Right, well I want to turn again
to Galatians chapter 1 this morning and consider the rest of this
chapter. There are all sorts of opinions
as to what constitutes the gospel. All sorts of opinions. You just
watch religious TV on the satellite channels and the cable channels
and you see the absolute mishmash, the complete ragbag of all sorts
of weird and wonderful and bizarre views there are of what Christianity
and the scriptures are. And there are all the different
denominations, and all the different preachers, and all the different
followings. And then there's the great ecumenical
movement, which we understand is showing its face this morning
in Nedworth, as all the other churches get together for a service
in the Catholic Church, to show that basically they all have
boiled everything down so they all believe the same thing. And
there's no difference, and there's no absolutes, and it's just what
suits you, and it's all relative. and people like to follow their
heroes even in Paul's day he said to the Corinthians some
of you say oh I am of Paul and others say I am of Apollos and
some of you think that you're super spiritual because you say
I am of Christ all this factional following of different things
what are we to make of all of the confusion and what teaching
should we follow this is an important question that we all have to
think about where is the truth Pontius Pilate said to Jesus
when he was interviewing him before the crucifixion, what
is truth? What is it? Is there such a thing
as absolute truth, is what he was saying. And Jesus has said,
your word is truth. Sanctify them by your truth,
he said in his high priestly prayer. Your word is truth. You see, for Paul, there is only
one true gospel. Only one. There's not varieties
of, there's not the gospel that the Baptists believe, and then
the gospel that the Presbyterians believe, and the gospel that
the Anglicans believe, and the gospel that the Catholics believe,
and even the gospel that the Muslims believe. Not at all.
As far as Paul's concerned, there is only one true gospel. In fact, the children in Sunday
school. are looking this morning at Jesus' words, I am the way,
the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. That's not at all an ecumenical
teaching and yet it's the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
see, there is only one gospel, and Paul's gospel is that gospel
that comes through revelation of Jesus Christ. Look at chapter
1 of Galatians and verse 12. About his gospel, he's speaking
about that gospel, which was preached by me. It's not according
to man, for I neither received it from man, nor was I taught
it, but it came through revelation of Jesus Christ. What is it,
this Gospel? We saw it last week. Anybody
listening to this, have a listen to the previous week's sermon
where we tried to define as clearly as possible what this Gospel
is. But it's a Gospel of particular redemption. particular redemption
for a specific people. Redemption for a specific people
chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world.
It's the us in verse 4. He gave himself for our sins
that he might deliver us. And it's that same verse that
we read at the start in the book of Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah
said, talking of Christ and his sufferings, why did Christ suffer
for the transgressions, for the sins of everybody? No. for sin in general? No. The scripture is clear. For the
transgressions of my people was he stricken. For the transgressions
of my people. Christ died specifically for
the transgressions of his people. And so the redemption that he
purchased is a very particular redemption. It's like, you know,
there's one Eurostar leaving St Pancras to go to Paris and
every seat is taken and every ticket is paid for and it's paid
for by specific people and each one of them has their seat on
that train. It isn't a general kind of whoever will turn up
gets on the train. It's a specific price has been
paid for specific tickets for specific people. That's the gospel
of particular redemption. How many? A number as innumerable
as the stars of the heavens are innumerable. As innumerable as
the grains of sand on the seashore are innumerable. That's how many,
beyond our knowledge, but nevertheless, in the mind and knowledge of
God, a definite, finite, specific number. It's a gospel of substitution. It's a gospel of total satisfaction
in the doing and dying of a substitute. It's a gospel of completed salvation. It's a gospel of federal headship
in the Lord Jesus Christ that you are represented. If you're
in Him, you're represented by Him in everything to do with
the law. The demands of the law, the demands
of God's justice, the demands of righteousness, the demands
of the penalty for sin is all in Him. And it's a gospel of
sovereign grace. A lot of people bat that word
around. They say their church is sovereign
grace church and they don't really mean it. Sovereign means absolute,
absolute unchallenged authority. That's what sovereign means.
Sovereign grace is the absolute authority of God to bestow his
grace on whomsoever he will, so that it's not of him who wills,
nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. That's what
the scriptures say. That's in the gospel according
to Paul because it's in his epistle to the Romans. It's a gospel
that takes a person from the total depravity of the fallen
human condition to complete adoption and all the blessings that go
with it. on the basis of the absolute sufficiency of Christ,
the sinner's substitute. Let me say that again. We're
in a position by nature of total depravity, total lostness, total
sin, not in any way able to save ourselves, but dead, as the Word
of God says, in trespasses and sins, total depravity. And yet,
in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the One who is our substitute,
we're taken to a place of complete adoption, absolute adoption into
the family of God, whereby we cry, Abba, Daddy, Father, to
the God of heaven, who is our judge by nature, naturally. He
becomes our heavenly Daddy, is what that word means, Abba, Father. and it's all based on the absolute
glorious sufficiency of Christ. It's not a gospel of possibilities
of which you must avail yourself. It's a gospel of absolute certainty. He has saved his people from
their sins. He hasn't made it possible for
people to save themselves if only they will believe. He has
saved his people from their sins. It's not a gospel of possibilities.
It's a gospel of certainty. It's a gospel of completion,
because when he died on the cross at Calvary, when the work was
finished and the price was paid, he said, it is finished. The
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is not as so many preach. They
preach it as if it's a start, it's a leg up. and you get a
leg up but then you have to build your own works on top of that
in order to be right for salvation, in order to have a place of honour
in heaven. There are people who claim to
be Christians, who claim that they're going into heaven quite
proud of themselves because they've served God faithfully for all
of these years and they're looking for that crown and their crown's
going to have a few more jewels in it than somebody else's crown
because they've served God so well. That's a complete lie.
The Apostle John who wrote so much of the New Testament, the
Gospel of John, three epistles, the Book of Revelation, a significant
chunk of the New Testament. He lived for Christ well into
his nineties. He was on the island of Patmos,
exiled, when he wrote the Book of Revelation. He lived for Christ
into his nineties. I tell you, he is no more saved
and honoured in heaven than the thief on the cross, who in that
moment saw the Savior dying next to him and said, Lord remember
me when you come into your kingdom and Jesus said to him, verily,
verily, I say unto you this day you shall be with me in paradise
this is the gospel of complete substitution and this is Paul's
gospel and in this letter to the Galatians Paul is angry let's
not beat about the bush this letter is a letter of aggravation
He storms straight in as we saw two weeks ago. He storms straight
in and gets right to the point. There are no niceties as there
are with other letters. You know, the flowing greetings
and the well-wishing and so on and so forth. He storms straight
in and gets right to the point because there is no room in the
mind of Paul for tolerance of any variation from the one gospel. It's truly a matter of life and
death. And so he says in verses 6 to 10, I marvel that you are
turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of
Christ to a different gospel. You see? They were mixing things
with the gospel Paul had preached, and this was so soon after he'd
left them. They were mixing things with it, and they were making
it another gospel. Gospel means good news. They
were making it another set of so-called good news. And he says,
it's not another, because there can't be one. There's only one. There are some who trouble you
and want to pervert the gospel of Christ and make it not the
gospel of Christ. They want to add things to it.
They want to take things away from it. And he pronounces this
curse. This is not soft language. If we, or even an angel from
heaven, if I, the Apostle Paul, or even an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached,
let him be accursed." And then he says, I don't think you've
possibly heard that the first time, so I'll repeat it. As we've
said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other
gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
This is strong language. Strong language. Do I now persuade
men? Am I trying to win the favour
of men? Do I seek to please men? If I still pleased men, I would
not be a bond-servant of Christ. No, I don't seek to please men.
It's the truth of God that is at stake. So, so soon after he
had left them, their door, the Galatians' door, is wide open
to compromising that gospel, which is the gospel of the salvation
of God in Christ. And you know, by nature in our
flesh, we all are just as prone to leave that door open to compromise,
to allow it to creep in. and this is why the scriptures
talk about a little leaven leavens the whole lump you only need
a tiny little pinch in amongst all that flour and those other
ingredients a tiny pinch of leaven and it spreads, it breeds, it
corrupts all the way through the entire lump when it's making
bread it's a very nice thing but in other situations it's
corrupting it's corrupting and so it is for us Such a temptation,
how attractive to join with those who just add ever such a little
bit of their own seasoning to the gospel. You know, we might
be in a congregation with 50 or more, if only we'd do that.
Why don't we adopt the tactics of the world? Why don't we amend
what we say? I mean, surely there's all those
people that wish us well, and they've got good intentions towards
us, and they come and meet with us. Why do we bother trying ourselves?
Why don't we just compromise a little bit? I mean, these other
churches, they use the name Jesus. They even talk about Jesus dying
for sins. They even say that they believe
in substitution and so on and so forth. But no, when you look
at it, it's fundamentally corrupt. It's perverted. It's a gospel
that has been perverted and is therefore no gospel at all. And
so, the overall structure of this letter to the Galatians,
this letter of urgency from Paul, it breaks down into three parts.
The first of them is chapters 1 and 2, and it's very convenient
that when the guy that put the chapter divisions in seems to
have done not a bad job with the letter to the Galatians.
But chapters 1 and 2, Paul is talking about the origin of the
gospel of grace. Where does it come from? And
he's arguing strongly, as we'll see shortly, that it is not of
human but of divine origin. This is the Gospel of God. That's
what I've called this message this morning. There's the Gospel
of John and the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke, but this
is the Gospel of God. Of course, Mark, Luke and John
and Matthew all teach and preach the Gospel of God, but this is
the title. It's the Gospel of God. It's not of human origin. It's of divine origin. Hence
it is independent of man in all its aspects. Not a bit of it
has anything to do with man. Not in its fulfillment, or its
outworkings, or its devisings, anything at all. It's the Gospel
of God. And then in chapters 3 and 4,
he outlines the vindication of the Gospel of Grace. He proves
it. Is this a new gospel that you're
preaching, Paul? These things that you're saying,
surely the people, they were Judaizers, they were people who
were saying you could be a Christian but you had to obey the law of
Moses as well. This is the whole point of the
Galatian Epistle. And so they might say, well,
are you not being a bit severe? All these people are trying to
do is to stick to the Scriptures, Paul. Is that not the case? And
he shows in chapters 3 and 4 how in actual fact all of the Old
Testament Scriptures, a distorted form of which the Judaizers were
trying to bring them back into subjection to, as well as the
experience of God's children, all bear witness to the truth
of the Gospel that Paul preaches. And then thirdly, he applies
the Gospel of Grace in chapters 5 and 6. He applies it He shows
how it produces true liberty, the true, the glorious liberty
of the children of God. That true liberty which is in
the Lord Jesus Christ, through a firm attachment to the cross
of Christ. It produces true liberty, not
licensed to sin, but liberty to bear the fruit of the Spirit
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ this is how this letter works
out and so back in chapter 1 it's the Gospel of God now you might
wonder as we read this chapter why the account of Paul's movements
you know, I first of all went here and then I went there and
after three years I did this it's all to show that the Gospel
he preached and that his epistles contain is direct from God, by
revelation. It's not from other men or other
apostles, it's not from angels, it's not his own ideas that he
worked out because he was quite a theologian, he was a Pharisee
and he had the Old Testament scriptures, but it's by revelation
from God. That's something that is often
forgotten. They talk about what you need
to do to become a preacher of the gospel. Oh, you must go to
this theological seminary. If you don't go to this theological
seminary or that one, then you won't be fitted to be a preacher
of the gospel. You know this. I've heard it
so many times. I've said it so many times before.
Bill Clark used to go on and on about this because it bugged
him so much that people thought that it was colleges that made
preachers of the gospel. It isn't. It's God who makes
preachers of the gospel. You read about Elijah. You don't
read any training. You don't read any preparation.
You don't read that he was in the school of the prophets or
anywhere else. You just read in 1 Kings 17 and Elijah the
Tishbite went with a message from God to Ahab, because he
was God's messenger, and God had burdened him with it. Therefore,
the message is we'd better take note of this gospel. Paul's gospel
is God's gospel. God's good news. How can I be
right with God? How shall a man be just with
God? Do you know there's only one answer, and it's the answer
which is given in Paul's gospel, which is God's gospel, the only
gospel. So, just briefly, we'll look
at these verses from 11 down to 24 and apply them. Look what
he's saying then. In actual fact, we'll just look
back at verse 1, just remind you of that. I know I said this
two weeks ago, but it's worth repeating. Who are you that's
writing this letter, Paul? It's Paul, an apostle. He's an
apostle. Not from men, nor through man. Because, you know, how did you
become an apostle? Well, it wasn't because a man
appointed him to be an apostle. It wasn't through men that he
became an apostle. You know, I think I mentioned
about Matthias, the one who was chosen by drawing lots as to
who should replace Judas Iscariot when Christ had died and risen
again and they thought, well, there needs to be 12 of us and
there were only 11 because Judas had betrayed him. And so they
drew lots, and they chose Matthias. And as soon as they've chosen
him, we never hear another word about him in the Scriptures.
Because man made him an apostle, whereas God made the apostle
Paul an apostle. Paul, an apostle, not from men
nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father,
who raised him from the dead. His apostleship was not from
men. An apostle is a messenger of
God. The fact that he was a messenger of God came from the triune God. God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the Father who raised Christ from the dead. His apostleship
was from God. But then look in verses 11 and
12. I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached
by me is not according to man. You've heard me preach a gospel,
he's saying. You heard me preach the gospel. But it wasn't according
to man. It wasn't man's devising. For
I neither received it from man, Nor was I taught it, but it came
through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Christ revealed it to
him. Christ shined in his heart. You
know, we often read that verse in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. God,
who said, let there be light. God, who caused light to shine
in the darkness at the dawn of creation, has shined in our hearts
to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And here was Paul with a darkened
heart, going about his religious business in verses 13 and 14,
completely opposed, absolutely opposed to Jesus Christ and his
gospel and his followers, absolutely vehemently opposed to them. Let's
read verses 13 and 14. You have heard, you Galatians,
you've heard of my former conduct in Judaism. He was a Pharisee. He was a Jew. He says, how I
persecuted the Church of God beyond measure. He was the most
vehement of them. And I tried to destroy it. And
I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in
my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of
my fathers. You see, you imagine, this was
Saul of Tarsus before his name was changed to Paul. Saul of
Tarsus was a Pharisee, a strict Pharisee. and his objective was
to stamp out and destroy this heretical sect that was saying
that the temple worship and the traditions of the Jews were not
the truth. And he advanced in Judaism beyond
many of his contemporaries in his own nation and was more zealous
for the traditions of his fathers. Now this doesn't sound like a
man who was beginning to think maybe there's something in this
teaching of Jesus, maybe I ought to re-examine the Scriptures
in the light of this and consult with some other people and come
to a view as to what the truth is. No, he was vehemently opposed
and he was going about his business to vehemently oppose even when
The high priests and all them had said, well, it's calming
down now, isn't it? Paul was, no, there's some of
them in Damascus. Give me letters to the authorities
there so that I can go and arrest them and bring them bound here
so that we can deal with them and we can stamp this cancer
out once and for all. This cancer of this new religion
of Jesus Christ. And so, there he was, going his
way, with his vehement Judaistic ideas, going his own way, with
not a thought for Christ and the gospel of his grace. And
then verse 15, But when it pleased God, who separated me from my
mother's womb, and called me through his grace to reveal his
Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did
not immediately confer with flesh and blood. He was going with
companions on that road to Damascus to bring any that claimed to
be Christians, any that were known to be Christians, to capture
them, to take them prisoner, to bind them, to bring them back
to Jerusalem. He was burning in his heart with
absolute fury against them. And on that road the light shone
from heaven and he was blinded by it. It was a divine revelation. It pierced into his heart. If
ever a light shone into anybody's heart, this was the time when
the light shone into Paul's heart. It was clearly God speaking to
him. It wasn't a case of Paul finding
God. It wasn't a case of Paul deciding
to follow Jesus. It wasn't a case of Paul weighing
up the evidence pro and against. It was a case of God shining
into his heart to give him the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the gospel of his grace in Jesus Christ. His
conversion was God's pleasure and God's timing. When did you decide, Paul, to
become a Christian? I didn't. When it pleased God.
As much as when I was born as a baby, I didn't decide it, it
just happened. In exactly the same way, when
it pleased God, He revealed His Son in me. He didn't tell me
things about Jesus, He revealed His Son in me that I might preach
Him. He equipped Him to preach Him
among the Gentiles. Paul, the vehement opposer, was
by divine revelation equipped to preach the truth and good
news that is in Christ among the Gentiles. Now then, what
did he do then? Verses 16 to 18. He did not immediately
confer with flesh and blood, nor did he go up to Jerusalem.
You see, you would think, ah right, now this is what, just
imagine if If people that we know in the religious world were
anything to do with this, they'd say, oh, that's good, oh, we're
so pleased, Paul, that you've seen the error of your ways and
you've now seen the truth. Now, this is what you need to
do so that you get, you know, so that you know what the truth
is. You need to go and talk to the other apostles. And the place
to go to get that, you need to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
And there you'll get grounded in all the truth that you need
to know so that you're all singing off the same sheet and working
towards the same goal. No, not at all. I did not immediately
confer with flesh and blood. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem
to those who were apostles before me. He went into Arabia. He was
divinely guided into Arabia and returned to Damascus. And there,
God taught him by revelation the gospel of his grace. Just
as Christ on that Emmaus road opened to those two downcast
disciples, All the things in the Scriptures concerning himself,
how Christ ought to suffer, how all the Old Testament pictures
and rites and ceremonies of which Paul was such a zealot, were
all nothing other than pictures of what Christ had fulfilled.
God taught him these things. God shined into his heart. God
removed the fog of human misunderstanding. and he didn't go and confer with
the apostles but after three years all that time after three
years he went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained within
15 days and while he was there for some reason we're not told
he didn't see any of the other apostles except James the Lord's
brother he was the only one of the other apostles that he saw
and the reason he's saying these things and the reason he's stressing
these things is to show that this gospel is not a matter of
opinion it's a matter of divine revelation and being a matter
of divine revelation it's about life and death eternal life and
eternal death he spent his 15 days with Peter it's clear that
the implication is that Peter found absolutely nothing wrong
in the gospel that Paul had been preaching but 15 days wasn't
long enough for Peter to give him a three-year degree course
in theology It was just conferred that what God had taught him
directly was the truth with which the other apostles conferred.
And so he says he's not lying. He says, I'm telling you concerning
these things which I write to you, indeed before God I do not
lie. He's not lying. He went into
the regions of Syria and Cilicia on his own, away from other apostolic
influence. I was unknown by face to the
churches of Judea. He didn't have a well-known reputation. Those churches that were in Christ
didn't, they couldn't have picked him out of a crowd. But what
they had heard was this, verse 23. He, that is Paul, who formerly
persecuted us, now preaches the faith which he once tried to
destroy. And what did that make them do?
Did that make them praise Paul? It made them glorify God for
what he'd done in Paul, for how he'd turned Paul around. for
how he'd shone his light into Paul's heart. They glorified
God in me. And then it was 14 years later,
as long as that, that there was the Council of Jerusalem at which
they discussed, you can read about it in Acts chapter 15,
at which they discussed whether the gospel should go to the Gentiles
and how it should go and whether they ought to be forced to adopt
Jewish practices or whatever, 14 years later. We'll see more
of it next week when we go into chapter 2, but the whole point
of this is that the thing that Paul is so vehement about, so
agitated about in this opening chapter is because the gospel
is the gospel of God. It's God's gospel. All that that
I was saying about specific redemption, specific atonement, that dying
for my people, for the transgressions of my people was he stricken.
All of that is distorted in the religious world today. You listen
to people who preach a message that Christ died for sin in general
and by the Holy Spirit's guidance you make it yours when you believe
in him. Lie. Absolute lie. Not taught
in the scriptures but taught by no end of false teachers.
Because why? Because it's more palatable.
to the human heart than the truth of sovereign grace. The human
heart is too proud to accept that salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is not of me. It's not of him that wills, nor
of him that runs, but of God who shows mercy. Now Peter, who
we're going to read about Paul disagreeing with Peter strongly
over certain things in a few verses time, Peter says that
Paul's letters are the Scriptures. We've read it before, 2 Peter
chapter 3 and verse 16, verse 15 even, that the long-suffering
of our Lord is salvation, as also our beloved brother Paul.
You see, that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation is Peter
quoting from one of Paul's epistles. He says, as also our beloved
brother Paul according to the wisdom, the divine revelation
given to him has written to you as also in all his epistles speaking
in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand
which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction
as they do also the rest of the scriptures. What's he saying?
He's saying Paul's epistles are the scriptures. the epistles
of Paul are God's word, part of God's word to man therefore
we need to take note concerning the gospel We concur with what
Isaiah said several hundred years earlier in chapter 8 and verse
20 of his prophecy. To the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to
this word, there is no light, no truth in them. In other words,
we could say today, to the law and to the testimony. If these
other religious people, I don't care what they say, if their
gospel is not in accordance with Paul's gospel, it's a lie. It's a damnable lie. It's a lie
which will drag people down to hell, because in it there is
no salvation. But what we need to do, and what
we encourage others to do, is to be like the fair-minded, the
noble Bereans. Look at Acts 17. With this we'll
close. Acts 17. Paul had been having a rough
time. He was treated very badly, despicably, in Thessalonica.
He'd been treated terribly in Philippi, put in jail, and so
on and so forth. But when we come down to verse
10 of chapter 17, the brethren, and this is at Thessalonica,
immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when
they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. You'd
think they were gluttons for punishment, wouldn't you? They
went to the place where in all the previous towns it had ended
up getting them into all sorts of trouble. But this was the
place that they used to go to because there they thought there
would be people most likely to be seeking the things of God.
Now he says in verse 11, these, the Bereans, the people of Berea,
were more noble or fair-minded than those in Thessalonica. What
made them more noble and fair-minded? in that they received the word
with all readiness and searched the scriptures daily to find
out whether these things were so therefore many of them believed
and also not a few Greeks prominent women as well as men do you see
that? the Bereans searched the scriptures
to see whether the things that Paul said was so is what he is
saying in accordance with the rest of the Scriptures. That's
a noble and fair-minded thing to do. That's what we need to
encourage people to do. That's what we need to do ourselves,
because it's in the Word of God, in the letters of Paul. They're
all completely consistent. They tell one story from start
to finish. This is the Gospel of God. Well, we'll now sing our closing
hymn at that point. What happened to my precious?