Gospel Allergy and the Anathema of God Text: Galatians 1:6-10
Introduction: No Time for Niceties
The Apostle Paul, in his other letters, typically begins with warm commendations. He thanks God for the faith of the Romans, for the grace given to the Corinthians, for the fellowship of the Philippians. But when he writes to the churches in Galatia, he dispenses with all the pleasantries. He dives straight into the deep end of the pool with a bucket of ice water. There is no "I thank my God for you." Instead, we get the apostolic equivalent of a man kicking the door in. "I marvel," he says, which is a very polite way of saying, "I am utterly dumbfounded that you people have lost your minds."
Why the urgency? Why the heat? Because the Galatians were tampering with the gospel. And for Paul, the gospel is not one important thing among many. It is the one thing. It is the heartbeat of the church. If the heart is diseased, the whole body is dying. If the gospel is compromised, the church is no longer the church; it is a religious club on its way to hell. The issue in Galatia was not a minor squabble over liturgical colors or the church potluck schedule. A group of religious hucksters, whom we call the Judaizers, had infiltrated these young churches and were peddling a gospel-plus program. They were saying, "Yes, Jesus is fine. Grace is a good start. But if you want to be truly right with God, if you want to complete the package, you need to add the works of the law. Specifically, you Gentile men need to be circumcised."
This was not a supplement to the gospel; it was a subversion of it. It was like telling a drowning man that the lifeguard will save him, but only if he first demonstrates his ability to swim a few laps. It turns good news into bad news. It turns grace into a transaction. It yokes free men back into slavery. And Paul will have none of it. He understands that the moment you add a single human work to the finished work of Christ as a condition of your salvation, you have nullified the entire thing. You have created a different gospel, which, as he says, is no gospel at all. This is why he is so fierce. This is a five-alarm fire, and Paul is the fireman sounding the alarm with everything he has.
In our day, we are allergic to this kind of talk. We prefer a soft, therapeutic, non-confrontational faith. We like our preachers to be encouraging life-coaches, not apostolic warriors. But Paul shows us here that true love, biblical love, is not afraid to draw sharp lines and pronounce curses when the truth of the gospel is at stake. When someone is serving your family poison, you don't politely suggest a different menu option. You knock the plate out of their hands. And that is precisely what Paul does here.
The Text
I marvel that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to the gospel we have proclaimed to you, let him be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is proclaiming to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed! For am I now 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 slave of Christ.
(Galatians 1:6-10 LSB)
Gospel Desertion (v. 6-7)
Paul begins with his astonishment at their spiritual treason.
"I marvel that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ." (Galatians 1:6-7)
Notice first who they are deserting. It is not a set of doctrines or a religious system. They are deserting "Him who called you." To abandon the gospel of grace is to abandon God Himself. This is not a matter of changing your theological brand; it is an act of cosmic betrayal. God called them into a relationship based entirely on "the grace of Christ," and they were trading it in for a system of performance-based acceptance. They were leaving the Father's open arms to go back to the slave quarters.
And they were doing it "so quickly." This shows how seductive a works-based religion is to our fallen nature. The flesh loves to have a checklist. The flesh loves to feel that it is contributing something, that it has some leverage with God. The gospel of pure, unadulterated grace is an offense to human pride. So when the Judaizers came along with their message of "Jesus plus circumcision," it appealed to that innate desire to be in control, to have something to boast in. It is always easier to measure a ritual than it is to rest in a redeemer.
Paul then makes a crucial clarification. They are turning to a "different gospel," but he immediately corrects himself: "which is really not another." The Greek here distinguishes between a different gospel of another kind (heteros) and another gospel of the same kind (allos). Paul is saying this new teaching is not just another flavor of the same good news. It is a different thing entirely. It is a counterfeit. There is only one gospel. Anything else is a fraud. You can have the gospel of grace in Christ alone, or you can have a religion of human effort, but you cannot have a hybrid. A little bit of poison makes the whole pot poisonous.
These false teachers are "disturbing" the church. The word means to stir up, to agitate, to throw into confusion. And their method is to "distort" the gospel. They take the pure, simple message of Christ's finished work and they twist it, bend it, and pervert it into something else. They are not inventing a new religion from scratch; they are parasites on the true one. They use Christian vocabulary, they talk about Jesus, but they change the grammar. They change the "is" of grace to the "ought" of law. And the result is not salvation, but agitation and bondage.
The Apostolic Anathema (v. 8-9)
Having identified the problem, Paul now pronounces the sentence. And it is severe.
"But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to the gospel we have proclaimed to you, let him be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is proclaiming to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed!" (Galatians 1:8-9 LSB)
This is one of the most jarring statements in the New Testament. Paul says that the message is the standard, not the messenger. The authority is in the gospel itself, not in the one who preaches it. He puts himself under this same curse. "Even if we," he says, meaning the apostles themselves. If Paul ever came back and preached a different message, the Galatians were commanded to reject him.
Then he raises the stakes. "Or an angel from heaven." This is a brilliant rhetorical move. The Judaizers were likely claiming some higher, secret authority, perhaps appealing to angelic visions or traditions from the Jerusalem apostles. Paul cuts them off at the knees. He says it doesn't matter if a glorious, shining being from the throne room of God Himself shows up and tells you to add one iota to the gospel of grace. You are to tell that angel to go to hell. The message of the cross is fixed. It is unalterable. Not even a celestial being has the authority to edit it.
And what is the penalty for such tampering? "Let him be accursed." The word is anathema. This is not just Paul saying "shame on you." Anathema means to be devoted to destruction, to be handed over to the judgment of God. It is a formal, solemn, judicial curse. This is the stake. Preaching a false gospel is not a misdemeanor. It is a capital crime, because it leads souls to damnation while promising them heaven.
And just in case they thought he was speaking in a fit of anger, he repeats himself for emphasis in verse 9. "As we have said before, so I say again now." This is a settled, deliberate, apostolic judgment. Anyone, any man, who preaches a gospel contrary to the one they received from Paul, is to be anathema. The standard is the gospel once for all delivered. There are no new updates, no revised editions. The truth is not a moving target.
Whose Slave Are You? (v. 10)
Paul anticipates the objection. "Paul, you're being too harsh. You're too dogmatic. You'll offend people. You need to be more winsome." He answers this before they can even say it.
"For am I now 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 slave of Christ." (Galatians 1:10 LSB)
Here is the heart of the matter. Paul identifies the root motive of the false teachers. They were men-pleasers. The Judaizers wanted to avoid persecution from the Jews. By requiring circumcision, they were making Christianity look like a sect of Judaism, which was a legally recognized religion in the Roman Empire. They were trying to take the offense out of the cross (Gal. 5:11). They were trimming the gospel to make it more palatable, more respectable, less scandalous.
Paul declares that he is on a completely different program. He poses a stark choice: you can seek the favor of men, or you can seek the favor of God. You cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive loyalties. The moment your motive shifts from pleasing God to pleasing men, you have disqualified yourself from Christian ministry. You cannot serve two masters.
He concludes with a powerful statement of his identity: "If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ." A slave has one master. His entire life is devoted to the will of that one master. He does not take a poll of the other slaves in the field to see what they would like him to do. He listens for the master's voice and obeys. Paul's identity is "slave of Christ." Therefore, the applause of men is irrelevant to him. The disapproval of men is irrelevant to him. His only concern is the approval of his Lord. This is the source of his courage. This is why he can speak with such unflinching, loving severity. He is a man under authority, and that frees him from the tyranny of all other authorities.
Conclusion: The Unchanging Gospel in a Changing World
The Galatian heresy is not dead. It is alive and well, and it takes many forms. Any time someone tells you that you are saved by grace through faith in Christ, BUT... you also need to have a certain spiritual experience, or vote for a certain political party, or adopt a certain social program, or achieve a certain level of personal righteousness to seal the deal, you are face to face with a different gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus-plus, and it is anathema.
The modern church is filled with men-pleasers. We have an entire industry of evangelicalism that is terrified of the word "anathema." We have sanded off the sharp edges of the gospel to make it more appealing to the world, more marketable to the consumer. We want to be seen as reasonable, tolerant, and nice. But in our quest to please men, we are in grave danger of displeasing God.
The gospel is, and always will be, an offense. It tells proud sinners that they can contribute nothing to their salvation. It tells them to stop trying and to simply receive a gift. It tells them that their best efforts are filthy rags. This is not a popular message. But it is the only message that saves.
Like Paul, we must make a choice. Are we seeking the applause of the world, or the "well done" of our Master? Are we striving to please men, or to please God? Our answer to that question will determine whether we are faithful slaves of Christ, or peddlers of a different gospel. There is no middle ground. The gospel is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Let us receive it, believe it, and proclaim it, without addition or subtraction, without apology, until the Lord returns.