burden, it is freedom, it is liberation, it is coming out of total oppression and occupation and into true liberty!

The agitators were selling oppression. And having been oppressed for so long, there was a sense of security in returning to that way. But if by cutting off the flesh of the foreskin could save you, then Jesus need not have died. If by keeping that one part of the law saved you, you would have to keep all of it. But if we could be saved by mere observance of the law, then Christ would not have had to suffer and die.

If we do anything to gain God’s favour, that’s not grace, that’s earning a wage. If you volunteer to help someone, and then get paid $100, that’s not grace, that’s payment for services rendered.

Grace takes nothing, grace gives everything.

How do we receive this grace? We receive it by faith. By faith we believe that Jesus Christ came, lived a perfectly obedient life, an obedient life we, due to sin, can never live. “Jesus offered himself, for our sins, to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”

There is no other gospel. There is no other way to be saved. No, not all roads lead to God, not all religions lead to salvation. In the same way that Highway 3 will not ever bring you to Calgary, no other religion will bring you to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. By God’s gracious election, He brings you the Son, who is the way to the Father. Like the adoption video we saw last week, God chooses us and adopts us. Once we realise we’ve been adopted, we accept him.

Paul cannot stress this single gospel message any more strongly than he does here. “There are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” This is no, “well there can be many ways to God,” or “well, it doesn’t matter what we believe as long as we try hard,” or “well, we don’t need theology or right doctrine, we just need to love God and others.”

How can you love someone if you don’t know them? How can you love God, if you don’t know God? Theology is the study of (logos the study of) theos, God. The more you know God, the more you’ll love him!

It all boils down to this. There is only one way for salvation, by grace through faith in Christ. There is no other gospel, there is no other way. All other ways are nothing more than human attempts to earn their salvation.

In my video I posted on Facebook last week Wednesday, I explained this fact. Adam and Eve, immediately after they fell into sin, and realised their wrongdoing, they saw that they were naked—no, not just physically naked, they were spiritually naked, they knew they had done wrong, and they tried to cover it up—by hiding from God and by sewing clothing out of fig leaves.

But the fig leaves were ineffective and they discovered you cannot hide from God. So God sacrificed animals for them, providing them with clothing. That sacrificed pointed to Jesus who would sacrifice himself so that they could be covered by Christ, to put on Christ. We put on Christ, the Word of God, the armour of God.

Today, wherever you are, whatever you’ve been taught. If anyone says, “You need Christ and…” don’t believe them. All you need is Christ. If we needed to add anything, circumcision, giving money, specific obediences, specific requirements, then Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t good enough.

Growing up, it was Jesus Christ, and not shopping on Sunday. For others, it was Jesus Christ and church attendance, and not doing anything on Sunday—Christians took all the rules of the Sabbath and applied them to Sunday, totally wrong headed. Sunday is the first day of the week, it is not the Sabbath. We are in the true, but not yet Sabbath of Christ, where we rest in His completed, perfect work of righteousness.

So, what are you hoping in? Is it Jesus and something else? Are you trying to earn, or buy your salvation? Anything that asks you to trust Jesus plus anything else is not a gospel, it is, as Paul says, anathema, cursed. Put your trust in Christ alone. When all is said and done, that’s the one thing that matters, our trust in Christ alone. There is no other gospel. Amen.