The Only Gospel

Gal 1:6, 7 “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ”.

The verses 6 to 10 mention the singularity of the gospel where any other mix should be considered as perversion. Paul says that the gospel should not serve to even please men but please God. It is required for all true Christians to          should be the reason for their relationship with Christ. We learn many truths from God through meditation and other means but the initial invite towards Christ is the Gospel and this message should not be corrupted with any other offer.

Verse 6 clearly says that the grace of Christ is the gospel. An elaborate definition is found at 1 Cor 15:3-8. The definition says that Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose again and was seen by many people. The largest flow of grace was at the cross and our redemption can been seen only here. Paul uses the name Christ instead of Jesus and also includes the term “according to the scriptures” for both the death and resurrection. Jesus Christ, the long awaited redeemer has fulfilled the largest promise given to humanity. The biggest blessing we can ever receive is already given to us.

There is a death, a burial which is the proof of death, a resurrection and proof of resurrection in the gospel. The death shows death of the dominion of all sinful nature in man. The burial assures us that the older person and all that defines Him are gone forever. The resurrection is the birth of a newer person and the new person will be acknowledged by the whole world. This opportunity of sharing death and resurrection with Jesus is given to all of us. This is the gospel.

Now, in Galatians 1:7, Paul says that there is no other gospel. This means that there is no other news which is good to us. A truly saved person would see the gospel as the most desirable news to him. In verse 4 we read that this age is evil and we should seek to be delivered from that and not to excel in here. Worldly excellence is ridiculed strongly in the bible. Any success story or sometimes healing too is not good news and we are expected to be redeemed from here. This redemption was made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus and we should happily embrace this gospel that gives a different ambition. This is the will of the Father and we really need to be happy about this.

But people will seek to give you other news which are troublesome and are given to us with the purpose of seeking men (verse 10). The context of the book of Galatians is that some people in the church were introducing circumcision and they believed that it was required for everybody to follow Jewish standards to be saved. Circumcision is not an evil practice. But making it mandatory decreases the importance of salvation being free. Similarly, in many instances we try to mix the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus with other parameters such as prayer or worship as the requirement of salvation. Paul does not curse, but say that all men or even angels who mix the gospel with any other message are already cursed.

Fake gospels tend to please men and will be according to men. Human ambitions will be served by worldly gospels. All other religions and practices are according to men and try to please their Gods in their own ways. These practices have tried their perversion into Christianity from the first century. One very large example is the Roman Catholic Church who we ridicule only on their idol worship. The larger problem with them is that they encourage rituals to gain Christ and not Christ Himself. This perversion has entered many protestant and Pentecostal churches in different gestures. Christ has revealed to us that we need to pursue heavenly riches and glory by ignoring the world and its illusions.

In Mark 8:34-36, we read Jesus valuing the Gospel more than our life. If we value our life more and try to preach a pleasing gospel, we will lose it. For any preacher, self-denial is mandatory. And this denial will produce a clean message to others towards Christ. It is possible to gain the whole world by pleasing everybody without being saved.

We can be ashamed in preaching the Gospel and that also can cause us to mix up a different message. We read this also in Romans 1:16. We need to ask God for courage in keeping up the purity of the Gospel. We read a lot of verses in Acts (ex: 9:28, 13:46, 14:3 etc) that they spoke with boldness. This is required for ministry and we should ask God for this boldness (Acts 4:29). Also, the message itself is the power of God and so we need not hesitate anywhere.

In 1 Cor 1:22-23 Paul places signs and wisdom as opposites to the gospel. When people come looking for signs or knowledge only, we cannot satisfy them as what they seek is different. But those who are called, because of their faith they understand. Serving signs and wisdom alone is not giving the Christ to them. These can elevate ourselves when we preach, but if we need to bring people to Christ, we need to promote the sacrifice at the cross only. The word “called” is seen both in 1 Cor 1:24 and also in Galatians 1:6. This calling (as we know is towards holiness and glory) demands that we focus in the message of the cross only.  

But in Romans 15:18-19, we see that signs and wonders should be used to preach the gospel only. Miracles are required for others to understand how loving and kind Jesus is. But this miracle is not why Jesus had paid His life for. We need to be very precise about our preaching that the message of the cross reaches the audience properly.

In Mark 8:35 and 10:29 we can see Jesus asking us to give important to the gospel as much as to Jesus Himself.  We need to give the same treatment to the Gospel so that it does not get perverted with any other message. The focus on every Christian should be on the cross as we live only by that incident.