Reading Through The New Testament In 2016. Day 162. Galatians 1

The Galatians had one big problem that Paul seemingly wrote this entire letter to address, and he dives straight into it in the first chapter. The problem was the Galatians had come to believe in a different Gospel than the one true Gospel. They were mostly gentiles being told they had to be circumcised and observe food laws to be saved. Essentially they were being told the had to first become Jews to become Christians.

This was a really big problem to Paul because there is one gospel that saves, and it’s the gospel he devoted his life to. It even says in 1:17 that once he was saved on the Damascus road, he immediately went to Arabia. In 1 Clement we get to hear a bit more about this and it turns out once Paul received his gospel his time in Arabia was 15 years of exile. Paul had devoted his life to, and lost his status for the sake of this Gospel of Christ, and now the Galatian believers were abandoning it.

They were being told they had to follow law to follow Christ, and Paul says that’s an affront to the gospel. Paul urges the Galatians to stay true to the one true gospel, and not turn from it for any more ‘appealing’ gospels. Gospels that say legalism can earn salvation, or fit with their worldview, or divided the church.

The one true gospel that saves according to Paul is the gospel of the resurrected messiah, a Gospel that demands your life, but gives you a new and greater one. Any other gospel than this does not save.