"The Truth of the Gospel"

The Truth Of The Gospel

Galatians 2:1-10

September 19, 2021

Read Galatians 2:1-10

This is the Word of the LORD

Today, we pick up in the middle of a conversation in which the Apostle Paul was rebuking and exhorting the believers in the early church.  Paul had received word that “there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.”  To Paul, the gospel was the truth.  Period.  Full stop.  Mic drop.  To Paul, the effort and/or willingness to reimpose the Mosaic law on top of the gospel was an egregious assault on the grace God had revealed in Jesus Christ.  As you might recall, Paul scolded the Galatians and then started to remind them of why the gospel he had shared was true.

The truth of the gospel – by itself – is the point.  The sufficiency of Christ, who – as the writer of Hebrews would declare – made the once for all atoning sacrifice; that Christ needs (and affords) no addition.  The truth of the gospel is that Christ is everything for our salvation – our reconciliation with God, our redemption from the consequences of sin, our hope of communion in the kingdom.  It is not Christ and tradition.  It is not Christ and some specialized knowledge.  It is not Christ and some heritage or action or ritual or anything else.  It is Christ and Christ alone.

We started looking at this letter two weeks ago.  In the opening lines, Paul was abrupt and abrasive.  “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ.”  “As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!” Those are not the normal pleasantries exchanged among friends.  This was more the language of a father yelling at a son to get out of the street to avoid being hit by a truck.  It may not have been polite or pastoral, but the danger they faced was real, immediate, and significant.

To drive home his point, Paul re-told his own story.  He reminded the Galatians that the gospel he received not from human origin.  That is, it was not something someone taught him, it was not a tradition he had received, it was not something that he had gleaned through his own studies and searching.  No, he received the gospel directly from a revelation of Jesus Christ.

He related how he had begun as a zealous persecutor of the church.  Then, in his Damascus road experience, he encountered the risen Lord Jesus Christ and everything changed.  If you have your Bibles or Bible apps open to our verses today, you will see as Paul related this series of events, he cued each episode by the word “then.”  “Then after three years [after his conversion], I did go up to Jerusalem to visit [Peter].”  “Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.”

Today is the third “then.”  “Then after fourteen years” – Paul was just hitting the highlights.  There is debate among scholars about whether the visit described in our verses are reflected in Acts 11 when Barnabas and Paul were sent from Antioch church with famine relief; or, whether it referred to the Council of Jerusalem described in Acts 15 where Paul and Barnabas went to go talk with the elders and apostles about the Gentile question.  We do not need to worry too much about timing because the Paul provided sufficient relevant details and the issue was one the same regardless of the timing.  It was the same issue about which we read throughout the letters of the New Testament.  Ultimately, what Paul described was the issue for the Council in Acts 15.

What was the issue?  Did Gentiles need to be circumcised according to the law of Moses in order to be considered truly Christian?  For years Paul had been traveling, preaching, and teaching the sufficiency of Christ to Jews and Gentiles – Gentiles like those among the Galatian congregations.  After Paul moved on to new areas, other self-proclaimed experts followed, coming in to say that Paul had only provided the introduction to grace in Jesus; but believers needed to follow the tradition of the elders and the Mosaic law in order to receive the fullness of status as God’s chosen people. What were the congregations to believe?

To bring this into a modern context, the tension felt was similar to the conflict many congregations experience with tradition and history.  It is common for congregations to conflate how things have always been done with what is necessary to proclaim the gospel now.  Would we be a Christian congregation if we decided to cancel the Christmas Eve service?  What if we went without the wreaths, the decorations, the poinsettias, and Christmas carols?  Now, don’t get lost in the illustration: we’re not doing away with Christmas, the service or the decorations, but could you feel that tension?  What is necessary and what has been added (even for good reasons)?  It may not have cut down into your core, but you begin to get the sense of how deeply foundational were these questions to early church Gentile believers.

So, Paul went up to Jerusalem.  He reported to the Galatians that he went to Jerusalem in response to a revelation.  In other words, he was not summoned by the Jerusalem church leaders.  He was not in trouble; yet, this trip was not just a chance to catch up with old friends.  He wrote that he went to Jerusalem with Barnabas; however, he also noted that he took Titus “along with me.”  It is a curious turn of phrase.

A little backstory might help here.  In Acts 4, during the early days of the church after Pentecost, we are introduced to, “a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”).  Throughout the remainder of Acts, Barnabas lived into that moniker.  After Saul had his Damascus Road experience and became Paul, Barnabas took Paul to Jerusalem to meet with the early church.  In Acts 9, the believers in Jerusalem did not want to meet with Paul because they were afraid and did not believe he had changed.  We read, “Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus.”

In Acts 11, Barnabas went to find Paul, brought him to Antioch, and the two were commissioned to represent Antioch in sending relief to Jerusalem.  They were tight. Then, in Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas were commissioned by the church in Antioch to go out on the first mission trip.  They went and had adventures together.  They were really tight.

All of this is to point out: even as tight as they were, they were different.  Barnabas was an encourager. Paul was a zealous advocate/exhorter.  Paul’s language here suggests that he brought Titus with without Barnabas’ agreement.  As Acts reports, after the Jerusalem Council, Paul and Barnabas had a sharp disagreement over whether to bring along John Mark on a second missionary journey.  The result was that Paul and Barnabas split ways and went out on separate missions.  Perhaps the seeds for that split are revealed here as Paul was bringing things to a point with or without Barnabas’ assent.

Why does this matter?  Paul brought Titus along as a test case for the Jerusalem community.  Titus was an uncircumcised Gentile believer.  This was not diplomacy.  It was brinksmanship.  What would be their decision?  Everything was at stake: was Jesus only a Jewish Messiah or was Jesus the Messiah for the whole world?

Paul’s stridence unnerves us.  We may agree with him, but his tactics seem a little … much?  Why did he have to be so disagreeable when we want to agree with him?

Hear me clearly: Paul was not telling the Galatians that they all ought to be like him in this instance or that they had to imitate his tactics.  Rather, he was recounting these episodes and his history to emphasize how much was at stake in their capitulation to those seeking to impose circumcision – and everything that went with it.  Paul was showing how he had fought for them by living the gospel he proclaimed.  He wanted the Galatians to follow his example rejecting those calling the Galatians to temper their joy by trying to earn through circumcision what had already been granted them in grace.  Let me say that again: what was at stake was the very joy of their salvation – the salvation that they had received by grace.

The gospel is that important.  The truth of the gospel is that clear.  As Solomon noted in Ecclesiastes, clarity is so very important.

There are two other related things I want you to see here.  First, Paul was fine going full throat in defense of the gospel within the church.  This is so different than we normally think about things.  Normally, we think we have to be polite and nice within the church and can be more – let’s say – relaxed in our social graces outside the church.  Paul was the exact opposite.  He would reach out with patience to those outside the church.  Paul aggressively challenged those inside the church to hold fast to the grace they had received and to be conformed to the Lord.  He cared so much about what God had done that he wanted those who claimed Christ to be clear about the scope of God’s grace and love manifest in Jesus.

Paul was full-throated, abrupt, impolite, abrasive, confrontational, and unyielding; however, he was all of those things in support of building up the Galatians in the truth of the gospel. He was not rejecting or dismissing his readers.  No, instead, Paul was scolding people he loved because he was seeking their best interest.  He was not the picture of being nice or of being tolerant, but he was the picture of loving.  Isn’t that odd?

Now, please hear me: I am not suggesting that we give up encouraging and supporting one another in favor of constant tension, bickering, and argument.  I am saying that we need to diminish the tendency to default to nice and tolerant when important conversations are needed.  Some conversations are going to be difficult.  Some are going to be hard.  Where we are called to be mutually accountable, we are going to find times when people tell us the hard truth that we are not going in the right direction.

Paul’s trip to Jerusalem was for the purpose of having this hard conversation.  He went with the purpose of gaining clarity and certainty – not that he was uncertain or unclear, but that the people with whom he had shared the gospel had been receiving conflicting messages.  He loved them and sought what was best for them.

As we come through this pandemic and all the changes it has wrought, we are going to be having some conversations about what exactly it means to “open the gospel to Carson City and beyond.”  We have seen some of what has happened thus far but going forward is going to require some real choices.  We need to be able to have those conversations – as hard as they may be – with the confidence that we are seeking to be mutually upbuilding.  There may be conflict, disagreement, and controversy, but we need to be committed to the loving one another.

The second related thing is something that shows up in verse 6.  Paul threw in a revealing aside when talking about those in the private meetings.  “From those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality) – those leaders contributed nothing to me.”

Paul’s references to the original apostles as those who seemed to be leaders (v. 2), those who seemed to be important (v. 6) and those reputed to be pillars (v. 9) do not indicate that [Gal, p. 55] he was rejecting their apostolic authority but that he was calling into question an exaggerated importance that had evidently been given to them in the early church, an importance that threatened to place their personal authority above the absolute authority of the truth of the gospel.  As Holmberg notes, “According to Paul every apostle is subordinated to the Gospel and is authoritative because and insofar as he is a faithful preacher of this one and only Gospel—not because he knew the historical Jesus or has access to old and reliable traditions about him.”[1]

Hear that: deference and respect are tied to conformity to the gospel.  That is important for the people of the church to hear.  It is important for us to hear because we have been caught up in the ways of the world, celebrating the famous and the infamous; trusting the person and not critically assessing the message; and, adopting a false hierarchy of expectations for others and ourselves.  The gospel is clear: the only one worth celebrating is Jesus.  The preacher, the music leader, the ruling elder, and the Bible study teacher – they are servants and messengers.  Only.  Our allegiance is to Jesus.  Only.

I made this point in our study of the Holy Spirit (Wednesday’s at 10:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.) that modern medicine is a good illustration of the distinction I am drawing here. In other lands that do not have the medical options we have, the urgency of their situation puts them on their knees before God.  They look to see the hand of God at work.  They rejoice when they see miracles.  They marvel at God’s healing power.

We look at that and – externally or internally – shake our heads condescendingly.  We have science, so we know that there is a rational explanation for what has taken place.  When we feel symptoms, we head to the doctor and expect that our description and their education will lead us to a diagnosis of the problem, a range of treatment options, and an expectation that we will recover.  Hopefully quickly.  If the problem is severe, we will pray that the medical treatments do what they are supposed to do.  When we recover, we are ever-so-grateful for the nurses, doctors, and medical teams that ministered to us.  We marvel at their expertise and skill.  We give them praise and tell all our friends how excellent the care was we received.  Oh, and if we think about it, thank God.  Thank God for them.

Which do you think reflects the more accurate understanding of reality?  Not to diminish the hard work, time, and dedication of our medical professionals or the technology that has been developed as tools to be used in diagnosis and treatment; but the reality is that none of that would be available but for the hand of God gifting and revealing those things to us.  The glory belongs to God.

Paul was saying the same about the apostles.  He was saying that the glory belongs to God, not to the ones who knew the Lord.  They – like anyone; and Paul meant anyone – they deserved respect and admiration only to the extent they were faithful to the truth of the gospel.  Paul’s clarity about the importance of giving glory to God was not new with Paul.  Moses’ told the people this same thing in his farewell address in Deuteronomy 8.  On the brink of entering the Promised land, Moses said:

Deut. 8:11   Take care that you do not forget the LORD your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. ¹² When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, ¹³ and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, ¹⁴ then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, ¹⁵ who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous^a snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, ¹⁶ and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. ¹⁷ Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” ¹⁸ But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. ¹⁹ If you do forget the LORD your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. ²⁰ Like the nations that the LORD is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

The upshot of the meeting between Paul and the apostles was that the truth of the gospel was affirmed.  Titus was not compelled to be circumcised; yet was recognized as being a full brother in Christ.  Paul reported that when James, Peter, and John recognized that Paul had been entrusted with the gospel for Gentiles, and when they recognized the grace given to Paul, they extended the right hand of fellowship.  They agreed, “we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.  They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.”

Ultimately, the truth of the gospel – by itself – is the point.  The truth of the gospel is that Christ is everything for our salvation – our reconciliation with God, our redemption from the consequences of sin, our hope of communion in the kingdom. It is Christ and Christ alone.  All glory be to God!

Amen.

Questions:

1. What is the gospel? How would you describe the gospel to a non-believer who asks what it is?

2. Have you ever withheld comment from someone about whom you care, because you were concerned that it would not seem nice or would upset them? Have you ever confronted someone you loved because their actions were hurting themselves? How did those circumstances play out – was there any difference?

3. What are the hard conversations we have ahead of us? How might we be praying and preparing now to engage in those discussions in a fruitful, constructive, and loving manner?

[1] G. Walter Hansen, IVP New Testament Commentary, Galatians, p. 54-55.