Sunday
Sunday
No Other Gospel
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
Returning from the four Galatian cities evangelized during their first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas reported to the church of Syrian Antioch how God had “opened the door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27). And they stayed a long time with the disciples in Antioch.
Luke writes that during this period, however, “some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved’” (Acts 15:1). This is surely the same event as that referred to in Galatians 2:12: “certain men came from James” (that is, claiming to come from James, although later he asserted that they lacked his authorization [Acts 15:24]). One can imagine the heated debate the visitors caused. They were Judaizers, and they were undermining the gospel. For they were insisting that faith in Jesus was not enough for gentile converts; they must also keep the law, that is, allow Moses to complete what Jesus had begun. Even the apostle Peter was won over by their teaching, so (as Paul told the Galatians) he had to confront Peter publicly, since the truth of the gospel was at stake (Gal. 2:11–16). But Peter’s defection was temporary. By the time of the Council of Jerusalem, he had recovered his equilibrium.
Meanwhile, some of these Judaizing “troublemakers” had reached the Galatian cities and were teaching the same distorted message. They were also having some success, to Paul’s astonishment. So serious was the situation that he castigated it as a desertion on their part and called down a solemn judgment on anyone (angelic or human, including himself) who perverted the gospel from the Good News of grace (God’s free and unmerited favor) to a religion of works righteousness. He even went so far as to say that if we could gain our salvation by obedience to the law, then “Christ died for nothing” (v. 21). That is, if we say we can manage on our own and win our salvation by ourselves, we are implying that the cross was not necessary. Paul begins and ends with a reference to grace (1:3; 6:18). The gospel is good news of God’s free grace; there is no other gospel.
For further reading: Galatians 1:6–9