Galatians Chapter 1:1-5

Galatians Chapter 1:8-9

Sermon #4 ~ Paul Takes the Gloves Off

Introduction

Today we continue our look at the book of Galatians
This will be the last time we look at Galatians for a few weeks because next week, on Palm Sunday, we have our Easter musical to help us celebrate resurrection
And then the following Sunday we will celebrate resurrection in some ways just as we do every Sunday but in a more special way since it is the 1,960^th/70^th or so anniversary of our Savior’s resurrection
But today our attention is on the words of Paul; as I have said from the beginning the letter to the Galatians was not a friendly letter
For the first two weeks we looked at Paul’s introduction to the letter and as Paul laid the ground work for his letter I too as we looked at this letter I attempted to lay the foundation as well
If you think about it the master builder only lays the foundation once and then the rest of the structure is built on top of it; but in order to work it must be a solid foundation
If you are one of those people wondering why it is preachers in general and I personally feel compelled to take an introduction and dwell on it for two weeks it is because like a builder I seek to lay the foundation once and then allow us to build up from there
Last week we moved in to the first part of the letter after the general greeting; this is the part of the letter where Paul usually pronounces some form of blessing on the church he is writing for their behavior or character
Unfortunately because of the nature of this letter Paul skips that and moves quickly to announce his profound astonishment and absolute disbelief that they had abandoned the faith they once had clung to
We examined in some detail what Paul meant when he spoke of their being called to the gospel and we saw what is meant by Paul when he speaks of the call of God and how that call is effectual; it accomplishes its purpose
We also examined the nature of the true gospel because Paul was stating that these believers had begun to follow a different gospel even though there really is no such thing
There is only one “Good News” and that is faith in Christ plus nothing else will save mankind from his sins
So with that backdrop let us begin to examine our text today

Galatians 1:8-9

⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
Paul has just laid the gauntlet down with that sentence; he has just issued one of his strongest statements in all of his letters
I told you in week one that Paul lets a lot of emotion come through as he writes this letter and I promised you I would point that out to you as we encounter it
Notice Paul isn’t just getting angry and shouting for the sake of shouting; also he is not singling a single person out for attack but rather attacking a prevailing attitude or issue not a person
His agitation is two fold

They were perverting the gospel
They were troubling the church

It should be noted that these two always go hand in hand together.
Did you catch that at the heart of every dispute that arises within a church you can trace the problem to false doctrine (or a failure to apply the doctrine they now thus they act out what they truly believe -- false doctrine)
Stott is quoted as saying:
To tamper with the gospel is to trouble the Church....Indeed, the Church's greatest troublemakers (now as then) are not those outside who oppose, ridicule and persecute it, but those inside who try to change the gospel....Conversely, the only way to be a good churchman is to be a good gospel-man. The best way to serve the Church is to believe and to preach the gospel
So let’s look in detail and how Paul addresses this; let’s observe Paul’s tenderness even when he is being forceful in dealing with the problem within
There is certainly a lesson for you and I here; Paul is angry, he is handing out curses and he at the same time he is being gracious and careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water

If we

Observe the graciousness and the cleverness of Paul; he doesn’t start by attacking an individual does he
Imagine if he had started by saying that “this person, that person and third person should all be accursed.” What kind of a reception would this letter have received?
Immediately people would have taken up sides (just like we do today); well so-and-so isn’t such a bad person, after all we went to dinner with his family lasts week and his daughter plays softball with my daughter
And someone else would go to the defense of the next person and the split would be on; people would take up sides and Paul’s letter would never be heard
Instead Paul starts in a very clever manner; he starts by saying “But even if we”
See Paul starts his curse by pronouncing it on himself; he states I fall under this same curse if I should prostitute the Gospel of Jesus Christ and sell it out for a cheap substitute
Paul cares deeply about this church and about the Gospel of Jesus Christ
He has labored long and hard to deliver a pure message to this group of people and now they are, as we saw last week, so quickly deserting to go to another which is not a gospel at all
Please also note that Paul includes other in that phrase we; we should well assume that he is including Timothy, Titus, Silas, Mark, Luke, Barnabas and the rest of Paul’s traveling companions
Especially Timothy, who was one of their own, and Barnabas who had traveled with Paul on his 1^st Missionary Journey when he likely founded these churches
Paul pronounces a curse over his closest friends and allies, but the curse is conditioned on their behavior, as long as they preach the gospel in its purest form they are free from the curse
Furthermore in light of the opening words of Paul and how he defended his apostleship from the early words of the first verse of Galatians he is including in the we also the other apostles who are the overseers at the church in Jerusalem
So to recap, Paul condemns himself, Barnabas, Timothy, the rest of his traveling companions and the 11 apostles back in Jerusalem but only if they preach another gospel
We will find later in the book of Galatians, in chapter 2 verse 11, an interesting story where Peter is playing the hypocrite and Paul condemns his behavior in front of the entire church
However hypocrisy as bad as that is; is not serious enough to bring down the level of judgment that Paul pronounces on this group of false teachers
So do you see what Paul was clever enough to do; he took a group of trusted leaders and demonstrated that they are held to the same standard that is going to require of the other groups as he continues forward
He has already begun to disarm his listeners and remove some of their objections before they can even voice them

Or an angel from heaven

Paul steps up his communication a notch; his first group was a trusted group right? The spiritual father, their mentors, the apostles of Jesus Christ himself
Next he uses this phrase, “or an angel from heaven” What should be more trustworthy than an angel from heaven?
Many commentators writing about this passage interpret it in the context of II Corinthians 11:14 where it says “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”
While I think that is certainly a true statement that even if an angel claiming to be from heaven delivers to you a gospel other than what is revealed in the word of God may that angel be accursed
I think that view can be backed up by Jesus own words in Matthew 24:23-26
²³Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There he is!' do not believe it. ²⁴For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵See, I have told you beforehand. ²⁶So, if they say to you, 'Look, he is in the wilderness,' do not go out. If they say, 'Look, he is in the inner rooms,' do not believe it.”
Jesus knew that many false teachers would show up after he was gone claiming all sorts of fanciful things; that went on in Paul’s day and it still goes on in our day as well
Additionally, this verse is often cited to refute a certain cult of Christianity whose founder claims an angel appeared to him in his room and was hovering about 3 feet of the floor when he began receiving his special revelation
So while I think that use of the text is correct and appropriate I think it misses part of what Paul is trying to do here from a literary perspective
Paul started with himself and the other apostles; this is a very trusted group, at least in theory right?
Then he steps it up a notch when he mentions angels from heaven, at first what could be more trusted than the apostles; Paul provides that answer when he mentions heavenly angels
There is a crescendo taking place here

If anyone

Paul moves to his climax with the statement “…if anyone…”
I understand Paul to be saying here “If anyone whose is more than these, i.e. more than myself, more than pastors and evangelists traveling with me, more than the apostles in Jerusalem, more than even heavenly angels, if there is possibly anything that is greater than all of these if that person preaches another gospel he too should be accursed
Paul has just laid out good, better, best scenario
Remember English grammar and studying adjectives?
You would start with the base form of an adjective and then add suffixes like –er and –est to it to change the meaning
For example you would start with wide, then the teacher would ask for the comparative form of wide and you would respond or write on your paper wider
When the teacher asked for the superlative form you would add -est and write down widest
And if your school was like mine then drilling and repeating were important so then after you just did that successfully you would start again with cute, cuter, cutest; after awhile all the repeating started making me feel dumb, dumber and dumbest J
But back to the text I believe that is what Paul has just done, he started with the statement “But even if we” and included himself in a group with the other apostles, next he moves to the next level with angels and then to the highest level when he talks about anyone else, anyone who is greater than these even

The Response to False Teaching

So Paul has skillfully disarmed his audience so he can deal with false doctrine without immediately attacking someone’s character and thus causing people to reject his message
But at the same time after he disarms them by disassociating the message with an individual or individuals he then pronounces the strongest statement on them he possibly can
He says to whomever preaches (himself included) a doctrine, a gospel, that is different they are to be accursed or in the Greek anathema
This word anathema is such a strong proclamation; the word translated accursed in 6 of the major translations in use today and translated eternally condemned if you are reading from NIV perhaps doesn’t get to the heart of what Paul has just said
This phrase that Paul is using carries with it the meaning of eternal damnation in the hell of fire that God has prepared for Lucifer and the angels that rebelled with him
The meek and mild apostle Paul who it is said of him in II Corinthians 10:10 “…his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account." Says that anyone who is preaching another gospel should rightly suffer that fate
How do you think that hit his audience? Keep in mind they were probably used to letters from Paul
We know for a fact that there are some letters that Paul mentions in his inspired letters that are not part of our Bible because they were not inspired they were not preserved the same way the Scripture was
Do you think all of Paul’s letters to the Galatians started this way? I doubt it; put yourself in their shoes. Someone has just started reading the letter and they get to the 3^rd or 4^th sentence in the letter Paul has just stated that anyone teaching any other teaching that what he taught should be damned
That would cause you to rock back in your seat wouldn’t it?
Suppose you were just half listening and you weren’t really paying attention; about the time you hear the Greek equivalent of damned read out loud in a church service I bet it would get your attention too
Paul actually says it twice for emphasis, once in verse 8 and again in verse 9
Somebody probably sat up real straight and whispered to the guy next to him “What did he just say?”
I bet there was more than one person who wasn’t paying close attention that wanted them to start again so they could be clear on what had driven Paul to use this sort of language
This whole notion of what Paul has just said goes against our grain today even as we hear it read doesn’t it?
Many of us have strongly held beliefs about certain aspects of church life, the Christian life maybe like the Galatians even the origin of our life in Christ a.k.a. The Gospel.
See, I am back to stepping on toes; we have to let the spotlight of the Spirit shine our lives and allow him to place his finger on what isn’t proper in our lives too
I am impressed with Paul here because he does not give into the notion that is so common today that you can believe whatever you want so long as your conduct is blameless before men
As Baptists we have a long tradition of this don’t we?
As long as we have cleaned the outside of the cup that should be good enough; Baptist are poked fun at in the media and the culture because our heritage has always had a strong focus on outward evidences of changed life
Now while I am all for changes on the inside of the person that are Spirit prompted causing changes in outward behavior there is a danger here
The ditch that is easy to fall into is the ditch of “say the right things, do the right things and you will be the right person”
Jesus however in his sermon on the mount dealt with issues of the heart; what man thinks, what he believes, what he thinks about God and what he thinks about his fellow man
Before Jesus tells his followers to turn the other cheek or go the extra mile, he tells them about mourning over sin, meekness, hunger for righteousness, purity of heart, peacemaking, suffering for right, being salt and light, murder beginning in the heart, adultery beginning in the heart.
Jesus starts with the inside knowing it will work outward, man always tries to start from the outside and hope the changes go inward
But that is the problem; they never do apart from the Spirit
Again as I look at the text and I think of Paul’s listener as they heard this letter read out loud and they are taken back by Paul’s language I wondered if they remembered Jesus words Matthew 18:6 “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Jesus himself was quite forceful on the issue of leading people astray wasn’t he
James writing in chapter 3:1 says: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”
Let me give you one more reference and one more author to make my point about false teaching; the Apostle John writing in Revelation 22:18 and following:
¹⁸I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, ¹⁹and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
So Paul curses the false teachers for teaching a different gospel, a gospel that involves works in order to get into heaven
Jesus curses those who lead children astray, this reference would include spiritual babes as well
James admonishes that not too many should seek to become teachers because the judgment is stricter for them
And finally John as he closes out the New Testament and brings to a close the canon of Scripture says if you add or subtract from these teachings here is your condemnation
Now let us look our personal response to false teachers and we end our time together today

· Solomon writing in Proverbs 19:27 says: “Cease to hear instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.”

· This is true for all of us, if we stop listening to truth then what are we listening to, a lie of course thus we will walk and live in error

· If any of you think you can exposure yourself day after day to false teachings and not be impacted in some way you deceive yourself

· 2 John 1:10 states: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, ¹¹for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.”

· Did you catch that, don’t greet them, don’t invite them into your home

· God’s word may turn your own philosophy on its ear; again be open to the Spirit’s leadership in your life today

· Hear is a question for you, how sensitive are you to the still small voice of God in your life? When you hear error do you immediately recognize it as such because the Spirit tells you?

· Or do you hear truth proclaimed and you are repulsed in your mind because God’s word is difficult to accept at times and you are just sure that your notion of God is correct not what is plainly taught in Scripture

· Do you encourage false teachings to be taught around you here at Grace?

· How do you react when someone says something that is wrong, do you correct them in a spirit of gentleness and meekness or do you attack them or equally as wrong you let the error stand prima fascia and then germinate and grow in the minds of others

· We know for a fact that false teachers and false teachings are going to continue and to increase

· We know that church attendees “will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions”

· So what is the correct response to error, truth!

· Truth should always be shared in love; however as Paul does here the larger the platform the person speaking the error has the more public the correction

Conclusion

· In a few weeks we get to see why Paul was justified in using such repulsive language