(REFLECTIONS ON Galatians 1:1-10)

As we read Paul’s letters in the New Testament, we must keep mind that Paul’s writings addressed different questions, issues, and challenges that the churches faced during his time. They were specific, problem solving, but also in God’s amazing and mysterious ways, transcend time and space.

Although they are very personal letters from Paul to the churches and individuals that he loved and poured his heart and soul in ministering to, yet as the church immerses itself in studying and meditating on these words, we find that there is a timeless quality to it. This timeless quality is the work of the Holy Spirit bringing these words and these teachings alive to us today, and for all of eternity.

In today’s Scripture, Paul writes that he is astonished with the Galatians. What has surprised Paul so much that he is beyond belief? Paul writes,

6 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—7 which is really no gospel at all.

Paul is astonished that there are believers in the Galatian church that are quickly deserting God, and turning to a different gospel. Although Paul writes that it is a different gospel, but to Paul it is no gospel at all. The Gospel is Good News, but whatever it is that these believers are so quickly deserting God for, is not good news.

Again this is a very specific problem, and is an issue that we find throughout New Testament Scripture. The problem is that there are Jews that are influencing believers in the church, and they are trying to pull these believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, away from the freedom that they have in Jesus Christ into bondage to the Law of Moses and specifically circumcision.

This is why Paul writes that the different gospel is actually no gospel at all, because it isn’t good news, but old news. Rather than moving forward in faith and trusting completely in salvation through Christ, there is a backwards movement going back to the old rather than living in the new. This old news is the failure of the Jews in trying to obtain righteousness through their own behavior, rather than obtaining the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ.

The reason that Paul is so shocked is because believers aren’t just turning to a different belief system, or over time other things are slowly creeping into their faith and corrupting their faith, but as quickly as they believed, they are quickly influenced not by freedom, but to be bound by the Law.

Paul writes in Romans 1:16-17,

16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

The Gospel, the Good News, is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. The Gospel, the Good News, is a righteousness from God that is by faith from first to last, or in other words, for all. Why would we turn so quickly from God’s righteousness that is by faith, not by customs, rules, regulations, and turn His freedom into bondage and imprisonment?

That is why Paul is astonished and it reminds us to also consider our faith in Christ as well. What gospel do we preach and live by? Is it the Gospel, the Good News, that is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes? Or, is it bondage and imprisonment that traps us into guilt, religious custom, tradition, and ceremony?

It is as Jesus said in John 8:36,

36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

As we meditate on today’s Scripture, may we consider how it speaks to the church today, and how we too may be preaching and living out a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all.

Pastor Michael Lu
Enduring Word Bible Commentary: Galatians 1