There really isn’t one thing that gets me going more than the gospel. Sure, I love all sorts of things and my heart in its sinfulness tends to cling to a lot of other things as idols (“From this we may gather that man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.” – John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion), but when I hear, read, and/or talk about the importance of the gospel and its ramifications for my life and the lives of others, I get excited.

In our City Group we’ve jumped into the book of Galatians together to see what it is that Paul is telling the Galatian believers. You don’t have to wait long to figure out the point Paul is getting at – getting the gospel right. In most of Paul’s letters we find a greeting, a prayer of thanksgiving, and then he gets down to business, but not in his letter to the Galatians.

In verses 6-7 of Galatians 1 Paul gets into it:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.”

Paul couldn’t believe that these believers were ultimately deserting God and turning to a different gospel, which was no gospel at all! It was mind-boggling and frustrating and Paul was not going to stand by and let them get it wrong.

There are a lot of issues we get tied up in and fired up about, but when it comes to the gospel, nothing else comes close to its importance.

We hear a lot about the relevance of Scripture in our day both inside (unfortunately) and outside the church these days. How could some dusty, 2000 year old book have anything of value to say to us in the 21st Century? When we open up to Galatians, it becomes pretty clear how relevant and needed this message truly is. If we get the gospel wrong, nothing else matters.

This is no small matter, it is a big deal when the church gets the Gospel wrong. In fact, Martin Luther claimed that justification is the article upon which the Church stands and falls and claims that, “The article of justification must be sounded in our ears incessantly because the frailty of our flesh will not permit us to take hold of it perfectly and to believe it with all our heart” (Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians, 9).

One big way I see false gospels creeping in to the Western Church is through what theologian Michael Horton calls “formulas, practices and principles for victorious living.” So often we get caught thinking that the Bible is just a book that we can open up and find the right principles or formulas to live our lives the right way. We always want to ask the same question that we find in the New Testament many times, “what must I do to be saved?” (John 6:28-29; Acts 16:30). The problem is, when we ask this question we tend to put a large emphasis on “I” and “do”. Our natural inclination leans back to a works righteousness again. We want to know the ABC or 123 formula to gain a right standing before God. Instead of focusing on “DO” we need to focus on the “DONE”, what Christ has already accomplished for us. We constantly need to be asking ourselves, “am I trusting in the finished work of Christ or am I seeking some magic formula so I can be my own saviour?”

We need to snap out of the mindset that we can somehow, someway gain God’s favour or that we can work our way to becoming righteous on our own. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone! This isn’t my idea, this isn’t Paul’s, this is the message of the gospel! This is the truth  and reality that we have in Christ.

In this, the words of an old Hymn (The Solid Rock) strike so true:

“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ the Solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand.”

On the One True Gospel of Christ do we stand, all other gospels are no gospels at all are sinking sand.

Reject any and all false gospels and pursue the One True Gospel, the good news that we have in Jesus Christ alone!