Galatians Galatians 1:1-10 What is the gospel? From where did the gospel come? What does the gospel mean for the lives of those saved? The letter of the apostle Paul to the Galatians listens to and speaks of these questions, but the dialogue from Paul in this case is straightforward and direct. Paul writes out of a sense of agitation and frustration with what has taken place among the Galatians. After the apostle left the area, false teachers sprang up and visited these Galatian churches, “troubling” and “unsettling” them by forcing Mosaic measures of Judaism such as circumcision upon them (1:7; 5:12; 6:12). Thus Paul’s letter will emphasize answers to the three questions above, so that he can rightly distinguish between the true gospel of Christ and the distorted gospel of these false teachers. Multiple times throughout this letter, Paul will use contrasts to clearly highlight and explain significant issues, such as the true gospel vs. a false gospel, God’s authority/approval vs. man’s authority/approval, freedom vs. legalism, or the fruit of the Spirit vs. the desires of the flesh. It is difficult to determine the exact date of this letter, but a time around A.D. 48 is realistic. The letter does not mention the Jerusalem council of Acts 15, which decided that Gentiles did not need to be circumcised, among other things. It is safe to assume that Paul would have used this argument in the letter if the council had already convened. The council met in A.D. 48-49, and Paul traveled through Galatia in A.D. 47-48. Thus the logical date is A.D. 48, when Paul wrote to the Christians living in the Roman province of Galatia in the south of Turkey whom he had met during his first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-14:28). One of the first and primary claims of the apostle Paul in this letter is that his apostleship is “not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” (1:1). Paul’s apostolic authority is not from himself or any man but from God, and the gospel he proclaims is likewise not from any man but from God himself and his authority. This claim is crucial to understanding Paul’s argument in the letter — the gospel originated in the plan and purpose of God and his grace. We as believers are not believers because of man nor through man but because of God. He is the one who has willed our salvation, as the Lord Jesus Christ “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age” (1:4). There is no other source of true salvation, satisfaction, or security for us. He has made us his servants, freed from sin by his grace. Therefore we live not to please any man or woman but instead live to do the will and work of God, the author of the true gospel. With the gospel as our bedrock, we must deny and turn away from any message contrary to the truth of God and his salvation, no matter who tells it to us (1:8). God is the one who has chosen us, adopted us, and approved of us before anyone else could have their say of us. Thus we live as servants of the God of this gospel, and this concept will be featured through the rest of Galatians. Galatians 1:11-24 Galatians 1:11-24 comes on the backside of Paul writing who shared the true gospel with us, there is always a chance to the Galatians about rejecting the gospel because of that we are susceptible to the opinions of man rather than the false prophets. Paul begins this section by writing that “the revelation of Jesus. gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I Before writing to the Galatians about Jesus’ revelation to Paul, received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:12). Paul he writes about the influence of the tradition of his fathers is referencing Acts 9, where Luke describes how Paul was (1:13-14). His zealous desire for the traditions of Rabbis led approached by Jesus on the way to Damascus to persecute him to advance quickly in Judaism and it played a role in his Christians (1:13). violent persecution of the Church. If you are reading this, the odds are pretty great that you aren’t responsible for the The way that Paul writes this part of the letter to the Galatians persecution of the Church, but it is worth considering what gives me pause to consider the simplicity and effects of the we are willing to do for the thing that has captivated our revelation of Jesus that Paul received. For most of us, when affections. we think back on when we began to trust in Jesus, it probably started with someone sharing the gospel with us. This was not However, because of God’s direct intervention in his life, Paul so with Paul, but there were people that aided him beyond eventually confessed that “he who had set me apart before this revelation. The men led him by the hand to Damascus, I was born, and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal and, thanks to the Lord’s power, Ananias healed Paul’s vision. his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Throughout his entry into Damascus, Paul was continuously Gentiles” (1:15). These are the same promises that God has introduced to the gospel of Jesus. As far as we know, he never offered to us, his children. The truth is that if we transform came into contact with false prophets during this time (1:16-17). this gospel to align more with culture, history, or traditions than the grace of God through Jesus Christ, we are guilty of This isn’t what most of us experience. We may have come proclaiming a distorted gospel. If we are not submitting to this into contact with false teachers who desire to confuse us, or gospel, we run the risk of incurring the wrath of God that we we may have come into contact with some who have good deserve. Are we willing to run this risk with the lives of those intentions and genuinely believe what they are proclaiming. we might proclaim a false gospel to? Brothers and sisters, Even still, in the midst of those influences, there are real make haste to remember these truths. The truth that Christ people who play pivotal roles in the way Jesus reveals himself alone has the power to redeem our lives. And, he has. We to us. Because most of our conversion stories probably are covered by such grace and saved by such an extravagant include both interactions with false teachers and loving people mercy. Let this saving power be what we proclaim. Galatians 2:1-10 As we learned in Chapter 1, any change to the gospel message makes it no gospel at all, but a distortion of the truth (1:7). We also learned that Paul is standing not on his own authority but on the authority given to him through Jesus Christ and God the Father (1:1, 12). As Paul continues making his case for the authority he has and the gospel he preaches, he begins to set forth that his gospel is the same gospel as the one preached by the “pillar” apostles of the Jerusalem church. As Paul tells, the apostles had nothing to add to his gospel and could confirm that the gospel they preached to two separate groups of people was in fact the same truth preached. We are warned throughout the Bible that there are false teachers looking to change the gospel and tickle itching ears. We see in the middle of this passage a call to stand firm for the sake of the preservation of the message of Jesus Christ (2:4-5). Paul did not waver when men of influence spoke about something that they probably saw as freedom but was actually a means of slavery. Praise be to God that he saved Paul and made him so convinced of the simple gospel and its truth that he was able to resist false teachers for the sake of its preservation. We can point to this moment as a mark of the faithfulness of God as he continued to work out his plan. We now have so many letters to profit from that were written by this one man as he was carried along by the Holy Spirit, and the gospel has been preserved for 2,000 years because he did not waver. I think we can find here a call for ourselves. We should trust that God is faithful to bring about his promises and that he will preserve the gospel. The gates of Hell will not prevail against his church (Matthew 16:18). These are verities that we can and should stand on, but they do not negate the fact that the Lord uses means to bring about his ordained ends. Because of this, we must be Christians who defend the faith. We must be people of the Bible who renounce teaching that claims the name of Jesus but in reality is far from what his word says. People’s lives are at stake. Paul realized this when he told Timothy to “keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.