LifeWay Explore the Bible Series for June 7: Walking in truth

This year, 2009, marks the 400th anniversary of Baptist beginnings in Amsterdam, Holland, where John Smyth and a small group of pilgrims fled from persecution in England.

Distinct to that heritage are belief in soul freedom, priesthood of the believer, believer’s baptism, the authority of Scripture, church autonomy, separation of church and state, and salvation by grace through faith. Each one of these expressions of belief relate to the concepts of freedom and salvation by grace through faith alone as preached and taught by the Apostle Paul in Galatians and Romans and preserved through the canon of Holy Scriptures.

Galatians, as Paul interprets the life and teachings of Christ, contains spiritual truths dear to Baptists. The Interpreter’s Bible calls Galatians the “Magna Charta of the Christian faith.”  

A works salvation is a false salvation and a false gospel. Baptists, generally, have an understanding of salvation by grace through faith. Salvation by grace through faith, basic to Baptist doctrine, is adhered to and preached frequently enough to maintain a decent level of understanding.

The gospel of grace and freedom can be a stumbling block (Romans 9:32, 1 Corinthians 1:23). The mind is programmed toward self accomplishment, working to achieve any and everything. The mind struggles to capture the concept that salvation is by grace through faith. Being good is not the means to salvation.

The secular, lost world has not a clue of what a gospel of grace means and how it works. When confronted with the gospel, frequent responses are: “I need to clean my life up before I get saved; I am a decent and good person so God would not send me to hell; or I’m not good enough for God to accept me.”  

The mindset of the ancient Jew was keeping the law and this mindset was distorted further by arrogant Pharisaic legalism. They were captured by their religious culture.

Salvation by grace through faith is like throwing a hand grenade into a toilet. The explosion is a mess. Observe the disturbance, hostility and fright. Confusion can abound when the mind is accosted with new data from and about God. Consider the mental anguish of the Islamic mind, brainwashed in Islamic law and salvation by works, when confronted with the gospel of grace and love. The confrontation is like an 18-wheeler hitting a steel wall.  Penetration is difficult. Religious heresy and traditions are tougher than steel.

Fortunately, from the mess, Paul brings a dose of spiritual reality with this revolutionary concept of salvation by grace through faith, a gift of God. He cuts the legs from any argument that would take a works salvation position and defends his explanation of salvation as the true gospel.  

One easily can see that Galatians plays a vital role defining salvation and in defending the truth of God’s provision of grace. As long as man has breath, faith plus works, or salvation through works, will continue to be problematic and dangerous. Paul’s words of revelation and inspiration help us today deal with the very same issue as then.

The true gospel (Galatians 1:1-10)

Paul greets the churches of Galatia briefly and moves passionately to his purpose of defending the gospel he has preached to them. Paul affirms his apostleship (Acts 1:21-22), the most revered status and authority of the church, as one having witnessed the resurrected Savior. Paul assures and affirms his apostleship does not originate from man but “by Jesus Christ and God the Father” (v. 2). His apostleship was accepted in Judea based on his conversion from persecutor to preacher where they “praised God” for Paul (1:22-23) and accepted  by the Jerusalem apostles (2:1-10).   

“Grace” (v. 3) in the salutation has particular significance in Galatians for it is the foundation of the crowning work of  “the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins” (v. 4). While we were sinners, God’s grace provided the gift of his son who willfully and freely gave his life on the cross for the salvation of all. Paul established his identity and premise in the salutation

Writing in crisis mode to the churches of Galatia, Paul saved the fellowships of the gospel, then and now, from degenerating into a heretical or quasipagan sect. At stake, was God’s good news of grace to every race and culture.

Brilliantly, Paul won the debate relying on his knowledge of Judaism and his personal experience with the risen Christ. His intense effort protected spiritual freedom of response to God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, and absolutely denied that Jewish law was necessary for Jew or Gentile to become a Christian. Such limitations were totally unnecessary, and themselves stumbling blocks to faith. To add anything to faith in Christ, was another gospel that was not the gospel.  

“Astonished” that these new believers could so quickly look away from his teachings of Christ “who called you by his grace,” he charged them with desertion and accepting a “different gospel which is really no gospel at all” (vv. 6-7).

There were those teachers who were trying to “pervert the gospel of Christ” and such perversion would destroy the Gospel. “Perversion” would refer to including Judaic qualifications through the law which were unacceptable modifications of the true gospel. There can be some doctrinal differentiations that are not critical, but there can be no modification of salvation by grace through faith alone. Those who taught that the gospel of grace could be and should be improved by law, tradition, ritual and works, would make the gospel “no gospel at all” (v. 7). Paul could not and would not adapt the gospel of grace by making faith in the crucified Christ a matter of reason, tradition or accommodation.  

Paul is so adamant that he shouts from the page that the preacher who preaches a different kind of salvation should be “eternally condemned” (v. 9). The solution to sin is the Savior, Jesus Christ. There is no other solution—not man’s desire, wisdom, effort, goodness, family, knowledge or church. The sin solution totally is dependent upon the grace of God and the substitutionary sacrifice of God’s son to rescue people from themselves and this evil world.

The divine gospel (Galatians 1:11-24)

Paul is clear about the divine origin of his gospel, not from man but “received by revelation from Jesus Christ” (v. 12). His apostleship is from God and so is his gospel as revealed by God. Christ is the origin of the message, the source of the content of the message and the ratification of the messenger.  

The claim here is one of utmost significance and summons the ultimate authority which is God and his direct revelation to Paul. In biblical interpretation, it is vital to understand and accept apostolic authority as a vital characteristic of the credibility of the scriptural text. Preachers, ministers and laypersons who preach seeking the approval of people rather than the approval of God are playing a dangerous game Paul never would consider.  

Paul’s argument includes the claim of complete independence from human input, complete independence of Jerusalem and her Judaic influences as well as early Christian leaders. He presses the complex issues of doctrine and personal prejudices by reminding his readers of his journey from a zealous Jew, informed above most on the “traditions of the fathers” and a “persecutor” of the church of God (vv. 13-14).

He corrects some rumors about his presence in Jerusalem while acknowledging that he did spend some time with Peter and James, the brother of Jesus (vv. 19-20). His argument was to prove he was not a prodigy or apostle of Jerusalem and had not consulted “any man” (v. 16).  

Paul uses his life story to bring credibility to his unique ministry to both Jew and Gentile. His background and purpose could not be legitimately questioned by anyone. Through Christ, his life had been totally changed from passionately persecuting to passionately proclaiming the Christian way. His gospel was divinely inspired, divinely experienced and divinely revealed, and Paul would preach its truths regardless and know nothing else but Christ crucified and resurrected. The divineness of his message would be based on his apostolic testimony of God’s revelation and his changed life.
 
The confirmed gospel (Galatians 2:1-6)

Seeking further clarification and credibility, Paul continues his testimony by relating another meeting with the Jerusalem apostles 14 years later (after the meeting described in 1:18-20). Paul was in Jerusalem “in response to a revelation” in order to “set before them the gospel that I preached among the Gentiles” (v. 2). He was not going to seek advice from the Jerusalem apostles but to present to them what God had revealed to him about the meaning of salvation. Paul fought through the issues of opposition, ignorance and fears to prove the revelation from God regarding salvation was effective for all people and received confirmation from the Jerusalem apostles.

With him, he took Barnabas, his missionary partner from the Antioch commissioning, but also Titus. Titus, a Gentile, would be his example to help settle the dispute that only a Jew or proselyte (a circumcised Gentile) could be a commendable Christian (v. 3). The Galatians were familiar with Titus and his devotion to Christ and his work. Titus proved his point that the gospel was free to all people and salvation could not be limited by ritual or rite.     

In a private meeting with his peers, the pillars of the Jerusalem church, Paul presented his case for preaching a consistent gospel, the same gospel to both Jew and Gentile. He understood the strength of centuries of anti-gentile prejudice and the potential resistance to his gospel. His fears were enhanced by the presence of  “some false brothers” who infiltrated the church to “spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves” (v. 4).

Something took place in that private meeting that was disturbing to Paul.  Perhaps there was an attempt to circumcise Titus, but Paul won out with the explanation that “not even Titus … was compelled to be circumcised” (v. 3). It seems that Paul, in spite of his fears, sought the confirmation of the other apostles.

Could his understanding of his experience with the risen Christ and of his salvation find approval from the other apostles? Paul feared he would not be able to break through the religious barrier that all people are saved the same way, by free grace alone and that his revelation and effort would be in vain.  Walking in fear of failure, he forcefully concluded: “We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.”

Conclusion

Without compromise, Paul preached the gospel revealed to him through Christ, confirmed by his own experience of grace, by the changed lives of others such as Titus, the Greek Gentile, and by general acceptance from the other apostles in Jerusalem. The gospel must be free of Jewish restrictions if it were to be effective in a Gentile world.

An accurate understand the salvation that God provided has eternal consequences. Paul repudiates the effort of mankind to gain merits through obedience to the laws of God or man, as a way to earn salvation. Being a good churchman or a good citizen is a good thing, but not the means to eternal life.

There are religions and denominations today that do not understand this kind of freedom and continue to enslave their parishioners to church legalism and false hope with dead ritualism and church traditions. Faith alone is the means to salvation, not faith plus circumcision, faith plus law, faith plus works, faith plus Abraham, faith plus holy rites, faith plus correct doctrine or faith plus anything. Such is heresy that destroys a genuine relationship with the living God.