A Different Gospel

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 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. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. – Galatians 1:6-10 ESV

Paul can’t believe what he is hearing. It had probably only been a few months since he visited the province of Galatia and helped launch the first house churches. But now he has received word that those who had accepted Christ were beginning to abandon the gospel message they had delivered to them. But it’s not that they’re walking away from the faith altogether, but that they’ve traded in the gospel for a new and improved version.  It seems unlikely that Paul had been unclear when he told the Galatians about  Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. Since his commissioning by Jesus Himself, Paul proclaimed the gospel in countless towns and villages around the Mediterranean Sea. He had developed a very effective ministry strategy that resulted in thousands of people coming to faith in Jesus, and the message he shared with the Galatians was the very same one he had shared in Corinth:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. – 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 ESV

The heart of the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. That is what Paul believed and that is what he preached. He had had a personal encounter with the resurrected Jesus after His death, so he knew the resurrection was true. He was also a firm believer in the gospel’s transformative power because it had radically changed his life. So, when he received news that the believers in Galatia were “so quickly deserting” the gospel for a “different” one, he was shocked and saddened. This news left him with no other choice than to confront the believers in Galatia and those who had led them astray.

The phrase, “so quickly deserting” is actually one word in Greek – μετατίθημι (metatithēmi), and it means “to transfer one’s self or suffer one’s self to be transferred” (“G3346 - metatithēmi (KJV):: Strong’s Greek Lexicon.” Blue Letter Bible. http://www.blueletterbible.org).

Under the influence of others, the believers in Galatia had begun to transpose or translate their allegiance from the gospel that Paul had preached to another version that the Judaizers were promoting. Paul called it ἕτερος (heteros) – “another” gospel – that was different in nature, form, class, and kind. It wasn’t an expansion of Paul’s gospel, but it was a different gospel altogether. It was a distortion or perversion of what Paul and the apostles had preached. Yet those who were preaching this contrary gospel didn’t make that distinction. They were promoting it as the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were pawning it off as the real thing, which made it so dangerous.

Paul was so adamant in his stance against these purveyors of counterfeit gospels, that he desired them to be “accursed” – ἀνάθεμα (anathema). In essence, Paul was delivering them over to God’s judgment. The Greek word Paul used means “a thing devoted to God without hope of being redeemed” (“G331 - anathema (KJV):: Strong’s Greek Lexicon.” Blue Letter Bible. http://www.blueletterbible.org). These are strong words from Paul and they convey just how seriously he took the matter. For Paul, the gospel was not something to be toyed with, added to, expounded upon, or distorted in any way.

Paul was not in the ministry to win a popularity context. He wasn’t interested in telling people what they wanted to hear or delivering his own version of the truth. He was out to preach the good news of salvation made possible through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was determined to preach a message of life change and transformation. His was a message of faith, not works. It was based on the law of the Spirit of life, not the Mosaic law. The gospel that Paul preached made man completely dependent upon the grace and mercy of God. No one could save themselves. No one was capable of earning favor with God through human effort, and anyone who taught that man could achieve righteousness and earn justification with God apart from faith in Christ alone was preaching a false and deadly gospel.

Paul wasn’t out to please men. If he had been, he wouldn’t have preached the message he did. No one likes to hear that they are sinners and that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23 ESV). No one enjoys being told that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 ESV). Who wants to be told that they are under God’s wrath and totally incapable of doing anything about it? And yet, that is the message Paul preached, repeatedly and unapologetically. He wasn’t tickling ears or trying to win converts with a Your-Best-Life-Now message. He was telling them what they needed to hear: the good news of God’s grace made available through the death of His Son.

Paul passed on his dedication to the purity of the gospel message to Timothy, his young protégé in the faith.

Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching.

For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. – 2 Timothy 4:2-4 NLT

Since the day that Jesus commissioned His disciples to take the gospel to the four corners of the earth, there have been untold numbers of counterfeit gospels that have tried to turn people away from the truth regarding faith in Christ alone. The situation in Galatia was not new and it didn’t catch Paul by surprise. Everywhere he turned, he had to counter the words of those who would add to the simplicity and purity of the gospel message, and the same thing is still taking place today.

There are many gospels today. Some are slight variations on the real gospel. Others are complete aberrations, distortions of the truth of God masquerading as hope. They tell people what they want to hear. They make false promises. They take salvation out of the hands of God and place it in the hands of men. Religious rule-keeping becomes the means of redemption. Self-effort replaces dying to self. Men become their own saviors and salvation becomes little more than an escape from the troubles of this life rather than the promise of eternal life. False gospels almost always show up in the form of either legalism or license. They promote self-salvation or self-gratification. They become all about living up to a set of rules or living as if there are no rules. Both are false. Both are dangerous. And Paul would have us avoid them like the plague.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Aiming To Please.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. – 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 ESV

Why do you do the things you do? Most likely, it is either to please yourself or to please someone else. We are either motivated by self-satisfaction or some form of people-pleasing. We are out to make ourselves feel good or to ensure that others feel good about us. But Paul introduces another motivating factor for the believer: Pleasing God. More than anything else, we should desire to do what pleases Him. And Paul knew that a life of holiness, living set apart and consecrated to God and His purposes, was what pleased God. He wrote to the Thessalonicans: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification…” (1 Thessalonians 4:3a ESV). God desires His people to be holy and distinctively different in their behavior. He wants to them live according to His will and in keeping with the godly guidance of His indwelling Holy Spirit.

The apostle Peter described as life of holiness as “doing good”. He wrote, “For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people” (1 Peter 2:15 ESV). He went on to say that we must abstain from certain ungodly behaviors such as sexual immorality and lustful passions. But while we “put off” unrighteousness, we must “put on” godliness. Peter went on to say, “For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thessalonians 4:7-8 ESV). To refuse to live a holy life is to disregard the very will of God for you. It is to willingly disobey and displease Him. But Paul insists that he makes it his aim to please God. That was how he was able to maintain his motivation to do the right thing even when he got the wrong reaction. He was able to endure injustice and abuse even when he was doing exactly what God had called him to do. Because his real goal was to please God, not man. Peter claimed that suffering was to be an expected part of living a godly life. “But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:20-21 ESV). Just as Christ suffered for doing what was right and godly, so shall we. We should not be surprised when living godly in an ungodly world brings godless reactions from ungodly people.

But Paul was of good courage. Even though he found life on earth to be difficult at times, he was encouraged by the knowledge that this life was not all there was. He believed in a life to come. He lived by faith, not sight. Like the writer of Hebrews, he knew that faith was “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV). And he knew that faith was essential if anyone wanted to live a life that pleased God, because “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV).

Paul received courage from the fact that God had promised Him eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ. He received courage from the promise of Jesus that He would one day return. He received courage from the promise of a redeemed and resurrected body. And he longed for the day when he would be able to vacate his earthly “tent” and move into his new body, a “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (1 Corinthians 5:1b ESV). But in the meantime, while he waited for the return of Christ or his own death, he made it his aim to live his life in such a way that it pleased God. That meant he had to stop trying to please others or doing what brought pleasure to himself alone. And Paul knew that there was a day coming when his actions or deeds would be judged by God. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (1 Corinthians 5:10 ESV). On that day, every believer’s conduct in this life will be judged – every thought, action, attitude, and word will be exposed. Everything we have done since the day we accepted Christ as Savior will be assessed and evaluated as to whether is was good or evil. This has nothing to do with judgment for sin, because all our sins have been paid for by Christ. It is about whether what we have done in this life since coming to faith in Christ was godly or ungodly, righteous or unrighteous, pleasing or displeasing to God. Did we live our lives in keeping with His will? His will is our holiness. So was that our motivating factor? Was pleasing Him our aim? Our actions and attitudes will reveal whether it was or not. How we lived our life will expose whether we were trying to please Him or whether we were living to please ourselves or others. Paul’s aim was to please God – even in this life. He made it his life-long objective to do the will of God, to live holy, set apart – doing good even when it produced less-than-good outcomes. He lived by faith, not by sight; trusting in the reality of what he hoped for, yet couldn’t see: Heaven and his resurrected body. Paul actually looked forward to the judgment seat of Christ, because he was confident that his aim in life was to please God. He was attempting to do the will of God, not men. He was striving to please God, not himself. And while that kind of lifestyle might result in troubles and tribulations in this life, it promised rewards in the life to come and the promise of hearing the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21 ESV).

Giving God the Credit.

2 Corinthians 3:1-6

It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life. – 2 Corinthians 3:5-6 NLT

There is no doubt that some among the believers in Corinth had been questioning Paul's authority. They had been spreading rumors that Paul was not really qualified to address the various issues he been writing about. Evidently, false teachers had been influencing the Corinthians, contradicting the teachings of Paul, and using as their basis of authority, forged letters of recommendation from Judea. In other words, they had papers to back them up. It appeared as if they were official representatives "true" apostles back in Jerusalem. The inference was that Paul was an imposter and charlatan. He was a fake. And all that he had been teaching was to be rejected as false and dangerous.

But Paul had no desire to play their game. He was not going to waste his time trying to prove his validity by producing letters written by men. He knew his calling and who it was that had issued his call. As far as Paul was concerned, the proof of his ministry's integrity was to be seen in the transformed lives of the men and women of Corinth. He knew that others could see the change and that was why the Corinthian believers were suffering persecution. Paul viewed their changed lives as "a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you" (2 Corinthians 3:3 NLT). The Spirit had clearly been at work in Corinth, opening the eyes of men and women as they had heard the gospel message proclaimed by Paul. This had not been the result of Paul's efforts, but it had been the work of the Spirit – from beginning to end. Paul didn't need letters of recommendation, because it wasn't his work to begin with. It was God's work. Paul had no delusions of grandeur. In fact, he fully understood that he was not "qualified to do anything" on his own. The work in Corinth had nothing to do with Paul's competence or credibility. It had everything to do with God and His decision to work through someone like Paul. "Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant" (2 Corinthians 3:5-6 NLT). In essence, Paul was telling those who were casting aspersions on his ministry, to take it up with God. What Paul had been able to accomplish in Corinth had been a clear work of God, made possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. He had simply been a tool in the hands of God to accomplish His will.

How easy it is for us to believe that we are vital to God's plan. How quickly we can assume that God needs us to accomplish His will. We can find ourselves taking credit for what God has done and becoming prideful about our own competence and significance to His Kingdom cause. We want to boast about our credentials and brag about our qualifications. But Paul knew that he was nothing without the Spirit's work. He knew that he was not qualified or competent to do anything on his own. The ministry of life transformation and redemption was entirely the work of God, not man. Our degrees, diplomas, education, intelligence, gifts, abilities, talents and resumes mean nothing if God is not in it. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on Him. If lives are being changed as a result of anything we have done, it is because God has chosen to work through us. We are not accomplishing great things for God, but instead, He is simply choosing to accomplish His work through us, and oftentimes, in spite of us. God did not need Paul to accomplish His will. But He had chosen and commissioned him to spread the good news about Jesus Christ among the Gentiles. And God's Spirit had clearly worked through Paul, preparing hearts to hear and accept the gospel message. Paul didn't need any other proof than the transformed lives of the Corinthian believers. He knew that God was at work, because he could see it. Paul had no reason to brag, but he also had no reason to doubt. It could have been easy for him to question whether or not what he had been doing was truly of God, but the evidence was undeniable and irrefutable. Lives had been changed, and only God can bring about true, long-lasting life transformation. Only the Spirit can give life. So Paul was confident and content that what he was doing had God's blessing and complete recommendation.

Father, we need to look for life transformation. We need to learn to see where Your Spirit is at work in our midst. Too often we base our success based on our own qualifications and efforts. But the true criteria for success in Your work is changed lives. And only You can bring that about. Open our eyes so that we might see where You are at work. Don't let us focus on what we are doing, but on what You are doing through us. We can measure programs and we can count heads and think we are making a difference. But if lives are not being changed and if people are not being saved, our work is in vain. Remove from us any desire to please or prove our significance to men. Let us be content with the proof of changed lives as Your Spirit works among us. Amen.