No Other Gospel
Tom Shrader begins a study of Galatians with chapter 1, verses 1 through 10, establishing that the gospel is the free gift of grace through Christ's atoning death alone, with nothing added by human effort or religious observance. He explores Paul's astonishment that the Galatian churches so quickly abandoned this gospel for a distorted version requiring works, tracing the historical context of Paul's missionary journeys and the threat posed by Judaizers. Drawing on Acts 20, 2 Timothy 4, and Jude, Shrader argues that the greatest danger to the church has always come from within, from those who subtly add conditions to the gospel rather than from outside opponents.
“The closer I come to see myself through the scripture, all of a sudden what I see is I'm more sinful than I ever imagined, but more loved than I ever dreamed.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Galatians: Fighting for Grace
Recorded: 2012 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 57 min
Themes: grace, gospel, freedom, legalism, works, salvation, false teaching, reformation, new believer, struggling with legalism, raised in religion, questioning salvation, church member, feeling unworthy, young adult, navigating doubt
Scripture: Galatians 1:1-10, Galatians 1:3, Galatians 1:4, 1 Corinthians 1:2-7, John 8:32, John 8:36, John 10, Matthew 11:23, Matthew 23, Ephesians 5:25, Ephesians 6, Titus 2:14, Acts 13, Acts 14:19, Acts 20:27-31, 2 Timothy 4:6-7, Jude 3-4, John 3:16, 1 John 4:19
Theological Themes: justification by faith, sola gratia, atonement, soteriology, heresy, works righteousness, pauline theology, biblical authority
Full Transcript
Introduction to Galatians
Open your Bibles to the book of Galatians. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and the guys will bring you one. When you get a Bible from us, it's page 631. This study will take us right to Easter, so this is week one in the study of the book of Galatians. We're going to look today at verses 1 through 10 of chapter 1.
I'm always mindful of my daughter Haley — well, each of my daughters. Susan is super critical of my teaching. But Haley would always say that whenever you read a lot of quotes, it typically means you haven't prepared or you don't have anything to say. I'm starting today with a lot of quotes — not because I haven't prepared, not because I don't have anything to say, but oftentimes at the beginning of a book it's helpful to let these things wash over you so you get the scope of what several authors say about the book we're getting ready to study.
What Others Have Said About Galatians
One author writes this: "The book of Galatians has been conferred with such titles as the Magna Carta of Spiritual Liberty, the Battle Cry of the Reformation, the Christian's Declaration of Independence. It is clearly the Holy Spirit's charter of spiritual freedom for those who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Many church historians maintain that the foundation of the Reformation was laid with the writings of Martin Luther's commentary on Galatians. The great German reformer said, 'The epistle to the Galatians is my epistle.'"
Another author writes: "The message of Galatians is the message of Christian spiritual freedom." You're already starting to get this idea of spiritual freedom. "It is His deliverance by Christ from the bondage of sin and of religious legalism. Its message is particularly relevant in our own day, as personal freedom has become a dominant emphasis of countless philosophies, both within and without of Christendom."
Another author writes: "Not many books have made such a lasting impression on man's minds as the epistle of Paul to the Galatians, nor have many done so much to shape the history of the Western world. For it rightly maintains that only through the grace of God in Jesus Christ is a person able to escape the curse of his sin, of the law, and to live a new life — not in bondage or license, but in genuine freedom of mind and spirit through the power of God." Because of this powerful truth, Galatians is called the cornerstone of the Protestant Reformation.
Let me read you one with a slightly different flavor. "Galatians is a letter to recovering Pharisees. The Pharisees who lived during and after the time of Christ were very religious. They were regular in their worship, orthodox in their theology, and moral in their conduct. Yet something was missing. Although God was in their minds and in their actions, He was not in their heart. Therefore, their religion was little more than hypocrisy."
"The Pharisees were hypocrites because they thought that what God would do for them depended on what they did for God. So they read their Bibles and prayed and tithed and kept the Sabbath as if their salvation depended upon it. What they failed to understand is that God's grace cannot be earned — it comes free. The way out of Phariseeism is called the gospel. It is the good news that Jesus Christ has already done everything necessary for our salvation. If we trust in Him, He will make us right with God by giving us the free gift of His grace. When we reject our own righteousness to receive the righteousness of Christ, we become — and it's a great phrase — former Pharisees."
Fighting for Grace
So as you look at the title of this study, *Fighting for Grace*, it might seem ironic, because grace is that free gift that God gives us. What's the struggle? It's the struggle to find grace and to keep it as grace.
I'll speak autobiographically. I've been teaching for 20 years, at East Valley Bible Church and now at Redemption's Gilbert campus. Rarely is there a topic that generates so much pushback as grace. That seems ironic when we truly comprehend that we are saved by grace through faith — and yet all of a sudden it becomes, "But that's so simple. There must be something more to it than that." I would say the better the church, the more pronounced this tendency is. My friend Jamie Rasmussen has been teaching about grace for a year up at Scottsdale Bible Church, and he will tell you the pushback is huge. By and large, even those of us who know Christ as Lord and Savior are oftentimes scared of grace when we're confronted by it.
Grace is a marvelous thing. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me." It's an amazing thing — but then we try to deal with it in our lives, and it can become scary.
Paul's Opening Words
Now I want to read these 10 verses and make one observation as we do.
"Paul, an apostle — not sent from men, nor through the agency of men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead — and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen."
Those of you who've been around, or if you just want to flip through Paul's letters, that's a fairly standard greeting. He identifies himself, oftentimes mentions others who are with him, and extends a greeting of grace and peace — always in that order. He adds a brief doxology here, and he also adds a little definition of
The Missing Commendation
Look at verse 6: "I am amazed that you so quickly deserted him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel." In essentially every other epistle that Paul writes, there is a section of commendation. If you turn to the left, the next book is 2 Corinthians, and the book after that is 1 Corinthians. Paul is writing to the church at Corinth, and this church is all screwed up. It has so much sin and so many problems, including the fact that Paul says there is a man in the church who is sleeping with his mother — most likely his stepmother — and the men in the church are not dealing with it at all.
Even to this church, look at the beginning. Paul called as an apostle. Verse 2, to the church which God has put at Corinth. Verse 3, grace to you and peace from God our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ — everything we saw in the book of Galatians. And yet he goes on to say: "I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him in all speech and knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here is this church that is an absolute mess, and there is still a section of commendation at the beginning and periodically throughout the book.
Now go back to the book of Galatians. There is that standard greeting, and there is no commendation at all. Paul goes right after it. He gets to verse 6: "I am amazed that you so quickly deserted him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and wanting to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached, he is to be accursed. As we have said before, so I say again, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, he is to be accursed." Literally, Paul is saying: go to hell with that other gospel. That is what he is saying.
He continues: "For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ."
What Is at Stake
The reason Paul responds so strongly is not that he is dealing with unholy living. He is dealing with the most important issue, the supreme issue, the vital issue — the gospel. What is the gospel? It trumps all other discussions. When the church began, it was primarily Jews reaching out to Jews. Now that the gospel has spread, Jews are also reaching Gentiles. And as the Jews reach the Gentiles with the gospel, it raises some questions.
The biggest question is: what is the role of Judaism, or the Law of Moses, as it relates to the Christian faith? Is it necessary for a Gentile to convert to Judaism and then from there to the Christian faith? Is there a part of Judaism that needs to be fulfilled — in terms of observance of the law — for a Gentile to become a Christian? From a practical perspective, the question becomes one of circumcision. Is it necessary for an adult male Gentile to be circumcised in order to be saved? This has huge theological implications, but practical implications too. It is going to make evangelism among adult men a little tougher than anyone would have hoped.
So that is the issue. The issue is the gospel. What is the gospel, and is there anything that needs to be added to it? Primarily, this is a gospel of grace. And it was not just in Paul's time — it smacks against human nature. People love religion. They love rules and regulations, especially as they relate to God. They want to come before God and somehow find a way to please a holy God through their own effort.
Luther and the Burden of Religion
We have already talked about Martin Luther several times. Luther wrote this: "I was a monk and kept my order so strictly that I could claim that if ever a monk was able to reach heaven by monkish discipline, I should have found my way there. All my fellows in my house who knew me would bear this out." He is saying he was the supreme monk, and everyone who lived alongside him would affirm it. "For if I had continued much longer, I would, what with vigils and prayers and readings and other works, have done myself to death."
This is what sets biblical Christianity apart from everything else. All other religions — including those that might carry with them the idea that Jesus lived and died for your sins — operate on the principle of human effort. Luther was going to confession, literally every other hour. As he was leaving the confessional, he was already thinking of more sins he had committed. He was saying: if anybody could have earned their way in, it would have been him. He was serious. But there is no freedom in that.
In John chapter 8, verse 32, Jesus says, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Does Luther sound free? John chapter 8, verse 36: "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Matthew chapter 11, verse 28: "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
That is the issue Paul is fighting for — the gospel itself. When we understand the truth and understand biblical Christianity in terms of pleasing God, it is not our own efforts that are winsome to God.
Paul's Authority as an Apostle
It is the work of Christ that Paul sees. Paul identifies himself and quickly adds his title: he is an apostle, but not by the agency of men. He was not elected to this position, nor did he desire it or self-proclaim it. Rather, he was appointed through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead. God is the one who selected him.
As Christ selected the original twelve, and as Judas departed and was replaced, Paul was added to their number as an apostle. He meets the criteria, including having seen the risen Christ. So as his authority is challenged, Paul wants his readers to understand that this calling was not self-proclaimed. Almost always when Paul speaks of his apostleship, he is establishing authority — either because he is about to say something very difficult and wants his readers to understand it comes from God, or because he has been under attack. Here, it is the latter.
The Background: A Personal Note on Grace and Works
By way of personal testimony: having been born and raised Catholic through grade school, high school, and college, the message heard repeatedly was that Jesus died for your sin — but there was a "but" attached. There was a whole list of things you needed to do, behaviors to perform, acts to carry out. The message was never simply salvation by grace through faith. When a system includes indulgences and purgatory and limbo, and people are striving to perform their way through it, that is a works-based salvation, no matter what it is called.
That is precisely what is at stake in the letter to the Galatians. The gospel is that Christ died for our sin, and in Him and Him alone we find eternal life. There is nothing you need to do to be saved, nothing to add to that gospel, no act to perform, no good deed required. You are saved by grace through faith.
The Structure of Galatians
The letter has a clear structure. In chapters one and two, the argument is personal — Paul is defending against attacks on his apostleship. In chapters three and four, the argument becomes doctrinal, focused on justification by faith. Then in chapters five and six, the focus shifts to application.
The strategy of Paul's opponents was to attack him as the messenger in order to discredit the message. One of the charges against Paul was that his teaching of grace leads not just to freedom but to loose living. Paul addresses all of that in turn. The big idea running through it all is this: the gospel is a gospel of grace, and we are going to examine it from several angles, like light passing through a prism.
The Churches of Galatia
Paul writes the letter along with all the brothers who are with him, addressing it to the churches of Galatia. There is some disagreement about exactly which churches these are. Turning to Acts chapter thirteen, we are introduced to what appear to be the four churches of Galatia: Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Acts chapter thirteen, verse one marks the beginning of Paul's missionary journey.
Paul's customary procedure was to go to the synagogue and preach there, praying that God would save people and that a church would be established. In chapter thirteen, verse forty-two, Paul and Barnabas are begged to stay and speak further, so they remain through the next Sabbath. By verse forty-five, the Jews begin to contradict them, and Paul and Barnabas are effectively run out of town, shaking the dust off their feet in verse fifty-one.
They move on to Iconium and do the same thing — going to the synagogue, teaching both Jews and Greeks. The response is mixed. By verse four the crowd is divided, some siding with the Jews and some with the apostles. Paul then travels to Lystra and continues teaching. However, the Jews from Antioch and Iconium follow and win the crowd over against him. In chapter fourteen, verse nineteen, they stone Paul, drag him outside the city, and suppose him to be dead.
Grace and Peace in Galatians
When the disciples stood around Paul after the stoning at Lystra, their assessment was that he was dead. He was not. He got up, entered the city, and kept preaching, eventually moving on to Derbe as well. This is the backdrop, the history Paul carries with him. His reputation was well established in those communities. Some liked him, some did not, and certainly the story was circulating: "We thought we killed this guy, but he's back for more."
It is against that backdrop that Paul writes to these churches and gives them in Galatians 1:3 this standard greeting: "Grace to you and peace." The source of that grace and peace is "God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." This would have been especially powerful for people who had received visits from the Judaizers, those who had presented a gospel Paul is about to declare different from the true gospel — a gospel that, rather than generate freedom and grace, had generated legalism and oppression.
Notice that grace always precedes peace. Grace to you and peace, and where do we find it? From God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are trying to find peace with God and the peace of God, the place to find it is in Christ and Christ alone.
The Exhaustion of Religion
Some of you come with a religious background. You are working hard. You may even come from a faith that has Jesus in the name of the church. You have got religion, and you are worn out. You have tried First Fridays, rosaries, giving, serving in children's ministry. You have been in Bible studies. You have done everything you can do, and you are exhausted. These ought to be sweet words to you: grace, peace.
Or perhaps you are here today and it has not been religious at all. You are simply trying to find grace and peace through the world's system, trying to find some level of satisfaction in accomplishment. You will never find it there, no matter how much you achieve. Consider Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide — winning a national title ought to produce great satisfaction. But if you are trying to find grace and peace in that, it will never do it.
When the Cowboys won their first Super Bowl, Cliff Harris looked over at Charlie Waters — or Waters looked over at Harris, it does not matter — still in the locker room, still sweaty, and one of them said: "Who do we play next?" The implication was, "We got that. Now what?" Bob Lilly spoke about the morning after one of those Super Bowls, walking out and looking at all the empty party tents and saying, "We won this thing, and I'm just mad. It just isn't what I thought it was going to be."
Where do you find this peace, this holistic sense of satisfaction? You find it in God, in Christ. "My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Come to me." That invitation could be for you today — all who are weary, all who are worn out from trying to be good, who have done everything they know to do to please God and still do not measure up. Let me tell you plainly: you never will measure up. You cannot do it. Quit. I love quitters. Be a quitter. Give up. You will never satisfy a holy God on your own effort. That is precisely where the gospel begins.
The Gospel in Summary
John MacArthur writes that in verse four, Paul gives us a succinct summary of the true gospel of grace and peace. The text says that Christ "gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father." Notice the voluntary nature of what Jesus did. In John chapter 10 He said, "I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord." Galatians 1:4 says He gave Himself up. Ephesians 5:25 says He gave Himself up. Titus 2:14 says He gave Himself up for us.
That is the beginning of the gospel: Jesus came voluntarily. Man's sin had separated him from God, and there was nothing man could do to make that right. No sacrifice could be performed that would bridge that gap. But God became man, lived a perfect life, and then gave Himself up — for our sins. That is why He died on the cross.
"God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf." When Jesus died on the cross, there was a transaction that took place. All the guilt, all the punishment, all the wrath that was due you and me and all who would ever believe — at that moment in time, all of it was thrust upon Christ, so that He could say, "It is finished." That sacred transaction was complete. Jesus paid the price. And somewhere in our lives there will come a moment when we come to Him in repentance and faith. That is the gospel. It begins with Christ, it ends with Christ. He rescued us. He delivered us.
Christ's Death: A Rescue Operation
One author writes: "Jesus' death was a rescue operation, the only possible means of saving men from the doomed world and from eternal death by providing them eternal life." Tim Keller writes: "Christ's death was not just a general sacrifice, but a substitutionary one. This means that He did not merely buy us a second chance, but that He did all we needed to do." If Jesus' death really paid for our sins on our behalf, then we can never fall back into condemnation. Why? Because God would then be getting two payments for the same sin, and that is unjust.
Christ died — that is the gospel. Christ died, and you believe that He died for your sins. You confess that God raised Him from the dead, and the result is that you will be rescued and delivered. I come into this world alienated from God, and I will stay in that condition unless I encounter a risen Christ who delivers me from this present age — who delivers me from the sin in my life and in the world around me, from the domination of my life by sin, by Satan, by the world system, and by my flesh. All of that was accomplished on the cross, and it was all done according to the will of God.
In Acts chapter two, Peter delivers a powerful first sermon, primarily to a Jewish audience, and he begins by talking about Christ and Christ's death. The phrase in chapter two is "the predetermined plan of God." This was God's plan from the very beginning. It is not as though God sent Jesus on some sort of mission to be a political or economic messiah, the plans went awry, and He was swept away in some political revolution and consequently killed. No. He died according to the predetermined plan of God for a specific reason: to save His people — you, me, us — from our sin.
When Paul contemplates this, there is only one thought he can possibly have: God is an awesome God, and the glory belongs not to him. It is not because Jesus died and he did something. It is not because he was a good person. It is not because he somehow found favor with God because of anything good in himself. Jesus died for him, and he has salvation in spite of himself, not because of himself. When Paul contemplates that, all he can say is, glory be to God — He is the one who deserves it.
Amazed at Their Desertion
From that introduction — where Paul has placed the entire gospel essentially in one verse — he launches forward like a rocket. He says he is amazed that the Galatians are so quickly deserting the one who called them by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is not really another gospel at all. The word "quickly" can mean either rapidly in terms of time, or easily in terms of resistance, or both. He cannot believe it. He is astounded and stunned.
The word "deserted" carries a military connotation — you simply walked away from your assignment. The Galatians walked away from their assignment for the sake of people who had come to them not with freedom, but with bondage, bringing with them another gospel.
The Supreme Challenge: Internal, Not External
This brings us to a critically important point for believers in all times and places, and especially for us today. To make it, we need to turn from Galatians to Acts chapter twenty. Paul is going to identify the supreme challenge to the church and to the gospel itself, and his point is this: the danger is internal, not external.
Paul is saying goodbye to the elders at Ephesus. Beginning at verse twenty-seven, he says: "I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God." Then comes his warning: "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Be on the alert."
What is Paul saying? He is saying goodbye to these elders and warning them — not about persecution from the Romans, not about attacks from outside. If you read the emails and materials that circulate today, you would think the enemy of the church is the ACLU, the liberal left, the media, or forces like those. That is not what Paul says here. The enemy he warns about, the thing to be genuinely afraid of, is the danger arising from people inside the church, not outside it.
John MacArthur writes: "The most destructive dangers to the church have never been atheism, pagan religions, or cults that openly deny Scripture, but rather supposedly Christian movements that accept so much biblical truth that their unscriptural doctrines seem relatively insignificant and harmless."
This is precisely the point. In a three-hour discussion with a bishop of a Mormon church, at the end of the conversation he said to me, "We're saying the same thing, just slightly different." I said, "No — what is scary is that we are saying radically different things, and they only sound the same." That is the distinction we must hold onto. We must be very, very careful here.
Paul's Final Assessment
Second Timothy, chapter four, verse six. Paul gives us the context: "For the time of my departure has come, I am already being poured out as a drink offering." What Paul is saying is that he is writing to Timothy, the man he loves more than anybody else in the world, and he is saying: listen, I am about to die. The time of my departure has come.
Verse seven is Paul's own assessment of his own life. We hear all the time that we want to hear at the end of our lives, "Well done, good and faithful servant." That is Jesus' assessment and commendation, and we want that. But here is Paul, and there is something really powerful about his ability to say this himself: "I fought the good fight, I finished the course, I kept the faith." He is saying he has been in this thing the whole way — he fought the fight, he finished the course, he kept the faith.
Notice the definite article. He does not say he kept his faith. He is saying there was a body of truth that was passed on to him, and he did not change it or alter it — he passed it on. He did not add to that gospel, and he did not take away from that gospel.
Contending for the Faith
Turn to Jude, page 663 — one chapter, a good book to read in a single day. Jude, a bondservant of Jesus and brother of James, writes in verse three: "While I was making every effort to write to you about our salvation, I felt it necessary to write to you, appealing to you to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once and for all handed down to the saints." That word translated "contend" means hand-to-hand combat — wrestling, the same kind of struggle described in Ephesians chapter six, where we wrestle not against flesh and blood.
With that backdrop established, Jude immediately identifies the enemy: "For certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons." He says this group does two things: they turn the grace of our God into license, and they deny our Master and Lord Jesus Christ.
From the beginning, the concern we ought to have is not what is outside, but what is inside. It is not those who blatantly attack us, but those who come as Satan himself — not as a roaring lion, but as an angel of light or a subtle serpent.
False Gospels Facing the Church
This morning, just before the service, Tim Monn came through and shared something he had just come across — a list of dangers facing the church in the form of false gospels. Let me give them to you quickly.
There is the feel-good gospel: God wants you happy. I always thought this was something made up until I encountered it myself — the reasoning goes, God wants me happy, my spouse makes me unhappy, therefore God wants me divorced. There is the "me gospel": what about me? This is all about me. Jesus becomes like three wishes. There is the greed gospel and the health gospel — and the health gospel is the one that sets me off most deeply.
One of its prominent teachers was on television this week. He said that God has a lot of work to do, and He is not going to be able to do it through sick people and poor people. This is dangerous. It puts people into bondage. If you come with a sickness, the message is that it is because you do not have enough faith — and this breaks down so quickly, because everybody is dying of something somewhere.
The theology behind it is deeply wrong. They take the phrase "by His stripes you were healed" and use it to argue that in the atonement, Christ not only purchased our salvation but also our physical healing and our wealth and our financial prosperity. This is so rotten precisely because it puts people into bondage and delivers nobody from anything.
A Survey of Other Distortions
Beyond the health and wealth gospel, there is the cheap gospel — just believe, that is all you do. There is a shallow gospel of sin and forgiveness that is watered down. And there is the many-ways gospel.
Oprah has a new show called "The Next Chapter," and she recently interviewed Joel Osteen and Victoria in their home. Whatever other issues one might raise, she asked him directly whether homosexuality is sin, and he said yes — that is good. Then she asked whether Jesus is the only way to God.
His answer was that Jesus is the only way to God, but there are many ways to Jesus. There has to be a clearer way to say that — a yes or no would have helped. To be fair, he seems like a very nice man doing his best. But that idea — many ways to Jesus — belongs on the list of distortions we must recognize.
No Other Gospel
In the midst of all of this, the answer we give is clear: is there another gospel? No. There is no other.
No Other Gospel
So, are a Buddhist and a Hindu and whoever else is praying all praying to the same God? No. I don't even know how you get there. Newt was rambling the other night about this same thing, essentially saying the same deal. How could you be so dogmatic? Here is a guy who thinks Jesus is a good teacher but not God, and here is a guy who thinks Jesus is God, and they both somehow have truth. That is just impossible. That is saying 2 plus 2 is 5, 2 plus 2 is 3, 2 plus 2 is 4 — it doesn't really sit. This is big stuff, and that is why Paul goes right after it. He is not dealing with some kind of superficial issue.
Falling Away Quickly
Here is what he says: "I'm stunned at how fast you fell away." We were having a pastoral staff meeting about five years ago, and one of the guys says — we were talking about the doctrines of grace — "That's just a given here at East Valley Bible Church. That's a given; that'll always be that way." I am a very non-confrontational person, much more so from the front than one-on-one. But I said I felt I needed to speak to this. I think as long as I am teaching, the doctrines of grace will be here — I get that — but I do not for a second automatically assume that because we teach what I believe the Bible teaches is true, we are guaranteed to still be teaching it here twenty years from now.
These people in Galatia weren't being taught by just anyone. It wasn't Tom, or Larry Ryder, or Chuck Swindoll, or John MacArthur — Paul was teaching them. And it is not just that Paul was teaching them with words. They had seen Paul stoned, dragged out to the city limits, and left for dead — and then he got back up again. This was word and deed together, and yet they had walked away.
He calls them brothers in chapter 1 verse 11, chapter 3 verse 15, and chapter 4 verse 12 — he is saying they are believers. And he says, "How have you deserted the one who has called you?" It is in the aorist participle, which means He called them once and for all. How can this happen? It happens so quickly.
A Different Gospel — Or No Gospel at All
"You deserted for a different gospel, which is really not another." The word translated "another" is like what we saw in John chapters 14 through 17 when Jesus says, "I will send you another," meaning the Holy Spirit — someone exactly the same. You did not walk away for another gospel in the sense of the same thing said differently; you walked away for a completely different gospel. "Only there are some who are disturbing you and wanting to distort the gospel." Disturbing means to shake you up, to agitate you, to stir you up — it implies they are emotionally unsettling you. Distort literally means turning an idea into something the exact opposite of what it was.
The gospel comes along and says it is grace, and people come along and say it is grace plus. It is not grace; it is the law. It is not grace; it is what you need to do. And that will always have an appeal.
The Gandhi and Jeffrey Dahmer Problem
Here is how you know. I was walking along one day with somebody I love dearly, presenting the gospel, and this person says to me, "I want to make sure I get this straight — if I believe in Jesus right now, but I kill somebody tonight and die tomorrow, I'll go to heaven. Is that right?" I always say the same thing: yes. We don't recommend that — it is not something we say to encourage people to go kill others — but what I knew in that moment is that I had communicated God's grace.
When I talk about Mother Teresa and Jeffrey Dahmer — actually, Gandhi is easier than Mother Teresa because, based on Gandhi's own testimony, he denied the substitutionary death of Christ. Based on his own testimony about the gospel, Gandhi is probably one of the nicest men in hell. Jeffrey Dahmer, on the other hand, was a hideous person — cutting up people and eating them and all sorts of things — and yet he supposedly, while in prison, became a follower of Christ and was baptized. So here you go: Gandhi is in hell, and Jeffrey Dahmer is in heaven. I always add: you get a mansion in heaven, but you may want to lock your doors just to be safe.
Now you all laugh about that, but I guarantee there are people right now who are just going — that cannot be right. It cannot be right in religious terms. But it is absolutely right when it comes to grace, because it is not based on how much sin someone committed or how much good they did. The only question is: did they deal with the person of Christ?
More Sinful Than I Imagined, More Loved Than I Dreamed
When I come to grips with this, it is so freeing. The closer I come to seeing myself through Scripture, what I see is that I am more sinful than I ever imagined, but more loved than I ever dreamed. It is not even just the sins of commission — it is the sins of omission, and it is even doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
When God saved me, He also saved a guy by the name of Tom Woods at the same time. Tommy was a very nice guy, and I was not. About a year after we were both saved, we went to a place called Chub's — used to be a great place to get a cheap meal — and Tommy and I were reviewing our year. I was talking about my life and the changes I had seen, and I was saying —
No Other Gospel
Tommy said something interesting: "I'm doing much the same thing I always did. I'm just doing it now for the right reason. I was a good person — or at least I went through the motings of being a good person — so you'd think I was a good person. I went to this school to please my mom and dad." That's how sinful we are, and that's what Jesus deals with.
The counterpart to this is when Jesus deals with the Pharisees. It sets Him off like a rocket ship. When you get to Matthew chapter 23, He says — and I'm paraphrasing now — all you do is screw people up. You don't fix anybody, and you follow the law. So when Jesus comes to the Sermon on the Mount, He says the Pharisees pray and fast and give, and He wants us to pray and fast and give — but not the way they do. He is not condemning the action. He is saying the issue is the heart.
A Gospel Contrary to the Truth
Along come these false teachers with a false gospel, and it does not bring peace. Paul speaks in strong terms in verse 8: "Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached, let him be accursed." So if you are Joseph Smith and some angel comes to you preaching a gospel other than this, it is not right.
Consider what Mormon.org states — and think about the subtlety we have been discussing. It reads: "We believe that through the atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by the obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel." It sounds really good. You read "the atonement of Christ" and think, yes. But what it is really saying is that He is the general partner and you are the limited partner. He did His part, now you do yours. That is subtle, and that is exactly what Paul is addressing.
Then in verse 9, Paul repeats himself for emphasis: "If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed." He said it before, and he says it again, because this matters that much.
Credentials Are Not the Gospel
So if someone comes along and he has degree after degree after degree, I want to be open about something. Almost every other time in the Connect class, a question comes up that goes something like this: "Tom, where did you go to seminary? Tom, where did you go to school?" And I am not proud of it, but the reality is I did not even take a class. I did not go to school. Over time, I know that has presented a problem for some people, and I completely understand that.
But here is what Paul is saying. You could have someone who has been to Oxford and Cambridge, to Westminster and Fuller and every seminary in between — more degrees than a thermometer. But if at the end of the day they preach a gospel other than this one, it should be, as Paul says, to hell with you and your gospel. That is what he is saying. This is a big deal. This is not some ancillary issue. This is about the gospel itself. This is about Jesus Christ Himself, about what He did and what He accomplished on the cross.
Not Pleasing Men
Now, to the charge that Paul is simply a populist — that he is an apostle only because of popular approval — he writes in verse 10: "For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ." He is saying: do you think this is a popular message? Do you think this is going to win people over? All these accusations that he is just one of the people's guys, that all he wants to do is please people — no. What Paul says is that he wants to communicate the truth.
Believe, Rejoice, and Know the Gospel
So what do you do? It is really quite simple. You believe this gospel. You rejoice in this gospel. You become familiar with this gospel and you understand it. Then, frankly, it should be fairly easy to recognize when a false gospel comes along. If anyone is saying, "Yes, I believe Jesus died for my sin, but..." — that is the sign.
Now, here is what this does not mean. It does not mean that once you believe you can live any way you want, as though God has not changed what you desire. Works and what we do are not unimportant — they are very important. Not to produce salvation, but as a result of salvation. If I have an encounter with the one true God, my life should be transformed. My life will be changed.
Religion Keeps Moving the Finish Line
Here is what I have experienced, and maybe you have too: there are all sorts of people who, the moment you start talking about grace, want to add to it. And it is vicious.
I know a number of people running in the P.F. Chang marathon and half marathon today. Frank Switzer, who will start teaching at our Acadia campus in February, is running the full marathon. Frank gets up every Thursday morning and every Sunday before he teaches at two o'clock and runs somewhere between fifteen and twenty miles. Every week. Meanwhile, three weeks ago I got up around seven in the morning, drove to Eglington's, and was exhausted. I had to eat, I had to rest. I got a room just to recover.
Here is how insidious religion is. The serious runners have their splits figured out. They know their numbers at every mile marker. They see the ten-mile mark and they know exactly where they should be. But here is what religion does: as you are running toward that finish line, religion just keeps moving it further away. The closer you get, the more they push it back. You give your supreme effort. You hit the wall, you break through it, you keep going — and they move it away again. That is what religion does. Religion never produces satisfaction. Religion never produces a win.
Freed by Grace, Not Performance
Religion will never please God — only the finished work of Christ. So yes, I am a sinner, but I am not paralyzed by my sin, because when Jesus died, He died for me. When the Father looks at me, He accepts me.
Take all of that and contemplate the phrase we keep before you all the time: there is nothing you can do to make God love you more, and nothing you can do to make Him love you less. This is not about you performing for God. Jesus accomplished that.
Maybe you had a dad or a mom whose love was entirely based on your performance. You played baseball, went two for three, and dad loved you. You went oh for four, and he didn't talk to you on the way home. Maybe you have a spouse whose love rises and falls entirely on how well things are going. And now we come to God and assume He operates the same way — and He is saying, "Relax. I don't need your performance."
It is because you love Him that you obey His commandments. That is why He says this burden is not heavy. You are not running a race where they keep moving the finish line — you have already won. He has declared you the winner. You have the victory and everything that goes with it. You are accepted by Him.
Responding to Love, Not Earning It
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. We love Him because He first loved us. Out of a response to the love He has demonstrated in Christ, now we want to live this way.
Think about a Sunday morning. There is plenty else to do — maybe it is your only day of rest — and yet you come to a place like this. You give generously. Hundreds of you serve. Why? Not to earn God's acceptance, but because He has already accepted you. You are His child, and you are saying, "God, I am not trying to repay You. I am simply responding to the grace and mercy You have given me." How remarkable is that? It all goes back to the cross.
Looking Ahead and Closing Prayer
Next week we will look at the balance of chapter one, where we really see what I would call Paul's résumé. He becomes very autobiographical, talking about who he was and the kind of person he was, and he will begin to fill in some of the blanks you may have right now.
Father, thank You for this amazing truth. Thank You for the gospel that sets us free rather than putting us in bondage. Thank You for the love and grace and mercy that we find in Jesus. God, I pray that You would keep us free from legalism and bondage, and free to live in grace. We pray that in Christ's name, amen.