The Galatians Defection--Conclusion

Well this morning we're going to continue on in Galatians and actually we're going to finish up a small mini section if you will With verse 10 here today. We've been looking as was read Galatians 6 through 9 the last two weeks and some pretty tough verses in there pretty you know amazing things that Paul says But I think actually verse 10 is going to help a little bit and kind of seeing where Paul's coming from he's really kind of in rhetorical mode. He's kind of saying things that seem just off the wall. I mean, you know, the Apostle, the Lord condemning, you know, people be separated from Christ. It seems kind of counter to the message that he wanted to give them. But anyway, he says it is recorded in scripture.

So hopefully we can explain, continue to explain this. So, OK, so I'd like to kind of go and use Chester McCauley's outline. And I do that. I've done it at Sunday school. And it's kind of good to kind of get a bird's eye view here, and then we'll jump into the details.

So he's labeled 6 through 9 as desertion. And it's really, I'm just going to go down real quick. There's really two parts to that. It's nature, it's 6 through 7, and it's gravity, those really hard verses, are 8 and 9. And within the nature, he talks about, you know, Paul is just kind of, Amazed. In fact, he uses the word amazed. He's bewildered.

How can this be? How can you Galatians, who started well, you started, you trusted Christ as your Savior, you're making a left turn, you're going off into left field, and you're going back under the law, and you're telling people they need to be circumcised? And how can that be?

I thought we were on the right track here. And it's going to come out when we get to the gravity part of this. So actually, I like what Macaulay did here. He kind of summarized it. The effect on Paul was this amazement. The effect on the ones who are defecting was they were moved away from Christ, they were moved away from grace, and they moved away from the gospel.

Not a good trifecta, right? That's not something you would want to... But that's what Paul's saying, and he's going to hit them hard here. And actually in 10, he's going to come back and do all kind of rhetorical questions about, well, what if this and what if that?

And it actually, verse 10 actually helped me to understand maybe why the rhetoric is so intense in 8 and 9. And actually 8 and 9, some might object to this, but I think 8, actually the fact that he includes the angels, himself, and the rest of the apostles with him as being damned, is a rhetorical question.

We'll see I'll make my case here shortly and then but the one in nine is really bullseye right at the at the false teachers and the Judaizers it says you're the guys that are adding to the gospel you're distorting the gospel and Then lastly we're going to have the conclusion today Verse six I marvel that you so quickly are being turned From from the one having called you by the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another so we saw this was Actually, I use the inner linear here because it brought out the from to aspect of this the Galatians are being turned from one thing to another They're being turned from the sphere of grace to a sphere of a different sort of gospel Which is not in the play on words here. It's not a different gospel. It's actually it's actually no gospel They have turned because they've gone back to the law and that's not the good news that that Christ came and died for our sins that's not the good news that Paul wanted to preach and And then Wiest has it, to a message of good news, diametrically opposed to the gospel, which message is not an alternate gospel.

Okay, so that's kind of a bird's-eye view of 6 and 7a. And then in 7b, he kind of gets down to the details more. He talks about two aspects that these false teachers and Judaizers are hitting on. Only there are some there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ So as I mentioned before I saw the sum There are some he doesn't name the sum. He doesn't say there's Joe Sam Charlie and whatever he just says there are some but in the context of the book and context of Scripture They're called different names Mike did a great job of the first introduction that the Judaizers are toa history The legalists are in there and the false teachers. They all are kind of focused on a works mentality and not a grace mentality. First of all, they're disturbing you, they're stirring you up, they're troubling you, they're agitating you.

You can imagine if you were a young believer in the Galatia area, in those several places in the map that we had earlier in the study, And all of a sudden, somebody comes along and says, hey, brother, you're not really saved. You forgot that there's one additional thing you didn't count upon. You've got to keep the law, too. And oh, by the way, if you weren't circumcised, you've got to be circumcised. I mean, that's going to throw you, especially if you're a guy, that's going to kind of throw you into, and maybe you're older, that's going to throw you. You're going to say, whoa, I like this grace thing. Anyway, OK. So they were in emotional turmoil. Secondly, they distorted the gospel. They transformed it into something of an opposite character. It was grace, now it's law. So totally opposite in character.

So now into the easy verses. What I've done is I've highlighted in bold there in the blue the if-then scenario there. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, then he is to be accursed. And notice Paul, he says we. He includes himself. He includes Barnabas and the other apostles with him. He includes an angel from heaven. So, I mean, and your head's reeling, you say, Paul would never, why would he do that?

But this is, he lays this out, and if you look at the then part, then he's to be accursed, and accursed is anathema, cursed or condemned, be given over to a divine condemnation. And actually it has, and we're going to see where this comes from, accursed is basically the idea of separation from Christ, not, you know, that's not, Unusual but that's just kind of and you get that basically from Romans 9 3 where he makes another kind of wild Statement kind of off the wall. I think we've collected all the Rhetorical and amazing statements not all of them. There's been plenty more but 9 3 says for I could wish I that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ." Notice that he almost defines or he gets another expression, if you will, for accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren. Paul was willing, if you could, to trade in his heavenly citizenship, trade in his salvation because of his brothers.

That's amazing. So we kind of see that Paul's not afraid to use this excessive language or, you know, Some might call it hyperbole. Anyway, it doesn't put him off. In this case, there's conditional sentences in the original language, and this is a third-class condition, meaning it's uncertain and fulfillment, but likely. So he's saying it's likely that himself or an angel from heaven could preach a gospel contrary.

Pretty amazing stuff. Okay. Then verse 9 kind of tacks onto that. It repeats being a curse, but these differences. It really says, any man, and of course you say, well, any man, that could be all of what you just named in verse 8, right? Any man? But I think it really is, because of the conditional sentence classification, I think it really focuses in on these Judaizers and legalists and false teachers. A gospel contrary to what Eugalations received.

And this is a first-class condition, which means it's assumed to be true for the sake of argument. So he's saying, this is really going on. This is really happening. These Judaizers and false teachers are really perverting the gospel. They're adding to the gospel.

And verse 8, as I mentioned before, verse 8 appears to be hypothetical. But in his hypothetical statement, he does allow that people can add to the gospel. And that's true. I mean, if you're honest with yourself, sometimes you like to sneak a little law back into the law, right? You ought to be here every Sunday, folks. Are you reading your Bible every day? You missed yesterday. You missed it. So you want to get back under the law. It just seems like that's part of man's nature.

And then nine assumes it to be true. that the gospel is being added to. So you come away from those two verses with the fact that this was really going on, and it seems like Ada's hyperbole, but that was really happening in Galatia, they were really perverting the gospel, and that's no news, we've been reading all this other stuff here. So now we're going to move into 10. And 10's going to go into this mode of rhetoric.

He's going to ask these questions, And then he doesn't actually answer him, he leaves it for us to figure out what the answer is, which, in the context, isn't too hard. For I am now, and now is going to be an emphasis word, seeking the favor of men, or of God, or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.

Okay, so this is the first part. Like I mentioned, the now is kind of emphatic because it's the first. It makes a difference. I'm not enough of a scholar to tell you that I know why this is the case, but I've read that it is the case when the first word in the sentence, that means something. And now is the first word in the Greek sentence. So it's emphatic. And it kind of makes sense. He says, now this, now this, now this.

So he makes three rhetorical He states three rhetorical questions, and then he has a summary. Okay, number one, am I now seeking the favor of men? Am I now seeking the favor of God? Am I striving to please men? So what do you think? If we were in Sunday school, Mike likes to do this, he'll say, okay, how many, and you raise your hand, how many do you think, are any of these questions yes? Are there some no's in there? Is it a combination? Well, we're going to find out, hopefully, and you'll see that I'm right. First one, first rhetorical question. Am I now seeking the favor of men? Seeking the favor of is to win over, to convince, to gain favor with. And it's in the present tense. Paul says, am I continually seeking to gain the favor of men?

And these questions actually almost, you think, this is not Paul. This is not where he's coming from. He just knocked their socks off telling them what's going to happen to them if they pervert the gospel. Is he seeking their favor? If you yell in somebody's face and tell them, you know where you're going? You're seeking my favor? Am I seeking to please you? I don't know. It sounds like, it's almost as bad as watching some of the news today. People yelling at each other and calling other people names and stuff.

You know, it's amazing. Okay. And this word, as many words in the original can be used in a positive sense or in a negative sense. So in a positive sense, this is in Acts. This is toward the end of Paul's ministry. And we just studied that recently, obviously. We went through all of Acts. But at the very end, he was testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade, and that's our word here, trying to persuade them concerning Jesus. And it goes on later in the following verse. It talks about, and some were persuaded by these things spoken and others were not.

So, was Paul truly seeking man's favor? And I kind of just took a quote from Macaulay. Now, considering the strong words of verses 8 and 9, would you say, I'm seeking to curry the favor of men? It seems like he wasn't. He wasn't trying to gain their favor.

OK, question two, rhetorical question two. Am I now seeking the favor of God? In this one, you think, hmm, what about this one? Is this something? And this would, let's see, how did, Mike does this sometimes. I think he meant Byrne and Howe. All teachers, this might be in the area of a trick question maybe.

Right? Are we to be seeking the favor? Should Paul be doing this? Should we be seeking the favor? Hmm. Let's think about this for a second. What does Paul have in Christ? He's been justified by faith. Do I see? seeking favor from God. God accomplished this, and what do we do? We put our faith and trust in that. Another wonderful one. We're blessed.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. So do I see any seeking God's favor in that? Seeking God's favor doesn't seem to be... that's not what we're about. We're about realizing what we have in Christ. We're realizing that we have this wonderful blessing, and acting based upon that. So, and I think actually, in thinking about this, I think he's kind of turning the tables back around. He's saying, well, you guys, you, you guys, you Judaizers, you're trying to gain favor with God.

You're saying, I'm keeping more of the law than you're keeping. I keep 613. I'm keeping 549. And you're only keeping whatever. And I've been circumcised and you haven't been, you know. People are like that. So I think Paul's kind of flipping that around. He says, I'm not even trying to please God. And at the very end he says, I don't need to please God. I'm totally sold out to Him. I'm His bondservant. I'm His bondslave.

So how were the false teachers attempting to win God's favor? And I kind of talked through this already. They were willfully introducing a gospel of works, a law system. They were substituting law for grace. And then I kind of talked about this. How do we do that? We have our own set of laws, quote-unquote, that we sometimes fall into. And God wants us to exercise faith. have a system to gain His favor. We already have gained His favor. Christ, on our behalf, has gained His favor. We don't have to do that.

So the third question, which seems kind of along the same line. The first one was seeking the favor of men. And this is striving to please men. Sounds very close. A different word to seek or strive, endeavor, desire. And Colossians have, I put the positive up here because I'm I'm doing the negative here in this verse. Therefore, if you have been risen up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. That's something that we are to seek. But man's pleasure? Paul, again, I think he's using rhetoric again. He's saying, you know, you guys want to use this thing to gain men's pleasure. I'm not going to do that.

So I found a verse that we're going to cover here, maybe at the end of the year, whenever it is, sometime out there. So I kind of chopped it up and made it kind of like bullet points, and I left a part out. So if you read this, there will be a little part I left out. And I did it just for understanding here.

Galatians 6.12, those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh, sounds about like what they're trying to do. They want to make a good showing. They want to look good. They want to say, I'm a righteous man.

I keep the law. I'm circumcised. Try to compel others to be circumcised. Those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves. And that's the hilarity of all this. They can't even keep the law themselves. They have to make up all these other rules to try to sort of keep the law. They have to extend the Sabbath day's journey, and they make all kinds of exceptions that they gladly give themselves. But you can't have any of those exceptions. You've got to do all of it. But they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh.

I think that kind of tells me they were boasting, oh, well, this guy said he was a believer in Christ. Well, I got him to be circumcised. See, he didn't really know what it was about. I'm living here a little bit. OK. So now, Paul's summary statement. OK, I guess I jumped a little quicker than I thought. OK. Oh, yeah, I didn't. OK, well.

Anyway, so basically he says, the last part of the verse, if, it's another if-then sentence, if I were still trying to please men, then I would not be a bondservant of Christ. So we will have had, there are four classes of conditional sentences in these five verses. We will have three of those cases. And this is the second class condition, and this is assumed to be untrue for the sake of argument. So Paul's saying, if I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. So he's not trying to... that's an untruthful statement.

What does Scripture say about pleasing men versus pleasing God? You know, it does talk about, we're not to be saying, well, I'm just pleasing God, I was a little bit late today, but you have to realize I'm pleasing God. You don't ignore man in your interactions. Your focus is on your Savior, and that motivates your life, your interaction with men. And it says, slaves, be constantly obedient in all things to your human masters, not with eye service as men-pleasers, but with an undivided heart, fearing the Lord. So our undivided focus is on Christ and what He's done.

And that should come outflow that we're the best employee they got. OK, so now there's another verse that I kind of came across that I thought was just really great here. In 1 Thessalonians 2.4, it says, but just as we have been Approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. I really like the fact that Paul kind of comes back and you know It's funny after studying the gospel for so many weeks here Every time I've seen the gospel my eyes kind of go right to it. Wait a minute.

He was entrusted Is entrusted with the gospel Wow He really was God's man. He he is the guy that's going to give us the gospel And it says not as pleasing men but God who examines our heart. So the focus is always on God, always on our Savior, and not focused on men, but not to their detriment. That's just not part of the equation. Okay, so let's think about bondservant. What's interesting is the basic word is doulos, and it's to bind as a slave. Originally, the lowest term in the scale of servitude came also to mean one who gives himself up to the will of another.

So that's what Paul describes himself. And he says this in this verse and actually in a handful of other verses. He says, I'm a bondservant of Christ. And we see that we are also in that category, too. We are bondservants. But what's neat is the transformation that's happened in the believer's life. And I'm going to show you that next. But he's saying, I'm a bondservant of Christ. So for the believer, for us, and for Paul too, but thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, and the basic word here is slaves, so you could say we were bond slaves of sin, we were totally locked into sin. Because of your obedience from the heart, your faith, this happened.

Ephesians 6.6. by way of I service as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ. I'm sorry, not by way of I service as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ. And that's actually slaves, again, as bond servants, doing the will of God from the heart. So that word kind of amplifies the fact that we were slaves of sin, bond slaves of sin, and now we're bond slaves of Christ.

So a wonderful place to be. OK, so just a few thoughts. This section has been great. Actually next week we're going to switch here. Mike's going to come back and he gets the cool verses. We talked about this. We're going to switch to Paul's interaction with the Lord and how to get the gospel. How can Paul be so bold? How can he say, if you are not accurate with the gospel, I damn you. I separate you from Christ. I mean, how can he say that? He says it because he was God's chosen instrument to directly get the good news. And he makes no bones about it.

And Mike's going to expound on that next week, and that's really cool. But a few other little thoughts, too. You know, the gospel that Paul's been presenting in these verses, And we had to kind of digress and look at it in 1 Corinthians 15. And we also looked at the fact that you can think of the gospel. There's the narrow gospel, 1 Corinthians 15.

And then there's the broad gospel, which actually is all that the Lord inspired Paul to write. It's his 13 epistles. If you think about it, those 13 epistles tell us how to live the Christian life. If we remove those from scripture, We don't we have a little bit, but we don't have the core of understanding how to live the Christian life and so so many things come across loud and clear is that that that Paul's concerned about here that the the narrow gospel and the wide gospel because he came to these believers They're already believers right so he couldn't he didn't have to get them resaved He wanted them not to go and go back to the law so he was concerned about their Christian conduct so his teaching on on their Christian contact is contained in his 13 epistles, right?

So, I think that's it. Hopefully, this has been a great three weeks for me, and Mike's going to pick it up here, and we're going to... So, let's close in prayer then. We thank you, Father. We thank you so much for your grace, Lord. We thank you for the marvelous gospel, the narrow gospel and the expanded gospel, all that Paul has taught us, Lord. And we thank you that you preserved it for us, and thank you for just allowing us to see how important it is. In Christ's name, Amen.