THE GOSPEL OF
CHRIST
SPREADING THE SOUL-SAVING MESSAGE OF JESUs
Introduction by narrator accompanied by a cappella singing:
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. Spreading the soul-saving message of Jesus. And now, Timothy Sparks and Ben Bailey.
Timothy Sparks:
“Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:3).
Ben Bailey:
And I’m Ben Bailey. Welcome to our study of the Book of Galatians. We are happy that you have tuned in to our broadcast today. This lesson is brought to you by individuals and congregations of the churches of Christ. We hope that you will visit the churches of Christ in your area and let them know how much you appreciate their support of this broadcast. If you have a Bible question or a spiritual concern, they would be happy to help you with it. If you would like to request a Bible study, they also would be glad to help you with that. We, too, would like to be of service in any way that we can. You may visit us on our website at www.thegospelofchrist.com, where you can download streaming audio and video lessons for use in your study of God’s Word. And, as always, we will be happy to send you a free copy of this broadcast, or any of our other lessons, on DVD, VHS, or CDs. All of our lessons are available free of charge. We will even pay the postage. E-mail us to let us know which lessons you would like, and we will be more than happy to send those to you. We also would be glad to send you a Bible correspondence course. This is a course that you can take in your spare time. You receive it by mail, and when you complete one lesson, you can return it to us for grading. We then will send you that lesson (graded), along with the next lesson, and so on. At the end of the course, you will receive a “Certificate of Completion.” We believe this could prove very beneficial to you in your study of God’s Word.
In the Book of Galatians, we are
going to learn a very clear message about the power of the Gospel versus the Old Law. In this epistle,
Paul deals with various issues that arose as the result of people having a Jewish background.
For example, some were suggesting that new Christians had to be
circumcised. Others suggested that the Old Law was still in effect, and that Christians
were under that Law as well as the New Covenant. Paul, however, told the Christians in
Timothy Sparks:
Paul is making the point here that Jesus “released us” from our sins through the power of the Gospel. In Revelation 1:5, the apostle John stated that Jesus “washed us from our sins through the power of His own blood.” Paul took offense at the fact that some were being so easily removed from Christ’s grace. In fact, in Galatians 1:6, he said: “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel.” Paul tells them that there is not a “different Gospel.” Rather, some are merely trying to pervert the pure Gospel of Christ. So he instructs the Galatian Christians, “Even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.” Paul is adamant that there is one Gospel—one “good news.” We need to hold to the truth of God’s Word as presented in that Gospel. There are some people in the religious world today who suggest that “another revelation of Jesus Christ” is available. Some even advocate that modern-day revelation of God is occurring. Paul made it clear that this is not the case. There is only one Gospel, and anyone who says differently is to be accursed. This has serious implications, which is why we are instructed to “contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered” (Jude 3).
Ben Bailey:
There is a practical application in this for us today. Paul condemned
those who teach anything different than what we find in the Word of God. If someone were to
come to us to suggest that
Jesus might have been a great teacher or prophet, but that He is not the
Christ, then that person is trying to foist on us “another Gospel.” If
someone suggests that while Jesus may have been a great messiah, He nevertheless made mistakes, then
that is “another Gospel.” If someone teaches a plan of salvation that is
different from the one we find in the Bible, that, too, is “another Gospel.” And whoever
teaches it is accursed by God. The plan of salvation as presented in the New Testament
is a very clear plan. Jesus teaches us very plainly what that plan of salvation is. In
John 8:24, Jesus said, “If you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” We must believe that Jesus is
Lord of our lives, and is the risen Savior Who died for our sins. We
must believe that so much that we
are willing to change. Jesus demands that when I become His child, I change
from the world to Him. In Luke 13:3, Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you shall
all likewise perish.” So, we must believe.
And we must repent. Plus, we must make the good confession that Jesus is
the Son of God, and then we must be baptized in water for the remission of our
sins. Jesus taught in Mark 16:15-16, “He who
believes and is baptized, will be saved.” The practical application of
such teachings is that when someone suggests that “all” you have to do is “believe,” or “confess,” or “repent,” then they
are not putting the sum of the Gospel before you, and it therefore becomes “another Gospel”—something that is not
approved by God or Christ. God places
a high premium on people who obey Him, and who teach what He has said in
the Bible, rather than their own opinions. Let us always endeavor to see that
our teaching can be backed up by book, chapter, and verse.
Timothy Sparks:
In Galatians 1:10 Paul said, “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do
I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a
bondservant of Christ.” If we are
seeking to please people, then we are not a
servant of Christ. We need to be concerned about teaching the pure Gospel and the unadulterated Word of God. It is only
by preaching and teaching the Word of God that we can please God—and He
is the One Whom we have to please, not men. It would be nice if, when we
preached the Word of God, people were happy to hear and obey it. But even if
they are not, when we have preached the Word of God in its simplicity and
purity, at least we know that we have pleased God, and that we have done what He commanded us to do. Many times the prophets in the Old Testament
did not please the people by what they taught. In the New Testament, we learn
how Stephen was stoned because he taught the
truth. Paul was beaten, stoned, and left for dead because he taught the
truth—but both these men pleased God. Jesus, our Savior, was crucified because
He was not a people pleaser. We, too, may have to suffer for teaching the
truth. Paul said, “All who live righteously in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12).
We aren’t in the people-pleasing business. We are in the God-glorifying business.
Paul made that clear to his “son in the faith,” Timothy.
Ben Bailey:
In 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul told Timothy, “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” Why? Because men will have itching ears, and will want to following after the “doctrines of men.” Yet Paul instructed Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist. In 1 Peter 4:11 Peter wrote, “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.” In Galatians 1:12, Paul addresses the importance of the Gospel when he writes, “For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.” This places a high premium on the inspiration of the Scriptures by God. Some today “poke fun” at Paul, and suggest that he made mistakes, that he was a sexist, and that his teachings were biased because of his Hebrew background. But Paul disagrees. He says that his teachings came “through the revelation of Jesus Christ.” When we read the words of Paul, we’re not talking about his words, ideas, or opinions. Rather, these are the words of God. This is the idea behind 1 Corinthians 14:37, “If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord.” In 2 Peter 1:20-21, we learn that “holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” The words they spoke weren’t their own, but were from the Spirit of God. As Paul wrote to Timothy, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Paul admonished Christians not to accept “later revelations” or the latest fad. This applies to us today as well. We live in a world where people actually claim to receive “modern-day revelations” from God. Some suggest that God spoke to them “in a soft, sweet voice in the middle of the night” and told them what to do. They then present this as “the Gospel.” But that is not in keeping with God’s Word as found within the Bible.
Timothy Sparks:
We learn from Romans 10:17 that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by
the Word of God.” It is God’s Word, and only God’s Word, that creates faith. In
Hebrews 1:1-2 we are told, “God, who at various times and in various
ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by
His Son.” God communicates His Word,
His message to us, through His Son. In Colossians 3:16, we are told to “let the
word of
Christ dwell in you richly.” This means that we must let the Word of God have a
permanent, abiding place in our heart and in our life. The psalmist
wrote, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You!” (Psa. 119:11).
The psalmist also said: “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my
meditation all the day” (119:97). So it is the Word of God that is to lead and guide us. Because Paul’s
words came directly from God, we can rest assured that they are the words God wanted us to
have. Jesus said, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (Jn.
17:17). Does this kind of teaching allow for errors, mistakes, or
contradictions within the Bible? Absolutely not! It’s a sad day when even some,
who profess outwardly to believe in the concept of inspiration, teach that God
can use a Bible
that contains errors and mistakes to teach us the truth. Such an idea certainly
is not contained within the Word of God itself. There, we learn that the
Word of God is “absolute truth.” God isn’t going to contradict Himself. Some
would say, “Well, Paul wasn’t perfect. The other writers of the New Testament weren’t
perfect. They all made mistakes. They committed errors. They had their own
personal foibles.” True enough. But so what? The real issue is: Can God inspire
men through His Holy Spirit to enable them to write down correctly what He
wants written down? Of course He can! And we can rest assured that the Bible we
possess today is that inspired Word.
As Paul put it, “Let God be found true, but every man a liar” (
Ben Bailey:
I am reminded of Psalm 119:160, “The entirety of Your Word is truth.” That doesn’t mean bits and pieces. It doesn’t have anything to do with what I think or want. The fact is, all of God’s Word—from Genesis through Revelation—is true and inspired. Paul further illustrates his lifestyle in Judaism, and how it did not advance him any. In Galatians 1:13-15, he said: “And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” Paul said in Philippians 2, and in 2 Corinthians 11, that he was a “Hebrew of Hebrews.” He was at “the head of the class,” so to speak, when it came to those who were in line to teach the Old Law. But Paul says that didn’t help him at all. It didn’t advance him any when it came to the truth of the Gospel. The same is true of false doctrine. It will not help people get closer to Jesus. Was Paul focusing just on the teachings of the Old Law? No, Paul wasn’t concerned here with just Old Testament doctrines. He specifically stated that he was concerned about “the traditions of his fathers” (vs. 15). We see examples of these types of things in Matthew 15 and Mark 7. There were all sorts of traditions about how the Jews had to wash at a certain time and in a certain way. They had to wash the couches upon which they sat, and the dishes upon which they ate. These were traditions that had been invented by men. The same was going to hold true in regard to circumcision. Yes, circumcision was commanded of Jews and proselytes in the Old Testament. But nowhere in the New Covenant does it say that a Gentile who wants to become a Christian must be circumcised. This was something that some were trying to impose as a tradition. The practical point is that traditions aren’t going to help us get to Heaven. In Luke 16, we find the account of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man didn’t have his life in tune with God’s will. When he died and found himself in torment, what was the one thing he wanted most? He wanted someone to go back and talk to his brothers. Tradition wasn’t going to help them. They needed to hear God’s Word on how they were lliving their lives.
Timothy Sparks:
The rich man was told, “They have Moses and the
prophets; let them hear them…. If they do not hear Moses and
the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the
dead.” The point is that the Word of God was all the rich man’s brothers
needed. And the
Word of God is all that we need today. It has been said that we live in the
“sunlight age” of Christianity. Everyone today is amenable to the New Testament. People
will die, either having accepted or having rejected its teachings. As Paul said in 2
Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
that each one may receive the things done
in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” Jesus said:
“He who rejects
Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him-—the word
that I have spoken will judge him in the last day” (Jn. 12:48). We are going to
be judged by the Word of God. The writer of the Book of Hebrews put it this
way: “The word of God is living
and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division
of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). We need to make it very clear
to people that we are dependent upon the Word of God for direction in our
spiritual life. Paul closes chapter 1 of the Book of Galatians with these comments: “And I
was unknown by face to the churches of
Ben Bailey:
In Galatians 2, we find Peter eating with some of the Gentiles. But when some of the prominent Jews arrive, Peter plays the part of the hypocrite and dissociates himself from the Gentiles. Paul then rebukes Peter to his face—publicly—for his sin. It was wrong for Peter to act in such a manner, and Paul wanted him to know it. Paul says in Galatians 2:6 that “God shows personal favoritism to no man.” There is another point that perhaps we might make here. Some have suggested that Peter was the first pope. Yet Catholic doctrine about popes teaches that they are infallible. Peter obviously wasn’t infallible, and just as obviously wasn’t the first pope. Sadly, some people have based their entire faith on Peter as the first pope. Yet he wasn’t. This wasn’t the first mistake Peter had made, either. He had denied the Lord three times. He often spoke out impetuously. We should not place our faith in men. Paul said in Galatians 1:11 that “the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.” His point was that he did not have to confer with Gamaliel, or with any other human teacher to receive the truth, because it came directly from God. When people today hear the Word of God—backed up by book, chapter, and verse—they don’t have to go ask a preacher, or anyone else, if it’s right. They can determine that for themselves.
Timothy Sparks:
The Bible only, makes Christians only. If you took the Word of God to a foreign country,
and the people of that country were to read and obey it, they would become Christians
and Christians
only—just as the Christians of the first century. The “seed” for making Christians
is the Word of God (Lk. 8:11). Denominations occur when people teach doctrines
that are not found within the Word of God. When you teach only what is found
within the Word
of God, a denomination will not be the end result. Rather, the
In Galatians 2, we learn that when Peter played the part of the hypocrite, Barnabas was influenced to do the same thing. Barnabas—the one who was known as “the son of encouragement”—was led off into error by Peter’s example. Even strong Christians can sometimes be led astray. Fortunately, Paul rebuked Peter because “he stood condemned.” Later, in 2 Peter 3:15, we see that Peter didn’t hold a grudge against Paul for having corrected him on this occasion, and even refers to him as “our beloved brother, Paul.” When we are wrong and have to be rebuked (2 Tim. 4:2), we should accept the rebuke, and we should thank the person who rebuked us for showing us the error of our way.
Ben Bailey:
Yes, and when people who have been acting inappropriately repent, we need to remember the lesson of the Book of Second Corinthians and affirm our love for them. James 5 and Hebrews 5 both teach us the same principle: “He who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.” I’m thankful that Paul was willing to help Peter and Barnabas. Both were great men of God, yet both had gotten caught up in problems. Good people can get caught up in sin and false teaching—sometimes without even knowing it. Faithful Christians should bring them back to the truth. We must not despise or hate them. Rather, we need to comfort them. In the case of Peter and Barnabas, they knew the truth of God’s Word when they heard it, and they acted upon it. Today, as you hear the plan of salvation presented from the Word of God, you don’t have to go ask anyone about it. You can simply turn to the pages of your Bible to see if what you are hearing is true and correct.
Timothy Sparks:
We know that God is not just the God of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles as well. The
Gospel was sent first to the Jews, but then to the Greeks (Rom. 1:16). There is
no partiality with God. In Acts
10:34-35 Peter said, “God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and
works righteousness is accepted by Him.” God wants all people to be saved, and to come
to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). We learn from 2 Peter 3:9 that God is patient with us, not willing
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. People cannot be saved, however, without the Gospel of
Christ. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and if you will genuinely
repent of your sins by changing your heart and your mind, you can make the good
confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and you can be baptized into Christ for the
forgiveness of your sins. Then, you can live a faithful Christian life
and have the hope of heaven as you try to do the greatest amount of good in the
time that you have left on this Earth. We encourage you to attend the
Narrator
accompanied by a cappella singing:
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1. What is the overriding theme of the Book of Galatians?
2. When Paul wrote in Galatians 5:6 that Jesus had come to “deliver” us, what was his point? Deliver us from what?
3. Paul said that some of the Christians in
4. In Galatians 1:10, Paul spoke about the futility of trying to “please men.” Yet, in Galatians 2, we find Peter and Barnabas trying to do exactly that. Explain what happened, and why Peter and Barnabas were wrong in their conduct.
5. According 2 Timothy 3:12, what will very likely happen to us if we “live righteously in Christ Jesus”?
6. Explain what Peter meant when he said, “If any one speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Pet. 4:11).
7. What is the message being taught in 2 Peter 1:20-21 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17? Is that message still applicable today?
8. According to Galatians 1:12, what was the ultimate source of Paul’s teachings?
9. What did Paul mean when he said, “Let God be
found true, but every man a liar” (
10. Paul acknowledged the he was “a Hebrew of Hebrews.” When it came to Christianity, how did that help him?
11. Some Christians were trying to impose the Old Testament practice of circumcision on Gentiles who wanted to become Christians. What did Paul have to say about that?
12. When, in torment, the rich man was told that his brother should hear “Moses and the prophets,” and that if they would not hear them, “neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead,” what was the point being made?
13. On one occasion, Paul had to rebuke Peter publicly (Gal. 2). What had Peter done that elicited such an action?
14. What was one of the ill effects of Peter’s sin?
15. In Acts 10:34-35, Peter remarked that God “shows no partiality,
but in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by
Him.” What is the meaning of this passage?
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST,