Verse By Verse Through Galatians: Introduction

Main Reading: Galatians 1-6

If you could only master one book in the New Testament and have it firmly planted in your mind at all times—to understand it and never to forget it, Galatians would be a great pick.

That’s a pretty big statement, so I’m sure you want to know “Why?” Well, the answer is simple: You should have a good grasp on Galatians because the struggles addressed in this letter are the same ones we naturally fall into today. The problems presented in Paul’s letter to the Galatians represent our spiritual default setting—Christians in the 21st century often slip back into the same wrong ways of thinking as Christians in the 1st century did. In fact, the specific ideas that caused tension in the backstory of this letter have plagued our churches since the very beginning (just read Acts 15:1) and still do to this day.

In Paul’s day and age, many people were adding circumcision and other kinds of ritual as requirements to the faith. The idea came from a certain group of Jews who wished to carry over the old ways of their religion and make them central to Christianity. In our current church context, we don’t have too many congregants campaigning for adult Christians to be circumcised. It’s not an activity that everyone is eagerly signing up for…although there are some “Hebrew Roots” groups, posing as Jews and living under Mosaic Law. But, still, enforcing laws from Leviticus or demands from Deuteronomy isn’t all that popular in the mainstream.

As evangelicals in the 21st-century, we have our own requirements we like to tack on to the gospel, don’t we? We’ll agree that someone is a good Christian so long as they dress a certain way on Sunday, avoid specific sins that we’ve determined are worse than the rest, are up-to-date on our Christian catchphrases, sing the same worship songs as we do, put in enough volunteer hours at the church, “tithe” enough money, etc., etc. If someone checks all those boxes—feel free to be honest, here, and add to this list whichever requirements you prefer to impose on others—then, we will accept them as a Christian brother or sister in good standing.

In some denominations or movements within broader "Christianity,” the gospel add-ons get more specific and, in some cases, more ridiculous. There is an expectation among some groups that true Christians only read the King James Bible. Some teach that the local church must gather on Saturday and not Sunday. Others claim that even the slightest bit of facial hair is of the Devil. And the list of absurd add-on requirements go on and on.

But this letter, what we call Galatians, was written to destroy our tendency to add pre-requisites, requirements, hurdles, and hoops to jump through onto the gospel of grace. Galatians gets rid of the idea that your relationship with God—and anyone else’s for that matter—is based on something other than Jesus.

What we’ll learn across the six chapters is that any so-called addition to the Gospel is really a subtraction…It’s impossible for you to do anything to add to the gospel, because Jesus already did the gospel by dying on the cross for you, and it is finished!

So, let my start by making this clear: the gospel is not:

• “If you believe…and you do x, y, and z”

• “Jesus is everything, so as long as you…”

• “Try your best, then God will do the rest,”

• “Yes, Jesus got you saved, but now that you are saved…

• “Believe in Jesus and stop listening to secular music, going to amusement parks, and wearing certain clothes.”

• And it is definitely not “Jesus did this for you, so now what are you gonna do for Him?”

If you’ve heard this kind of talk in a church or among Christians, I want you to know that it’s a lingering problem leftover from the 1st century. We are still making the mistakes of the Galatians, believing that the gospel is something we need to do, earn, or contribute to. But the gospel has nothing to do with whatever we think we can add to the salvation equation…After all, we only have sin, resistance, fear, uncertainty, doubt, and wavering to offer…

Instead, the gospel is only about what Christ has done, and He did it all! Now, you may say: “Noah, what’s the harm in telling people ‘Believe in Jesus and do this, that, and the other’?” Well, in one sense, nothing…it’s okay for people to believe in Jesus and conduct their lives in a certain way, opt in or out of certain social activities, or strive toward holy living to the best of their ability with the help of God’s Spirit. All of that is just fine, and there is no harm in our churches strongly encouraging Christians to be noticeably upright and set apart in the eyes of the world. We just need to be careful to avoid making any of these things a requirement for accepting people in the other pews around us as brother and sisters in Christ.

If it’s true that Son of God died for me and for you, then what do you possibly think we as mere, sinful human beings could to to add onto that? The obvious answer is: not a thing. But let’s say it did work that way. I guarantee that, if Jesus accomplished 99% of your salvation and said: “Okay, time for you to do the rest,” you’d look at your 1% contribution and find your peace and assurance in what you did rather than what Christ did.

Furthermore, if you tell people that their salvation equals “Jesus + something,” you have set up a false assumption. If our justification before God equals Jesus + obedience, then what happens when Christian people inevitably begin to disobey? They will soon start to do one of two things. They will either, one, change the definitions of sin to make it seem like they’re obedient. (This is typically the trend among more liberal congregations). The other tactic is to soften God’s expectations—lighten up the Law—and settle for “trying your best” or picking, choosing, & making up certain outward customs or rules to follow that might make us look obedient. That’s what always happens in legalist churches…they tell you “you can’t grow a beard, have tattoos, women can’t wear pants, and no one can ever drink a beer.” But, often times behind the scenes, the pastor is sleeping around with the secretary, the Sunday school teachers are molesting children, and none of them are actually obedient or righteous—only outwardly.

And this will be something that becomes extremely clear in this letter: False religions enforce an outward lifestyle in order to produce and manufacture “obedience.” Whereas, the true gospel changes your heart so that Christlikeness will be a natural result.

In other words, Galatians has much to say about how the cross matters for your salvation—your eternity—and also for your daily life as a Christian. As you can probably already tell, I’m fired up about all this. and I want you to know that Galatians is Paul at his feistiest, so buckle up.