“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” — Galatians 1:8-9 NASB
In the beginning of Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, he quickly addresses the primary issue he has with them. In the book of Acts, I’m not sure just which chapter in Acts, Paul was in Galatia and he preached to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of grace.
Shortly after Paul left, some other teachers and preachers came in among the church people and undermined the words of Paul. They slandered his reputation, which Paul didn’t really care much about. The primary thing these new teachers did was teach a different way of “Christianity” (It didn’t yet go by that title) than Paul taught. They pulled the new believers back to the legalism that the Pharisees and Sadduccees have been teaching for years.
Salvation is by grace thru faith in Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). We don’t deserve God’s grace at all (Romans 3:23, 6:23a). Nothing we can do will ever earn God’s pleasure (Isaiah 64:6).
A legalistic viewpoint of God and salvation really says what every other religion out there says. “You can do it. You can earn God’s favor. All you need to do is live rightly, do some extra good deeds, and give half or most of your money to the church.” They give us a set of rules to live by, and they tell us to hope and pray that by the end of your life, whenever that time comes, you’ve done enough good deeds to earn God’s favor and maybe get into heaven.
Is that the gospel of Jesus Christ? No! Jesus Christ told us one thing a few times over. We see it in John’s description of the gospel. (John 4:21, 6:35, 7:38, 11:25-26, 12:44-46, 14:1, 14:10-12, 16:9, 17:20-21) “Believe in Me!” That is the gospel. Believe in God, believe what God says.
There are many heretics out there teaching and preaching a very legalistic way of salvation. They’ve twisted scripture to make it say something it really doesn’t say.
We need to be very careful to avoid people preaching and teaching a twisted form of the gospel. God is very clear here. Anyone preaching a gospel different from what Jesus Christ Himself taught, he is to be damned and avoided. Strong language, I know, but God used strong language on this topic too. That tells me it’s s very important point to be made and understood.
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