Chapter One
Bad News about the Good News
(Galatians 1:1–10)
The lad at my front door was trying to sell me a subscription to a weekly newspaper, and he was very persuasive. “It only costs a quarter a week,” he said, “and the best thing about this newspaper is that it prints only the good news!”
In a world filled with trouble, it is becoming more and more difficult to find any “good news,” so perhaps the newspaper was a bargain after all. To the person who has trusted Christ as Savior, the real “good news” is the gospel: “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures … he was buried, and … he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). It is the good news that sinners can be forgiven and go to heaven because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. The good news of salvation through faith in Christ is the most important message in the world.
This message had changed Paul’s life and through him, the lives of others. But now this message was being attacked, and Paul was out to defend the truth of the gospel. Some false teachers had invaded the churches of Galatia—churches Paul had founded—and were teaching a different message from that which Paul had taught.
As you begin to read Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians, you can tell immediately that something is radically wrong, because he does not open his letter with his usual praise to God and prayer for the saints. He has no time! Paul is about to engage in a battle for the truth of the gospel and the liberty of the Christian life. False teachers are spreading a false “gospel,” which is a mixture of law and grace, and Paul is not going to stand by and do nothing.
How does Paul approach the Galatian Christians in his attempt to teach them the truth about the gospel? In these opening verses, the apostle takes three definite steps as he prepares to fight this battle.
1. HE EXPLAINS HIS AUTHORITY (1:1–5)
Later on in his letter, Paul will deal with the Galatians on the basis of affection (Gal. 4:12–20), but at the outset he is careful to let them know the authority he has from the Lord. He has three sources of authority.
(1) His ministry (vv. 1–2). “Paul, an apostle.” In the early days of the church, God called special men to do special tasks. Among them were the apostles. The word means “one who is sent with a commission.” While He was ministering on earth, Jesus had many disciples (“learners”), and from these He selected twelve apostles (Mark 3:13–19). Later, one of the requirements for an apostle was that he had to have witnessed the resurrection (Acts 1:21–22; 2:32; 3:15). Of course, Paul himself was neither a disciple nor an apostle during Christ’s earthly ministry, but he had seen the risen Lord and been commissioned by Him (Acts 9:1–18; 1 Cor. 9:1).
Paul’s miraculous conversion and call to apostleship created some problems. From the very beginning, he was apart from the original apostles. His enemies said that he was not a true apostle for this reason. Paul is careful to point out that he had been made an apostle by Jesus Christ just as much as had the original Twelve. His apostleship was not from human selection and approval, but by divine appointment. Therefore, he had the authority to deal with the problems in the Galatian churches.
But in his ministry, Paul had a second basis for authority: He had founded the churches in Galatia. He was not writing to them as a stranger, but as the one who had brought them the message of life in the beginning! This letter reveals Paul’s affection for these believers (see Gal. 4:12–19). Unfortunately, this affection was not being returned to him.
This matter of the founding of the Galatian churches has kept serious Bible students at work for many years. The problem stems from the meaning of the word Galatia. Several hundred years before the birth of Christ, some fierce tribes migrated from Gaul (modern France) into Asia Minor and founded Galatia, which simply means “the country of the Gauls.” When the Romans reorganized the ancient world, they made Galatia a part of a larger province that included several other areas, and they called the entire province Galatia. So, back in Paul’s day, when a person talked about Galatia, you could not be sure whether he meant the smaller country of Galatia or the larger Roman province.
Bible students are divided over whether Paul wrote to churches in the country of Galatia or in the province of Galatia. The former view is called the “north Galatian theory” and the latter the “south Galatian theory.” The matter is not finally settled, but the evidence seems to indicate that Paul wrote to churches in the southern part of the province of Galatia—Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe—churches he founded on his first missionary journey (Acts 13—14).
Paul always had a loving concern for his converts and a deep desire to see the churches he had founded glorify Christ (see Acts 15:36; 2 Cor. 11:28). He was not content to lead men and women to Christ and then abandon them. (For an example of his “aftercare,” read 1 Thess. 2.)
When Paul heard that false teachers had begun to capture his converts and lead them astray, he was greatly concerned—and rightly so. After all, teaching new Christians how to live for Christ is as much a part of Christ’s commission as winning them (Matt. 28:19–20). Sad to say, many of the Galatian Christians had turned away from Paul, their “spiritual father” in the Lord, and were now following legalistic teachers who were mixing Old Testament law with the gospel of God’s grace. (We call these false teachers “Judaizers” because they were trying to entice Christians back into the Jewish religious system.)
So, Paul had a ministry as an apostle and specifically as the founder of the Galatian churches. As such, he had the authority to deal with the problems in the churches. But there was a second source of authority.
(2) His message (vv. 3–4). From the very beginning, Paul clearly stated the message of the gospel because it was this message that the Judaizers were changing. The gospel centers in a Person—Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This Person paid a price—He gave Himself to die on the cross. (You will discover that the cross is important in the Galatian letter, see 2:19–21; 3:1, 13; 4:5; 5:11, 24; 6:12–14.) Christ paid the price that He might achieve a purpose—delivering sinners from bondage.
“Liberty in Christ” is the dominant theme of Galatians. (Check the word bondage in 2:4; 4:3, 9, 24–25; 5:1.) The Judaizers wanted to lead the Christians out of the liberty of grace and into the bondage of law. Paul knew that bondage was not a part of the message of the gospel, for Christ had died to set men free.
Paul’s ministry and message were sources of spiritual authority.
(3) His motive (v. 5). “To whom be glory forever and ever!” The false teachers were not ministering for the glory of Christ, but for their own glory (see Gal. 6:12–14). Like false teachers today, the Judaizers were not busy winning lost people to Christ. Rather, they were stealing other men’s converts and bragging about their statistics. But Paul’s motive was pure and godly: He wanted to glorify Jesus Christ (see 1 Cor. 6:19–20; 10:31–33).
Paul has now explained his authority. He is ready for a second step as he begins this battle for the liberty of the Christian.
2. HE EXPRESSES HIS ANXIETY (1:6–7)
“I am amazed that you are so quickly moving away!” This was the first reason for Paul’s anxiety: The Galatians were deserting the grace of God. (The verb indicates they were in the process of deserting and had not fully turned away.)
Paul struck while the iron was hot. God had called them in His grace and saved them from their sins. Now they were moving from grace back into law. They were abandoning liberty for legalism! And they were doing it so quickly, without consulting Paul, their “spiritual father,” or giving time for the Holy Spirit to teach them. They had become infatuated with the religion of the Judaizers, just the way little children follow a stranger because he offers them candy.
“The grace of God” is a basic theme in this letter (Gal. 1:3, 6, 15; 2:9, 21; 5:4; 6:18). Grace is simply God’s favor to undeserving sinners. The words grace and gift go together, because salvation is the gift of God through His grace (Eph. 2:8–10). The Galatian believers were not simply “changing religions” or “changing churches” but were actually abandoning the very grace of God! To make matters worse, they were deserting the very God of grace! God had called them and saved them; now they were deserting Him for human leaders who would bring them into bondage.
We must never forget that the Christian life is a living relationship with God through Jesus Christ. A man does not become a Christian merely by agreeing to a set of doctrines; he becomes a Christian by submitting to Christ a...