Galatians 1:6-10 warns Christians about the danger of false teaching. It can come in many forms, but at the root of all false teaching is the pride of sinful man-- the devil wanting to plant something of himself in the soul or the church to distort the pure gospel of Christ.
In verse 6, the apostle Paul states the problem: the churches in Galatia are “deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” “Deserting” means betrayal-- denying the truth of Christ that God called them to. The word “gospel” means to proclaim good news, and the gospel of Christ is the good news from God that Christ came into the world to save sinners. God gives Christ as Savior to sinners who look to him in faith.
The gospel of God declares that Christ has done everything necessary to reconcile a sinner to God and give him eternal life. Christ met all the demands of the law of God and paid in full the price that God’s law required for sin, procuring the forgiveness of sins and justifying the sinner in the presence of the righteous God.
The sinner receives the benefits and the merits of Christ from God gratis, unearned and undeserved, the free gift of God that is from his grace to all who believe. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And that is not your own doing; it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:9).
The false teachers were teaching what they called the gospel but insisted that the Gentiles couldn’t be included in the covenant of God, the righteous people of God, without being circumcised along with performing other requirements of the law.
This is not the gospel Paul preached to the Galatians in Acts 13. Paul taught that all Jesus did, including his death and resurrection, fulfilled the Scriptures, and that “Through him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. By him everyone who believes is justified from everything from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.”
The gospel of Christ is offered indiscriminately to Jew and Gentile, to whoever God calls to come to Christ in faith. There is no difference; all are full of corruption and can only be justified before God by the blood of Christ. It may seem a small thing to require some seemingly righteous rules to be added to Christ’s work, but it propagates the lie that sinful man can merit something from God. This denies the soul’s need of grace, robs him of true assurance of salvation, gives the sinful nature fuel for pride and prejudice, and displeases God who gave Christ for his own glory.
In verse 8 Paul writes, “But 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.” There is only one God, so there can only be one gospel. In Jude we read, “Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, for certain people have crept it in who deny our Master and Lord Jesus Christ.”
We are susceptible to false teaching because we are predisposed to vanity. The idea that we can’t earn God’s favor through devout actions, intentions, or moral decency goes against all instincts and inclinations within us. The young ruler came up to Jesus and said, “What good thing should I do, that I may have eternal life?” His desire was to appear righteous before God. But there are none righteous. No sinner can make himself acceptable to God.
God offers to give us a righteousness that is not our own but one that we obtain by faith alone in Christ alone. Christ’s people are people of grace. The new covenant is a gracious covenant sealed by the blood of Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us out of the present evil age (verse 4). Our boast is not in ourselves, but in Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us.
Paul says he is a servant of Christ (verse 10). How much better it is to be a servant of Christ rather than a slave to sin. Having begun in grace, we must continue in grace; having died with Christ, we now belong, body and soul, to Christ, and are to live for Christ. Grace frees us to love God and reject any teaching that would diminish the worth and glory of our bleeding Savior.
