Verse 8 is interesting, but we’ll get there.

First, you have to feel for Paul. He left the Galatians not long ago, and within a very short time, traveling preachers had arrived and poisoned the water hole. We’ll get into the details of what they were teaching in a later lesson, but for now, let’s take a closer look at how Paul lays out the problem.

Verses 6 and 7 make it clear that even though some may have thought the new teaching was “another” Gospel, there is no such thing. There is the one, true Gospel, and then there are lies. There is no such thing as “another” Gospel.

What does another Gospel look like? Frankly, it makes up a surprising amount of the Christian church, even if we don’t realize it. It’s the true Gospel, plus some extra rules, plus some additional books alongside the Bible—it’s the Gospel plus.

Or, it is the Gospel, minus some of the more inconvenient things. People love to talk about how God so loved the world that He gave us Jesus, but they don’t like to admit we’re sinners who needed Jesus to pay for our sins. So they take that icky bit out and wrap it in some Christ-consciousness we’re-all-children-of-God everyone-is-going-to-Heaven gobbledygook, and voila: another less problematic Gospel.

God makes it clear, in these few verses, there is no such leeway.

Verse 7 goes on, though, into the interesting realm of what these false teachers were doing. It speaks to both motive and outcome, and may possibly help us identify what it looks like when a false teacher passes through.

1. Some people. It’s the same Greek word (τὶς tis) for “some people” as used in verse 9 for “anybody”. There’s nothing special required to lead people astray; a caveman could do it. That should be a warning to the “not I, Lord” crowd.

2. Throwing believers into confusion. God is never the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33).

3. Trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. This speaks to the false teacher’s intent. That is, they were trying to pervert the truth, not just bumbling around and accidentally saying something that confused everyone.

So now we get to verse 8, which clearly shows that it is the message, not the messenger, that is important. Most people tend to flip that and note the messenger’s demeanor, appearance, oratorical prowess, and other noticeable aspects, and use them to determine whether the message is valid. This is wrong, but we’re suckers, so we keep doing it over and over in life.

Remember: evaluate the message, not the messenger. The message will reveal a false messenger more than outward appearance or other observable traits. It is not the wolf that’s hard to spot, but the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Verse 8 is particularly interesting because, in the midst of this warning against falling for a false version of the Gospel, it specifically warns against anyone who claims that an angel came to them from “heaven” and gave them a different Gospel than what God had given through Jesus and the apostles.

Here’s a list of people and religions who have done that, or versions of that:

• Islam: claims the angel Gabriel came and gave the Koran to Muhammad.

• Latter-Day Saints (Mormons): Joseph Smith claimed the angel Moroni told him of engraved golden plates, which were translated into the Book of Mormon.

• Seventh-Day Adventists: Ellen G. White, a key prophet‑figure involved in the formation of Adventists, claimed to have visions in which an accompanying angel explained the hidden truths of Scripture.

• Jehovah’s Witness: Charles Taze Russell and other early followers said they were guided by God’s spirit beings (angels). The organization also has its own translation of the Bible, the New World Translation, that was edited and revised to fit its doctrine.

• New Church: Emanuel Swedenborg claimed that angels gave him the secret key to understanding the Bible’s hidden passages and allegories.

• New Age/Occult: Often talk about spirit guides and ascended masters, often described as angels or light beings.

These take different forms, including additions to the Bible, subtractions, changes to the Bible itself, and outright “new” books of revelation in addition to the Bible. It has been noted that the “angel Gabriel” has had quite a hand in founding many religions. It is also worth noting that Lucifer was created as a beautiful angel of light whose superpower is deceiving people (2 Corinthians 11:14).

You might think you’re safe if you’re not involved in any of this, but be aware: there are many popular books, Bible translations, devotionals, and influences in the Christian church that, if you dig deeper, are supposedly revelations from angelic beings, letting someone in on some special, hidden knowledge they should share with the world. Anyone claiming to have received new knowledge that alters what the Bible tells us is in this list.

Paul warns against all of this, and quite emphatically. “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!” (Galatians 1:8, NIV)

He then reiterates: if anyone preaches “another” Gospel, let them be under God’s curse, and closes out in verse 10 by saying that if he were interested in pleasing people, the last thing he’d be doing is preaching the true Gospel.

There are many other versions of the Gospel today that exist only to avoid making people uncomfortable (2 Timothy 4:3). We have churches with rainbow flags waving during pride month, telling us “love is love” and helping people march to hell because they get a comfortable “other” Gospel that strips away sin and repentance. We have religions and sects that make their people think they can earn their way to Heaven through personal hardship and restriction, unaware that the ticket in their pocket is for hell.

The Angel of Light knows very well which parts of the Gospel individual people are willing to hear, and which ones they won’t. He knows what we need to hear that will take us just enough off the path to change our entire eternal trajectory.

There is one true, unadulterated, unadjusted, unmaligned Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Everything else is hellbound.

If you’d like a worksheet for this lesson, you can get a copy here.

The opening verses of Paul’s letters are easy to fly past to get to the meat of the letter. They often sound similar, for one thing, and it sometimes seems like the skip-over yada yada yada parts that we tend to skim to get to the greatest hits.

I’m guilty of doing that, but let’s not do that this time.

Paul starts his letter to the Galatians, making it pretty clear that he has serious authority. It seems a strange thing to do, especially since he had been to Galatia and had taught the Gospel to the people there. Surely they already knew who he was, didn’t they?

People haven’t changed. I’ve been foolishly involved in plenty of arguments in which the foundation of using the Bible as a source is stripped away by the “red letter” only people, or those who think that if Jesus didn’t say it, we can ignore it.

How do you pull the rug out from under someone in a debate?

You suggest they don’t have the right or authority to be debating at all.

Maybe they are from the wrong denomination, they’ve associated with people or teachers you don’t approve of, they are a woman or lack a theological degree—it’s a long list, these strawman attacks in which we go after the person instead of the words. Maybe that’s why God uses unlikely sources to speak, like donkeys.

Anyway, once the person has been shown to be unlikely to have valid ideas or the right to say them, no point they make after that lands.

So why was this an issue for Paul? Remember, false teachers had gotten to the Galatians and told them Paul was not legit. This made them question everything he said by questioning his right to say them.

This is a common experience for us: how do we trust people we don’t know personally, and what kind of expertise or vouching will allow us to trust them and what they say? What we think about the messenger necessarily colors our view of the message.

Paul rightly knew that he had to establish his bona fides (once again) to address the doubt that had crept in to give his words weight. So he makes it clear that he is an apostle, one sent by Jesus Christ and God the Father, not by people who were propping up their favorite teacher. He also points out (verse 2) that fellow believers agreed with him on what he was about to write.1

The very next thing he does is extend grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ, which is good because he’s going to drop the hammer in a bit.

A couple of things we note from this passage:

1. God the Father and Jesus Christ are two unique persons of the Trinity, not the same. They are both on the same divine level, and Paul is making it clear that Jesus is God.

2. God the Father and Jesus Christ directed Paul to extend grace and peace to the Galatians. That is, it wasn’t judgment and condemnation that was to be extended, which any fellow doubters out there will be relieved to hear once Paul really gets going and his words land. However convicting, it was grace and peace that were being extended, even if it didn’t feel like that.

3. Verse 4 is an incredible summary of the Gospel: Jesus died for our sins to rescue us from the evil in this world we live in, all done according to the will of God the Father, who is eternal, and to whom all glory will go forever.

We have a statement on who God is, a statement on how God works towards his wayward people, and a reminder of what Jesus did, all in the opening greeting.

Back to the grace and peace thing, though.

Grace is the central theme of this book. As we’ll find out, Paul will use the concept of grace as the balancing point of the entire argument he makes. And peace, extended to a group of churches that were now confused and likely fighting amongst themselves thanks to false teachers, definitely needed to be extended as well.

Grace is the heart of the Gospel. It’s a bunch of sinners who didn’t deserve God’s favor who got it anyway. You’ve probably heard the quote that mercy is not getting what you deserve (punishment), while grace is getting what you don’t deserve (salvation from evil).

In the verses we’ll cover next time, you’re going to see many of these same themes pop up again, as Paul defends himself and the Gospel he preached, along with reiterating what that Gospel is.

But just remember that Paul is writing this letter because the Galatians stumbled, and still God extends grace and peace to them. He is a gracious God, indeed.

If you’d like a worksheet for this lesson, you can get a copy here.

Well, me, sort of.

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