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Compromise is a tricky thing isn't it? You're
never quite sure whether you're going too far or not far
enough. The trouble is it's so important in today's
world. JFK once said "Let us never negotiate out of
fear, but let us never fear to negotiate."
Negotiation, compromise, finding the middle ground are
the essence of diplomacy aren't they? We saw a great
example recently, when that US spy plane was intercepted
by a Chinese fighter plane. The Chinese plane crashed,
killing its pilot and the US plane was forced down in
Chinese territory. And do you remember the work the spin
doctors had to do to come up with a statement that would
satisfy the honour of both sides? The issue of truth at
that point didn't really come into it, did it? What
mattered was finding a politically acceptable compromise.
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Of course
it's not only in politics that we find ourselves having
to negotiate over truth. Even in religious debate we're
expected to show tolerance and restraint. There's no room
for hard-liners or rigid beliefs even in the discussion
of religion. Peter Jensen got into trouble the other day
for daring to suggest that the Prime Minister might be
able to know what God would want him to do about
Aboriginal reconciliation. The response from the Prime
Minister's office to that suggestion was that what Peter
Jensen was suggesting was out of step with the majority
of the community. How dare an archbishop-elect suggest
there might be some higher standard than that of the
majority! No. we live in a pluralist society, so we must
be ready to compromise, even with what might be the
truth. // |
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"Even
if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a
gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that
one be accursed! 9As we have said before, so
now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel
contrary to what you received, let that one be
accursed!" |
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We cringe
a little when we hear those words don't we? Paul is so
politically incorrect! How can he be so sure of himself
that he'd even call down a curse on those who oppose him?
Or was he just having a bad day? Perhaps he'd had a fight
with his wife and now he was taking it out on his
opponents. |
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Well, let
me suggest that Paul isn't simply being narrow minded. He
isn't being arrogant in maintaining that he's right and
they're wrong. Rather he's standing up for an important
principle that we've almost lost in our pluralist,
post-modern environment: he standing up for the principle
of truth, Truth with a capital T. He saying there is such
a thing as truth and that Truth is not negotiable. You
see, you can negotiate about a spy plane that lands in
foreign territory, you can negotiate about the right of
Australian tourists to attend a political meeting in
Indonesia, you can negotiate about remedies for global
warming. In fact you can negotiate about almost anything
in the political arena and so you should. But we mustn't
think we can negotiate about the Truth. As we go through
this series on Galatians we'll begin to see, I hope, why
this is so. |
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But let's
first consider the situation in Galatia to which Paul is
writing. Galatia is the area of central Asia Minor,
what's now Turkey, where Paul first preached the Gospel.
It covered places like Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Derbe,
and Iconium. You may remember that when they first went
there, they began in the synagogues where some of the
Jews were converted, but when the Jewish leaders rejected
them they then turned to the Gentiles. So here was a
group of Churches with a mixed population, Jews and
Gentiles, and things were obviously not going well. It's
interesting to note that when Paul writes his other
letters to Churches he always begins with praise or
thanks to God for their faith and service. But not here.
Here he's only just finished his opening remarks when he
launches into a passionate rebuke: |
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"I
am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one
who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to
a different gospel." It seems that they're being led
astray by a group of teachers who are pushing a different
message to Paul and it sounds like they're in real danger
of falling for it. |
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Now some
people might think that Paul is worried about them
deserting him, as though he were the one he's referring
to in v6. But it isn't himself he's talking about. It's
God. Look at the summary of the gospel that Paul gives in
vs3&4. He summarises the gospel like this: |
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- Christ gave himself for our sins
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- Christ gave himself to set us free
from the present evil age
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- Christ gave himself according to
the will of our God and Father
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The one
who originates Jesus mission, the one who sends Paul as
an apostle to preach the gospel (v1), is the same one who
calls us to faith in Christ. That is, God the Father. And
here they are in danger of deserting God, to go after
these human traditions. |
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Now Paul
doesn't say specifically what this other gospel is, or
who these people are, but we can get a fairly good idea
from what he says in the rest of his letter. |
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It's
fairly clear first of all, that these false teachers are
associated with the Judaizers who are mentioned in Acts
15. These would appear to be people who have come out of
the Jewish culture, with all it's concentration on the
law of Moses and the traditions of the elders. They've
been converted to Christianity, but they still see it as
essentially a Jewish religion. Jesus is the Jewish
Messiah. So these new Gentile converts are simply joining
Judaism as it was meant to be with the Messiah as their
Lord. And all those years of concentration on their
Jewish cultural identity has meant that it's incredibly
hard for them to free themselves from their allegiance to
the law not only theologically, but especially
emotionally. |
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But
they're fighting a losing battle. Paul's missionary
efforts are bearing much more fruit among Gentiles than
among Jews, so the church is becoming more and more
Gentile. So this group of Judaizers have a fight on their
hands. |
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So what
do they do? Well, they fight dirty. They begin to
undermine Paul's authority. First of all, they point out
that Paul isn't a real Apostle. He wasn't one of the 12.
(Who were Jewish of course!) He's just a
'Johnny-come-lately.' They suggest that anything he
teaches that's right he learnt from the apostles in
Jerusalem and the rest - the bits that are wrong - he's
made up by himself. It's a bit like the author who got
his manuscript back from a publisher with a note that
said "Your work is both good and original.
Unfortunately the bit that is good isn't original and the
bit that is original isn't good!" It reminds me a
bit of an episode of 'Yes Prime Minister' I saw last
week, where they damned someone by faint praise. They're
not actually saying he's wrong, just sowing the seed of
doubt about whether he can be trusted to speak with
authority. |
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But then
they go further by suggesting that his views on the lack
of need for circumcision and the like, are really just a
sell-out to the liberals. He's just trying to get in good
with the Gentiles, by allowing them to avoid what was
obviously a distasteful idea. I mean, how could he get
the sort of evangelistic response he was getting if he
let on that circumcision was required? |
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So Paul
spends a good deal of the first couple of chapters
dealing with these sorts of objections. But before we
look at what he says to begin to refute their claims,
let's think about the error they'd fallen into. In fact
there were three things they'd got wrong. |
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1
Legalism |
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First
they were legalists. That is, they believed that
salvation is achieved by one's obedience to an external
set of rules. In Acts 15:1 they were teaching the
believers in Antioch: "Unless you are circumcised
according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be
saved." (NRSV) In other words they were saying you
have to be a Jew to be saved. Notice that the issue here
isn't the 10 commandments. Nowhere are we told that the
10 commandments as a moral law have been superseded. But
they want these new converts to follow the ritual laws
that will set them apart as part of the Jewish people. |
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2 Racism |
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That's
because at heart they were Racist. They believed in the
superiority of the Jewish culture as the way to God. They
wanted to maintain those practices that made them
separate: circumcision, food laws, Sabbath observance. So
the issue wasn't moral uprightness, but cultural, even
ethnic distinctiveness. |
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3 Nomism. |
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Thirdly,
they were nomists. This is a word that comes from the
Greek word for law, but is a bit different to legalism.
Nomists would agree that obedience to the law doesn't
earn us salvation, but they would argue that obedience is
necessary if we're to remain within the covenant and
enjoy its blessings. And so they're scared of Paul's
stance for freedom in the gospel. They're worried that
his emphasis on freedom will lead to these Gentiles
bringing pagan practices into the Church the way the
Gentile nations mixing with the people of Israel had
corrupted the worship of the nation 700 years before. Now
can I just say that we're still not free from this sort
of misunderstanding of the law. There are still those who
fear the freedom that the gospel brings with it. We
haven't got time to go into this today but we'll come
back to it when we get to ch. 4. For now it's enough to
realise that the fear these Judaizers had was that if the
gospel makes us free then we'll think we can sin with
impunity. And then where are we? Well, their remedy for
that sort of danger was to go back to the law. To
emphasise particularly those laws that set Israel apart
from the pagan nations round about. |
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Well,
Paul will rebut each of those false ideas in turn. But
first he has to re-establish his credentials. So he
begins by this strong rebuke of these false teachers.
"Even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim
to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you,
let that one be accursed! 9As we have said
before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a
gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be
accursed!" If they thought he's changed his theology
to please his hearers, what did they make of this. He
says in v10: "Am I now seeking human approval, or
God's approval? Or am I trying to please people?"
No, his aim is to do what God wants. |
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Then he
says that his message isn't something he's made up,
despite what his opponents are suggesting. Rather, it's
the message he's received from Jesus Christ himself. |
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Now I
want to do something a little different here. I want you
to do some of the work. Open your Bibles up at Gal 1, if
you haven't already, and I want you to ask yourself 2
questions about vs 11-12. |
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1 What
does Paul tell us in 1:11-12 that is special about the
gospel? |
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2 What
does Paul tell us is special about himself? |
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You see
the thing that saves Paul from the accusation of
arrogance or error in his curse on those who are
distorting the gospel is that the message he's talking
about wasn't just the product of his own personal
deliberation. If he'd been preaching a gospel that he'd
come to out of his own theological search for meaning,
then we'd be quite right in accusing him of arrogance, of
being too sure of himself, too intemperate in the way he
criticises his opponents. But this is the message that
Christ has entrusted to him. This is the proclamation of
God's gospel for the world. This is a revelation given to
him by Christ himself. |
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What's
more, that makes Paul himself special. He could claim
what only 11 or maybe 12 of the others could claim: that
Jesus had personally sent him into the world to preach
the gospel. The rest of us receive that call second hand,
but Paul and the others had the special calling of
apostles, those sent out by Jesus himself, with Jesus
Christ's authority. With the God-given mandate to pass on
the truth about Jesus Christ, about God's offer of
salvation by faith in Christ alone. And it's that
mandate, that authority that Paul is so careful to defend
as he writes this letter. It was truth - God's truth. And
you can't negotiate with truth. |
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As we go
through the rest of this letter I want us to think
carefully about what it means to have been entrusted with
the truth of God's revelation. How are we going to be
good stewards of the grace of God as revealed in the
gospel of Jesus Christ? Will we keep it to ourselves
because we're too worried about being politically
correct, or will we share it with people because without
it they're lost and without a future? |
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The
Gospel is truth - God's truth. And you can't negotiate
with truth. |
