Summary:

We are “now” justified (Rom.5:1,9). The word “seek” (Gal.2:17) sometimes means to look to something (Amos 5:5,6). All Jews knew where Gilgal was, but it was filled with idols. So God told the Jews not to look to Gilgal to save them from being taken captive by the Assyrians, for Gilgal herself would be taken captive. And Paul was telling Peter they both looked to Christ to be justified, not the law (2:16).

Paul says “God forbid” to the idea that looking to Christ for justification made Him a sinner. He rather says, “I make my-self a transgressor” when I sin (2:17)—specifically if he sinned the sin Peter sinned, rebuilding “the middle wall of partition” between Jews and Gentiles (Eph.2:11-14) that Peter re-built when he stopped eating with Gentiles. Paul’s ministry of grace destroyed the law, the Lord didn’t (Mt.5:17).

So why does Paul say the Lord did (Eph.2:13-15)? Well, that was how the wall was destroyed, not when. Christ’s work on the cross didn’t go into effect until Paul’s ministry, just as November elections don’t go into effect until January. Paul’s telling the Galatians about all this because they too had gone back to the law. They thought the law would make them more holy, but Paul says it makes a man a transgressor!

Romans 7:4 says we are “dead to the law,” and here we learn we are dead to the law “through the law.” Paul calls the law a “ministration of death” (IICor.3:7) because it says sinners must die because they can’t keep the law perfectly (James 2:10,11). But Paul says we died with Christ (Rom.6:3,4).

Of course, once a criminal is executed, the law that condemned him to death can’t condemn him any more. And the law of Moses can’t condemn us any more now that we died with Christ. So now we can “live unto God” (Gal.2:19). The Galatians thought the law would help them live to God, but God gave the law to make sin worse (Rom.7:13), to strengthen sin(ICor.15:56), so unsaved men would know they need a Savior. It wasn’t made for righteous believers (ITim.1:9).

So how are we supposed to “live unto God” (Gal.2:19)? The answer is: under grace, knowing that Christ died for us makes us want to stop living sinfully for ourselves and live unto Him (IICor.5:15). But the Galatians seemed to have forgotten that, so Paul reminds them in Galatians 2:20.

Of course, the only way a crucified man can say “I live” (2:20) is if he rises from the dead—and we were raised with Christ (Eph.2: 4,5). When Paul adds, “yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,” he’s not saying it’s no longer him living, he’s saying it’s both.

This is similar to what happens when a woman becomes “one flesh” with her husband (Gen.2:24). They become one life. In speaking of Adam and Eve, God called “their” name Adam (5:2) because she lost her identity in her husband. She still had her own identity, but now she also had Adam’s. And we still have our old life, but we also have Christ’s.

That’s why Paul says we are “dead to the law…that we should be married to…Him…that we should bring forth fruit unto God” (Rom.7:4). We couldn’t bring God “fruit unto holiness” (6:22) when we were married to the law, but we can now!

But we need the Lord’s help. That’s why Paul says he lived his new life by the faith “of” Christ (Gal.2:20), i.e., His faith-fulness to intercede for us (Rom.8:33,34). Without that, the law could lay plenty of sins to our charge and condemn us!

Clamoring for the law like the Galatians did frustrated God’s grace (Gal.2:21). The word “frustrate” means to defeat (cf. Ezra 4:1,5). Grace can help you live unto God, but the law will defeat God’s grace in that endeavor, because no law can make men righteous (2:21cf.3:21).

A video of the sermon is available on YouTube: Justified and Go Seek – Galatians 2:17-21

Summary:

Paul says he had to confront Peter “when Peter was come to Antioch” (v.11), where Paul went right afterthe Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:22-35). Peter arrived some time after that, and sat to eat a meal with some Gentile brethren.

Now there was nothing wrong with that. There used to be under the law (Acts 10;28), but God had “shewed” Peter this was no longer the case with that sheet vision in Acts 10.

We know that Peter understood from that vision that he could now eat with Gentiles, for when some Jews challenged him about it, he told them about the vision and how the Spirit had fallen on the Gentiles (Acts 11:2-15).

So the problem wasn’t that Peter was eating with Gentiles. The problem was that he stopped, because in so doing he was going back to the law instead of recognizing the dispensational change to Paul’s ministry of grace that God was using Peter to introduce. And the reason Paul is telling the Gala-tians that what Peter did was wrong wasn’t to embarrass Peter. It was because they had gone back to the law as well.

So why did Peterreturn to the law? Paul says it was because he feared “certain from James,” the leader of the Jewish kingdom church. He knew James didn’t know it was okay to eat with Gentiles, for that’s not what they talked about at the council. That council was convened to decide if Gentiles still needed the law to be saved (Acts 15:1,2). The subject of Jews eating with Gentiles never even came up.

But Peter told James about the sheet vision (Acts 15:7,8). So why didn’t that convince James it was all right to eat with Gentiles as it did Peter? It was because four years before Peter got that vision, he spent 15 days with Paul (Gal.1:18), and Paul explained some things to Peter that helped him construe more from the vision than James was able to deduce.

But Peter’s failure to walk according to the truth caused Barnabas to falter as well (Gal.2:13). “Dissembled” is the verb form of the noun “dissimulation,” and both mean hypocrisy (cf.Josh.7:11). God must hate religious hypocrisy, for the Lord was kind to carnal sinners like the woman in John 8, but He laid into religious hypocrites (Lu.11:44).

And that’s another reason Paul is telling the Galatians about this. You see, once you go back to the law, you have to whitewash your sins (Mt.23:27,28). The Galatians tried to cover up their sins by observing religious days (Gal.4:10).

When Peter quit eating with Gentiles, Paul told him he was compelling the Gentiles to feel they should not eat with Jews. In other words, he was putting them under the law. This angered Paul, but when he settled down, he reasoned with Peter by reminding him that Jews like them weren’t guilty of the carnal sins the Gentiles were known for (Gal. 2:15 cf. I Cor.5:1) but they still needed to be saved (v.16).

They were saved by “the faith of Christ.” Don’t change “of” to “in” like new Bible versions do. That word “faith” here means faithfulness (cf.Rom.3:3). In eternity past, God announced His plan to send His Son to earth to be Israel’s Messiah, and the Lord was faithful to do it. Peter’s faith came in when Paul said he “believed in Jesus Christ.” When he believed Jesus was his Messiah, God saved him (John 20: 31). But Paul was saved by believing “Christ died for our sins” (ICor.15:1-4), something the Lord was also faithful to do. Both men were saved by Christ’s faithfulness. They just had faith in two different things the Lord was faithful to do.

And the reason Paul was telling the Galatians about this was that they had begun to think that they had to be faithful to all the things the law said to do to be saved.

Paul’s rebuke meant he loved Peter (cf. Lev.19:17). So when it happens to you, be like David and be thankful (Ps.141:5).

A video of the sermon is available on YouTube: Paul’s Confrontation with Peter – Galatians 2:11-16

Summary:

“Somewhat” (v.6) in this context means an important person. Paul is done speaking about the unbelievers at the Jerusalem Council (3-5), so “these” who seemed to be somewhat must mean those “of reputation” (2:2), i.e., the 12 apostles.

But how could Paul say the 12 only “seemed” to be important? The answer is: he was objecting to an importance men were giving them that went beyond what God gave them, a religious tradition that had risen in those days that made them into mystical men a tradition still found in the Catholic Church. Rome always portrays them wearing haloes.

If you think this tradition didn’t go back that far, we know Rome’s tradition of making the bread and cup into the actual body and blood of the Lord did. If it didn’t, Paul wouldn’t have to have said they were “the communion” of His body and blood (I Cor.10:16). So it shouldn’t be surprising that Rome’s tradition of venerating the 12 goes back that far too.

The accepting of persons here (Gal.2:6) means the same as it does in Job 32:21, i.e., to give them flattering titles. Rome calls the 12 “the pillars of the church,” and later in Chapter 2, we’ll see they were being called that even in Paul’s day.

“In conference” (Gal.2:6) means Paul had the Bible conference with the 12 that the Lord told him not to have earlier (Gal.1:15-17), lest anyone say he got his message from them. But now it was time for him to confer with the 12 in a conference to  communicate” his message to them (Gal.2:1).

Paul’s conference with the 12 was one-sided though, for they could “add” (2:6) nothing to his understanding of the law or the kingdom program the Lord taught them to preach. He knew the law from Gamaliel, and he knew the kingdom pro-gram from Barnabas. But “contrariwise” (2:7), i.e., oppositely (cf. IPet.3:8,9), he could add the grace message to them.

Paul preached the gospel “of” the uncircumcision (Gal.2:7), not the gospel “to” or “for” them, as new Bible versions translate that verse. That makes it sound like he preached the same gospel Peter preached “to” or “for” the circumcision, and he didn’t. No one before Paul had any gospel or good news for the uncircumcision (Eph.2:11,12).

“Wrought” (Gal.2:8) is the past tense of work (cf.Neh.6:16). Paul is saying the working of miracles (cf.ICor.12:10) authenticated Peter’s ministry (Mark 16:20) and his (Acts 14:3). God worked special miracles by Peter to indicate he was head apostle of the 12 (Gal.5:15,16), and by Paul (Acts19: 11) to indicate he was a head apostle on the same level as Peter. That convinced the 12 of this (Gal.2:9). They only “seemed” to be the “pillars” that religion was making them into. Cephas and John constituted the quorum of “two” of the 12 needed to “loose” their ministry to the Gentiles to Paul, and “bind” themselves to minister to “the circumcision” (Mt.18: 18,19 cf. Mt.28:19) when they perceived” God sent Paul to “all nations” with “grace” (Rom.1:5).

We know the 12 kept their word. You never see them going to Gentiles in the Book of Acts, but Paul seemed to break his when he went to synagogues (Acts17:1,2,10,etc.). But he vowed to go to “the heathen” (Gal.2:9), and heathen now included unsaved Gentiles and Jews. God just told him to go to “the Jew first” (Rom.1:16) during Acts while God reached out to individual Jews. The 12 meanwhile ministered to the true circumcision, i.e., saved Jews (Rom.2:29).

The Jerusalem Council’s only stipulation in recognizing Paul’s new message was that he “remember the poor” (Gal. 2:10), i.e., the Jews who became poor when the temporary communal living at Pentecost went beyond the short time God intended for it and they became “poor” (Rom.15:26). Jews helped each other to get saved (James 2:14-17), but Paul was “forward” to do it by taking up a “collection” (ICor.16:1), and taught us to as well (IICor.8:8,10; 9:1,2).

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Things Aren’t Always What They Seem

Summary:

“Fourteen years after” (2:1) Paul’s last trip to Jerusalem, the one he took three years after he got saved (Gal.1:18), he took another. Why’d he wait so long? We know it was his “heart’s desire” for the Jews there to get saved like he did (Rom.10:1). But the Lord had told him to get out of Jerusalem (Acts 22:17), and hadn’t yet told him to go back till now.

He brought Barnabas (Gal.2:1) because he was a well known and respected Jew (Acts 4:34-37), who would perhaps get him a more receptive hearing among the Jews at the Jerusalem Council. And attending that council is the reason Paul was returning to Jerusalem (Acts 15:1,2). The brethren there in Jerusalem suggested he go. But when he says he went “by revelation” (Gal.2:2), that means the Lord revealed Himself to Paul and told him it was finally time to return to Jerusalem to “communicate” his gospel to “them,” i.e., the apostles and elders of Acts 15:1,2.

But if Paul had to communicate his gospel to them, that means he didn’t receive it from them, as the legalizers were saying. And it means his gospel was different from theirs, despite what many Christians say today.

Now the “elders” (Acts 15:1,2) at Jerusalem didn’t have much of a “reputation” (Gal.2:2), but the 12 did. So they’re the ones Paul shared his new gospel of “no circumcision or the law” with “priviliy,” so as not to embarrass those sincere apostles who were still preaching circumcision and the law as the Lord told them to do. That would only make them less likely to accept his new apostleship and message, and he would have “run in vain.” That is, his converts would wonder if they did need circumcision and the law to be saved. And he “should” run in vain in the future if his new converts questioned their salvation.

Paul brought “Titus” to the council meeting (Gal.2:1) so that when he left the meeting uncircumcised, he’d be living proof that the leaders of the kingdom church recognized his message (Gal.2:3). I know that the council wrote letters to those new Gentiles converts (Acts 15:23-29), informing them of the their decision. But letters can be forged (IIThes. 2:10). You can’t forge an uncircumcision!

Some “false brethren” tried to circumcise Titus (2:4). The council let them speak because they were “unaware” they were false brethren. But Paul knew they were unsaved because they disagreed with him. Believers in the Bible always accepted dispensational changes, as when those who believed on the Father under the law believed on the Son (John 6:37) and received His words about the new kingdom program (John 17:8).

Those false brethren came to the meeting to “spy out” our liberty (Gal.2:5). We have liberty from our sins (Rom.6:6,7, 18,22). In the eyes of God, we are free from sin. But these false brethren wanted to learn more about our freedom from the law (Rom.7:1-6). You see, we are not just free from our sins, we are also free from the law that condemns our sins.

And that’s the liberty these false brethren wanted to learn more about, so they could bring those disciples back under the “bondage” (Gal.2:5) of the law (cf. Acts 15:10). Paul refused to “give place” to them. That is, when he had the floor, and was presenting his case (Acts 15:12), he refused to yield the floor when they kept trying to interrupt him.

“Subjection” means to subject yourself to an authority that you recognize as God-given (Eph.5:24; Titus 3:1; IPet.2:18). Paul recognized the authority of the council leaders, but not the authority of those false brethren. Not even for an hour, for that might be the hour someone passing through Jerusalem sat in on the council, and would have left the city thinking that Paul acknowledged that men still needed to be circumcised and keep the law to be saved.

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Paul’s Trip to Jerusalem – Galatians 2:1-5

Summary:

Paul is giving his testimony in this passage (v.15) so why would he mention not conferring with flesh and blood (v.16)? He was answering the legalizers who were saying his message was of men and not of God (1:11,12). You can’t get a message from men if you don’t confer with any men! Paul goes on to mention he didn’t see the 12 apostles (Gal.1: 17) because they would be the men most likely to have givenhim his message.

But who would think he got the grace message from the 12, who were still preaching the law? Well, after Paul began preaching grace, the 12 themselves wondered if his message were of men, so they gathered at the Jerusalem Council to decide. When they decided it was from God, some unsaved Jews probably accused the 12 of turning their backs on the law and conspiring with Paul to concoct this blasphemous new message of grace. That’s why Paul says he didn’t go see the 12; he went into Arabia. The legalizers might have pointed out that he went to Damascus first (Acts 9:5-9), but we know Paul didn’t confer with the men in Damascus, for he was busy praying there (Acts 9:10,11), not conferring. And Paul didn’t get his message from Ananias, for he gave Paul his sight, not his message (Acts 9:17).

Then Paul hung with the saints in Damascus (9:19), but couldn’t have gotten his message from them because he didn’t confer with them. The word “confer” means to ex-change ideas and opinions, and Paul says he didn’t confer with flesh and blood. Besides, had he asked those Jewish kingdom saints what message to preach, they would have had to say, “Don’t ask us. As far as we know, you shouldn’t even be saved cuz you blasphemed the Spirit when you consented to the death of Stephen, a man filled with the Spirit” (Mt.12:31). We know they didn’t give Paul that message, for he himself was the pattern for more blasphemers who got saved under his new message of grace (ITim.1:15,16).

While in Damascus later, Paul was preaching, not conferring (Acts 9:20). Then “after many days” he went to Jerusalem (9:23-27). Galatians 1:18 says “many days” consisted of 3 years (cf. I Kings18:1). But the apostles were afraid to confer with him, so he didn’t see them, other than James (Gal.1:19).

Paul only conferred with Peter, for only he could give him the only information he wanted—about the sheet vision that made Gentiles clean (Acts 10:28). That’s something the apostle of the Gentiles would want to confer about (Rom.11:13)!

But if he was with Peter “fifteen days” (Gal.1:18), why not see the other 11? I think it was because the Lord knew men would say he got his message from them, and so told Paul to steer clear of them. He couldn’t have gotten his message from Peter alone, for the 12 were told they needed two or three to do something official like commission a new apostle and give him a new message (Mt.18:18-20). The legalizers couldn’t say Paul got the grace message from James because he was still preaching the law 23 years later (Acts 21:18-20).

Some say it’s not important to insist Paul preached a different message than the 12, but he thought it was important enough to swear to it (Gal.1:20)! Then, after proving he didn’t get his message from the leaders of the kingdom church, he proved he didn’t get it from its members by testifying he was “unknown by face” to them (1:21,22).

Instead, he went to Syria and Cilicia (v.21).We know the legalizers followed him there because later the apostles had to write the new Gentile converts there to say that the trouble-making legalizers weren’t sent by them (Acts 15:23-27).

Even today, men say that Paul preached what the 12 preached because he preached the faith he once destroyed (Gal.1:23). But the faith he destroyed was the faith men had in the message of “Jesus is the Christ” (John 20:31). Paul preached that, but he also preached that He died for our sins!

Summary:

“The Jews’ religion” (v.13) was originally God’s religion. When He gave it to the people of Israel, it was pure and undefiled (James 1:27). But it got so defiled by their dis-obedience that Paul couldn’t bring himself to call it God’s religion. And before Paul got saved, he was part of that defilement, for he “persecuted the church” (v.13).

Many Bible teachers say there’s only one church in the Bible, “the church, which is His Body” (Eph.1:22,23). But the people of Israel were a church in the wilderness (Acts 7:37). Paul persecuted a church we call the kingdom church. We call it that because the Lord promised to give Peter the keys to it (Mt.16:18,19). The keys were keys of knowledge (cf. Lu.11: 52), i.e., a knowledge of the gospel. That’s what determines who gets into God’s church in any dispensation.

Paul “wasted” that church by killing its members (cf. Acts 22:4). And the reason he’s reminding the Galatians about it is to disprove the legalizers who were saying his gospel was “of men” (Gal.1:11,12). Paul’s message was all about Jesus Christ, and anyone who could have given him a message about Christ was afraid to go near him (cf. Acts 9:13). That proved his message wasn’t of men. The proof that his message was of God came when Paul started preaching his gospel, and had to go from being one of the persecutors to being one of the persecuted! Only God can talk a man into that!

We see more proof that Paul’s message was of God when we learn he was making money in the Jews’ religion (Gal.1:14). Only God can make an unsaved religious leader leave his cash flow to preach a message that left him usually broke.

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Paul’s Conversation Peace – Galatians 1:13-16

Summary:

Paul was in the business of persuading men to be Christians (cf. Acts 26:28), but the word “now” (v.10) implies he used to try to persuade God of something. Back when the Lord was trying to persuade him that He was setting aside the law that said certain meats were unclean, Paul probably did what Peter did and tried to persuade Him it wasn’t so (Acts10:14).

Once Paul was persuaded “we are not under the law” (Rom. 6:15), he taught that to the Galatians. But some troublemaking legalizers persuaded them they were under the law, prompting Paul to tell them: “this persuasion cometh not of Him that calleth you” (Gal.5:8). God had called them into grace, not law (1:6), so it must have been men who called them to the law—unsaved men—unsaved Jewish men. At the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, saved Jewish men recognized that Paul had been given a new message of grace for the Gentiles. But unsaved Jews refused to acknowledge that dispensational change.

So the Galatians now had a choice. They could either go back to pleasing God by accepting this dispensational change, or go on pleasing those unsaved legalizing men. And Paul could have chosen to please those men too. Going back to the law would have stopped the persecution he was getting from them. But he knew what verse 10 says, that if he yet pleased men he couldn’t be the servant of Christ.

That word “yet” means Paul used to please unsaved Jewish men. Before he got saved, he knew Jesus matched the prophets’ description of the Messiah, but he also knew if he acknowledged the Lord that he’d be put out of the synagogue by those unsaved Jewish men (Jo.9:22). So when his conscience pricked him about it, he kicked against those pricks (Acts 9:5) to please those unsaved men. But Paul knew you can’t be the servant of Christ unless you accept the dispensational change that God made from law to grace.

Men who object to grace tell us, “You’re just trying to please men by telling them they can eat bacon and don’t have to tithe like the law says.” Then they remind us that the law is Scriptural and start quoting it. When they do that to you, do what Paul did and remind them that he wrote new Scripture.

The word “certify” (Gal.1:11) means to put something in writing, i.e., a certificate. So with this epistle, Paul was giving the Galatians a certificate that said his new message of grace was not after man (v.11). He told them that in person when he was there with them in Galatia, but now he was putting it in writing—writing that became new Scripture after their prophets identified it as Scripture (cf. ICor.14:37).

Now when you try to help Christians who think they are under the law, be sure to call them “brethren” as Paul does eleven times in this epistle. He only called the Ephesians brethren twice, but he wanted to be sure the Galatians knew that he knew they were still saved, they’d just “fallen from grace” (Gal.5:4) instead of standing in grace (Rom.5:1,2). That is, instead of standing “in the liberty” wherewith grace has made us free from the yoke of the law (Gal.5:1).

Paul received his message “by revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal.1:12). “Revelation” is the noun form of the word reveal. The Lord revealed Himself to Paul in person over a period of decades (IICor.12:1) and gave him the grace message.

And Paul gave it to Timothy, who gave it to others, who gave it to us. May we adopt Paul’s attitude in I Thessalonians 2:4 and speak his gospel, “not as pleasing men, but God.”

Finally, Paul wasn’t contradicting himself when he claimed he wasn’t a men-pleaser and then said, “I please all men in all things” (ICor.10:33). In the context there, Paul didn’t change the truth of grace back to the law to please men. He let the truth of grace change him so as not to offend others with the truth of grace. May we adopt that attitude as well!

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Paul’s Religious Persuasion – Galatians 1:10-12

Summary:

“Him that called” the Galatians (1:6) could have been Paul, for to be removed from the apostle of grace would mean being removed from grace (cf. II Tim. 1:15).  But it is always God who calls men to grace (Rom. 8:30; I Cor. 1:9; 7:15; I Thes. 2:12; II Tim. 1:9) with the gospel (II Thes. 2:14).  When men believe it, they become “the called” (Rom. 1:6).

Being called “into the grace of Christ” means being saved by grace (Eph. 2:8).  But God expects those who are saved by grace to “stand” in grace (Rom. 5:1, 2).  One of the opposite meanings of the word stand is to remove (1:6 cf. Isa. 46:7).

Once our study of Galatians reveals all that it means to stand in grace, you too will “marvel” that anyone would remove themselves from it “so soon” (1:6).  Now, Paul knew from his familiarity with the Old Testament that it is the natural tendency of man to depart from God’s truth in any dispensation.  He just thought it wouldn’t happen until “the latter times” (I Tim. 4:1).  So what did they leave grace for?

Well, notice Paul doesn’t say they left it for a false gospel.  They left it for “another” doctrine, and the only doctrines that aren’t false are Bible doctrines.  He meant the gospel of the kingdom the Lord preached (Mt. 4:23) and sent the 12 to preach (Lu. 9:1, 2), the one that included the law (Mt. 23:2, 3; 28:19, 20).  Paul preached grace, not law (Rom. 6:14, 15).

But if they left grace for the law, why would Paul say the other gospel they fell for was “not another” gospel (1:7)?  Well, gospel means “glad tidings” (Isa. 61:1 cf. Lu. 4:18), and while the law was good news for Jews who were under it, it was bad news for the Galatians who weren’t!  We know they fell for the law because Paul says “there be some that trouble you” (1:7).  That’s the word James used at the Jerusalem Council to describe those who put Gentiles under the law (Acts 15:19, 24).  Saved Jews left the council determined not to trouble Gentiles with the law, but unsaved Jews bound the Galatians with the law, thereby perverting the gospel (1:7).

Paul includes himself in warning of men who might teach the law (1:8), for he knew the persecution he was enduring might prompt him to quit preaching the grace that was causing the persecution (cf. I Cor. 10:12).  Plus, someone wrote the Thessalonians a letter to say the Tribulation was at hand and signed Paul’s name to it (II Thes. 2:2), and that could happen to the Galatians about the law as well.

Only a fallen “angel from heaven” would teach the law to Gentiles.  Fallen angels live in heaven, and will until Revelation 12:7-9.  We have no power to curse a fallen angel to hell, but he’s going to hell anyway, so Paul says to just “let him be” accursed (cf. I Cor. 14:38), or “removed” from God.

A saved man who teaches the law can’t be cursed to hell, but cursing is the opposite of blessing 30 times in the Bible (e.g., James 3:10).  “Any” who preach the law (Gal. 1:9) lose the “blessedness” of grace (Gal. 4:15).  The Galatians went from being willing to give others what they had (4:15) to envying what others had (5:26).  Sounds like a curse to me!

Of course, it was perfectly legit for James to continue to preach the law, for he taught it to “Jews” (Acts 21:12) just as he said he would (Gal. 2:9).  But he also quit teaching the law to Gentiles—also just as he said he would (Acts 15:19).

I entitled this message “A Fool and God’s Grace Are Soon Parted” because Paul called the Galatians “foolish” (3:1) to leave grace for law, blessedness for cursing.  When they were deciding whether to trade grace for law, the angels who Paul says are always watching us were probably crying, “Don’t trade!” as audience members cry on “Let’s Make a Deal.”  But they couldn’t hear those angels, and men still can’t hear them.  So when Christians are thinking of trading grace for law, it’s up to us to cry, “Don’t trade!”  Amen?

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: A Fool and God’s Grace Are Soon Parted – Galatians 1:6-9

Summary:

Paul doesn’t always introduce himself as “an apostle” (1:1), but he did to the Corinthians (I Cor. 1:1; II Cor. 1:1) because they were doubting his apostleship  I Cor. 9:1, 2). He wouldn’t have had to write things like that if they weren’t doubting his apostleship.  And the Galatians must also have been doubting it, or he wouldn’t have to say it wasn’t “of men, neither by man.”

“Of men” means that men weren’t the source of his apostle-ship, as it does when the Lord asked Israel’s leaders if John’s baptism was “from heaven, or of men?”  So Paul was saying men weren’t the source of his apostleship.  But “neither by man” is talking about instrumentality, not source.  That is, God didn’t use men to make him an apostle.  Later he answers that by saying he didn’t get it from the 12 (Gal. 1:17).

Now the Corinthians doubted Paul’s apostleship because he didn’t look or sound like they thought an apostle should look and sound (II Cor. 10:10).  But the Galatians doubted it because he had taught them what he taught the Romans, that we are saved by grace without the law (Rom. 3:21-28).  But after he preached that for a few years, the Jews were alarmed, and got together in what is called “The Jerusalem Council” to decide if Paul was a legitimate apostle sent by God, and if his new message of grace was also from God (Acts 15:1-6).

Saved Jews like James recognized Paul’s apostleship was le-git (Acts 15:19), as did the leaders of the 12 (Gal. 2:9), and ever after that they quit telling Gentiles they had to keep the law to be saved.  But unsaved Jews didn’t agree with the council, so they kept telling Gentiles that, including the Galatians.  Those legalizers were probably telling them Paul’s apostleship was of men—the men of the Jerusalem Council, who mistakenly made him an apostle.  But they didn’t make Paul an apostle, they just “saw” that he “was” one (Gal. 2:7).

They were probably also saying that God the Father would not have sent Paul to be an apostle to preach grace not law, for He’s the One who gave Moses the law.  And they were probably also saying Christ wouldn’t have made him an apostle to preach grace not law, for Christ sent His apostles out to preach law, not grace (Mt. 23:1-3; 28:20)!

They may also have pointed out that Paul wasn’t made an apostle until after Christ had died, prompting Paul to say he was made an apostle by Christ and “God the Father, who raised Him from the dead” (1:4).  He told the Romans that he received “grace and apostleship” from Christ after He rose from the dead (Rom. 1:3, 4), and sent him to preach grace to “all nations,” not law, like He sent the 12 to preach to “all nations” (Mt. 28:20).

Galatia was not a city, it was a “region” (Acts 16:6), and regions had many cities (cf. Deut. 3:4).  Galatia was kind of like it’s own “country” (Acts 18:22, 23), and so may have had many “churches” (Gal. 1:2).  If Paul was writing this letter of correction all of them, that shows how widespread the apostasy from grace was, even before Paul died.

But while Paul burned when people angered him like this (II Cor. 11:29), he offered the Galatians grace and peace (1:3), because that’s what God offers us when we anger Him.  Paul’s flesh wanted to judge them and declare war on them for this apostasy, but offered them the opposite of judgment and war instead.  This is similar to what we should do when men anger us, and to what God the Father did when He got good and mad at our sins.  He sent His Son to die for them.

Galatians 1:4 says the Lord “gave Himself” for our sins to deliver us “from this present evil world,” not just the future evil world of hell.  He did die to delivers us “from all iniquity” (Tit. 2:14), but also to “purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” now, in this present evil world.  Today it is God’s grace that teaches us how to deny ungodliness (Tit. 2:11, 12).

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Paul’s Intro to Galatians – Galatians 1:1-5