Only the Real Deal

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Gal. 1:3-5)

Perhaps the most famous story of fraud in modern history is that of New York stock broker Bernie Madoff.  Madoff was one of the biggest names in finance in New York, and his 4800 clients were devoted to his fund as a remarkably solid performer.  In 2008, his sons turned him in to the authorities and he was arrested for securities fraud.  At trial, it was revealed that Madoff’s fund was the largest and most sophisticated phoney investment scheme in history, and he was sentenced to 150 years in prison and required to pay $170 billion dollars in restitution to his clients.  Madoff targeted a sophisticated clientele in Long Island – he came with a compelling message of a clever investment strategy and huge growth potential.  It was a convincing message – a good pitch—and yet it was pure fraud causing people to suffer terrible loss.  Similarly, in the book of Galatians, we see that false teachers came along with a fraudulent message—a false gospel—that managed to lure some away from the genuine gospel they once believed.   

Paul was gripped by a deep concern for the young church in Galatia because he knew that the believers had been taken in by frauds.  He quickly addresses this deception:  “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel… Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ” (v. 6)  Paul doesn’t go into detail about the modified gospel in his opening remarks.   But if we glance forward to chapter 5, we find clues about the nature of this distorted gospel:  “It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery...if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all” (vv. 1-2).  It would seem that missionaries from a Jewish background had come to the region and taught the false notion that salvation required both faith and obedience to the law.  This was indeed serious, and the stakes were high.  As Paul writes, ”But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned…If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (v. 8)  

In contrast to the fraudulent messengers, Paul was a genuine “apostle – sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ” (v. 1).  Paul proclaimed the genuine gospel of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone.  He had initially brought this apostolic gospel of grace to modern-day turkey, and the early church was planted in Galatia as a result.  The authentic gospel is the only gospel that offers true peace – both peace with God, achieved by God Himself through the gift of his Son, and peace within that comes from knowing that our sin is addressed and we are right with God.  The authentic gospel is also a God-centred gospel:  God planned our salvation, He achieved it by his Son, and it is all for His glory.  What a contrast this genuine gospel is to the worldly, human-centred, works-based gospel that the Galatians had heard from impostors.  And what a contrast this genuine gospel is to the religious systems we encounter around us today!  Christians today must guard the genuine gospel because, in the words of Paul, anything else is really “no gospel at all” (v. 8).