Galatians & The Gospel
“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.” Galatians 1:6-9
Contrary to the opinion of the day, there is only one Gospel. God, writing through Paul to the Galatian church, makes it clear that any other Gospel than the one preached by Paul is not good news at all. God marveled that they were turning away “so soon” from Him.
Turning toward another gospel, away from Christ, is serious business. It can happen not only in liberal churches or emerging churches, but fundamental Bible churches as well. Anytime we, as individuals or a group, turn away from the Gospel we are turning away from God Himself. We are, in essence, rejecting God and rejecting Christ. He has made it clear in His word that there is only one way to God the Father, and that way is only through His Son, Jesus the Christ.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea then to make sure that you knew exactly what this Gospel is? And how then should you react to people who say that the Gospel is something other than what Paul preached? Paul, and the rest of the apostles, preached a message that is perfectly consistent with the message that Jesus preached: repent and obey.
It really isn’t all that complicated. Repentance is turning 180 degrees from your sin and toward God, embracing the free gift of salvation with the empty hands of faith, believing what God has said about you, your sin, its consequences, and the solution for your sin. Obedience is walking in faith, living a life of repentance and reconciliation with God and men, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, consistent with God’s Word. There are many passages that speak of the way to salvation from a “how to” stand point. One that comes to mind quickly is Romans 10:9 & 10:
“If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Being saved is the point of the Gospel, and salvation comes in three senses: Have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved. Saved from what? The penalty, power, and ultimately the presence of sin. The Word of God is chocked full of instruction and comforting passages just waiting for you to explore. There is much to say on this subject, and quite frankly, it would take a life time of study to even attempt to cover all that needs to be said. Suffice it to say that anyone who desires to find out what God has really said about Jesus Christ, the Gospel, and being reconciled to Him needs to get their information from the Word of God, not the word of fallen men who claim to speak for the church.
The danger of turning away from God is the loss of the Gospel. It happens as Emergents deconstruct the Bible and unhitch themselves from the Living God, and it happens in fundamentalist churches who establish a system of rules that would make the Pharisees proud. Both are performance based systems at their core, both have abandoned the Gospel of Christ, both have turned away from the Living God to a god of their own making.
Before you follow down the same road, you owe it to yourself to make sure that your Gospel is the same that Jesus and Paul preached, and that it is applicable to all people in all time periods. Not just to young people sitting on couches and meditating, or to those who are able to jump through the hoops or pass your litmus test.
There is only one Gospel, and only one litmus test for the Gospel. Do you believe in the same Jesus who has been revealed to us in the pages of Scripture? Are you trusting in Him alone for your salvation from your sin?
Following the wrong Jesus and believing a false gospel will have eternal consequences.
April 2, 2008 at 6:27 am
A few months ago, I made a quick look at the places in Acts where the Gospel was preached. I suppose most were to people who were hearing it for the first time, though some situations may have been different. Also, it was a quick study, not in-depth.
Anyway, there were a couple of things that I noticed most or all had in common in their appeals–repentence of sins and beliefs in Christ.
You’re right in that it’s not just the pomo’s who lose sight of what the Gospel is. Fundamentalists I’ve been around may say that a Christian can drink or smoke, but since for them those activities are sinful, they question that person’s commitment and definitely wonder how good a witness such can be. Some charismatics may be much the same way with those without certain gifts, or who don’t fall in with their prophets and apostles.
It can be tricky, and even ones like us who try to defend the Gospel must be wary of adding things that we should not add. I have to keep in mind that for many of us we didn’t have all of our theological ducks in a row when we came to believe in Christ, and that while there things that are hard and fast (I cannot accept for biblical reasons that one who teaches the Christ did not rise from the dead is a true believer), other things are less clear and we are free to exercise grace (I don’t care if someone prays in tongues or not).