Getting the Gospel Right: The Letter to the Galatians, Part 1
The Gospel and the Glory of God
Galatians 1:1-5
Introduction: We certainly hear a lot of bad news in the
media these days. It gets attention and ratings I guess. I like the story of a
boy who was at the front door trying to sell a subscription to a weekly
newspaper, and he was very persuasive: “It only costs a quarter a week…” When
he could see the hesitation of the person, the little salesman quickly added,
“and the best thing about this paper is that it prints only good news!” That
has a certain attraction to it! In a
world filled with trouble it is more and more difficult to find any “good
news”! Actually, all the bad news we see
and hear should remind us that we live in a fallen world, people are broken and
the world is broken because of sin. Every human desperately needs to hear the
real “Good News,” the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We just finished our study of Mark,
which set forth, in narrative form, the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Today we start our study, which should last through the summer (and maybe into
the fall), of a letter that was written which was responding to a challenge to
the message of the Gospel. Galatians
is a letter that was written a group of churches which were experiencing an attack
on the message that the Apostle Paul and Barnabas had preached to them: The Good
News that Jesus, by His substitutionary death, provided the forensic basis for
sinners to be reconciled to God, and that He rose from the dead proving
that He accomplished what He came to do. That is the good news that God was, in
Christ, reconciling sinners to Himself, and that because of Him, by grace,
through faith, we can be forgiven and have peace with God. God is glorified as
humans, by His grace, recognize their need and receive forgiveness through
faith in Christ and his finished work.
Implicit in the “good news” however, is some bad news that people often
don’t like to hear: apart from Christ we are sinners deserving judgement, and
we cannot save ourselves. It is that
message that is the foundation and the fuel of the Christian life. And it is that
message that we are sent to proclaim, by the authority of Jesus.
Today we start
a study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians and I hope you’ll read through, and
study, and consider how you must respond to the message of this book. It has been called by some the “Freedom
Letter.” It has also been called a dangerous book to study since it can challenge
some of our wrong preconceptions about what constitutes Christian living. The Scottish pastor, P.T. Forsythe, captured
the message of this letter when he said, "The secret of the Lord is with those who have been broken by his cross
and healed by his Spirit." Galatians exalts these two things: the
cross of Christ as the only way a person can get right with God, and the Spirit
of Christ as the only way a person can truly obey God. Jesus has provided
the basis for our reconciliation, and the Spirit provides the power for our
sanctification. Anything that adds to or detracts from the all-sufficiency of
what happened on the cross of Christ is heresy to Paul, “let him be accursed!”. That language is about as strong as it gets!
Anything that
puts human will or effort in place of conscious dependence on God, according to
Paul is no gospel at all! And the reason we will see such strong language and emotion
in this letter is because that is exactly what seems to be happening among the churches
of Galatia. Some false teachers had been undercutting the message of the Gospel
of Grace, and had begun to lead the people to put human effort where dependence
on the Spirit belonged, and the works of Law where faith in the cross belonged.
Remember the “Solas” of the Reformation:
Grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone! Nothing
in my hands I bring, simply to His cross I cling! That is Good News, and it
is a message worth sharing! That brings us to the…
Maine* Idea: God is glorified
when we faithfully share the Gospel of His Grace!
I. Our Ministry: We are
under the authority of the Word of Christ, and we have authority as God’s
spokesmen to bring his message (1:1-2). The first 2 verses talk about the
nature and source of Paul’s authority.
Paul, an apostle- not from men nor
through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from
the dead- 2 and all the
brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia…
“Paul,
an apostle…” The Apostle Paul uses various terms to describe himself and
his ministry in his letters. He is a
slave, a steward, a workman, a servant. As in several of his letters, at the
outset of Galatians, he specifically evokes the title apostolos, that is, Apostle.
The word has the idea of a “sent one,”
more specifically, “one sent on a mission as an authorized representative.” In
the near-eastern context, the Hebrew term shaliach
had taken on a specific sense of someone commissioned by the sender, sent
with his authority, as His authorized representative. He was to speak for and
to be received as the sender. And he was not only sent, but sent with a
commission (cf. 2:9). In the cultural
context the use of this term actually goes even further; shaliach = sent as an authorized representative, an
ambassador, similar to the idea of “power of attorney.” The one sent spoke for,
and with the authority of the One who sent him (Mt 10:40; I Thess 2:13). In the technical sense this refers to the 11
disciples after the resurrection and to Paul, who encountered the risen Christ
on the road to Damascus and received a direct, personal commission from him. Later
Paul described the church as a building set on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph 2:20). A foundation
is laid once, and on it the building is constructed. The apostle had a unique,
foundational ministry.
After identifying himself as an apostle,
Paul then asserts negatively where his authority does not come from:
this is unique to this letter and so demands our attention. Paul wanted to make
it clear that his apostolic authority was not derived from any human or any
group of people. He said it came, “…not
from men…” Some apparently were charging
that since Paul was not one of the original 12, his ministry was secondary or
inferior, he wasn’t a “true” apostle. We
see in Acts 13:2 that the church in Antioch did send him out, but under orders
from the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:2) and in fulfillment of the word of Jesus.
“…nor
through a man…” Some may have
charged that since Paul had his Damascus road experience it was still necessary
for Ananias to come to him, his apostleship was in some sense mediated by
humans (and so inferior) [see Acts 9:15,16]. We’ll look more at this question
as we work through the letter later this month. Note here what Paul says: his
apostleship was directly conferred by Jesus himself. This is the positive statement of the source
of Paul’s apostolic authority: “…BUT,
through Jesus Christ and God the Father…” God in His power and glory, God who raised
Jesus from the dead, whose power and grace made salvation available to men,
this God has sent Paul as His ambassador.
One implication of this truth is that every
Word of Scripture must be carefully studied, the meaning and intention of the
author understood, and obeyed. Paul
claimed to be bringing the very Word of God.
We need to remind ourselves as we read this book that “All Scripture is inspired by God
[God-breathed]… and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for training in
righteousness…..” We need to receive this letter for what it is: the very
Word of God. God has spoken to us. We must take Him at His Word. Believe God!
The apostles were unique, bringing and
writing the Word of Christ under the inspiration of the Spirit. They had a
foundational role in the church as God was working in them and through them
(notice Paul distinguishes himself from “all
the brothers” in v.2). We are not apostles, but we do have the Word of God
written. And God in His Word gives us authority to bring His message to the
world (Acts 1:8; Mt 28:18ff). In fact, He has entrusted us with the truth! Remember
the Maine* Idea: God is glorified when we faithfully share the Gospel of His
Grace!
II. Our Message: We have been
entrusted with the message of His grace (1:3-4). We see the substance of Paul’s message
alluded to in these verses, focused on the person and work of Christ.
3 Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4
who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age,
according to the will of our God and Father…
First of all, in the expanded greeting
Paul uses we have a prelude to the Gospel. “Peace,”
would have been a standard greeting in Paul’s day, as it is among Jews to this
day, “Shalom.” Paul typically expands
that by starting with the phrase, “…grace
to you…” A key idea in Paul’s theology, this word became part of a Christian
greeting that became widely used in the early church. Grace, charis, refers to “God’s unmerited favor…” One commentator said, “This is grace—God’s love expressed in Jesus Christ. This love gives and suffers and finally
conquers and delivers.” Jesus took what He didn’t deserve, God’s wrath against
sin, so that we could receive the blessing that we didn’t deserve. The acrostic
G.R.A.C.E. can be helpful: God’s Riches At Christ’s
Expense. Eph 2:8,9 “For by grace
you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the [free]
gift of God…”
“…and
peace…” Not simply an absence of
conflict but a state of life enjoyed by those who have experienced God’s
grace. In fact, peace is often ours in
the midst of conflict and trouble. It is
a peace that is independent of outward circumstances, a “peace that passes
understanding…”
We see in verse 3 the subject of the
Gospel. As the ambassador of Christ, the authorized representative, Paul is
bringing greetings in Jesus’ name. In other words, he knows that he is bringing
God’s word. The full title is used “Lord Jesus Christ.” The title “Lord” in
the New Testament is more than just “sir” or even “master” when it is applied,
post-resurrection, to Jesus. It is the word used in the Bible mostly commonly
read to translate “Yahweh,” “Jehovah.”
He is master, what’s more, He is God!
He is the Lord Jesus, His name meaning “Savior.” He is God our
Savior, the Son of God who came into this world to suffer and die for our
sins. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ isn’t his last name, it’s a title that
means “anointed one.” The scriptures predicted a coming savior, a deliverer and
king. Jesus fulfilled the prophecies
made centuries before. This Jesus is the
central figure of the entire Bible: the Old Testament looked ahead to his
coming, the Gospels and Acts show the outworking of God’s plan, and the
epistles look back on the facts of the Gospel and reflect on the implications
for how we should then live. I like the way J. Sidlow Baxter said it,
"Fundamentally, our Lord’s
message was Himself. He did not come merely to preach a Gospel; He himself is
that Gospel. He did not come merely to give bread; He said, "I am the
bread." He did not come merely to shed light; He said, "I am the
light." He did not come merely to show the door; He said, "I am the
door." ...He did not come merely to point the way; He said, "I am the
way, the truth, and the life."
Getting
the Gospel right has to have as its foundation knowing the One, correctly, as
He is, who is the subject of the Gospel! That was one of the questions Mark
took pains to flesh out for us in his Gospel: Who is Jesus? Answer: Messiah and Son of God, in the full, correct,
Biblical sense of those titles!
The
descriptors that he uses of Jesus get at the substance of the Gospel (v.4). The
redemptive work of Jesus Christ:
1) His work is substitutionary – “…he gave himself for our sins…” The
same preposition is used in John 11:50. There Caiaphas said more than he
realized, “…You do not realize that it is
better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole
nation perish." He died to rescue a people for Himself. Our sins made
the cross necessary - Jesus took our punishment (I Peter 2:24).
2)
His work was necessary – Why did he do it? “…that
he might deliver us out…” i.e., “…take
us out for himself” to redeem us for himself (Acts 7:10,34).
3) The norm, the reason governing
this redemption is the sovereign will of God (4c). "...according to the will of our God and Father..." There is a mysterious interrelation between
divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
God is not obligated to save us, but he wills to save us. Our “rescue,” our salvation, is “according to
the will of God...” And so,
as Paul told the Corinthians, “…of Him
you are in Christ Jesus” (I Cor 1:30). And yet we are responsible to call
men and women to repentance and call them to receive the free gift of eternal
life through faith in Christ. So we urge people on behalf of Christ to be reconciled
to God (2 Cor 5:20). That points us to the Maine*
Idea: God is glorified when we faithfully share the Gospel of His Grace!
III. Our Motive: In
sharing His message we bring glory to God (1:5). Paul’s over-riding motivation in all that he
did was to glorify the Lord. God’s glory should be our motive as well:
…to whom be the glory
forever and ever. Amen.
That means we are to live for His glory: As Paul said in I Cor
6:19,20…
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the
Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20
for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body.
In fact, it means that all we do, we should do for his
glory: Paul said as much in I Corinthians 10:31-33...
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do
all to the glory of God. 32
Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, 33
just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own
advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.
Paul
speaks a doxology at a transition point in Ephesians, 3:20-21,
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than
all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21
to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations,
forever and ever...
What
is God saying to me
in this passage? Yes, God is glorified when we faithfully share
the Gospel of His Grace! You have been sent, commissioned by the Creator of the
universe to be His representative, to share the good news, right where you
are. As we read Galatians, Paul will
urge us to be sure to get the Gospel right!
What would God have me to do in
response to this passage? There is a lot of bad news in the
world. Don’t be discouraged, let it remind you why He came! You have received,
and been entrusted with, the greatest good news, the Good News that God was, in
Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. As we explore this letter, may we be
led deeper in our understanding of the Gospel. Paul certainly had a unique
calling and ministry as the Apostle to the gentiles. If you know Christ, you
also have a unique calling. You are His ambassador to that group of people in
your sphere of influence, your relatives, your friends, neighbors, co-workers.
Do you remember from our study in Mark, when Jesus set free the Gadarene
demoniac? The healed man wanted to get in the boat with Jesus and His
disciples. Jesus said no, go to your own people, and tell them what the Lord
has done for you. That is his word to us as well. We are His ambassadors,
right where we live, and there are people around us who desperately need Jesus.
How will they hear lest someone tell them? We need to be sure that we
get the Gospel right… eternity is at stake. And then we can point others to the
One who is the subject of the Gospel, our Great God and Savior, Jesus
Christ. AMEN.
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