The Gospel of Christ (Galatians 1:1-10)
[Read Galatians 1:1-10]
If someone was to walk up to you on the street and ask you the question, “What is the gospel?,” how would you answer them? Would you be able to answer them?
It’s interesting how many people have not thought through the answer to that question—a question that is central to our Christian faith. I’ve even had instances throughout my educational experience where I asked professors at Christian institutions to provide a definition of the gospel, only to be provided with a blank stare or a rambling explanation that wasn’t clear. I’ve heard of instances in pastoral ordination exams where a pastor was asked to provide a definition of the gospel and they stuttered and stammered about their answer—some even provided an answer that was far from correct.
One pastoral candidate was asked, “What is the gospel?”, and answered, “Love God and love your neighbor.” That’s a good summary of the law, but it’s definitely not the gospel. Other’s may answer the question by saying, “The gospel is that God has a wonderful plan for your life.” God definitely has a plan for your life, but that’s not the gospel. Other’s may get closer by answering “The gospel is that Jesus forgives our sins.” Yes, that’s part of the gospel, but that’s not the entire gospel.
Now, you may be thinking, “Pastor Ruis, you’re just nitpicking. Why are you making such a big deal about these small details and nuances about the gospel?” Just a few weeks ago I had a relative of mine say something like that to me. I had publicly criticized a famous person—Joel Osteen—as being a false teacher and for distorting the gospel. They told me that I that I was nitpicking and that I shouldn’t be judging someone who has had such a “positive” (their word) influence on people’s lives. Yet, hear what Paul has to say in this passage: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (Galatians 1:8–9, NIV).That doesn’t sound very nice, does it? It maybe even sounds judgmental. Paul even says it two times to make sure the Galatians—and our church—get the point. If anyone is preaching a different gospel let them be eternally condemned.
As you can already see, Galatians is Paul’s “fieriest” letter. He is wound up and isn’t beating around the bush. He is shocked that the Galatians have wandered away from the true Gospel. He’s actually angry that they’ve wandered away from the true gospel. He’s also angry at those false teachers who are leading the Galatians astray. He’s angry enough at them that he says, “Let them be eternally condemned for teaching this false gospel.”
Paul is so fired up because the Gospel is a deal—it is THE big deal of the Christian faith. The Gospel is central to every aspect of our lives. How we understand the gospel not only affects that way we understand the way we are saved, but it also affects the way we live out that salvation—the whole of the Christian life. The consequences of preaching a false gospel, or believing a false gospel, are extremely high. We’re talking eternal life or eternal death. We’re talking heaven and hell. No wonder Paul says these false teachers should be condemned…because they are intentionally leading people away from life to death, away from heaven to hell. This is not some small thing.
Paul even ramps things up another notch. He says, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all.” (Galatians 1:6–7, NIV). He’s flabergasted that they would turn from the true gospel to this false gospel—which isn’t really a gospel. But he says more than that, doesn’t he? He doesn’t just say that they have turned away from the true gospel, he says that they have DESERTED the One who called them. He says that in holding onto this perversion of the gospel—a gospel that’s been twisted and modified and added to—they have actually completely deserted the God who called them by the grace of Jesus Christ. So, it’s not that they simply are “a little off track” by holding onto a false gospel. They have completely deserted their God and Jesus Christ who died for them.
Paul shows the Galatians that his message is true by saying, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10, NIV). Paul is saying, “Hey, if I were trying to win the approval of people, I would change the gospel too. We all want to be our own little saviors. We all like to think that we’re pretty good people. We all like to think that we can add something to our salvation. Yet, I cannot change the gospel to please people. I will not change my message simply because people don’t like it. This is the gospel that Jesus Christ, himself, gave to me.”
In saying these things, he also points to the reason why so many people distort the gospel—by adding, deleting, or twisting. In their natural condition, people DO NOT like to hear the gospel. People get angry when you preach the true gospel. They want to reject it. So, people, trying to win favor, begin to twist the message in order to make it more appealing. They want to win the approval of people. So, they twist the gospel, distort the gospel, add to the gospel and end up sending thousands of people to hell. Let us not mess around with this message. Let us not be guided by pleasing people. Let us not change our message based on whether people like it or not. Let us first and foremost seek the approval of our God and preach the message he has given us.
So, what is that message? What is the gospel? We’re going to answer that question more fully throughout the rest of this series. We’re also going to answer that question more fully this morning.
You see, Paul loves the Gospel. The Gospel oozes out of him whenever he speaks. You can see that in the introduction to this letter. He’s giving his typical formal introduction: “Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers with me, To the churches in Galatia: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” (Galatians 1:1–3, NIV). Now, this is a normal, formal greeting in Paul’s letters, right? Sure, we can already see him defending himself a little against the false teachers throughout Galatia, but for the most part he is sticking to his typical formal greeting.
However, he begins to deviate from that normal, formal greeting. He says, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Galatians 1:3–5, NIV). It seems like the moment he mentions the Father and the Son he has to keep going and lay out the Gospel for the Galatians and future churches. He couldn’t hold it in anymore. He HAD to say something. So, he lays out the gospel.
He says that Jesus “gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age…” (Galatians 1:4, NIV). That says a lot about who we are. At our core, we are a people who need to be rescued. We are not the rescuer. As people who need to be rescued, we find ourselves helpless and lost. If we were not helpless, we wouldn’t need to be rescued. If we weren’t lost, we wouldn’t need to rescued. But we need to be rescued because we are helpless and lost. We are in a mess and we can’t do anything about it.
Olivia just got a job working for the YMCA as a lifeguard and for the past couple weeks she has been going through some of her lifeguard training. As she’s done some of the online sessions, I’ve watched some of the videos with her. There are a tons of different techniques to save someone who has drowned or is drowning, but the same thing is true for every single one of those people—they are helpless and cannot save themselves. Someone needs to dive into the water and pull them out.
The same thing is true for every single person in the entire world, throughout all of history. The Bible says that we are “sold under sin” (Romans 7:14), that we are “a slave to sin” (John 8:34), and that we are “dead in [our] transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). That’s our natural condition. We are helpless and lost, floating in a pool like a dead person.
Yet, Jesus Christ jumped in and rescued us. This passage says, he “gave himself for our sins” (Galatians 1:4, NIV). Our sins were the problem and Jesus did something about that problem. As we were drowned in our sins, floating dead in the pool, Jesus rescued us. Yet, he did more than simply rescue us. He died FOR our sins. The word “for” means “on behalf of” or “in place of.” So, he gave his life in our place. Because of our sins, we deserved death. Jesus stepped in and took death in our place—the death we deserved fell on him. That’s why he’s able to forgive because he paid the penalty of ALL our sins on our behalf. He is the perfect substitute. In commenting on this, Tim Keller says, “[Christ] did not merely buy us a ‘second chance,’ giving us another opportunity to get life right and stay right with God. He did ALL we needed to do, but cannot do” (16). That means be paid a debt that we were helpless to pay. It also means that he lived the perfect life that we could never life. Everything that you could possible need to be right with God, experience eternal life, and enter into heaven was accomplished perfectly through Jesus Christ. There is nothing you can add or take away. Christ is enough.
He also did this to “rescue us from the present evil age…” (Galatians 1:4, NIV). This means that Christ has not simply paid the price for your sins and given you his perfect life, but that he is also delivering you from your life of sin—he is making you holy. Isn’t that amazing news? Can you imagine if the gospel only said, “You’re forgiven and counted as righteous but will continue to live a life of sin and death and destruction”? That’s not good news. The good news is that Christ has died for your sins and credited his perfect life to your account. That when God looks as you from heaven, he sees Jesus Christ’s perfect life. Yet, the good news is also that we are being delivered from a life of sin and death and destruction. It doesn’t happen immediately, it doesn’t happen as quickly as we would like, it doesn’t happen as fully as we would like in this life, but it is happening. You are being changed and transformed into the image of Jesus Christ—pulled further away from sin and death. This is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
As we will see more fully later on this book, Christ did not rescue every single person on the earth. He rescues all who turn to him in faith. If you ignore this gospel message, believing that you are basically good and can do enough good things to make it to heaven, you will not be saved. If you ignore this gospel message, believing that Jesus’ life and death aren’t quite enough, that you need to add to His work, you have deserted Christ and his gospel and will not be saved. Yet, if you admit that you are a sinner, if you admit that you are helpless to save yourself, if you look to Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, understanding that He lived the perfect life in your place and died a perfect death in your place, having faith that He is enough and has accomplished ALL that we need for life and salvation, you will be rescued by Him and will experience the grace and peace that can only come from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Savior.