A GOSPEL CRISIS

GALATIANS 1:1-5

FEBRUARY 1, 1998

 

"Galatians takes us to the very heart of the Christian faith," writes Leon Morris [Galatians: Paul's Charter of Christian Freedom, 13].  Here the pioneer missionary becomes the polemical theologian, tearing down the arguments of false teachers and reproving all who slip away from the purity of the gospel in Christ.  Heresy had arisen among the Galatian churches.  The issues which Paul addressed were so serious that if the Galatian heresy was accepted, it 'would have destroyed the whole church'! [Alan Cole, quoted by Leon Morris, 13].

 

Perhaps this is a thundering way to begin the study of a New Testament epistle.  But the situation in the Galatian region seemed to have stunned the Apostle Paul.  He knew that if the creeping heresy in Galatia took root, it would spread throughout the infant church, not only crippling it but destroying it.  Christianity was at stake and this epistle stood as the divine word to correct the insidious error.  No wonder Timothy George says, "Galatians is a tornado warning!" [NAC, 84].

 

The names and geography may have changed, but the same threat to the Christian faith remains in our own day.  The crisis of the gospel looms before the evangelical world, so that all who truly know Jesus Christ savingly must boldly declare the message of justification through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.  It is astounding how far those who profess to believe the gospel have moved from it in their proclamation!  The man-centered approach to salvation which ignores the sovereign grace of God, overlooks the necessity of the propitiatory work of Christ, and sees no need for the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit has moved away from the essence of the New Testament teaching on the gospel.  Instead, men have clung to their own power to save through pre-packaged clich�s and formulas as the means of salvation.  Conviction of sin has been replaced by seeing the gospel as a means to self-improvement.  The work of the cross has been denuded of any sense of satisfying God's judicial demands upon law-breakers.  Faith in Christ which abandons self-dependence has been exchanged for praying a little prayer that guarantees results.  We need only look at the overall condition character and spirituality in the church to understand that whatever gospel the multitudes have professed, they do not possess the saving work of Christ.

 

Galatians had a profound impact upon the Reformer, Martin Luther.  He spoke of the formal principle of the Reformation, which was the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.  It is this doctrine that stands clearly throughout the pages of this epistle.  Luther wrote, "If this doctrine be lost, then is also the doctrine of truth, life, and salvation, also lost and gone.  If this doctrine flourish, then all good things flourish; religion, the true service of God, the glory of God, the right knowledge of all things which are necessary for a Christian man to know."  He also adds, and I believe this firmly, "This doctrine can never be taught, urged, and repeated enough" [Commentary on Galatians, Martin Luther, xi].

 

With every generation comes opportunities to further the gospel but also the chance of moving away from the gospel by trying to improve upon it with man-centered ideas and techniques. Keeping this in mind, let's begin our study of Galatians with a view to discerning those issues which move men away from the centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that we may be able to clearly articulate justification by faith alone.

 

I.  A Messenger Sent

 

The two primary issues dealt with in Galatians are the genuineness of Paul's apostleship and the saving power of the gospel of Jesus Christ alone.  Both of these matters are introduced to us through the five verses of Galatians' introduction.  As with typical letters of Paul's day, the writer identifies himself at the onset of the letter so that the readers will not have to unravel the parchment scroll to the end to discover the sender.  But uncommon to Paul's epistles is the fact that he had no kind comments in his greeting.  He thanked God for every remembrance of the Philippian Christians, assuring them of his prayers.  He thanked God for the Colossians and delighted in reporting of their faith and love.  But for the Galatians, Paul jumped right in with his concerns.  It is important for us to see how he established the groundwork of what he would be addressing in his introduction.

 

So to begin, Paul must assure the Galatians that he is indeed an apostle of Jesus Christ.  "Paul, an apostle (not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead)."  Word had been traveling through the Galatian region, courtesy of the enemies of the gospel, that Paul was not really a God-appointed apostle.  These antagonists knew that if Paul's apostleship could be questioned then so could his gospel message which he preached.  While he actually utilizes chapters one and two as a defense of his apostleship, he declares the reality of it in his opening words.  

 

1.  The Sender

 

It was important to establish that Paul was not an apostolic-recruit.  No man talked him into joining the other apostles in the work of Christian missionary labors.  There was no group of men who decided that Paul would be a good representative, so that they campaigned to recruit him.  He clarified, "Not sent from men, nor through the agency of man."  

 

It was the apostles who were the authoritative spokesmen for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  They were qualified by being witnesses of the risen Lord, by having been taught by Him, and by being appointed in their office by the Lord Jesus Christ.  Since Paul was obviously not part of the first apostolic band, the nay-sayers could assault his credibility.  The apostles were those whom Jesus Christ sent into the world, representing Him, speaking on His behalf with all authority, and establishing through their teaching the foundation of future generations of Christians and churches.  Paul could say without any equivocation that he was appointed "through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead."  The Sender of this messenger of the gospel was none other than Jesus Christ and God the Father.

 

The coupling of Jesus Christ with God the Father was a very clear assertion of the full deity of Jesus Christ.  To identify Him with the very same work as God meant that He Himself is God.  The fact that Paul had no hesitation to place Jesus Christ before the Father in the order of names showed his understanding of the equality of our Lord in the Godhead.

 

The connection to the resurrection identifies both the power of the One who sent the apostle and the heart of Paul's apostolic message:  "who raised Him from the dead."  This is no God of man's imagination, but the one, true God who has power even over the foe of death!  It was this same God who exercised such mighty power that singled out the apostle for his work.  This truth gave Paul much encouragement.  Even if he was facing opposition and persecution, he was pressing on in faithfulness to his divine calling.  It is a reminder to all of us to be faithful to God's calling in our lives, in spite of whatever circumstances press against us.

 

We must see that Paul also laid the first blow of his assault upon the Galatian heresy that threatened the gospel by the emphasis on the resurrection.  For in this phrase, Paul is identifying with the sufficiency of the work of Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection for the salvation of sinners, not an identification with the works of the Law for salvation.

 

Just in case there was some doubt as to Paul's authenticity, he points out that he also writes this epistle under the authority and approval of "all the brethren who are with me."  This probably refers to the zealous missionary church of Antioch, who stood with Paul for the purity of the gospel.  He was no lone-ranger in his stand upon the gospel.  "The brethren" stood with him.

 

2.  The audience

 

His epistle is addressed "to the churches of Galatia."  There is considerable debate among reputable scholars as to the precise area of modern day Turkey which Paul meant.  Some say that he was writing to northern Galatia.  But in the best chronologies of Paul's life, the Galatian epistle seems to have been written before Acts 15 when the Jerusalem church dealt with the problem of the Judaizers, so it would have been early in his ministry.  We have no record of Paul traveling to this hard-to-reach area of ancient Galatia.  Others say that both northern and southern Galatia were meant by his address, but again, that is a broad area with no evidence that Paul traveled to the north by the time of this writing.  I agree with those who hold to the southern Galatian theory.  This is the area of Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe, where Paul and Barnabas had such fruitful ministry along with multiplied troubles.

 

Who were these people?  The Galatians were from Gaul or Celt descent.  Ethnically, this group can be found as far back as 500 BC in the Danube River basin around southern Germany and Austria.  They were a warring people who spread throughout Europe.  Some settled in France which even today is referred to as the land of the Gauls.  Others landed in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands starting the Celtic and Gaelic cultures.  Still other groups spread into the Balkan peninsula, then to Asia Minor.  By 230 BC they were confined to an area near the modern capital of Turkey.  Later Augustus Caesar established the geographical boundaries of Galatia in 25 BC, extending it to cover the entire region we know as Turkey.  It was to those along the Mediterranean area whom Paul and Barnabas visited on their first missionary journey, declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ, to whom he wrote.  These pagan-minded people were brought to faith in Christ and churches were established in the region as a result [T. George, NAC, 39-40].

 

Now the new converts were being subtly undermined by smooth-talking Judaizers.  This group of false-believers were trying to drag the Galatians into a dependence upon their obedience to the law for their salvation.  In particular, saying that faith in Jesus Christ was not enough, they were declaring that these Gentile believers had to adhere to the Jewish ceremonial laws in order to be saved.  They agreed with the gospel to a point, but they did not believe in the sufficiency of the work of Jesus Christ alone for salvation.  Paul knew they had to be confronted with authority if there was hope for them to continue on in the grace of God in Christ.

 

In succeeding generations, the same problem of denying the grace of God and clinging to a self-made religion has deceived many a soul.  Luther, Calvin, and Knox battled it.  So did Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesley's.  With the rise in man-centered evangelism, we must be no less vigilant in standing upon the authority of Scripture to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

 

II. A Message Declared

 

The greeting offers a common Pauline statement, with perhaps with a bit more force in light of the situation in Galatia.  Added to this is Paul's striking statement concerning the sufficiency of the work of Jesus Christ to deliver sinners from the guilt and power of sin.

 

1.  A summary statement

 

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ," is similar to Paul's greetings to the Ephesians and the Philippians.  Both "grace" and "peace" were terms used more by Paul than any other New Testament writer.  We find these terms woven throughout his epistles because of the spiritual weight they contained.  Martin Luther wrote, "These two words, grace and peace, comprehend in them whatsoever belongeth to Christianity.  Grace releaseth sin, and peace maketh the conscience quiet" [Commentary, 5].

 

"Grace" was a common greeting used in that era and carried the idea of "that which brings about joy" [Morris, 35].  However, in the Christian context, the reason we have joy is due to the gracious, unmerited favor of God to us as sinners.  It focuses upon the work of God in Christ that has been applied to our lives according to the good pleasure of God.  Grace is not something which we demand of God nor is it something which we merit by our performance.  It is God at work on our behalf, showing us divine favor, releasing us of the guilt of sin through the satisfying work of Jesus Christ.  Grace humbles us for it is not something which we do out of our wills that causes grace to become ours.  Instead, out of the great love of God grace comes first, then we respond to the truth of the gospel.

 

"Peace" speaks of what grace applied has accomplished in our lives.  It is not a peace in general which Paul names, but "peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ."  In this Paul is "drawing attention...to the truth that those who trust in Christ are no longer the objects of the divine wrath. As Christ has put away our sins [by grace] he has made peace for us, peace with God and peace with our fellows" [Morris, 36].  We are reminded of what the apostle developed in greater detail years later in his epistle to the Romans.  "Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1).  It is the peace of having been justified by faith that the apostle brings to the Galatians attention.  For it is this peace which they are in danger of throwing away for the dark cloud of legalism.  And it is this peace which we will not know apart from the grace of God.

 

2.  The vicarious substitute

 

Again, we must keep in mind what was happening in Galatia.  These young believers were considering abandoning the gospel of grace for "another gospel" which Paul says is no gospel at all.  They had known the great liberty which is in Christ but now they were being pulled in the direction of bondage to the ceremonial practice of the Jewish law.  It is ironic that most of them were Gentiles without Jewish heritage.  The arrogant Judaizers had wormed their way into their churches by quoting Scripture and appealing to man's natural tendency toward works of righteousness.  Nothing is more foreign to the natural mind than the gospel of grace!  Grace takes the work of salvation completely out of our hands and abilities, depending entirely upon the favor of the Lord God.  This means that we cannot control it.  This means that we cannot alter it or add to it by our works.  The appeal of the Judaizers was to this great difficulty that the mind has to accept grace alone.

 

So Paul reminds them in his opening remarks of "the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil age."  I believe we can call this 'apostolic shorthand' for the finished work of Christ!  The whole problem that even causes us concern is our sin which separates between us and God.  We stand at enmity with God and under the ominous cloud of His judgment.  Can we deliver ourselves?  Can we do something to 'tip the scales' in our favor before the judgment of a thrice holy God whose law we have violated?  Can we whose very nature is hopelessly wrapped up in this worldly system which rebels against God think that we can better ourselves?  If so, then the leopard can change his spots and the Ethiopian can change the color of his skin!  As Jeremiah reminds us, if you can do this "then you also can do good who are accustomed to do evil" (Jer. 13:23).

 

Because we are by nature and practice sinners, Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins.  I wonder how often people ponder this phrase and the stark reality of its meaning?  Sometimes it seems that we almost tritely say, 'Jesus died for you'.  But in saying this, are we conscious that He who gave Himself is 'very God of very God'?  The One whom we have offended by our natures and by our practice of sin has Himself come to bear His own judgment against us!  That is the power of the gospel of Christ!  For God to bear His own judgment on behalf of sinners required that He become a man.  So He did and in the Incarnation He took on a "common nature with those for whom he died, and that he might be capable of suffering, and of such suffering as man may endure."  He became a genuine part of the human race; not partially human or removed in some way from the physiological make-up of humans, but a true human.  As such, being without sin, He was related to humanity in a similar way to that of Adam, i.e., as a federal representative.  He did this "that his successful prosecution of the work might be assured, and that his offering might have merit sufficient to ransom those for whom he died" [James P. Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology, 294].

 

The giving of Himself for our sins constituted an offering up of Himself vicariously for sinners.  That is, Jesus Christ was offering Himself before the judgment and wrath of God in our stead.  He offered "his body to the suffering which culminated in his death on the cross, and his soul to the anguish due to the realized presence of imputed sin, to the wrath endured from God, and to the separation from God's favor while bearing that wrath" [Boyce, 294].  No one else in all the human race in all of history could qualify to bear the combined wrath of God for the elect of all the ages.  We see the grace of God in giving His Son for us.  We have peace with God because the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was accepted by the Father for all who have faith in Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

 

3.  The rescue of sinners

 

Paul capsules the work of Christ as giving Himself for our sins, "that He might deliver us out of this present evil age."  By this idea of "present evil age," Paul was referring to the present worldly system in contrast with the age to come.  The present age remains in bondage to sin and lives at enmity with God.  It is a life of rebellion against God and all He demands.  The deliverance comes through the work of Jesus Christ.  In Jesus Christ we are "free" from the bondage to this world.  We are new creatures in Christ that are no longer bound by the thinking and ideologies of this world.  Our citizenship is in heaven, so that we are now to live as those who belong to another world.  The work of Christ applied by the grace of God in our lives has accomplished this!

 

The deliverance implies a rescue from the power of the world and the power of sin.  Paul could often refer to his pre-conversion days as the "no longer."  The life of bondage and enmity with God is "no longer."  Jesus has rescued us from it and will one day complete our redemption by taking us out of this world into the perfect realm of His holy presence in Heaven.  In the mean time, we are to live as those who have been delivered.  Paul stresses this in the fifth and sixth chapters of this epistle, after explaining the grace of God in the third and fourth chapters.

 

I believe we must pause to take a look at our own standing before God.  Have you rested all of your hope and trust for eternity in Jesus Christ and His vicarious work?  Jesus did not die to "add" to our righteousness.  He died in our place!  The only righteousness that can stand before the holy presence of God for eternity is that of Jesus Christ alone.

 

III. A Mercy Shown

 

A dependence upon one's works of righteousness for salvation is rank arrogance!  That is why the apostle reminds us that the whole work of salvation from start to finish is "according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore.  Amen."  He points to the sovereign grace of God in salvation for which we must respond in solitary praise to Him.

 

1.  In sovereign grace

 

If we understand the condition of our hearts apart from Christ and our own inability to do anything to make ourselves right with God, then it would be sheer arrogance to think that a person can be saved by his own works of righteousness.  The biggest problem a man has with grace is an exalted view of himself.  He does not think that his spiritual condition is really all that desperate.  He does not think that his sin is really all that bad.  He considers that God must surely 'grade on a curve' and since there are people worse than himself, then surely he is okay with God.  Such reasoning exalts man and takes a low view of God.

 

When we study the record of God's revelation concerning our sinfulness, we must admit that we are in a hopeless condition.  The psalmist could write concerning God's holiness and man's sinfulness:  "For Thou art not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; no evil dwells with Thee. The boastful shall not stand before Thine eyes; Thou dost hate all who do iniquity.  Thou dost destroy those who speak falsehood; The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit" (Psa. 5:4-6).  Again in Psalm 14, he writes, "The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.  They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one" (14:2-3).  The picture is one of hopelessness, with all turning away from God and none seeking after Him.

 

In Isaiah's understanding of the holiness and righteousness of God, he could write of himself and all humanity:  "For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind take us away.  And there is no one who calls on Thy name, who arouses himself to take hold of Thee; for Thou hast hidden Thy face from us, and hast delivered us into the power of our iniquities" (64:6-7).  The picture is one of complete hopelessness, so that apart from God's sovereign intervention, we do not even call on His name or arouse ourselves to take hold of Him.

 

Jesus described the sinfulness that is natural to man as a human being.  "That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.  All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man" (Mark 7:20-23).  Our natural bent is one of sin against God.  We desperately need to be cleansed from our sin to have a right standing with God.  But can we cleanse ourselves?  Can we whose nature is that of a sinner suddenly change our natures by an act of our wills?  Can we who are in the bondage of rebellion even avail ourselves of God's provision?

 

To do this we would have to be released from our bondage by an act of God.  So the apostle reminds us that our being rescued from the guilt and power of sin with all of its bondage was "according to the will of our God and Father."  In other words, long before you and I embraced Jesus Christ by faith so that the saving work of Christ was fully applied to our lives, the sovereign grace of God was at work according to His good pleasure.  As Sovereign, He exercised His will on our behalf, for our wills were hopelessly enslaved by our own depraved natures.  As a God of grace, He accomplished what we could never do in our own power.  He imparted His saving favor to us so that we trusted in Jesus Christ and His finished work.

 

Now, do we boast about what a wonderful job we did in trusting Jesus Christ?  Oh no!  We fall on our faces and offer praise to Him alone who has shown grace to us, unworthy sinners!

 

2.  So we offer solitary praise

 

We find throughout Paul's epistles those passages of profound gratitude and praise to God.  He understood his sinfulness and understood the grace of God imparted to him in Christ, so he could launch forth in the midst of a letter exulting in our great Triune God:  "to whom be the glory forevermore.  Amen."  To attribute glory to God means to offer to Him all of the honor and worth which He deserves as God.  It is a recognition of the greatness of God's work on our behalf in Jesus Christ.  It is a glad confession that we have no bragging rights for our own performance.  All that we are and all that we have for eternity comes by His mercy and grace.  No wonder Paul adds, "Amen," i.e., 'so be it'!

 

This is why we must never sing the great hymns of the faith half-heartedly.  Those hymns which express praise and glory to God for His character or to Him for His gracious work through Christ, ought to stir us to the depth of our beings.  For in these words of hymns we are declaring 'to Him alone be all the glory and praise!  Amen.'

 

Conclusion

 

We fittingly close this sermon by singing "And Can It Be?"--one of Charles Wesley's greatest hymns.  For in this hymn we are expressing the profound truth that we who are sinners, who lived at such enmity with God that in our forefathers we pursued Jesus Christ to put Him to death.  It was our hatred for God and our rebellion against His Law that drove us to such lengths.  But this same Jesus Christ died for us, 'who caused His pain', so that we might gain an interest in His atoning blood and thereby be cleansed from our guilt and sin.

 

My friend, have you truly met Jesus Christ in His saving power?  Or do you continue to try to rebel against Him and spurn His gospel call?  He is in the business of imparting saving grace to unworthy sinners.  Repent of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ and His merits alone for your salvation, availing yourself of His amazing grace.

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