In 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 and we'll read from verse 4.
2nd Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 4. For if he that cometh preacheth
another Jesus whom we have not preached or if ye receive another
spirit which ye have not received, or another gospel which ye have
not accepted, ye might well bear with him. For I suppose I was
not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles, but though I be rude
in speech, yet not in knowledge, but we have been truly made manifest
among you in all things. Have I committed an offence in
abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached
to you the gospel of God freely? I robbed other churches, taking
wages of them to do you service. And when I was present with you
and wanted, I was chargeable to no man. For that which was
lacking to me, the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied. And in all things I have kept
myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep
myself. As the truth of Christ is in
me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia. Wherefore, because I love you
not, God knoweth. But what I do, that I will do,
that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion, that
wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. For such
are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves
into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself
is transformed into an angel of light, Therefore it is no
great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers
of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works. Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading to us. Just keep a hold of your Bibles.
I'm going to read another short passage in a moment or two. This
passage in 2 Corinthians is important, I think. Of course, everything's
important, but this passage has as much relevance for our modern
situation, I believe, as it had for the church at Corinth in
Paul's day. And I'm sure that there's a strong
connection here between Paul's words to the Corinthians and
a very similar passage that perhaps we're a little bit more familiar
with in his letter to the churches of Galatia. And if you just flick
over a couple of pages, to the beginning of Galatians in chapter
one. We find in verse six the apostle
writing this to the Galatian churches. I marvel that ye are
so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of
Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, but there are
some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we are 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 ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I
now persuade men or God, or do I seek to please men? For if
I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. Now,
I've taken time to read that passage because I think in many
ways the same argument is being used by the Apostle here to both
churches. And just before we take our thoughts
to the particular verses in 2 Corinthians 11 that I want to just touch
upon, I want to remind us just how much trouble, just how much
bother, just how much heartache Paul had to deal with because
troublemakers came into these churches that he had founded
and to which he had ministered. Wherever Paul went, It appears
that the Jews and false teachers and even people who claimed falsely
to be apostles followed him and caused him as much trouble, as
much disruption as they could. Paul calls it perverting the
gospel to the Galatians and contradicting his message and corrupting the
message that the apostle had preached. And I think sometimes
we, you and I today in our own present circumstances, perhaps
sometimes we are tempted to think too generously about false gospels. So just hear what I'm saying
there. I think we're sometimes tempted to be too magnanimous
with the false gospel that we see around about us. We think
something like, oh, all these different messages are just a
different emphasis. It's all the gospel and it's
all Christianity. It's just that some people are
moving more slowly along the path of revelation than others. Now, if that were true, we could
live with it. but it's not true. Paul calls
it another gospel in Galatians chapter one. And here in 2 Corinthians
chapter 11, he exposes its ministers as false apostles and deceitful
workers who are busily transforming themselves into the apostles
of Christ and ministers of righteousness. And ultimately, Paul traces this
false gospel with its false teachers to satanic influence, saying
in verse 14, and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light. And remember that the gospel
that these false apostles were preaching was not significantly
different in many ways. It had the same vocabulary, it
had the same methodology. These Corinthians were being
deceived by the people that came amongst them because what they
saw was so similar to what Paul had preached that for the moment
they were being blindsided. And I'm not saying that we should
be condemning and judgmental of everybody that we encounter.
That's such a soul-withering attitude to have. And I think
we should try to be as generous to everyone that we encounter
who professes to be a Christian. And we should lament the poor
state of Bible teaching in our day. But those who teach wrong
doctrine must be opposed because we cannot accept a gospel that
denies the total depravity of the human heart. And we cannot
understand a gospel that denies the total depravity of the human
heart. We can't accept a gospel that
denies the efficacy of Christ's death on the cross. And we can't
accept a gospel that denies the necessity of imputed righteousness. Paul says, if any preach, so
it was the preachers that he had in his sights, as it were. If any preach any other gospel
unto you than that he have received, let him be accursed. Let him
be cut off. Cut him off. So these preachers
have a very high responsibility and culpability, and we need
to have a discernment about us concerning these other gospels
that are around about. And that's what Paul is saying
here in this passage. He's saying, if he that cometh
preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you
receive another spirit than the Holy Spirit, which ye have not
already received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted,
so ye might well bear with him. That's the reference he's linking
it to bearing with Paul as he makes his defense, his justification. So that if anyone comes preaching
a Jesus, who is more able to redeem you than the Jesus that
we have preached, or preaches a spirit whose call is more powerful
to save than the spirit we preached, or a gospel that is better fitted
to your need than the gospel that you have already received
at our hand from our lips, then go and follow that man. Go and
follow His Jesus. Go and follow His Spirit. Go
and follow His gospel. Go after that which improves
upon and betters the gospel that we've preached. But Paul is saying
that will not be the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul,
he speaks with an element of modesty, but he says effectively,
well he says literally, I was not behind the very chiefest
of apostles. These people were attacking the
apostle Paul, both his person and his doctrine. And Paul says,
I wasn't behind as far as my doctrine is concerned. I'm not
behind Peter, James or John. Now it's true that Paul did not
sit for three years at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
it's true also that Paul's speech was plain and direct. And I would suggest intentionally
suited to his Gentile hearers. but he was behind no man in knowledge
of the true gospel, having learned it of Christ himself. nor had
he withheld anything from the Corinthians, but he preached
the whole counsel of God to them. He says to them, I have preached
to you the gospel of God freely. So there is a contrast and a
division being set up here by the apostle between the true
gospel and the false gospel. It's what he did with the Galatians,
and it's what he is doing here with the Corinthians. And then
he goes on to talk about the gospel of God. That's the phrase
that the apostle uses here to describe that which he has preached. And it's that that I want to
mention just in closing here. The gospel we know means good
news. And what makes the gospel good
news for a sinner is that everything the sinner needs has been freely
supplied, graciously provided and effectually bestowed. Everything that the sinner needs
has been freely supplied, graciously provided, and effectually bestowed
by God himself. There's no good news in telling
a sinner what he or she must do to obtain salvation when the
poor soul is incapable of doing anything in and of himself to
please God. If a sinner's deliverance requires
any contribution from the sinner, be it showing himself worthy,
be it proving herself willing, or contributing in any way to
their righteousness, there's no good news in that message.
It's a vain gospel offering a vain hope. And that's what Paul is
saying. In God's gospel, Christ effectually
redeems his people. The work on the cross worked. The work on the cross achieved
its end. That's what I mean by saying
that it was an effectual redemption. It means that on the cross, the
Lord Jesus Christ completely and absolutely satisfied every
demand of the Holy God. for all for whom he died. Now someone might say, but didn't
Christ die for everyone? No, if the Lord Jesus Christ
had died for all men and women, then he, by definition, must
have completely and absolutely satisfied every demand of the
holy God for all men and women, and nobody would be in hell which
we know is incorrect. There are people who are in hell
today and will be eternally. So some are definitely in hell
and therefore the only alternative is that Christ's dying was either
insufficient to save everyone and requires something to be
added of the individual itself or that Christ only died for
certain people. Christ's work was successful. Salvation is not a partnership
and it's not good news. It's no gospel. to tell people
what it is that they have to do to be saved. It might use
the same words, it might read the same Bible, it might appear
to be similar in so many ways, but it is a perversion that the
Apostle Paul had to fight against. God's gospel takes sinners who
are dead in trespasses and sin and quickens them. freely gives
and bestows spiritual life to them, and is not based on some
supposed eligibility in the dead sinner, but it is according to
God's own sovereign will. That is why we call it sovereign
grace. Grace is free. God's love and
mercy is unconditional. And salvation, says Jonah, is
of the Lord. Those who appeal to sinners to
do their duty and get saved, or exercise their free will and
get saved, or demonstrate some suitable acts of repentance,
or do something to merit God's favour, they've got another gospel. It's not the gospel of God, It's
not a gospel suitable to meet a sinner in their need. It's
a message that mocks and snares a sinner into a life of bondage
and self-deception. And God's gospel liberates. It delivers. It transports. It converts a sinner out of their
dead state into a spiritual relationship with Him. God quickens the dead, imparting
spiritual life. So God's gospel supplies all
our righteousness and it fits out the sinner for the presence
of God by furnishing him or her with everything necessary for
eternal life in heaven. Christ is all our righteousness,
Christ is our justification, Christ is our holiness, Christ
is all our sanctification. All that is needful is provided
by God in the gospel of God and anyone who preaches that our
good works contribute anything to our standing with God does
not understand the nature of free grace and righteousness
that justifies. The problem in Corinth was that
the false teachers were bringing in a gospel that hinged on man's
free will, the free will of the sinner to secure grace for themselves
by the things that they were doing. It was a supposed general
provision of grace to be drawn from according to the qualifications
of the hearers. It wasn't taught in Scripture,
it wasn't taught by Paul. They taught that men and women
had an inherent power to please God and earn His grace. They
made man's own righteousness well-pleasing to God, and to
be topped up and augmented by Christ's righteousness only when
our own falls short. Such a gospel is not a gospel,
it's a demonic invention, and it serves and pleases man's pride,
his vanity, and his self-esteem. The false teachers of Corinth
and Galatia, they might have silver tongues, they might have
a lot of clever arguments, they might have a lot of motivational
techniques and power moves, but they didn't have a gospel. They had nothing with which to
meet the need of a sinner dead in sin, or to comfort a hell-bound
soul. And such preachers have not disappeared
in the intervening years. If anything, they've become more
subtle, more expert in setting out their stall with a Christian
vocabulary and a dictionary of definitions to support their
claims. They've got a long pedigree from
history. They've got grand sounding titles,
famous personalities that they can draw upon, tons of ecclesiastical
traditions. And some people live and die
in denominational prisons and never hear the gospel, though
they've attended church all their lives. That was a very serious
matter for Paul, and it ought to be for us too. These enemies
of truth transformed themselves into ministers of righteousness,
but they preached a gospel from hell. We preach the gospel of
God because it is the only true gospel that declares free grace,
sovereign salvation, and the complete success of Christ's
work on the cross. May the Lord grant us eyes to
see and ears to hear that gospel. Amen.