Introduction
How often do we do something or hear something and say something like: “Man that was solid. I am going to do that. I am going to start following that system. That will bless so many people I need to do it. I believe and know this is true.”, only to walk away and forget most of it?
Or how often have we been in a situation where we have been told to do something one way only to have someone come along and say to do it differently? Only to find out that the first way was the way we were supposed to do it.
I have experienced this in many areas of work. I know of several experiences where we were supposed to start running cows through the chute by the bosses orders only to have another guy say we need to start processing the calves first.
Then we do this and cause a massive mix up because the boss had a reason for running the cows first. He was planning on loading them and hauling them to another area and had the trucks coming at a set time. Now we ran the calves or were running the calves and the cows were not ready when the trucks arrived.
This was frustrating and can cause great grief but it is not nearly as bad as what the Galatians had done with the gospel.
This is what we see in the following text though. Paul had explained the gospel to them and they had believed. This belief was abandoned because another had come in and said they were wrong. They said it was this other gospel they needed and the Galatians were confused and some started following that gospel.
Verses 6-10
We see that they have wandered from the true gospel in the following verses. They had let someone creep in and convince them that the message that Paul had proclaimed was not the gospel. This is found in verses 6-7. Here Paul has some very strong words for those who have proclaimed these false messages. In verses 8-9 he lays out a very intense punishment for those who have distorted the true message.
The gospel needed defended because some had decided to change the order. They decided that Paul did not know what he spoke of. They made a change without asking the boss.
Why is the gospel that Paul proclaimed so important? Here is a very sound and solid reason from the New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic.
Euangelion and its cognates appear even more often in Paul’s letters than in the Synoptics. (Euangelion is the Greek for gospel. Since Paul wrote on it more than others it is a very important message to him.) Here the message proclaimed by Jesus is seen more explicitly to have been embodied by him in the fact that he died for sinners, was buried and was raised from the tomb (1 Cor. 15:3–5). Thus, Jesus not only declares the good news; he is the good news (Rom. 1:1–4, 9; 1 Cor. 9:12b; 2 Cor. 4:4). Just as he is divine, eternal and unparalleled, so is the gospel; and just as this gospel must be proclaimed, so also it must be faithfully heard, received and applied for *salvation (1 Cor. 9:16–23). Thus, for individuals, societies and the world as a whole, the gospel is nothing less than a matter of life and death.[1]
A matter of life and death. That is very serious indeed. It was, and is, the truth. It needed no added message, nor did it need any subtraction. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of grace, and that is the saving message, nothing more and nothing less.
These Judaizers were legalists and they had crept in and were telling the believers that to be really saved they must conform to the Jewish laws. Therefore, in these first few verses we see Paul defending not only his apostleship but the gospel as well. He was angered that these people had crept in and that they were able to deceive the Galatians.
Paul says that these men who had crept in were to be accursed. Accursed means that whatever it is is cursed. That it is to be cut off and removed. This was the opposite of blessing. Paul is placing a severe charge against those who have distorted the gospel. They are under a curse under damnation. The utter ruin of one devoted to destruction. Simply, this is not a pleasant charge against one. Paul is calling down severe punishment on the one who teaches a false gospel.
Many teachers and preachers today will face sever punishment one day for their distortion of the gospel. James says that Jas. 3:1 “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Many will face the music for their false teachings and their leading of many astray.
All in the prosperity gospel will face this severe punishment. They teach that one can have health and wealth if they only give enough or have enough faith. That the Lord will return to them 100 fold what they give. They say that if you will only bless their ministries with x amount of money then the Lord will bless you. This is all they teach and say. They never teach that we are wicked and hell-bound sinners in need of a savior. They never teach that Jesus came and suffered and died for us so we can have everlasting life. They only teach that if you give more money you will receive more money.
This is an accursed gospel. But it is not the only one. Many others teach that we are saved by allegiance alone. When we commit ourselves to Christ and swear allegiance to Him we are saved. They say the word faith means allegiance not belief on the basis of the reliability of the one entrusted. We believe that Christ will save us because of the work He did, not the work we do or if we have gave ourselves fully to Him in allegiance.
Then there are those who say we must confess Him as Lord and surrender ourselves fully to Him to be saved. We must count the cost and commit to Him all things and stop all sins before we can be saved. Some within this camp say we must do works to prove salvation and if you are not working then you are not saved.
These are all accursed gospels. None of them base salvation on grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That is the gospel. Salvation by grace through faith in Christ. That is it and if anyone says any different they are teaching a false gospel and are accursed.
In the first nine verses we see this deep defense of both. Yet, in verse ten we see the strongest, minus the call for those who teach falsely to be accursed, defense in the epistle.
Verse 10
He tells them outright that he is not seeking the approval of man. He tells them that if he was still trying to please man then he would not be a servant, (doulos) SLAVE, of Jesus. This means, “The idea that he is a slave to Christ carries the sense of belonging to him—Christ has bought him and owns him.”[2] Paul is not his own and therefore, this message is not his but His who called him.
This is what he goes on to say in the following verses. Here he states, “For I would have you know…” (1:11). “This was Paul’s way of saying, “I want to make this perfectly clear.”[3]Also Paul was known for his sometimes-arrogant pronouncements.
Despite his reputation for [making these types of pronouncements], Paul could on occasion speak with great tentativeness and hesitation. For example, concerning the status of virgins in the church at Corinth, Paul frankly confessed, “I have no command from the Lord” (1 Cor 7:25). Again, concerning his own translation into the third heaven, he was uncertain about whether or not this experience was corporeal (2 Cor 12:2). But here in Galatians, Paul was not dealing with a matter of secondary importance. He was defending the very heart of the Christian faith against a sinister and subversive attack upon it.[4]
He wanted to make it perfectly clear where the power for salvation and this message of salvation came from. He had already spoke of this message, the gospel, not coming from him in the previous verses, but he lays it out in a perfect story for them now.
This is what happens when we stop trying to please people and only seek to please the Lord. We should not worry about what people say or think about us as long as we are seeking to please the Lord.
Jesus is who we are working for not the world. Those in the prosperity gospel are sinister and evil. They are seeking the world’s goods and pleasures and to please people, they are not serving the Lord.
The other false gospels are to a degree seeking to please the Lord but they are also seeking to please men because of the fruit inspection. It quickly becomes a “look what I have done for the Lord” ministry. These are all ways of seeking to please the people of the world and self rather than seeking to please the Lord alone.
When we seek to please the Lord alone we will face ridicule and derogatory names and hatred. We will be attacked and people will leave from us for this. That is okay. Paul suffered this as we see in Acts 17:32-34 “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.”
But some will believe and be saved and that is what we must focus on and strive to do always.
This is what Paul is saying here. Who cares what the world thinks or says about you. It is passing away (c.f., 1 Jhn 2:17 “And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”) The eternity we spend with the Lord is forever and it is of so much more value than anything the world and people here can offer.
This world is wicked and fallen now. Why do we want to please people rather than the Lord? Paul hits this hard here and says that those who do are to be accursed. Cut off and placed under a curse of damnation and he does not care who it offends because the eternal value is more important than any temporal hurt one may feel.
Verses 11-20
He tells them in verse eleven that “the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel.” In verse twelve he said that he did not receive it from man, or had it taught to him by man. That it was only by a revelation of Jesus Christ that he had the gospel.
Paul clearly was contrasting the way he received the gospel from the normal pattern of catechetical instruction commonly practiced in rabbinic Judaism. In that system the citation of venerable sources and the piling up of numerous “footnotes” were integral to the learning process: Rabbi so-and-so says this, but Rabbi so-and-so says that, and so forth. Paul here claimed an unmediated divine authority for the gospel he proclaimed, an assertion that would be utterly preposterous were it not true.[5]
He states this because he had at one time been very zealous in Judaism. Which meant in Jewish literature “the Jewish way of belief and life.”[6] Paul never quit claiming he was a Jew, i.e., Rom. 11:1, he just utilized Judaism as the way to describe himself before he became a new creation in Christ. While he was in Judaism, he had persecuted the church with the intent to destroy it (v. 13). He had a deep zeal for the ways of his fathers, he was an exceptional student and surpassed many (v. 14). Nothing in his past would make him accept the gospel except the divine intervention of Jesus Christ. It had to come from God for him to accept it.
See, in this exposition of his past he makes it clear that what he was doing was he doing them. His zeal is shown forth, his devotion to God is shown forth, his zeal for the traditions is shown forth. Why then would he convert to this belief? Why then would he believe and say this gospel is the true saving message? It is because of the next verses and the “divine disclosure that turned him into an apostle.”[7]
In verses 15-17, which is one long sentence, we see the calling of Paul. We see the reason for his conversion. Paul was called, set apart, before he was born. Christ was revealed to him so that he might “preach him among the Gentiles.”
Paul’s conversion included his commission to preach the gospel. He did not have a two-stage experience: first conversion, sometime later a commission to preach. His mission to the Gentiles was given to him in the initial experience of conversion. Christ met him on the road to Damascus in order to send him on his mission to the world. As a result, Paul interpreted the gospel itself in the light of his mission to the Gentiles.[8]
Paul was very passionate about this message because of this calling. The Gentiles were the one’s he was sent to preach this gospel message too. He follows up his conversion with stating that after it he consulted no one but went away to Arabia and Damascus for three years (v. 17), before going and seeing anyone else who had known Jesus and had this same gospel (v. 18-19).
G. Walter Hansen states that the argument of Paul can be summarized according to the following manner:
The thesis that I did not receive the gospel from any human being but by revelation from Jesus Christ (1:11–12) is demonstrated by the following facts: I was opposed to the church before my conversion (vv. 13–14); in my conversion, God himself revealed his Son in me; and I did not consult with the church after my conversion (vv. 15–17). Paul’s argument is designed to show that he is not dependent on or subordinate to any other church leaders for his authority to preach his gospel to the Gentiles. His authority is derived from the gospel that had been revealed to him by God. Therefore, when the Galatians turn away from the gospel preached by Paul, they are turning away from God.[9]
This argument from Paul may seem contradictory to the accounts given in Acts 9:19-22. Though those verses read that Paul immediately in Damascus began to preach Christ in the Synagogues as the Son of God. Timothy George has aptly asked, “How could Paul have “at once” both preached in Damascus and gone off to Arabia?”[10]
It is to realize that of course Paul immediately preached in Damascus what had happened. He was a very enthusiastic and zealous man, from his own descriptions. This does not mean that he conferred with anyone else about the gospel. He proclaimed Christ as the Son of God for a time, then went away to Arabia.
After his three years in Arabia Paul writes of visiting Jerusalem and seeing Cephas, Peter, and James (v. 18). With this he only stayed fifteen days visiting with them. This is in no way near enough time for Paul to have developed the theological backing he had. He put in the time frame to distinguish between the revealing of the gospel and his visiting with them. This was done not because, “Paul [sought] authorization of his message or validation of his ministry from Peter.” But because, “He did seek a close fellowship in the things of the Lord as well as a strategic partnership in their common apostolic mission.”[11]
He developed this close working relationship and stated this because of his confrontation with Peter in the next chapter (2:11-20). Peter new the true message from Jesus and from Paul, not the other way around. Paul learned his gospel straight from Jesus and no one else. He then utilizes an oath of the strictest kind in affirming that what he is saying is the truth (v. 20). As F.F. Bruce wrote:
He is defending himself against the charge that he proclaims a man-made, second-hand gospel and that his commission to proclaim it was derived from men. There may be the further implied charge that he has not been faithful even to that human commission—that he has abridged or adulterated the message which was delivered to him by others. To this compound accusation Paul replies with a twofold line of defense: (i) his gospel was not derived from mortal man but from God; it was part and parcel of that ‘revelation of Jesus Christ’ which God imparted to him; (ii) even if this claim of his were (per impossible) disproved, then, wherever his gospel came from, it could not have come from Jerusalem[12]
Verses 21-24
Here in verse twenty-one we see that Paul decides to go into places, Syria and Cilicia, where they did not know him other than he used to persecute the church but is now preaching the faith he tried to destroy (V. 21-22). This was prompted by what we see in Acts 9:26 where Paul was trying to associate with the disciples in Jerusalem, but they were afraid of him. We can probably place the vision of Acts 22:17-21 here. In this vision Paul had gone up to the Temple to pray and he had a vision of Jesus. In this vision Jesus told him to leave Jerusalem because the people there would not accept his testimony about him there. Paul was reluctant to leave but Jesus told him, “Go! For I will send you far away to the Gentiles.”[13]This is what Paul done when he went to Syria and Cilicia. Therefore, the statement in verse 22 is so fitting here. “And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.” They only knew that he used to persecute the church and that now he was proclaiming the gospel. And because of this, they glorified God.
To summarize this chapter, I will let Timothy George do so with this very compelling argument.
[We] should note one final reason for Paul’s interest in the reaction of the Judean Christians to his apostolic work. Paul’s argument had gone like this: “I received my gospel directly from Jesus Christ, not from any human sources. I only visited Jerusalem sometime after my conversion, and then only for a short time to get acquainted with Peter. Far from being a clone of the apostles, or a protégé of the churches they established in Judea, I was hardly even known to most Christians there. But when they did hear of what God was doing through me, they praised and glorified him on that account. I was no embarrassment to the church in Jerusalem nor to the brothers and sisters in Judea. Rather, through the grace of God, I was the cause of their rejoicing.”
Why was it necessary for Paul to make such a point? The crisis Paul was facing in Galatia likely had its roots in a certain type of Jewish Christianity that claimed allegiance to the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem, its leaders, and its ethos. Paul wanted to show that from the beginning it was not so. The Jerusalem church leaders welcomed him as a colleague and blessed his ministry. The churches of Judea, including some Paul himself had formerly persecuted, rejoiced in the great reversal they heard about in Paul’s life. While Paul wanted to assert as strongly as possible his independence from the Jerusalem church, he also wanted to claim a vital partnership with them in the service of a shared gospel and a common Lord.[14]
[1] Hilborn, D. H. K. (2016). “Gospel.” In M. Davie, T. Grass, S. R. Holmes, J. McDowell, & T. A. Noble (Eds.), New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic (Second Edition, p. 375). London; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press; InterVarsity Press. [2] Clark, R., & McLaurin, D., III. (2014). “Duty.” D. Mangum, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, & R. Hurst (Eds.), Lexham Theological Wordbook. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press. [3] George, T. (1994). Galatians. (Vol. 30, p. 108). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers. [4] George, T. (1994). Galatians. (Vol. 30, p. 108). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers. [5] George, T. (1994). Galatians. (Vol. 30, p. 109). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers. [6] Hansen, G. W. (1994). Galatians. (Ga 1:13). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. [7] George, T. (1994). Galatians. (Vol. 30, p. 117). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers. [8] Hansen, G. W. (1994). Galatians. (Ga 1:13). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. [9] Hansen, G. W. (1994). Galatians. (Ga 1:13). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. [10] George, T. (1994). Galatians. (Vol. 30, p. 123). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers. [11] George, T. (1994). Galatians. (Vol. 30, p. 127). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers. [12] Bruce, F. F. (1982). The Epistle to the Galatians: a commentary on the Greek text. (pp. 101–102). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. [13] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ac 22:21). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation. [14] George, T. (1994). Galatians. (Vol. 30, pp. 133–134). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.