Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20080525.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Galatians: Defending The Truthfulness Of Paul's Teaching On God's Grace
Part II: Clarifying The Certainty Of Paul's TRUE Gospel On God's Grace
(Galatians 1:6-10)
  1. Introduction
    1. Various gospels other than what we teach flourish: (1) Mormonism asserts the angel, Moroni gave Joseph Smith the "'fulness of the everlasting Gospel'" (cf. The Pearl of Great Price , p. 50-51 as cited in Salem Kirban, Mormonism, 1971, p. 18). In 3 Nephi 27:13-20 in The Book of Mormon, that Gospel holds salvation is by repentance, baptism and enduring to the end. (2) Islam holds man's salvation is unsure, for "'Allah pardoneth . . . all save that to whom he will not . . .'" Quran 4:17, 106, 110, 116 as cited in Dave Hunt, "Islam and the Gospel," The Berean Call, April '99, p. 2. (3) As the Catholic Church affirmed the doctrines of the Council of Trent (Dave Hunt, "Shameful Ironies!", The Berean Call, Feb. 2006, p. 1), it holds to Session VI, Canon 12 of that council to assert: "'If anyone saith that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sin for Christ's sake alone; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified, let him be anathema.'" (cited in L. Boettner, Rom. Cath., 1978, p. 260f)
    2. Now, many evangelical Christians claim that justification is by faith alone in Christ alone versus what these and many other groups teach, but they are "not willing . . . to speak out against an opposite view" like these bodies present (John H. Armstrong, gen. ed., The Coming Evangelical Crisis, 1996, p. 116).
    3. Yet, if a false gospel is not opposed, the lost lack assurance of what IS the truth to be believed!
    4. So, for the sake of the lost, with Paul, we assert what the Gospel is and what it is not in Galatians 1:6-10:
  2. Clarifying The Certainty Of Paul's TRUE Gospel On God's Grace, Galatians 1:6-10.
    1. The Gospel Paul taught was justification by faith alone in Christ and His atonement for sin alone as a gift from God apart from any human merit or works, Ephesians 2:8-9 with Romans 3:21-28.
    2. However, he noted in Galatians 1:6 NIV that his Galatian Christian readers were "deserting" the true Gospel he had taught them for a different gospel, and he marveled at the speed of their desertion.
    3. This new gospel was not another similar gospel, but a perversion of the true one that threatened to cloud the truth to where the lost were left hopelessly blind to the insight they needed to believe to be saved:
      1. The word "another" in Galatians 1:6b KJV is from the Greek word, heteros, meaning a different kind, where the word "another" in Galatians 1:7a KJV is from the Greek word, allos, meaning another of the same kind, U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966 ed., p. 648; R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the N. T., 1973, p. 357ff.
      2. Thus, Paul revealed the gospel to which his readers had switched was not another of the same kind that one might tolerate, but a perversion of the truth that clouded the saving reality for the lost! [We know from Galatians 3:3 and 5:2 with 6:12 that this was a gospel of salvation by faith plus circumcision, a gospel Paul strongly countered at the Jerusalem Council to protect disciples, Acts 15:1-21; Gal. 2:3-5.]
    4. Thus, Paul asserted the certainty of his true Gospel in an exclusivistic, negative manner that was aimed to preserve the definition of the true Gospel, and the Church has been his debtor ever since, Galatians 1:8-9:
      1. Paul claimed that though he and his missionary team that had evangelized his readers, or if even an angel from heaven, were to preach any gospel unto them that contrasted (par', Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T.; Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Engl. Lex. of the N. T., p. 616) with what they had initially preached to them, he was to be anathematized, or excommunicated from the Church, Galatians 1:8!
      2. Going further, Paul added that if any one (tis, Ibid., U. B. S. Greek N. T.) preached unto them a gospel contrary (par') to what they had received from him, he was to be excommunicated, Galatians 1:9!
    5. Paul wrote he was not pleasing men by making such strongly negative statements, and that he did not wish to be diplomatic, for he was not trying to please men [like he had evidently been criticized as doing in not circumcising his disciples after leading them to Christ], Gal. 1:10a,b with 5:2; 6:12; Acts 15:1-2.
    6. Indeed, Paul claimed that were he to please men, he would not be the servant of Christ, Galatians 1:10c!
Lesson: Paul revealed the TRUE Gospel for ALL of Church History is that salvation from sin and hell is by faith alone in Christ and His death alone. Failure to hold to this necessitates excommunication!

Application: May we not only AFFIRM that salvation is by faith alone in Christ and His death alone, but OPPOSE all PERVERSIONS of this Gospel that the LOST may know the TRUTH to be SAVED!