Galatians 1.6-7
“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.”
Here we feel Paul’s emotion; we feel his passion for the gospel and for the spiritual welfare of the Galatian Christians. He tells them quite directly that he is astonished — thaumazo: “surprised, bewildered, shocked — that they are deserting God and the grace of Christ.
The Greek word for “deserting” in verse 7 is metatithemi. It means “to transfer one’s allegiance.” It is used of soldiers in the army who revolt or desert. In modern terms it is being a turncoat, which is a person who shifts allegiance from one loyalty to another, thereby betraying or deserting an original cause by switching to the opposing side.
The teaching of the Judaizers, Paul warns, is a false and distorted gospel, which means it is actually no gospel at all. The word Paul used for “distort” is metastrepho, which means “to change, corrupt, distort, or pervert.” If you add anything to Christ as a requirement for acceptance with God—if you claim that to be saved you need the grace of Christ plus something else—then you corrupt and pervert the truth of the gospel and negate it.
Paul is astonished and shocked the Galatians are abandoning the gospel of grace and turning to a false gospel. Basically, Paul rebukes them for being turncoats and spiritual deserters. Paul will repeatedly make his case throughout Galatians that the true gospel is based on grace. This is how Paul described it in Acts 20: 24: “the gospel of the grace of God”. It is how he describes it in 2 Corinthians 5:17-18: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself …”.
The gospel of grace means that God provides for our salvation through the substitutionary death of Christ, and that we accept that gift of grace by faith. But the Galatian believers, who had received this gospel of grace, were now turning away to a distorted gospel, a gospel of works, that was being promulgated by the Judaizers. The message of these false teachers is summarized in Acts 15:1: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”
The Judaizers did not deny that you must believe in Jesus for salvation, but they taught that you must also be circumcised and keep the ceremonial law. In essence, they claimed you must let Moses finish what Christ began; you must complete the work of salvation by your obedience to the Law of Moses. You must add your works to the work of Christ. You must finish Christ’s unfinished work.
As we shall see later, the teaching of the Judaizers was particularly ethnic. They were offended that Gentiles were being brought into the community of faith without having to obey the Mosaic law; therefore, they claimed that Gentile believers were required to obey Jewish customs in order to be a true Christian. They sought to “Judaize” the Gentile Christians. They were seeking to make salvation ethnic; that is, Jewish. As we shall see later in Galatians, they had a false understanding of what and who comprises true Israel.
Another gospel is no gospel. A distorted and perverted gospel is not good news.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
