This was written by Paul to the
churches in Galatia. The churches in Galatia were
Celtic in origin. The Celts had come down and invaded,
come over and across and invaded in Germany and then come down
into the area of Galatia and then they settled there. So the
people were superstitious, superstitious folks, very easily swayed to
different opinions, thus We see what's happened when the Judaizers
have come in and some people have been started to be swayed
to believe what the Judaizers are teaching. But they're not
totally gone. We know that because Paul writes
this letter here by inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God to
them, to warn them that there's only one true gospel, that gospel
which Paul preached and proclaimed, one true gospel. And that one
true gospel is all about salvation in Christ and him alone. There's
salvation in no other, no other. You add anything of man's works
to grace, it's no longer grace. Paul wrote that in Romans, he
talked about that in Romans, and we've looked at that verse
through the study too. There's salvation in none other, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And remember this too, when we
look at those words, those red words in the scripture, remember
that's God speaking. Christ is God in the flesh. That's
God speaking directly to those he's talking to. That's God speaking. Now the whole word is from God,
isn't it? But those specific words are God incarnate in the
flesh speaking. So there's a lot of weight there,
isn't there? And he said himself, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. That's the words of God himself
proclaiming that there's salvation in no other. No other but Him. And the work is absolutely complete.
Remember, we've been looking at the word, it is finished.
In the Greek, that word means to be bought, to be complete,
to perfection. There's nothing to be added.
The work is absolutely perfect. And it's done by a perfect man,
as you brought up, Brother Travis. A perfect man, the Lord Jesus
Christ, God incarnated in the flesh, finished the work of salvation
for His people. So there's absolutely nothing
we can do, say, or even think to gain salvation with Jehovah.
It's all in Christ and Him alone. There's no other way. And today
we'll see Paul starts a defense of his authority to preach and
proclaim the gospel. He's an apostle sent by the Lord
Jesus Christ, sent by God, and he brings forth the fact that
he was called by God to preach the gospel. Let's read verses
6 to 14 of Galatians chapter 1, and we'll see the context
of our verse. Verse 6, I marvel that you are
so soon removed from him that called you unto the grace of
Christ unto another gospel, which is not another. But there be
some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
Remember when we looked at that word pervert in the Greek, it
means to be diametrically opposed. So the false gospel that the
Judaizers are teaching is diametrically opposed to the gospel of God's
free grace in Christ Jesus. But though we or an angel from
heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have
preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before,
so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto
you than that you have received, let him be accursed. And that's
anathema in the Greek, remember? And that's a strong word. That's
a strong word, to be cursed. For do I now persuade men or
God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I should
not be the servant of Christ. Now let's read verses 11 to 14.
Verse 11 will be our text today, but I want to read this so we
get the context of this verse. But I certify you, brethren,
that the gospel which was preached of me is not after men. For I
neither received it of men, Neither was I taught it, but by the revelation
of Jesus Christ. For ye have heard of my conversations
in times past in the Jewish religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted
the church of God, and wasted it, mine, and profited in the
Jewish religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being
more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. So
last week we looked at verse 10, in our study. And we'll continue to verse 11
today. We see that Paul brings forth
that the one true gospel which he preaches is not after man. It's not after
man. Not at all. In verse 12, he actually
brings forth that he didn't receive it of man, but he was taught
it. by revelation of Jesus Christ.
Do you know the gospel is revealed to every one of God's people?
Charlie, you and I were just talking about that. And Tom and
I have been talking about it. It's a revelation. Christ must
reveal himself to us or we'll never know him. And he does that
by the power of the Holy Spirit of God through the preaching
of his word. And so Paul preaches the one
true gospel. It's not after man. He didn't receive it from man,
but it came to him by revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
again, this is true of every born-again, blood-washed believer.
The gospel of salvation in and through Christ is not an invention
of man. It's not an invention of man at all. No, it's God's
gospel. It's God's gospel. Neither can any man come to a
knowledge of it by themselves. You can't learn it by studying
books. Many, many men have studied books. Many men in false religions study
books about the Bible, but don't know truly the God of the Bible.
So it comes to us. It comes by revelation. The Gospels are revealed to God's
people by revelation. We're born again by the Holy
Spirit of God. Then we're granted faith to believe. And then we
believe the Word, don't we? And then the Holy Spirit teaches
us. That sweet balm of Gilead. Christ died for my sins. Christ
saved my eternal soul. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. Our hearts then, that maybe once
cursed Him, now sing out in praise to Him. Look what the Lord's
done. Look at the marvelous work that He's done. And we exercise that God-given
faith, don't we? God gives us faith, but we do
exercise it, don't we? You know how we exercise it,
beloved? By trusting Christ. By trusting in Him. By looking
to Him every day. We look away from ourselves,
don't we? And we look to Christ and Him alone. Natural man cannot
learn the gospel. How do we know that? Because
scripture declares there's none that seeks after God. So if none
seek after God, then no one can learn the gospel. The scripture
also says, there's none that understandeth. In Romans 3, Paul
was writing that. None that understandeth. I didn't
understand the word of God before the Lord saved me. I remember
reading the Bible, and it was just paper and ink before the
Lord saved me. But after he saved me, like you
were talking about today, Charlie, my goodness, look what's starting
to be revealed. I never saw that before. Might
have read that passage 100 times, never saw it. And he continues to do that to
us, doesn't he? He continues to reveal new things to us about
Christ through the scriptures. But natural man cannot understand
the scriptures. And natural man has no care for
their soul. Did we care for our souls before
we were saved? Not at all, did we, brother. Not at all. Didn't
have a care in the world. People in the world have heard
this many times. They say, well, it's a man-made religion. Bible's
written by man. No, it's not. Holy men of God
were moved to write these words down. And think of this. Think
of this. If the gospel was man-made, why
does it give all glory to God? Why is it that we have nothing
to do with our salvation? Because you know if it was man-made,
like the false religions, it would be all about what we do.
That's why men despise the true gospel, because they have nothing
to do for their salvation. It's all according to God's free
grace, all according to God's mercy. He is the cause of our
salvation, and He is the obtainer of our salvation as well. So
this gospel does not come from man. It's God's gospel, beloved.
It's God's gospel. It comes to us by revelation
from the Holy Spirit of God. And they said Paul had no authority
to preach. No, they said Paul had his own.
He just started preaching on his own. No, God sent him. His
authority came from God, as does every gospel preacher's authority
comes from God. comes from him. Whether you're
teaching the scriptures or whether you're preaching the scriptures,
the authority comes from God. My. Paul, therefore, says the
gospel of God's free grace in Christ alone, which he preached,
is not from man. We see that in our text there.
He says, it didn't come from man. But I certify you, brother,
that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. It's
not from man. Not at all. Paul says this comes
from the free grace of God. And how do we know that? Well,
look at verse 4 where he preached the gospel to them about Christ,
who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from
this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. So before he does any correction,
he just lays the gospel right out, doesn't he? Christ gave
himself for us. He's the one who died in our
ruined place. Look at verses 11 and 12. But
I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached
to me is not after man. Look at this. For I neither received
it of man. Now God uses gospel preachers
to preach the word, right? And teachers to teach the word
of God. But if you only hear my words,
I'm not going to do nothing for you. God the Holy Spirit takes
those words and makes them effectual. Salvations of the Lord is all
of him. He's the one who regenerates. He's the one who teaches us the
gospel. He's the one who reveals himself. Remember Joseph and
his brother? They showed up to Joseph, and they didn't even
know who he was. They had no clue who he was. And he's the one who's orchestrated
all this for them to have corn and grain for the whole time
through the famine. They had no idea. And then he reveals
himself to them, right? That's what Christ does for us.
He provides for us the whole time we were living in sin, the
whole time we were doing whatever we desired. He was taking care
of us the whole time. His eye has always been on His
sheep, beloved, from eternity. From eternity. It's wonderful.
Absolutely wonderful. So he writes here, I certify
you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached to be is not
after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught
it. but by the revelation of Jesus
Christ. So let's read verse 11 again. We note here at the beginning
of the sentence that we see that he's continuing his vein of thought,
which he's been bringing forth. First of all, he greets them.
And then he presents to them the one true gospel. And now
he's going to start to present the reason, the authority that
he has to preach comes from God. Because the false teachers were
attacking them that way. They said, well, he's not sent
by God. Oh, yeah, he was. Notice here,
he says this. But I certify you, brethren,
that the gospel which was preached to me is not after man. So again,
he's bringing up the fact here that this gospel is not something
he made. It's not something man came up
with. No, it comes from God. It's God's gospel. It's concerning
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. See the words, I certify you,
in the text? The word certify in the Greek
means to make known. And we think, well, he certified
something. No, it's just to make known. So he's, I make known
unto you, brethren, in the Greek. The word has the force here. And what he's doing, he's not
teaching them something they don't know, because he's already
preached the gospel to them, and the Lord's already saved
them, right? He's bringing us up as a reminder. I'm going to let you know again.
I'm going to make this known to you again. Even though you
know it, I'm going to make it known to you. What does every gospel preacher
do when we get up and preach the gospel? We preach what you
already know, don't we? Right? Because it's the truth.
We just keep making it known to ourselves. You know why? Because
we need to be constantly reminded that Christ is all our salvation.
That what a hope we have in this world as we go through this world.
So it means to make known there when it says certify. And the
word, the force here of the word is again of reminding the Galatians
in an empathetic way. He's not coming down on them.
He's reminding them in a way that, and how do we know that?
Because next he uses the word brethren. Brethren. Divinely loved ones. My. So he brings forth in an empathetic
way that they've already been convinced of the gospel which
Paul preached them because the Holy Spirit's already saved them.
They're regenerated. They're born again. They're not
lost. And we know that because he calls
them brethren. You see how far we can slide away? But the Holy Spirit will never
let us go too far, will he? He always brings us back. He
always does. Oh, my. There's been times when
I've been so cold in my walk with the Lord, and then I'll
hear something, and he just fires me right up again. Is it so for
you? Oh, my. It's amazing. It's absolutely
amazing. Just gets us all fired up. So
he's bringing forth here that this gospel was God's gospel,
and it must be revealed to us. We see that in verse 12, for
I neither received it of men, neither was I taught it, but
by the revelation of Jesus Christ. And Paul uses the word again,
when he uses the word certify here, it's in the most powerful
argument. It's a hinge, it's a hinge on
which the question turns. that he had not received this
gospel from men, but from God. It's being revealed to him. In
these facts, he brings forth, which we'll see in our studies
later on, but let's read them. He brings forth a series of facts
in verses 13 to 21, which show that his authority to preach
comes from God. Look at verses 13 to 21. of my conversations in times
past in the Jewish religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted
the Church of God and wasted it." We're going to look at that
in future studies. He went forth and was pulling
Christians out of their homes and having them thrown into jail
and Stephen was stoned and he laid his coat down. My oh my. Now though, he's a trophy of
God's grace. Isn't that amazing? Just as every
one of us are too. Every one of us is a trophy of
the grace of God, beloved. It's incredible. And so he's going to give us
a narrative of facts here, which occurred to him, to prove that
the gospel is not of men. The gospel that he preached was
not of men. For you have heard of my conversations in times
past in the Jewish religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted
the church of God and wasted it, and profited in the Jewish
religion above many mine equals. in my own nation, these very
wealthy men, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of
my fathers. Look at this. Oh, this verse
here. We're going to spend a couple
times on this verse. Look at this. But when it pleased
God. When it pleased God. There was
a time when it pleased God in our lives, too, to reveal Christ
to us. Isn't that wonderful? But when
it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by his grace, called by the grace of God. We see those
words and just marvel, don't we? Knowing that we were called
by the grace of God too. And then look at this, to reveal
his son in me. Remember Joseph revealed himself
to his brethren? Oh. Now, there was a time when
the Lord revealed himself to us, and he's still revealing
himself in the scriptures, isn't he? And we're still rejoicing,
we're still weeping, and rejoicing in his presence, oh my goodness. To reveal, O son of me, that
I might preach him among the heathen, and me that I conferred
not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem, to them
which were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia, and returned
again unto Damascus. Then, three years, After three
years I went up to Jerusalem to seek Peter, and abode with
him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw
I none, save James the Lord's brother. Now the things which
I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions
of Syria and Sicily." So we see here that by stating these facts,
Paul is giving more weight to what he had stated about the
gospel being not of men. He was taught it by God. It was
revealed to him by God. And so he affirms again, too,
that there's only one true gospel. It's not of men. It's not of
men. It needs nothing added to it,
because it's completed to perfection by the perfect man. So it doesn't
need anything added to it. How do we know when someone is
preaching a false gospel, they tell you what you have to do? And I don't care if it's just
a pinprick of works. Remember Jean-Claude's analogy
about the bull with helium? Take a pin, just a pinprick.
What happens? That's what happens if you put
a pinprick of works and add it to grace. Just a pinprick. And remember, works Works in
the Greek is anything that you can think of or do physically. It covers the whole spectrum.
No, salvation is not a works. No, no, no. It's all a grace.
It's all a grace. It was not contrived by man,
which we've seen in verses 13 to 21, which we just read. Let's go back to our verse that
says, But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached
to me is not after man. Note the word brethren in verse
11 again. What a tender touch. What a tender
touch by the Apostle Paul. He could have just slammed him
and came right down on him, right? Which is what we do when we get
angry. Now I imagine Paul was full of righteous anger when
he heard about what was happening. But look at how tender he is
with them. Remember the lady at the well? Remember how tender
the Lord was with her? But yet then with them Pharisees,
he just... But here are brethren. He's writing the brethren. What
a tender touch here. From the great apostle. Do you
know the Greek word here for brethren is adelphos? It literally
means from the same womb. From the same womb. My goodness. And it's used here purely in
its masculine usage. And it means a brother. And the word is in the plural
form, so it means many, which refers to all the Galatian believers. And Paul and the Galatian church
found the same source of their regenerated lives in the work
of the Holy Spirit of God, just like we do. We call each other
brethren because we're born again by the same Holy Spirit of God. My oh my. And this is a very
endearing word. Very endearing word here. I just
think it's such a tender touch that Paul uses here. We're born
again by the Holy Spirit of God, and we all have the same Father,
don't we? And we have the same Redeemer,
don't we? And we're born again by the same Spirit. We have the
same faith. You know, we have the same faith
that was given to Paul. Isn't that amazing? I heard one preacher,
I think it was C.H. Spurgeon, he said, he said, you
marvel at this, you were chosen in Christ the same time Paul
was, before the foundation of the world. Oh my goodness. See, we vault these characters
up, don't we? But they're just like you and I. Greatly used
by God, but just like us, sinners saved by the grace of God. And
Paul, I love how Paul brings himself. He doesn't vault himself.
He's a great apostle. He doesn't vault himself. I'm
Paul, you need to listen to me. He doesn't say that. He says,
brethren, my brothers, there's only one gospel. And this gospel
doesn't come from man. This gospel must be revealed
to you. And it comes from God the Father. It's God's gospel.
It's God's gospel. And one commentator said, it's
like Paul saying, actually, Henry said this, I'm telling you the
truth. The gospel you heard from me is not from men. It's not
something that men invented. And it's not. Men would not think
of a salvation that they would think of without something they
had to do, as I said earlier. Look at all the religions of
old. They were all something man had
to do. Look at the religions of today. Mohammedism, and Islam,
and Buddhism, and Catholicism, and Church of Christ, and all
these things. Seven Day Adventists, they all
got something you got to do. But we preach that it's done.
The work's done. We just look to Christ. And even
looking to Christ comes from God. He gives us the eyes to
look to Him. Therefore, we conclude with Jonah, salvation is of the
Lord, don't we? It's all of the Lord. My, oh my. Remember, unregenerate
men have no spiritual wisdom. And I don't speak of that just
flippantly. I was there. I had no idea who God was, who
the true God of the Bible was. I had no clue who He was until
He revealed Himself to me. And my whole world fell apart
after that. My religious world, it just crumbled. When I heard
that verse, there's one mediator between God and man, the man
Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all. My goodness. One mediator? You mean I don't
have to go to no priest to tell him? And he's going to tell me
to do all the... Remember? Do all these things? He's a sinner
too! Oh, do this and do this and you'll
be okay then. No. No. The only way I can be
okay is to be in Christ. to be covered under the precious
blood of Christ, just like them Israelites were right in the
Passover. When I see the blood, I'll pass over you. God sees the blood of Christ
on us, and he passes over us. The wrath has already been appeased.
Justice has already been satisfied 2,000 years ago. Oh, wonderful
news. Wonderful news. We have to preach
and proclaim about salvation in Christ, in him alone. And
the gospel of God's free grace, through the perfect redeeming
work of the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, could not have come
from the puny mind of sinful men. Just couldn't. We would not even think of a
salvation where we're not involved in it. No, this is God's gospel. Let's look at verse 11 again.
But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached
to me is not after man. It's not a man. Paul's declaring the truth. that
he wanted the Saints in Glacier area to be perfectly clear about. These false preachers, these
Judaizers, have come in and bewitched them. Said, you have to be circumcised
to be saved. Well, that's a work of man, isn't
it? Did not Christ fulfill the law in our place? Isn't that
the wonder of the gospel? You and I were talking this morning,
Charlie, about loving our neighbor. Sometimes it's hard to love your
neighbor, isn't it? But you know Christ already did it for us.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't love our neighbor, but he already
did it for us perfectly. He fulfilled the law. He's the
end of the law for righteousness. There's nothing left for us to
do. He's done it all. And now we who believe are clothed
in that perfect spotless righteousness which he weaved out in his life
for us. And God looks at us and he sees
Christ. You don't see our sin anymore. My, oh my. It's wonderful. So these false preachers had
bewitched them with their false teachings. These evil men, they'd
never say that their gospel was man-made, but it was. That which
they were teaching was man-made. Because the true gospel, the
one true gospel, gives God all the glory. It claims that salvation
is in no other but Christ. There's no other salvation. No
other salvation. So does that mean a billion Catholics
are wrong? Yep. Does that mean a billion
Islamic folks are wrong? Yep. Yeah, it does. Salvation is only in Christ.
I am the way, the truth, and life. That's God speaking. That's
not just a mere man speaking. That's God incarnated in the
flesh saying, I am the way. There's only one way. That's
the king's highway, isn't it? Isaiah talks about that. That's
Christ. I am the way, the truth. All those other religions are
lies. That's all they are. They're lies. They're counterfeits. And see, man loves to do something. So all these religions, upon
that they pray upon that and Paul saying no the gospel which
I delivered you is this about Christ who gave himself for our
sins Christ gave himself in my sins verse 4 again look at that
he might deliver us from this present evil world well praise
God I've been delivered every believer gets I've been delivered
I'm set free and if Christ make you free let me tell you this
You're free indeed. You're free indeed, if Christ
made you free. And look at this, I love this. According to the
will of God and our Father. Why are you and I saved? Isn't
that amazing? All according to his will and
purpose. From eternity. We're going to look at that this
morning. From eternity. It pleased God. All things are
working for our good, all things, and for His glory. Even stuff
we can't understand, my, oh, my. Now, there's one other thing
I want us to look at here. One other thing I want us to
look at. See the word not in verse 11? Now, we would just
go by that and think, oh, well, it's just not. But I certify
you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not
after man. Do you know the Greek word here
brings forth that the gospel is from God alone? This Greek
word brings the force of Paul's defense fully in the negative. That his gospel is not of man. The word in the Greek here, it's so, it's actually, what
is it? I can't remember what kind of
Greek word it is, but it's in the absolute negative. It's in
the absolute negative. As someone said, in other words,
you cannot say more empathetically that the one true gospel is not
of man. You can't say it any stronger in that little Greek
word. You cannot say it any stronger
in the way it's used, because it's used, again, in the absolute
negative. You can't say it any stronger that the gospel is not
of man. And we'd go by that, wouldn't we? When we read, we'd
just be like, oh, And I saw that, and I thought, I'm going to look
at that Greek word, see what it says. Oh my goodness, was I ever
in for a surprise. That's wonderful. So the one
true gospel of salvation in Christ and Him alone is not according
to man. It did not originate with man.
Man had no part in its planning, and man had no part in its execution. Now, we preach the gospel, but
it's God who makes it effectual, isn't it? Brian, you and I were
talking about that. Preach the gospel and get out of the way.
Like Scott Richardson used to say, just get out of the way.
Let God do what he will. And that's what we do as gospel
preachers. I ask you, is this the kind of
salvation that man would devise? in Christ alone with absolutely
nothing that we have to do? Is this the kind of salvation
that man would devise? Absolutely not, is it? No, absolutely not.
This is God's gospel. It comes from God and Him alone.
Oh my. And man-made salvation does nothing
but damn a soul to hell. That's what it does. This gospel
is good news. This is good news for sinners.
This old sinner thinks it's great news. It's wonderful. Saved my
soul, the Lord Jesus Christ. My. So let us who are believers
rejoice in the truth that salvation is of the Lord. It's wholly accomplished
by Him. It's finished. It's done. He's the only Savior of sinners.
There's no other who'd be saved. And remember who's speaking,
too. Those words are read. It's none other than the Word
of God, the second person of the Trinity, who John wrote of,
in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. And
then later on, he writes in chapter 1, and the Word became flesh
into our demons. That's who saved our soul. The
Word of God. Oh my. Next week we'll see that
Paul received this Gospel from no one but God. No one but God. Let's go to Lord in prayer. Heavenly
Father, we thank you for giving us the time to be able to gather
together. Oh Lord, we marvel in thy Word. We marvel as we've
seen that that salvation is only in you.
We marvel that you revealed that to us. We were thinking we could
save ourselves. We were dead in trespasses and
sins, and your people must be born again. And by the power
of the Holy Spirit of God, O Holy Spirit, you regenerate us. You
give us faith to believe. And we are so thankful for your
mercy and goodness to us. Thank you, Father, that you planned
and purposed our salvation in eternity, and thank you, Lord
Jesus, that you executed our salvation to the fullest, that
the work is perfect. We are but receivers of thy mercy
and thy grace. We love you because you first
loved us, in Jesus' name.