Galatians 1:1-12: “Introduction To Galatians / So Quickly They
Deserted The Grace Of Christ For A Different Gospel”
By
Jim Bomkamp
1.
Authorship:
The
apostle Paul is the author of the book, and no one seriously questions that
fact, especially since he states he is the author and an apostle before he
begins writing.
2.
The region of
This map taken from the Logos Basic Map Set Shows
the region of
The
New Bible Dictionary has the follow entry defining what was referred to by the
area of
2. The Roman
A particularly difficult question arises out of Paul’s
use of the word ‘
It is clear from the account in Acts 13–14 that Paul
visited
This
3.
The church in
This epistle to the Galatians is unusual in that it
was written not to a specific city by the name of
We read in Gal. 4:13 that somehow a bodily illness
of Paul’s is what caused him to preach the gospel to the people of the region
initially: “but you know that it was
because of a bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time.”
The
Celtics that made up the Galatian region were very fickle and given to
change. They were also very predisposed
to get caught up in the pomp and circumstances of rituals. This explains how that Paul could be
mystified by them and the fact that they had so soon turned away from the
simplicity of salvation through the grace of Christ alone, to the attempt to
make themselves acceptable to God through the performance of various rituals.
When
we read the book of Acts, we are caught by surprise at how quickly leadership
were raised up and appointed in the various churches that were planted by the
apostle Paul. Responsible godly
leadership normally takes a very long time to develop in any church, and yet we
see in Acts time and again that leaders were appointed very quickly. At the end of the first missionary journey,
for instance, we read: Acts 14:23, “23
When
they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting,
they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” Likewise, we read Paul instructing Titus to
appoint elders in every one of the cities in which they had previously planted
churches in Titus 1:5, “5 For this reason I left
you in
The Pulpit Commentary states how that there were a
significant number of Jews that had been relocated to the region of
Galatia: “And we learn from Josephus
(‘Ant., ‘ xii 3,4) that this king, with a view to the consolidation of his
power, ordered his general Zeuxis to remove two thousand Jewish families from
Mesopotamia and Babylon into Lydia and Phyrgia,
and to locate them ‘in the castles and places most convenient;’ at the same
time securing to them the free exercise of their religion, making them grants
of land for building homes and for husbandry, and conferring various immunities
indicative of his confidence in their loyalty to his government. If this scheme was fully carried out, it
would infer the implantation in those countries of a population of not less
than ten thousand people. Some of these
could hardly fail of becoming established in Galatia…That the Jews did abound
in the Galactic region in particular is evinced by another fact recorded by
Josephus (‘Ant.,’ xvi. 6,2), who tells that by Augustus’s command a copy of an
address which he had received from the Jews, together with a decree of his
issued in consequence of it, which ensured to them protection in their
religions observances, was inscribed upon a pillar in his temple at Ancyra, the
capital of the province.”
4.
The date of the writing of the epistle:
This
epistle is believed to have been written somewhere around 57AD, just after Paul
had visited the epistle for his second time (according to Gal. 4:13), and just
before Paul wrote the first epistle to the Corinthians, and, during his third
missionary journey.
5.
The purpose of the writing of the epistle:
Paul
had heard that there were people (most likely leaders) in the church in the
Galatian church that were leading the people away from the simplicity of faith
in Christ alone for salvation to adding various Jewish rituals as essential for
salvation and spiritual growth. Paul was
mystified that this church had so quickly turned away to a different gospel
message, and so he writes this book with a very direct and confrontational
approach trying to get them to repent and go back to what they had initially
been taught regarding salvation and spiritual growth.
It
is possible that the men that Paul confronts in this epistle were not teaching
others that they had to perform these certain rituals in order to be saved, or
be spiritual, but that it was the case that they were simply doing these extra
things, and thus being leaders they were setting a precedence for others to do
the same. To illustrate the importance
of looking to the grace of God alone to save them, Paul here tells the
Judaisers in the church that those who had been circumcised had been cut off
from Christ.
Paul
uses a number of good arguments in this book for teaching the Galatians the
importance of not adding anything to the gospel message as required to be
saved.
It
does appear that the churches in
We
will see as we go through the epistle that there are also many other practical
lessons and applications that Paul intends to teach us in this letter.
6.
Attitude towards
the Galatians:
Paul
is very direct and confrontational towards the Judaisers in the church, going
so far as pronouncing a anathema on them, indicating that they will not go to
heaven unless they repent. However,
towards the Galatians themselves he is very gentle.
Paul
does not make a list of salutations to leaders in the church at the beginning
of the letter, nor does he give his characteristic salutations of grace and
peace followed by an iteration of the great things that God had done in
believer’s lives. Instead, Paul declares
and defends his calling as an apostle, and then goes right into his
exhortation.
7.
VS 1:1 - “1 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),” – Paul announces himself as
the author of this epistle, and then immediately declares that his apostleship
has not come from the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ
7.1.
As he does in all of his letters but Philippians and Phileman, Paul
begins this letter by stating his calling as an apostle by Jesus Christ.
7.2.
Paul states that his calling was not by man nor ‘through the agency
of man’, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father.
7.3.
Who raised Jesus from the dead?
We can see the Trinity portrayed in the scriptures by asking this
question:
7.3.1. Paul states here that God
the Father ‘raised Him from the dead’.
7.3.2. Jesus though said that He
would raise Himself from the dead: John 2:19: “Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”” He also
claimed He would raise Himself from the dead in John 10:17-18: “17 “For this reason the
Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. 18 “No one has taken it away from Me, but I
lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have
authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.””
7.3.3. Paul wrote that the Holy Spirit raised Christ from the
dead in Romans 8:11: “11 But if the Spirit of Him
who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from
the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who
dwells in you.”
8.
VS 1:2-3 - “2
and all the brethren who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ,”
– Paul gives a greeting to the churches in Galatia from those with him, declares
that this epistle is to the churches of
8.1.
Salvation comes
to us from the ‘grace’ of God. ‘Grace’
is a religious term, and it means undeserved mercy, love, and blessing. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to come and
die in our place as the punishment for our sins, and at the time that He sent
Him to us, every person who had ever lived was sinful and could only have been
saved through what Jesus Christ did for us.
The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God” (Rom. 3:23). Mankind has broken
God’s commandments over and over, and the scripture says that, “he that sins
transgresses the law” of God. Each
of us have broken God’s ten commandments over and over, whether by our deeds,
or our thought life. We may not have
committed adultery, but Jesus said that to look upon a woman to lust after her
and you have committed adultery.
Likewise, we may not have committed murder, but Jesus said that if we
get angry with our brother we have committed murder in our hearts. We can break all of God’s commandments in our
hearts.
8.1.
Likewise, the
scripture teaches us that salvation comes by grace through faith, and that it
is not based upon our works: Ephesians
2:8-9, “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that
not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works,
so that no one may boast.” In heaven, no
one will be boasting about what they did on earth. Only Jesus will be worshipped and glorified.
8.2.
The grace of God
which we Christians have received produces the ‘peace’ of God that
surpasses all understanding in our lives, and thus Paul wishes upon the reader
not only God’s grace but the ‘peace’ it brings. The ‘peace’ that Paul mentions here is not peace with God (as in
a peace treaty), but peace that we experience that comes from God and His
Spirit in our life.
8.3.
People in this
world want ‘peace’ in their lives, but there is no ‘peace’ for
men apart from the ‘grace’ of God.
The church in
8.4.
The salvation
procured by Christ for us not only came by the grace of God, but it also
produces “sanctification” in our lives, bringing us the ‘peace’
of God in our hearts. Thus, we need
nothing else in our lives, no other merit, no other transaction to make us
acceptable or useful for God. Further,
any recourse to adding a requirement to our salvation other than faith causes
us to lose that ‘peace’ of God and be cut off from God in the process.
8.5.
Christ becomes to
us who are Christians, not only “our righteousness,” but also “our
sanctification,” and the ‘peace’ of God in our hearts is a token of
that.
9.
VS 1:4-5 - “4
who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present
evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.” – Paul tells
the Galatians that Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins so that He might
rescue us from this evil age
9.1.
Paul seeks to
declare initially how that God provided salvation for us. Salvation comes to us as a result of Christ
having given Himself for our sins, given Himself as a substitutional effectual
sacrifice, so that we could have our sins forgiven and covered, and we can thus
be “justified” before God.
9.2.
Again we see that
receiving the grace of God causes us to be sanctified, for Paul writes here
that Christ was given ‘so that He might rescue us from this present evil age’.
9.3.
Jesus Christ is
the only way to God, and thus He was given for our sins ‘according to the
will of our God and Father’.
9.4.
Works and works
righteousness glorifies the one who works, but receiving salvation through the
grace of Christ brings glory not to men but to God, thus Paul writes, ‘to
whom be the glory’.
9.5.
Paul tells us
here that God will be glorified not only in this life, but also ‘forevermore’
throughout all eternity. This statement
of Paul’s is a declaration or expression of worship, ‘Amen’.
10.
VS 1:6 - “6
I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the
grace of Christ, for a different gospel;” – Paul declares his
astonishment that the Galatians had so quickly deserted the Lord who had called
them by the grace of Christ, for another gospel
10.1.
Truly, these
Celts were fickle. This is shown in how
quickly that had set aside the very things they had been taught when they had
originally believed the gospel message for salvation.
10.2.
Many people come
into the church and they delight in the teaching of God’s word for a time. However, they eventually get tired of sound
doctrine and then they begin to look around for other things to believe, other
ways to God, other forms of spirituality.
They begin to be those who are “tossed to and fro by every wind of
doctrine’ and seek after teachers that will tell them not the truth but
what appeals to their flesh, what makes them feel good about themselves and
assured in their own righteousness and goodness, not the righteousness of
Christ. Paul writes this epistle to show
to us what a serious thing it is to look to a different means of salvation than
the grace of God and simple saving faith in Christ.
10.3.
Paul shows the
seriousness of this departure from the simple gospel message the Galatians had
received by saying that those who had departed were ‘deserting Him’. Man cannot be acceptable to God in his own
righteousness and by his works, and attempting to establish one’s own
righteousness just alienates us from God and causes us to be puffed up in our
own pride in the process.
10.4.
Again the gospel
message of the scripture tells us that we are saved ‘by the grace of Christ’
through faith, and that is not of ourselves, not of our own works, but on the
basis of what Jesus has done for us. For
the Christian, the Lord already procured salvation for us, it is a “done
deal.” The false teachers tell you
that you need more, there is something else you need to do, some other work you
need to complete, some other rituals you need to perform. They dessert the simplicity of the message
for ‘a different gospel’ or “means of salvation.”
11.
VS 1:7 - “7
which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing
you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” – Paul tells the Galatians that
the teaching of these Judaisers who are disturbing them is not really a
different gospel, it is just a distortion of the gospel of Christ
11.1.
These ones who
were ‘disturbing’ the church in Galatia were either self-appointed false
apostles who were practicing Judaism, and by their position of leadership,
drawing others astray from the true gospel, or they were men who had traveled
to Galatia from somewhere else, like those Judaisers mentioned in Acts 15:1 who
came from Judea down to Antioch and caused trouble: “1 Some men came down from
11.2.
Because of how
Paul in this letter declares and defends his own apostleship and calling by
Jesus Christ, we know that these false leaders that were leading the church
astray sort of looked down upon Paul as being an inferior apostle. Perhaps they considered that Paul was not one
of the original 12 chosen by Christ, and therefore not a true apostle in the
greatest sense of the word. Perhaps
these false teachers (Judaisers) were also citing one of the 12 apostles as
backing their form of teaching.
12.
VS 1:8-9 - “8
But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel
contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any
man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be
accursed!”
– Paul tells the Galatians that even though he or those with him, or even an
angel from heaven, should preach a gospel that was contrary to what he had
preached to the church, that these ones were to be anathema (cursed by God for
eternity), then Paul repeats the statement for emphasis
12.1.
When Paul says
here that if anyone teaches a different gospel ‘he is to be accursed’,
he is not referring to kicking them out of the church. Being kicked out of the church could not
affect an angel from heaven anyway. It
is obvious that this cursing is an eternal cursing and means to be cased out of
God’s presence for all eternity. He is
saying that the person or the angel should be cast into eternal hell.
12.2.
Strong’s Enhanced
Greek Lexicon has the following entry for this word translated ‘accursed’
here:
331 ἀνάθεμα [anathema /an·ath·em·ah/] n n. From 394; TDNT 1:354; TDNTA 57; GK 353; Six
occurrences; AV translates as “accursed” four times, “anathema” once, and “bind
under a great curse + 332” once. 1 a thing set up or laid by in order to be kept. 1a specifically, an offering resulting from a vow, which
after being consecrated to a god was hung upon the walls or columns of the
temple, or put in some other conspicuous place. 2 a thing devoted to God without hope of being
redeemed, and if an animal, to be slain; therefore a person or thing doomed to
destruction. 2a a curse. 2b a man accursed, devoted to the direst of woes.
12.3.
Here are the
other places that this Greek word “anathema” in used in the New
Testament:
12.3.1. Paul speaks of himself being accursed in Romans 9:3, “3
For
I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the
sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
12.3.2. Peter cursed in Mark 14:71, “71 But he began to curse and
swear, “I do not know this man you are talking about!””
12.3.3. Certain Jews put
themselves under a curse: Acts 23:14, “14 They came to the chief priests
and the elders and said, “We have bound ourselves under a solemn oath to taste
nothing until we have killed Paul.”
12.3.4. No one by the Holy Spirit can say Jesus is accursed in
1 Corinthians 12:3: “3 Therefore I make known to
you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no
one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”
12.3.5. If anyone does not love
the Lord he is to be accursed in 1
Corinthians 16:22, “22 If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be
accursed. Maranatha.”
12.4.
Here we see Paul
seeks to emphasize in the strongest of ways the importance of not looking to
any other way or means of salvation. We
also infer from these verses how that God’s judgment is to fall upon any person
who leads others astray from the only means of salvation. False teachers teaching a different means of
salvation must never be tolerated in any sense.
12.5.
There is a
tendency today for Christians to put up with false teachers and for others in
the church to look down upon a Christian as being judgmental of they criticize
a false teacher. However, we Christians
need to be like Paul in that we are so convinced of having been saved only
through the grace of Christ, and saving faith in Him, that we are incensed at
any who would teach a different gospel, a gospel that is dependent upon
anything in addition to faith in Christ in order to be saved.
13.
VS 1:10 - “10
For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to
please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant
of Christ.”
– Paul asks the Galatians the rhetorical questions of whether he through the
gospel that he preached was seeking the favor of men or of God, seeking to
please men, or being a bond-servant of Christ
13.1.
This error in
Galatia was very being embraced by many, and it would have been easy for Paul
just to decide that it was easier to let the people believe how they wanted and
do what they wanted, but instead he shows the Galatians here that he was trying
to please and serve Christ alone by going against the flow and confronting the
entire situation in the church there in Galatia.
13.2.
We as Christians
need to be people that do what God wants us to do in our life regardless of
whether others go along with us or not.
We need to be pleasers of God, servants of Christ, not pleasers of men.
14.
VS 1:11-12 - “11
For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by
me is not according to man. 12
For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received
it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” – Paul tells the Galatians that
he wants them to know that the gospel that he preached was not according to
man, not received from man, nor taught to him from man, but he received it directly
by revelation of Jesus Christ
14.1.
Paul will now
embark upon telling the Galatians the story of his calling by God and how he
received from Christ the gospel that he preached. We will look at his story in two subsequent
messages after this one.
14.2.
Paul is indicating
here that there was no human intermediary to his receiving of the gospel that
he preached. Though he may have had
hands laid upon him when he was first converted and healed of his eyesight in
which he had been blinded when Christ appeared to him, he did not receive the
gospel nor was he taught it by any authority in the church. We from the scriptures that the apostles did
put their seal of approval on the gospel message preached, but he did not in
any way receive that message from them.
In fact, he had spent almost zero time with the apostles or church
leaders since his salvation experience.
14.3. The Lord appeared to Paul in the ninth chapter of the
book of Acts, and knocked him off of his horse as he was riding with some
others to round up and persecute disciples of the way. We read in Acts 16 of Paul telling King
Agrippa that it was at that appearance in which the Lord Jesus called Paul to
be an apostle: Acts 26:16, “‘But get up
and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you
a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also
to the things in which I will appear to you.”
14.4.
It was essential
for the Galatians to understand the nature of God’s call of Paul, as well as
his reception of the gospel from Christ, in order for them to accept his
authoritarian word on the things he exhorts about in this book, and in turn
reject the counsel and teaching of the leaders among them that were disturbing
them and leading them to a works based relationship with God.
14.5.
By the way, is
there any spiritual authority that is conferred upon a person by men? Is not all conferring of titles and laying on
of hands merely acknowledging the authority and calling that God has placed on
a man? Men cannot call nor confer
authority of God upon another…
15.
CONCLUSIONS:
15.1.
What are you
trusting in for your salvation? Are you
simply relying upon what Jesus did upon
15.2.
Paul pronounced
an anathema on the false teachers that are teaching another gospel, are you
willing to reject every other false teacher and teaching that seeks to add
anything to the simplicity of faith in Christ for salvation?