Galatians 1:1-10
Imagine gathering to hear a letter from the person who first told you about Jesus. Your spiritual father. The one whose arrival in your city changed everything. There’d be anticipation, warmth, probably some gratitude…
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all.
Not exactly the opening you’d be expecting. Two verses later, Paul repeats himself.
If anyone — anyone, even an apostle, even an angel from heaven — preaches a gospel other than the one you received, let them be under God’s curse.
He says it twice. That’s not a mistake. That’s a man making absolutely sure no one can claim they didn’t hear it clearly.
Not a Matter of Opinion
We live in a world that has largely decided that religious belief is a matter of personal opinion. One point of view among many, all equally valid, all deserving of tolerance. The idea that there is one right gospel and everything else is wrong sounds, to modern ears, impossibly arrogant.
But Paul isn’t claiming personal authority here. He’s claiming something quite different. He didn’t wake up one day and decide to become an apostle. He was on his way to arrest Christians when the risen Jesus knocked him to the ground and blinded him. He went from persecuting the church to being sent by its founder. The gospel he preaches didn’t come from a committee or a tradition or a council. It came from the throne room of heaven. And that’s the only reason any of this matters, not because Paul is impressive, but because the message he carries is uniquely and finally authoritative.
It sounds arrogant only if it isn’t true. If it is true, then the only reasonable response is humble obedience.
Jesus Plus Nothing
So what had gone wrong in Galatia? False teachers had infiltrated the churches Paul planted. They weren’t anti-Jesus. They weren’t telling people to abandon Christ altogether. Their message was subtler and therefore more dangerous: Jesus, yes. But also circumcision. Jesus, yes. But also observance of the Jewish law.
For the Gentile Galatians, who had never taken the Jewish law upon themselves, the question was sharp: can a non-Jew become a Christian without first becoming a Jew? And these teachers were saying no.
Paul’s response is fierce because the error is severe. It wasn’t a difference of opinion about secondary matters. It was a contamination of the gospel itself. A single drop of poison in a large batch of food doesn’t make the food slightly less nutritious. It makes it deadly. And the gospel of grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, is not a recipe that accepts additions.
The moment you add something to it, even something religious, even something that looks devout, you’ve replaced it with something else. And something else, Paul says plainly, is no gospel at all.
Salvation Is at Stake
The reason Paul’s language is so charged is that this isn’t a theological debate. It’s a matter of life and death.
The gospel he preached, the one laid out in verses 3 to 5, is a rescue. Jesus gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age.
Christianity is not a self-improvement society for good people trying to get better.
It’s a rescue operation for people who need saving. If you think it’s the former, you haven’t understood what you’re in yet.
We need rescuing from slavery to sin, from the lies of this world, from the fear of death, from a Christless eternity. And God threw out one lifeline: Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Trust in his death, in which he took full responsibility for our failures, and you are put right with God. That’s the gospel. Grace alone. Faith alone. Christ alone.
If you tamper with that, if you add requirements, conditions, observances that make salvation partly your achievement, you’ve removed the only lifeline. And people who needed rescuing drown.
That’s why Paul is not neutral. He had watched the gospel rescue the Galatians. He had seen what it did in their lives. And now he was watching them drift back toward something that looked similar but would sink them. His passion is pastoral, not just doctrinal.
Authority of Message
One more thing worth noting. Paul says that even if he were to preach a different gospel, even if an angel from heaven appeared and taught something else, they would be under the same curse.
That’s a remarkable statement. The authority here doesn’t rest with the messenger, not even with an apostle. It rests with the message. The church does not stand over the gospel. The church is created by the gospel. No pope, no archbishop, no pastor, no tradition, no experience, no vision can stand over the authority of what God has declared in Jesus Christ.
Which means the question for every generation, including ours, is always the same: are we going back to what the apostles actually preached? Are we checking our practice, our emphasis, our additions and subtractions against the message that came from the throne room of heaven?
What To Do With It
First, guard the gospel. Make sure what’s being passed on; in our conversations, our churches, our teaching, is the true thing. Not Jesus plus good behaviour. Not Jesus plus a particular culture or tradition. Jesus. Grace alone. Faith alone. Christ alone. The glory goes to God, not to us, because it comes entirely from him.
Second, hold out the lifeline. The church is not an ocean liner carrying comfortable passengers. It’s a search and rescue boat. There are people around us who need the one thing we have to offer. Not a religious opinion. A rescue.
If you’ve never taken hold of that lifeline yourself, if you’re still trying to earn your way to God, or still assuming that being a reasonably good person is probably enough, then this letter is for you too. There is only one Jesus. There is only one gospel.
Soul Revival Church gathers across the Sutherland Shire [Kirrawee, Yarrawarrah, Miranda, Cronulla] and Ryde.