Paul emphatically declared that the "good news" of grace in Jesus Christ was the only valid "good news."

1. He was "amazed" that they quickly had abandoned the "good news" for a different "good news."
   1. The word "amazed" was an expression of indignant astonishment.

2. Paul made three points:
   1. The supposed "good news" to which they turned was only a distortion of the "good news" he originally shared with them.

   2. Anyone who declared any form of "good news" that changed or distorted the message he shared with them was to be accursed from God.
      1. Such messengers did not speak for God.

      2. They were in fact God's condemned enemies.

      3. For emphasis, Paul stated his denouncement of these false teachers twice.

      4. The double emphasis stressed the serious error of the distortion.

   3. Paul's only concern was properly representing God and Christ.
      1. He was not trying to gain their favor or please them.

      2. He was being a faithful, devoted servant to Christ.

3. Developing a proper understanding of Paul's contrast between the "good news" he shared and the "different" or "another good news" is essential.
   1. For us to reduce Paul's concern (and point) to doctrinal disagreements that separate religious groups trivializes his concern.

   2. This is the good news that Paul shared with non-Jewish listeners: God's accomplishments in the death and resurrection of Jesus permitted God to grant complete forgiveness, complete salvation to anyone.
      1. Through God's grace in Christ, anyone can become a son or daughter to God.

      2. God's grace, empowered by the death and resurrection of Jesus, could deliver anyone from the condemnation of evil.

      3. To further see Paul's emphasis on the importance and role of the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection, read 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (particularly note what the good news did and was doing for the Corinthians as stated in verses 1 and 2); 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; and Romans 1:16,17.

   3. A different or another good news (gospel) would declare a means of obtaining God's grace, forgiveness, atonement, justification, redemption, sanctification, and propitiation without Jesus' death, blood, or resurrection.
      1. It would be a new, Christless good news.

      2. That Christless message would do everything Paul's Christ center message did.

      3. This Christless good news would provide every blessing Paul's Christ centered good news provided, but it would do it without Christ.

      4. Paul emphasized that was as unthinkable as it was impossible.

   4. Paul made it clear that the "different" good news the Jewish Christians presented to the Galatian converts was not "another" form of good news, but a distortion of the good news Paul shared with them.
      1. It merely added the requirements of ritual circumcision and Jewish customs.

      2. It was not a Christless avenue to God's blessings, therefore it was not "another" gospel.

      3. It was a distortion that took their trust away from God's act in Jesus' death and relocated that trust in their ritual acts (including circumcision).

   5. They had turned from placing full confidence in God's goodness and actions in the cross to placing their trust in themselves because they had yielded to ritual acts.

David Chadwell

Galatians Study Guide (part 4)
Wednesday evening Bible class, 14 January - 3 June 1998
West-Ark Church of Christ, Fort Smith, AR

Copyright © 1998
Permission is granted to freely copy and distribute with text unchanged, including author's name.