Galatians 1

If you have a challenging message to deliver, it helps to have a high degree of confidence in the truth of that message, and in the one who sent you to speak on his behalf. It also helps to know who you are, and who you are not. The Apostle Paul needs to have a strong word with the Christian churches in the region of Galatia. He believes in the message of Christ, and He believes in the Christ he represents. He knows that he is an apostle, someone who has been sent by God to speak His Word boldly throughout the world. He is one of a handful of men who are responsible to preach the Word and to oversee the planting of the first churches proclaiming a Jewish Messiah in a world full of Gentiles. He also knows what he is not. He is not serving at the pleasure of men, either those who are involved in sending him, or those who will hear him.

His message has everything to do with One who has risen from the dead, but more than that, the One who is above Paul in this mission is that resurrected Man. It is a special task to be the representative of the true resurrection Man. There is something happening in the message of faith that Paul proclaims that is more than any power that the kingdoms of this earth possess. There are many frightening people on this earth. They may have large armies working for good or for evil. They may have great wealth and tremendous resources of might at their command, but have any of these men risen from the dead?

It is through the Man Jesus Christ that victory over death can be announced with the greatest credibility. He brings a message of the richest mercy for those who were deserving of God’s eternal punishment. Because that message involves the highest eternal blessing to those who were under the deepest eternal curse, there has never been a message more worthy of the descriptive word “grace” than that which the apostle brought to Jews and Gentiles everywhere. Every other supposed grace is much smaller than the grace of God given to us in Jesus Christ. We must never take anything away from that message, and we must never add anything to that message. The peace that is ours from God in all its dimensions is far beyond anything that the world can offer. It comes to us with the seal of God’s throne in heaven. It is bountiful and sure.

For this reason, it is absolutely shocking when people who have heard the truth of this best of all messages, and who have seemed to receive it, give it up for some other supposed gospel, as if there is some other gospel than the one that Paul preached. The good news of Christ is not just one among many religious messages. Every substitute is a product of this evil age, a man-made message of grace and peace that simply cannot compare with the glorious truth of Christ.

Yet there are always those who will bring a lesser message as if it is the new best thing. Paul makes it clear that the Galatian churches need to stand firm in the message preached in their midst, the message of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the only Lamb of God. This Jesus obeyed the Law of God for us, and then died the cursed death of the cross on our behalf. He alone is the fulfillment of all true biblical expectations of a coming Redeemer. It makes no difference who the messenger may be, if he brings a different message than that, he brings a message from hell and not from God. Did an angel bring some other message? Was it some great figure from the past or someone from the present or even the future? Was it Paul himself who brought a different message? Paul’s assessment is emphatic and the same regardless of who would speak these other words of a supposed way of grace and peace. “Let him be accursed.”

Some of the messages that we might hear in any era would be completely different religious systems that have arisen from the traditions and imaginations of men and women. Other false messages are distortions of the true message of Christ through some deletion, or as is often the case, through some addition. Is there some new holy book? Is there some practice with a recommended antiquity or a fashionable novelty that shows you something beyond faith in Christ and obedience to His revealed will? All of these are extremely dangerous distractions from the simplicity of the most important Word that could ever be spoken and received by men.

Why would anyone deviate from the beauty of Jesus Christ alone? Some seek the approval of men rather than God. If some other system will turn away vocal opposition or win large crowds, they will readily make adjustments in the truth that comes from God. It should be obvious that we have no right to do any such thing. This Word has come to us by divine revelation through the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Nothing less than the fact of Jesus Christ alone will fit the preparation we have in the Hebrew Bible and the proof of the New Testament.

What Paul received by the most persuasive revelatory experience fits solidly with the Scriptures of God that were already known to be God’s Word in that day. Paul knew Christ, he knew the truth about Jesus, and he had come to know who he himself was as a messenger of Christ. He also knew the message itself was the message of heaven, and he was unwilling to see the church so quickly deceived by false messengers bearing a false message. May we cling to the Christ of the true gospel, and refuse any messenger who would claim to bring us a superior grace and peace than the one that has come to us through the revelation of the Son of God. May we love that message, and live that message, and thus glorify God with the days that He grants us in this passing age and in the age to come.