There is no room for compromise in the gospel of the Grace of Christ. Understand this. Paul makes it very clear. He was extremely adamant about this. The book of Romans is Paul’s masterpiece on the study of God’s great grace, but the book of Galatians is his strongest teaching on the subject. Paul gets brutal in his teaching about the grace of God. He wastes no time making this point in his letter to the Galatians.
Galatians 1:6 – “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel”.
Now don’t just read that verse and move on. Study it. Meditate on it. When you do you’ll see that Paul even called it the gospel of grace. He uses the terms gospel and grace interchangeably. The heart of the gospel is grace. Any deviation from that is a perversion of the gospel. Paul makes this clear also. Just look at what the Holy Spirit had him write immediately after verse 6.
Galatians 1:7-9.
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
Paul is making it clear that there is no other gospel other than the gospel of the grace of Christ. He warns us to watch out for those who would pervert the true gospel of grace. Then in the next two verses he tells us how they will try to do so and what the result for them will be.
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Wow!!! Did you see that? Paul is saying without fear of being misunderstood that if they preach any other gospel other than the one Paul and his followers preached, let those people be accursed. How strong is that?
By what Paul said here, the only conclusion you can come to is that the gospel of the grace of Christ is so important, so powerful, so dynamic that even if an angel preach any other gospel, let that angel or those who will do so be accursed. Why??? Because any other gospel other than the gospel of grace is so destructive, so demanding, so binding on freedom that it leaves people with no way out and without any hope. Look at verse 9. Paul says it again.
9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
The Holy Spirit told Paul to make sure the point was absolutely clear, so He said to Paul. Write it again. Tell them again what the penalty for trying to preach or teach a different gospel other than the free gift of grace will result in.
Even after putting these scriptures right together, 95% of the so-called Christian church misses it. Religion and legalism are still coming out of the mouths of ministers.
The question regarding Paul’s boldness is “how could someone be so sure about what they were saying”. Thirteen books of the New Testament just chocked full of the grace of God. The freedom that is in Christ Jesus. The burden of sin lifted from us and the righteousness of God imputed to us. How could he be so certain. The answer is simple. He didn’t get this revelation from any man, or any tradition, or any church bylaw, or any church rules or regulations.
He got this revelation directly from God. A revelation from God puts you in charge. Look what Paul says in these next set of verse. You’ve seen this before in one of my other posts and I told you it would pop up again and again.
Galatians 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.
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. We can preach and teach the true gospel of the grace of Christ over and over and it won’t cause anyone to be set free from the law of works and performance UNTIL they get a revelation from the Holy Spirit.
Galatian Christians hadn’t denounced Jesus. The legalistic Jews had convinced them they couldn’t be right with God by believing in only what Jesus had done. They were being told they had to also keep the Old Testament law in order to please God.
That same lie is being spread in the church today. It’s couched in statements that say we have to be holy or the lord won’t accept us or answer our prayers. That’s not the gospel. It’s the legalistic message that you have to read your bible everyday, you have to go to church every Sunday, you have to pray long or God will not love and accept you.
Let me say………..that’s wrong!!!! Faith in Jesus Christ and what he did is enough. It’s not what Jesus did for us plus our actions of holiness. It’s Just Jesus. Jesus plus anything equals nothing. Jesus plus nothing equals everything.
I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t pray, study the word, go to church. But if you are doing it because you believe God will be angry if you fail to do these things, its not the true gospel.
That type of teaching and that type of belief puts the burden of salvation back on us and, opens us to the condemnation of the enemy. Paul called this a perversion of the gospel. Here it is once again. Gal 1:7 – “which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.”
Then in verse 8 Paul makes a very strong statement. One of the strongest ever. “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”
When you get a revelation of the great grace of God in your life, these verses will be of no consequence to you. The reason being, you’ll so desire to teach and preach the deeper truth about the grace of God that there’s no way you’ll fall into the deception of religion and legalism. You’ll have a heart that desires to see people set free from the bondage of the law, works and performance.
Well, as long as Paul is laying the truth out there he decides he’ll just keep banging away at the Galatians and their wrong believing. We will look at that in part 2. If you want a clue, it is in Galatians Chapter 3. Grace and Peace.
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