Paul to the Churches of Galatia

Series	Location	Subjects	Takeaways	Sermon Link
-	Emmaus Orthodox Presbyterian Church	justification	-	-

💡Big Idea

Takeaways and Next Steps

📖Bible Passage

Galatians 1:1-2

Paul, an apostle—not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers who are with me, to the assemblies of Galatia: [[Gal-01#v2|]]

Points

• God is pleased to justify the ungodly, to make the unrighteous righteous in His sight.
  • this is called justification
  • this has eternal consequence for you and I
  • Correct teaching on justification is vital to the church’s spiritual wellbeing
    • John Calvin said that justification is the very hinge of the Christian religion
    • Martin Luther said that the church would live or die by what we taught on this doctrine of justification
• We cannot justify ourselves:
  • Romans 7.18 For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good.
  • Romans 3.23 for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;
• The Bible teaches that we are justified by grace alone, through faith alone
• Only a sinless, perfect sacrifice could pay for our sins. Christ is that sacrifice.
  • When God sees us, He sees Christ’s righteousness, not our own.
• Martin Luther taught that all heretics find the root of their folly in denying the doctrine of Justification by grace alone.

Paul Pleads to the Galatians to Return to the Gospel

• Galatians 1:6-7 I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different “good news”, but there isn’t another “good news.” Only there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the Good News of Christ. [[Gal-01#v7|]]
• The church in Galatia was met with new heretics, the Judaisers:
  • These taught that the Gospel was not enough. They taught that we must be saved by the Gospel AND circumcision.
    • Paul calls this a false Gospel and teaches that we must have nothing more and nothing less than the Gospel. Anything else is false and is not “good news”.
• There is only one Gospel. All others are false gospels.
• Is Paul being mean in this letter?
  • Five times in this letter, Paul calls the Galatians his brothers whom he loves dearly.
  • Yet Paul is indeed harsh to some, to the Judaisers who were leading the Galatians to a false gospel.
    • This is the same so-called meanness that you see in a parent protecting their child from a ravenous wolf.
      • This is what Archibald Allison calls the intolerance of compassion.

Paul Defends His Authority

• Part of the way that the heretics were able to convince others to their false doctrine was by discrediting Paul. They claimed that Paul was not a true apostle of Christ and therefore did not have authority.
  • Paul defends this point directly:
    • Galatians 1:1-2 Paul, an apostle—not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers who are with me, to the assemblies of Galatia: [[Gal-01#v2|]]
    • Paul’s authority was not delegated from the other apostles. Rather Paul was appointed and picked directly by God to be an apostle.
• ❓ Why do we not teach the continuing office of apostleship today?
  • Because the Bible does not teach that apostles continue today.
• Today, many teach “We need to stop theological debates and just go back to the Gospel?”
  • This is wrong. It is because we do not want to stray from the Gospel, that we must learn and teach theology.

Application

• Trust in Him alone.

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Further Study

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💬Discussion Questions