Watch as Len Finn unpacks Galatians 1:1-10 shows us how the Gospel + Nothing = Everything.
100% Rescued
The Letter to the Galatians is dealing with the problem that we as human beings don’t like the idea that we need rescuing. Maybe fixed, but not rescued. We always try to lessen the magnitude of how helpless we are, and we instinctively make the scope of God’s rescue mission something less than 100% – something less than total and complete. We want, at least, a minor role to play in our salvation.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians is an atom bomb on this nonsense.
In Galatians, Paul is uninhibited and unrestrained in his defense of the Gospel. The Gospel is 100% from God, 100% by Christ, and 100% no strings attached.
The Gospel is Offensive
Pop culture tends to view Christianity as morally uptight and prudish, but that’s not the Gospel. The Gospel is offensive – it offends the moral, the amoral, and the immoral alike.
To the church-gone-wild in Corinth, Paul says, ‘I give thanks for you’ (1 Cor 1:4); to the holiness-on-steroids Church in Galatia, Paul says ‘You have deserted God.” (Gal 1:6) Later Paul has a long laundry list of corrections for the church in Corinth, but however big those church problems may be, that church still hasn’t deserted the Gospel – like the Church in Galatia.
The Gospel, when rightly preached, can sometimes produce a Corinthian church, but it will never produce a Galatian church. The Gospel, rightly preached, has nothing for you to do. The Gospel has no shoulds, it has no musts, it has no oughts. The Gospel is all about what God has done – what he’s done to you and for you.
All God
We contribute one thing to the Gospel – our sin. We are simply that which needs to be delivered and rescued.
The Gospel is all God’s will, all God’s plan, all God’s work, and all for God’s glory. All we contribute is our sin, and even that gets taken away from us.
Being a Christian is simply someone whom the Holy Spirit has made realize the Gospel – that Christ has delivered you according to the will of the Father.
Gospel Distortions
There are plenty of ways that Christians are tempted to distort the 100%-God Gospel. Here are a few:
- The Liberal Distortion: Jesus simply shows you how to be a good, loving person.
- The Religious Distortion: When we take something that is a response to the Gospel and make it a requirement of the Gospel.
- The Evangelical Distortion: You are saved because you made a decision for Christ – because you chose wisely.
The Gospel plus anything is simply not the Gospel.
God Has Done It All
The Gospel is not a humanly crafted thing – it is outrageous. It is something revealed by God. It will either tick you off or seem like the most wonderful news in the world.
It is really hard to trust that God really has done it all, but He really has. You aren’t saved by the specifics of your theology or the strength of your faith – you are saved by the One who calls you to trust. You are saved by the God who has given you your faith – in no matter what state it is in. Your salvation was accomplished long before you even managed your first breath.
God loves you too much to leave your salvation to your helpless, hopeless, sinful hands.
The Gospel plus nothing equals everything.
What a good message! I was raised in what you refer to as the “evangelical distortion” and for the past 4 1/2 years I have been unlearning it. Looking forward to the rest of the series.