Defend Purity, not Perversity
Freedom in Christ- 2
TITLE: Defend Purity, not Perversity
TEXT: Galatians 1:6-10
TONE: Rebuke
TARGET: Believers
TASK: To warn believers of the dangers of deserting from the true Gospel.
TEACH: Once during a visit with a church member at their home, an elderly woman gave me some brownies. I ask her if she wanted one, to which she replied that she and her husband were cutting out sweets and they were all for me. With the anticipation of full pleasure, I took a huge bit, immediately I knew something was terribly wrong, my tastebuds went into revolt, my gage reflexes were trying to engage, I was able to maintain complete control. The sweet older lady had accidently used garlic instead of sugar in her brownies. To say the least when you add garlic to brownies it is no longer a treat. In same way when you add anything to the gospel it is no longer the gospel and losses the power to save.
TRUTH: There was a good reason for Paul’s urgency. He was facing a crisis. What must have happened was something like this: A messenger had brought him a letter or report about the churches in Galatia. The word was that the Galatians were adding the law of Moses to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This was the teaching of the Judaizers, the Jewish-Christian legalists who came from Jerusalem to do follow-up on Paul’s evangelism. They wanted to make Gentiles become Jews before they could become Christians. They wanted to add works of the law on top of faith in Jesus Christ as the basis for salvation.
No sooner did Paul hear this than he started composing his response. [1]
Brief recap from last week. As we discussed last week Paul begins his letter to the Galatians by giving a brief defense of his apostleship. He lets them know without any hesitation that his calling was anchored in the Almighty Himself, it came directly from the resurrected Jesus. Therefore, the letter carries the full weight of apostolic authority and divine inspiration. Paul’s reasoning behind his defense is for the purity of the gospel. He writes as an apostle in defense of the pure gospel, and they are to heed the message.
The teachers who were getting Paul all hot and bothered were using the same terminology that he used. They were preaching salvation in Christ. All they wanted to do was take it a little further. Paul’s opponents were “Christian-Jewish missionaries who had come to Galatia to improve or correct Paul’s gospel and to ‘complete’ his converts by integrating them fully into the heirs of Abraham through circumcision and by thus bringing them ‘under the law.’ ”[2]
Paul’s aim was to guard the gospel of grace. The pure gospel. (v.6-7). We too face the reality of perverters of the gospel in our day.
Below are examples of false gospel:
1. Prosperity Gospel: This message teaches that God wants believers to be wealthy and successful, and that faith in Jesus will automatically lead to material prosperity.
2. Self-Help Gospel: This gospel focuses on personal transformation and self-improvement as the primary goals of faith, rather than salvation and relationship with God.
3. Moralist Gospel: This message emphasizes that salvation is earned through good works and adherence to a strict moral code, rather than being a free gift of grace through faith in Jesus.
4. Social-Club Gospel: This message portrays Christianity as primarily about finding fellowship and friendship within a church community, rather than about a personal relationship with God and a call to discipleship.
5. Cheap Gospel: This message suggests that God's forgiveness is readily available without the need for repentance or the sacrifice of Christ.
6. Therapeutic Gospel: This message states that Christ’s death proves our worth as humans and gives us power to reach our potential. The church is here to help is feel happy and feel good about ourselves.
Here we have to true gospel. Or we might refer to as the….
7. Pure Gospel: The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus has satisfied our greatest need: to be forgiven and reconciled to God. Anything added to the cross of Christ belittles His grace. Our calling is not to make the gospel more appealing by adding to it but to take the gospel to the people. The world needs the pure gospel. Let’s be a people who rest in the saving work of Jesus and display to the watching world that our only hope is in Him.
Unless we keep the gospel at the center of the church, we are always in danger of shoving it off to one side and letting something else take its place. Martin Luther rightly warned that “there is a clear and present danger that the devil may take away from us the pure doctrine of faith and may substitute for it the doctrines of works and of human traditions. It is very necessary, therefore, that this doctrine of faith be continually read and heard in public.” The good news of the cross and the resurrection must be preached, believed, and lived. Otherwise, it will be lost.
The greatest threat to the church is not opposition to the gospel outside the church, but the threat of the counterfeit gospel inside the church.
Paul’s conviction is that we ought to be…
I. Tenacious for Truth (8-9)
Explanation: Commitment calls for courage -compromise leads to corruption. Even if another angelic or apostolic figure preaches a differing gospel, they are to be rejected. By restating the warning, Paul stresses the indispensable need to keep the Gospel untouched.
According to William Hendrickson, “Paul is saying, if even we (I, or a fellow-worker) or a holy angel must be the object of God’s righteous curse, were any of us ever to preach a gospel contrary to the one we humans previously preached to you, then all the more the divine wrath must be poured out upon these self-appointed nobodies who are making themselves guilty of this crime.”[3]
Paul is confident here knowing that he is standing on solid ground. He knows that many will see his statement as extreme, yet he stands by it to the end. He calls down a curse on anyone who perverts the gospel.
Those trying to lead the Galatians astray, I’m sure had impressive credentials, but they were wrong -dead wrong. Paul wrote that not only should they not be believed, but “accursed.” The word used here is (anathema, which means ‘devoted to destruction’). Why? Because they carry the spirit of Anti-Christ. We are to have nothing to do with such false teachers.
Application: Study the Bible and the doctrines of our faith.
Paul’s end:
II. Magnify the Master (10)
Explanation: Prioritize pleasing the Provider over popular opinion or praise from people. Paul underscores that his ministry motives are aligned with divine desire, spotting a heart devoted to God’s pleasure above all.
Gar (for) has numerous meanings, but its use here adds weight to Paul’s previous statement in the preceding verse. It is Paul’s reasoning for giving the curse. There was a time when Paul did try to please men. In the past, he was a zealous persecutor of the church, but that time was long gone. Paul was transformed through the gospel of the resurrected Christ. He had surrendered his life entirely to Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Paul begins with rhetorical questions to emphasize whom he aims to please. These questions highlight two possible sources of approval: humans or God. We see here that trying to please humans is incompatible with true Christian servanthood. This decision to follow Christ involves prioritizing divine over human approval.
Martin Luther comments, “This is not preaching that gains favor from men and from the world. For the world finds nothing more irritating and intolerable than hearing its wisdom, righteousness, religion, and power condemned.… For if we denounce men and all their efforts, it is inevitable that we quickly encounter bitter hatred, persecution, excommunication, condemnation, and execution.”[4]
For this reason, Paul saw himself as a “bondservant” of Christ.
This is Paul’s justification for speaking as harshly as he has to them.
Application: Stand for biblical truth.
1. Guard Biblical Truth
2. Study Biblical Truth
3. Stand for Biblical Truth
[1] Philip Graham Ryken, Galatians, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2005), 16.
[2] Ibid., 19.
[3] William Hendrickson, New Testament Commentary: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1962), 41.
[4] Martin Luther, A Commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (Grand Rapids: Christan Classics, 1546), 5.
© 2012 - 2025 Blake Gideon. All rights Reserved
Comments
Post a Comment