For the next several Sundays, I will be leading us through a study of Galatians. This letter from the Apostle Paul to the Galatians has had and continues to have a major impact on the life and thought of the Christian church. The theological foundation for Martin Luther and the Reformation come from this letter by the Apostle Paul.
As with any letter you only hear one side of the story. As you read it you can determine from the text what the context of the letter is. His immediate defense of his apostleship as a divine calling rather than a human one in these opening verses has led numerous commentators to speculate that the Galatian Christians were questioning Paul's authority. Paul is at odds with his audience in the churches of Galatia.
Paul is under attack from other missionaries known as “Judaizers”: Jewish Christians who were trying to maintain their Jewish traditions. This group claimed that Paul was a not a true apostle. After all, Paul was not one of the original twelve disciples and he at one time been a major persecutor of the early church. In addition, Paul was not appointed by the leaders of the Church to be an apostle.
The “Judaizers” were also critical of the gospel message Paul was spreading. The Jews who converted to Christianity believed all God’s promises and gifts were for Jews alone. They were appalled that Paul’s message of grace and freedom would include Gentiles. In fact, this group argued that Gentiles had to become a Jew first in order to become a follower of Jesus Christ. Converting to Judaism was a pre-requisite for moving on to the next level as Christ’s disciple.
This letter to the churches of Galatia is Paul’s response to his critics. And Paul does not mince words whatsoever. It is written with emotion and intensity. The other letters found in the New Testament for the most part are joyful, upbeat, and positive. After a brief opening greeting, Paul throws off the gloves and let’s them have it!
Claiming one has the Gospel Truth is nothing new. Throughout history, claims have been made to refute the Christian Gospel message or offer alternative versions, such as the Gnostic Gospels. Seems like it's becoming a regular occurrence in the information age -- someone is always discovering a new "gospel" that purports to shed some new light on Jesus that the church has either ignored or suppressed for two millennia. Most recently, a fragment from a fourth-century Coptic Codex was found in Egypt. Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King says it may (read: "possible-but-I'm-not-going-to-stake-my-reputation-on-it") reveal that Jesus actually did have a wife, à la the claims of The Da Vinci Code. The revelation of this "Gospel of Jesus' Wife," as it has become known, follows in the footsteps of a host of other Gnostic "gospels" that have been unearthed in recent years, like the gospels of Judas, Thomas, and Mary Magdalene, just to name a few.
Historians and archaeologists don't have a corner on the new gospel market. However, just do a search of "The gospel according to ..." on Google and you'll come up with a host of other takes on the Christian gospel -- the gospel according to the Simpsons, Dr. Seuss, Bruce Springsteen, the Sopranos, the Beatles, Elvis and even Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus' Childhood Pal. Granted, some of these are merely trying to find themes of the Christian gospel within popular culture, but others are certainly trying to craft a gospel that fits their own conceptions of God.
Churches, of course, aren't immune to this gospel-izing. There are plenty of gospels out there that more reflect the culture than they reflect anything having to do with Jesus. Think about the Gospel of Hate spewed by "Christians" from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, who picket soldiers' funerals and believe that people who don't follow their agenda deserve whatever tragedy befalls them. Have they ever heard of the word grace?
Think about the Gospel of Prosperity touted by famous TV preachers such as Crefalo Dollar, who tell their people that God wants them to be rich, and that all they need to do is "name and claim" what they want and God will give it to them (if they will only believe and send a check to their ministry). So much for "Blessed are the poor" (Luke 6:20), and "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24).
"The Gospel of Sin Management"-- a phrase coined by Dallas Willard to describe a gospel that "produces vampire Christians who want Jesus for his blood and little else." This gospel is only concerned about getting people into heaven and "reduces salvation to a spiritual exchange divorced from life in this world. It makes salvation and God irrelevant to daily life."
· The Social Gospel, which grew out of the Enlightenment idea of progress and reason, believes that humanity can rid itself of social evils, and that human progress will continue to make things better and better. In this gospel, Jesus provides a good example of how to make the world a better place, and his death and resurrection are mere metaphors for living sacrificially --more good advice than good news.
· The Apocalyptic Gospel is all about watching the sky for Christ's return and waiting for the Rapture that will suck all the right-believing Christians into the great beyond like some kind of wet/dry vac, leaving the rest of humanity behind to stew in hell.
Of course, there may be elements of truth in some of these "gospels." God does hate sin, but continues to love sinners. God does want us to be prosperous, but in the richness of his grace, not necessarily the wealth of our bank accounts. Jesus' blood does save us, but it doesn't just save us from something, it saves us for something: the work of God's kingdom. Yes, God desires our participation in making the world look more like what we pray for in the Lord's Prayer ("on earth as it is in heaven"), but we can't make that a reality without Christ's redemptive death and resurrection promise of the ultimate defeat of death. We do, indeed, await Christ's return, but he's not coming to take us away -- he is coming to take over!
What's interesting about these “wrong” gospels, however, is that they tend to reflect or represent the people who promote them rather than reflect or represent the good news of Jesus Christ and his kingdom. People tend to understand the gospel through the lens of their own times. That can often lead to incomplete or distorted versions of the message, and the church in every age has had to recalibrate its understanding of the gospel. Martin Luther, John Wesley, Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa are just a few of those who called people back to the full and powerful gospel of Christ. Paul had to do the same thing in the early church. Paul gets fired up at the Galatians because they have bought into the wrong gospel -- a gospel that actually reflects "the present evil age" (1:4).
The "different gospel" that the Galatians had bought into was one preached to them by some Jewish Christian missionaries who required Gentiles to be circumcised as Jews before they could become Christians (v. 6). Paul regarded this message as a non-gospel because it reflected the status quo of the age before the coming of Christ -- an age governed by the law of Moses. Paul believed that Jesus' death and resurrection had transformed the status quo, and that faith leading to a spiritual circumcision of the heart was the mark of a true Christian (Romans 2:29; Colossians 2:11). The requirement for physical circumcision was thus abolished because God had reconciled Jews and Gentile through the grace of Jesus Christ -- a theme that runs through most of his letters.
A close look at this passage, then, reveals the gospel that Paul preached, and the one that the Galatians (and we) should be centering our faith around:
1. The gospel is not a human construction. It’s not capitalism’s gospel, or the third world’s gospel or Reverend Nowack’s gospel. The gospel comes from God, who has taken the initiative to rescue us from sin and death through his grace (1:1, 3-4, 6).
2. The grace of God is embodied and enacted in Jesus' death. Jesus' death liberates us from sin and the power of the present age. We cannot defeat sin and evil and change the world on our own. We need a Savior who defeats sin and its ultimate power, death. Jesus does this through the cross and his resurrection (1:3-4)
3. The grace of God enacted through Christ enables us to become children of God, bringing people from different backgrounds, cultures and customs together into a new community not marked by ethnicity and circumcision, but by faith and baptism (1:3).
4. As God's children, we participate with God in his mission of transforming the world into God's new creation. As Paul puts it, "Neither circumcision nor un-circumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!" (6:15). The goal of the gospel is not simply the transformation of our spirits or our bank accounts, nor is it merely about making the world a little better. The good news is God's kingdom is near and that will be the means of changing the world, not taking us away from it. As Revelation puts it, God isn't about to destroy the world and make all new things; instead, God comes to redeem the world and "make all things new" (Revelation 21:5).
If a gospel only benefits the individual, you can bet it's the wrong gospel. A false gospel always seeks human approval and mostly benefits the human who preaches or believes it. Paul reminds the Galatians that the real gospel -- the gospel of what God has done and is doing through Christ -- does indeed benefit us by saving us from sin and death, but it doesn't stop there. The real gospel is the good news that God is transforming us so that we can be part of God's transformation of the whole world. The gospel isn't about our leaving, but about God's coming! We have been saved by faith, but for God's purpose. The gospel isn't about pleasing others or even ourselves; it's all about pleasing God and, like Paul, becoming servants of Christ (1:10).
Maybe we keep coming up with new gospels because the one Jesus gave us actually requires something of us. We serve Christ and we serve others, which is more important than any physical mark or promise of personal salvation. The fundamental nature of the gospel is grace, proclaimed not only with our faith, but with our faithfulness to the gospel's call to be and work for God's new creation.
Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976).
Texts for Preaching – CD Rom edition: A Lectionary Commentary based on the New Revised Standard Version, Year A, B, and C. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007).
Bob Kaylor, our Senior Writer, and Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah through homileticsonline.com
Texts for Preaching – CD Rom edition: A Lectionary Commentary based on the New Revised Standard Version, Year A, B, and C. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007).
Bob Kaylor, our Senior Writer, and Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah through homileticsonline.com
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