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Commentary on "Paul's Authority and Gospel"

COLLEEN TINKER

 

Day 5: Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - No Other Gospel

 

Overview

This lesson discusses Paul’s declaration that anyone who preached a different gospel should be accursed. The author demonstrates that Paul omitted the prayer of thanksgiving for the Galatians that he usually included in his greetings in his epistles. He is upset because they were “betraying their calling as Christians”. It states that Paul is not saying there is another gospel, just that some, by “teaching that faith in Christ was not enough—were acting as if there were another one.”

The lesson ends with the observation that many “even in our church” emphasize experience over doctrine. It then asks, “However important experience is, what does Paul’s writing here teach us about the importance of correct doctrine?”

 

Observations

Today’s lesson still does not define “Paul’s gospel”, nor does it explain the counterfeit gospel to which the Galatians were falling victim. This is all the lesson says about the situation that elicited the entire epistle:

“How were the Galatians deserting God? By turning to a different gospel. Paul is not saying that there is more than one gospel but that there were some in the church who—by teaching that faith in Christ was not enough (Acts 15:1-5)—were acting as if there were another one. Paul is so upset by this distortion of the gospel that he desires that anyone who preaches a different gospel might fall under the curse of God (Gal. 1:8). Paul is so emphatic about this point that he basically says the same things twice (Gal. 1:9).”

Nowhere is the gospel defined, and nowhere does the lesson’s author define the heresy being fed to the Galatians. Moreover, the final question about the contrast between experience and correct doctrine is further misleading. The Galatian heresy had nothing whatsoever to do with “experience”. Rather, the Galatians were being taught to submit to Jewish law in order to be considered Christian. Judaizers were infiltrating the church with the old Jewish practice that required Gentiles to be circumcised and to thus become Jews in order to be considered one of God’s covenant people.

Judaizers insisted that Christians converts be circumcised and thus brought under the law before they could be considered “Christians”. Once circumcised, a gentile was considered a Jew and thus the entire law was theirs to keep. Prior to being circumcised, gentiles were ineligible to keep the law. Thus, when Paul wrote against circumcision in this epistle, he was insisting that the Galatians were not subject to the Jewish law including the 10 Commandments.

This lesson does not address the fact that Paul was warning against law-keeping, nor does it accurately identify the gospel as belief in the Lord Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.

When the lesson says parenthetically there were some teaching that “faith in Christ was not enough”, it is implied that “faith in Christ” is the essence of the gospel. Again, “faith in Christ” does not define the gospel. Faith is a response to the gospel. Unless one knows that Jesus died according to Scripture as a propitiation for our sin (Rom. 3:26-27), was buried, and rose on the third day according to Scripture, one has no idea what “faith in Christ” really means.

To an Adventist “faith in Christ” may mean believing that Jesus died to demonstrate the how low sinful humans would stoop in their sin and pride; it may mean that Jesus died to pay for my past sins and to earn the “right” to help me overcome sin; it may mean He died to vindicate the law and prove it could be kept; it may mean that He died to transfer my sin from me to the heavenly sanctuary....it may mean any number of variations and permutations.

Adventism does not teach that Jesus died to pay for human sin to satisfy God’s wrath against sin. It does not teach that the atonement was completed once-for-all, with no future “application of His blood”, at the moment He died.

Moreover, by diverting the attention away toward a discussion of “experience” in the application question at the end of the lesson, the author eliminates any possibility of the reader being directed to delve into the meaning of the actual biblical text.

Furthermore, the final thought question asks what Paul’s writing teaches “about the importance of correct doctrine”. There is no definition of correct doctrine, but the assumption is clear: Adventism teaches “correct doctrine”.

In fact, the Galatian heresy closely resembles the Adventist doctrine of Sabbath-keeping and observing the 10 Commandments as the mark of believing God.

Frustratingly, today’s lesson is entitled “No Other Gospel”, but there is no discussion of the gospel at all, much less any identification of the counterfeit gospel threatening the church in Galatia.

Galatians is very clear about the gospel; unfortunately, this lesson does not give the reader any biblical foundation on which to stand and understand our heritage in Christ Jesus.

 

Summary

  1. This lesson does not define the gospel, nor does it define the counterfeit gospel being taught in the Galatian church.
  2. Adventism does not teach the biblical gospel: Jesus died according to Scripture as a propitiation for sin; He was buried, and He rose on the third day according to Scripture.
  3. Adventism teaches that Sabbath-keeping and observing the 10 Commandments are the marks of obeying God.
  4. The conflict in Galatians had nothing to do with seeking an “experience”; rather, the epistle directly counters the claim that Christians must keep the law.

 

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Copyright 2011 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised October 4, 2011. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.

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