No Other Gospel

(Audio version; Music--"This I Believe" by: Hillsong and "Creed" by: Third Day and Brandon Heath)

Introduction

            I came across a new survey this week that highlighted the decline of Christianity here in America over the last ten years. It wasn’t terribly surprising if you’ve been paying attention. The report said that there was a marked decline in mainline churches like the Catholic church, and a number of Protestant denominations. Counteracting that decline has been a sharp increase in atheism. In large part I attribute the decline in mainline denominations to their continuing compromise with clear and sound biblical teaching and normalization of sinful, worldly practices. The only other Christian group that held fast during that period was evangelicals. But that’s not the part of the report that lit my fuse this week. The part that lit my fuse was that the report identified another Christian group that did not decline over the same period—Mormons. Seriously? Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) are now being considered Christians? That’s what lit my fuse! Nothing get’s me burning hotter than religious charlatans. These deceivers, like Mormanism’s Joseph Smith or Jehovah’s Witness’ (JW’s for short) Charles Taze Russell or Christian Science’s Mary Baker Eddy, deceived thousands by adding to God’s inspired word or by twisting the Scriptures into something they never were. They figured out that leveraging Christianity would bring them immeasurable fame and wealth—and in that respect they were right. Like any good scam, they each needed to add a twist to make their claims unique. Each of these people claimed that they were modern day prophets who received a special revelation from God—a new and improved Gospel message. And they proceeded to deceive countless people during their day and their demonic practices continue even to this day. What do Smith, Russell, and Eddy have in common? Smith established Mormonism in 1830, Russell established JW’s in 1879, Eddy established Christian Science in 1879. I may have been born at night but it wasn’t last night! These cults have deception written all over them yet they continue to deceive millions of people everyday. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe God was confused during the 1800’s and couldn’t decide how he wanted to change what Christians believed for the 1800 years before that time (longer if you include the changes these cults made to the Old Testament interpretation). And aren’t you thankful that God chose Americans in America to revise biblical teaching and interpretation—especially Americans who were not formally trained in the original languages of the Biblical text? Besides, it’s not like the land of Israel from Genesis to Revelation is at the epicenter of the Christian faith or anything {read: heavy sarcasm}.

Just because something has “Jesus,” “Jehovah,” or “Christian” in its name or title doesn’t make it Christian. Of course these religious hucksters started there deception 1800 years after Jesus Christ lived so as distasteful as it is, its understandable that the truth is easier to twist with the passage of time. So how frustrating do you think Paul must have been when first generation Christians quickly turned from the gospel he preached and followed other teachings; false teachings, within three short years of having first heard the gospel message from Paul? Paul’s message to the church in Galatia is the same message for us today—there is No Other Gospel.

Subject Text

Galatians 1:6-10

⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—⁷which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! ⁹As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! ¹⁰Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Context

            Paul’s letter to the Galatians was written around 49 A.D. The church in Galatia was founded during Paul’s first missionary journey through the region around 46 A.D. It seems clear from the context that Paul left them with a clear understanding of the gospel. However, some deceivers wormed their way into their community and began to twist the gospel Paul preached to them initially. These deceivers were known as Judaizers who insisted that believers needed to also keep the Law in order to be saved. I can assure you that this was not part of the gospel that Paul preached to them. If anyone would have been tempted to harmonize salvation by grace and the meticulous keeping of the Law, it would have been Paul the once zealous Pharisee. But that wasn’t the gospel that Paul preached once he encountered the risen Christ and was transformed. So for Paul, and the Galatians, and for us as well, who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, there can be No Other Gospel.

Text Analysis

            ⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—⁷which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

            It is one thing to be deceived by lies in the first place. That, of course, happens all the time. It is another altogether, to accept the truth, and then at some point turn away from the truth. We must be careful not to be too harsh on the believers in Galatia. These were first generation Christians who didn’t have the benefit of hundreds of years of theological development to inform their beliefs. Christianity was still in its infancy so Paul understood how important its foundation was. Paul knew that false teaching in the young Church was like a slow acting poison that would kill the truth of the gospel he preached. In vv. 6-7 we learn that deceivers have infiltrated the Galatian church and are confusing the people with teachings that were inconsistent with Paul’s teachings.

“The course of action they are contemplating is not a complement to their faith in Jesus but an act of desertion and repudiation of their divine Benefactor. The message of the rival teachers is not a second installment of the gospel but a different gospel, which was not truly another gospel at all but a perversion of the true gospel…Paul underscores the complete incompatibility of the message they are hearing with the gospel they had received…But why should Paul consider these so fundamentally at odds? The answer seems to lie in Paul’s understanding of the universal scope of God’s new outpouring of favor. God was at last bringing Jew and Gentile into one, united people—the oneness of the God who is God both of Jew and Gentile being reflected in not only the new people being formed in the name of Jesus but also the single basis on which both Jew and Gentile were brought into that united people. That basis is not Torah [the Law], the observance of which had functioned to keep Jew separate from Gentile for a limited amount of time, for ‘all flesh shall not be justified by works of law’ (Gal 2:16), which pertains only to Israel. Rather, that basis is God’s generosity towards all as expressed in Jesus’ death on behalf of humanity, and that death fulfills the promise made to Abraham at last by making him the spiritual ancestor of many nations.

Paul consistently sets ‘grace’ in opposition to ‘works of Torah’ at key junctures throughout Galatians (2:21; 5:4), in part because Torah was a necessary trapping of human ‘immaturity,’ and in part because what God has graciously done in Jesus for all now makes possible what Torah had not made possible, namely, a life lived truly to God, for God and in the power of God. Paul’s own story is a living example of this premise, for it is precisely when he was most fully engaged in the works of Torah that he was God’s enemy, and it was precisely then that God graciously transformed Paul into an apostle of God’s righteousness in Christ. After Jesus’ death a return to works of Torah as if they could add to what Jesus had done would amount to a repudiation of Jesus’ ability to connect us to God and an insultingly low evaluation of the potential of the Spirit, the promised gift won for us at such cost, to transform our lives.”[1]

⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! ⁹As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

            If you wonder if false teaching is really such a big deal, Paul’s clear and harsh condemnation in vv. 8-9 should answer that question for you. There is but one gospel and Paul tells them that even if he himself should preach a different gospel from the one they accepted from him at the start, then even he should be condemned. It is no mistake that Paul references the possibility of an “angel” preaching a false gospel. Remember that Satan was once an angel who was cast out of heaven along with a third of the angels for their rebellion against God. Remember that it was Satan who twisted God’s commands to Adam and Eve in the Garden. You see, the most evil deception is not that which is obviously a lie. The most evil deception is that which incorporates some of the truth but not all of the truth. Just as Satan twisted God’s words to deceive Adam and Eve, false teachers in Galatia and today twist, revise, or add to God’s inspired word in order to deceive—a practice handed down by the one who perfected it—Satan. And for that, they will take their place as being eternally condemned with Satan at the final judgment by Christ. What did this practice look like in Galatia? The false teachers didn’t reject Paul’s teaching; that would have been an obvious lie. Instead, they conceded to Paul’s teaching and then attempted to amend it or supplement it with their own. You must realize that once you mix a lie with the truth, it all becomes a lie. The two are mutually exclusive. How does this work in our own day? No matter how many overtly Christian references are applied to a lie as in Mormanism, Jehovah’s Witness, or Christian Science, it is still a lie and those who perpetuate that lie are rightly destined for eternal condemnation.

I realize that some of you cringe at what Paul says and by extension what I have said because it seems so “unloving.” But I contend that it is precisely out of love that Paul and I too make the claim that those who preach a different gospel from that which Paul first proclaimed and which has been handed down to us in the Bible, should be eternally condemned. “When the grace of the gospel is jeopardized, theological concerns clearly take precedence in [Paul’s] thinking over considerations of politeness and etiquette. For Paul, the basic tenets of the gospel simply cannot be compromised; and if a church’s grasp of those is weakened, tough words and actions may be required for the sake of his readers’ salvation. In other words, Paul does not conceive of love as gentleness at any price. Indeed, he insists that it is precisely out of genuine concern for their welfare that such harsh words and confrontive actions arise…When the doctrine of God’s grace is at stake, love does not seem to be of greater importance than faith. In Paul’s own life, then, the expression of love is clearly conditioned on certain theological and moral considerations of critical importance; and when these are threatened, harsh words may be the truest form of love and not a violation of it.”[2]

¹⁰Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

            Religious con-artists aren’t in the business of winning points with God. They are interested in advancing a lie in order to advance themselves socially or enrich themselves financially. And usually the former leads directly to the latter. I have always said, if you want to know someone’s true motivations, follow the money. Religious charlatans are like every other charlatan. They aren’t motivated by the desire to be faithful to God. Instead, they are motivated by their insatiable desire for money, sex, and/or power. Paul’s rhetorical question to seeking the approval of men in v. 10 is intended to convey the idea that seeking the approval of people who are all sinful instead of the approval of God who is perfect, is reserved for those with ulterior motives. The outrageous and exclusive claims of the gospel very often put us at odds with those who insist that Christians must be more enlightened, inclusive, open-minded, and accepting of other beliefs if they want people to like them. Well Paul makes it clear that he doesn’t care if people like him or approve of him. All he cares about is whether or not God approves of him because he is a servant of Christ and the gospel that proclaims the truth of Christ. “The human obligation to honor God and serve Christ is at the heart of the issue of authority and is reminiscent of Jesus words in Matt. 20:25-28 [²⁵Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ²⁶Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ²⁷and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—²⁸just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”]. All positions of leadership are in danger of becoming power bases where people satisfy their own needs, manipulate and even oppress others, and make certain that decisions turn out ‘our’ way (never mind about God’s way). In ecclesiastical (church leadership) circles the gospel may even be cleverly or unconsciously used to keep recalcitrants in line. Thus the simple question about service and accountability to God is always an appropriate question to ask oneself. Faced honestly, it will painfully expose human pretense, but at the same time will point toward true freedom.”[3]

Application

            When Johannes Guttenberg invented the printing press in 1440, the first book that came of his press was a Bible. Until then only about 30 percent of European adults were literate. That number climbed to 62 percent in England by 1800. Naturally, literacy rates in America mirrored those in England. By the signing of the United States Constitution in 1776, 60 percent of adults in America were literate. By 1870, 80 percent of the adult population was literate and by 1940, 95 percent of the adult population was literate. Today, 98 percent of adults in America are literate.[4] Why are these statistics important? Because the Bible, first printed 575 years ago, is still the most purchased yet least read book in all of history. And the result is that people are easily deceived. In today’s churches characterized by “worshiptainment” and “ritualization,” many Christians don’t know the difference between the true gospel and a counterfeit gospel. In our inclusive and pluralistic culture, how many Christians to you think have the courage to say that there is No Other Gospel?

            You have often heard me say and I will repeat it once again here: I want you to know why you believe what you believe. Is your belief received by faith yet rooted in truth or is your belief a manufactured product that is a conglomeration of truth and lies handed down by those in the service of the chief liar himself—Satan? If I were to ask you, could you recite a short yet comprehensive statement of the Christian faith? Some would say that Christian faith can be completely summarized as, “Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead after three days and if we believe that we are saved.” That statement is certainly true but what if I told you that Smith, Russell, and Eddy were all raised in a theological environment that taught that and look at the abomination they each managed to produce and perpetuate!

Being satisfied with a simplistic understanding of your faith is like trying to live on a diet of bread. You may not die of starvation but you may very well die of malnutrition. In the same way, faith that is limited to a simplistic understanding stands a very real risk of dying or becoming distorted. A great step in the process of nurturing a vibrant faith is to establish a clear and concise understanding of what you believe. For Christians, this is really easy because it was put into words for us at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. and is an essential component in the foundation of the superstructure that is Christian belief. That statement of faith is known as the Nicene Creed and is included as the statement of faith for this ministry. It is a statement of faith that is adopted only by the Protestant Church, the Catholic Church (Catholics, however, us the Apostle’s Creed which is largely identical except for the reference to the catholic church which Catholics understand to be the Roman Catholic Church but which Protestants understand to be the universal (aka “catholic”) church.), and the Orthodox Church. Mormons, JW’s, and Christian Scientists cannot and will not agree to the statement of faith that has defined the foundational beliefs of the authentic Christian Church for nearly 1,700 years.

Nicene Creed

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, light from light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father;

through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven,

was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary

and became truly human.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

I think there’s beauty in its comprehensive simplicity. I memorized it as a child in the Catholic church. The problem is that the Catholic church treated it as words inspired by God. And in a very narrow sense that’s true. However, in a much broader sense it is a compilation of theological understanding by a group of men who diligently studied the Scriptures and consequently produced a statement of faith that reflected what the Scriptures taught. With this statement, we can clarify in our own minds exactly what we believe so that we can communicate that clearly to others. But that is only part of our duty. We must seek to understand why we believe it. And that can only be accomplished through the relentless and diligent study of the Scriptures. It’s time-consuming and hard work that few people are willing to undertake. But that’s because people see it primarily as an academic or theological exercise. I want you to try and see it in terms of relationship. God is not an object to be dissected and studied. God is a person who revealed Himself in the person of Jesus and made it possible for us to be reconciled to Him in order to be in relationship with Him.

Think about the most important human relationships in your life. Consider the diligent effort you put into those relationships so that you can understand the other person in order to nurture a growing and vibrant relationship with that person. It is the same way with God. By diligently studying the Scriptures, we begin to understand why we are in relationship with God not just that we are in relationship with God. When we are in a deep and committed relationship with God; a relationship rooted in the gospel that has been handed down to us in our Scriptures, the god of a counterfeit gospel will be a stranger to us. I have been married for a little more than thirty years now and I can guarantee you that if another woman walked into my home and claimed to be my wife, I would know with certainty that she is lying, even if I were deaf and blind. I have no other wife than the one I first married. You wouldn’t be able to fool me because I know my wife! In the same way, when we are in an abiding relationship with God through Jesus, rooted in the gospel message as originally handed down to us, we will immediately recognize any other gospel as a lie. We will be able to confidently proclaim what we believe and why we believe it and that all other teachings, even those who incorporate a few morsels of truth or traditionally Christian terminology, as a gospel of lies because we will know that there is No Other Gospel.

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[1] David A. deSilva, An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 505.

[2] Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid, eds., Dictionary of Paul and his Letters, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 578.

[3] Charles B. Cousar, Galatians—Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1982), p. 24.

[4] Tatiana Schlossberg, “Literacy Rates,” Timothy McSweeney’s The State of Publishing, Accessed May 17, 2015, http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/literacy-rates.