by Kent Leslie ✉️
And are turning to a different gospel. [1.6] The alternative “gospel” Paul means is works righteousness. This is kinda getting ahead of the story, but that’s what this false gospel is revealed to be in the rest of Galatians:
- Good people, who obey God’s Law, get into God’s kingdom, ’cause they deserve it.
- Bad people go to hell.
People presume works righteousness is a Pharisee idea. It’s actually a pagan idea. Pharisees weren’t known for legalism. What’d Jesus tell them?—“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, legalists”? Nope, hypocrites. [Mt 23.13] Pharisees bent the rules. Pretended to follow them; didn’t. That’s not legalism! That’s hypocrisy.
The Mishna, a 2nd-century collection of Pharisee teachings at the core of the Talmud, is full of loopholes the Pharisees created to bend every biblical commandment. Jews still study the Mishna. Hopefully they don’t follow the loopholes!
Pharisees actually believed God saves us by grace. I know; people assume the bad guys in this letter, who are preaching this false gospel to the Galatians, are Pharisees. But you’re not gonna find the word “Pharisee” in this letter. Paul never uses that word but once in his writings—in Philippians 3.5, when he calls himself Pharisee. This idea gets added by preachers. It’s not biblical!
Pharisees actually believed—as did all the Jewish denominations of the day—in corporate election. It’s a totally biblical idea—it’s held by most Christians too—that God chose Israel, as a whole, and saved Israel, as a whole, from Egypt. And adopted Israel, as a whole, as his children, and made a kingdom of them. And saved humanity, as a whole, from sin and death, through Christ Jesus.
Now we just gotta individually accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Same as Israel, God’s already cleared the path to a relationship with him—if we want it. There's nothing we need do more, than repent and follow him.
Only problem with the corporate election idea: Pharisees believed all Jews were automatically saved, by birthright. Even if you aren’t Pharisee, just by being Israelite, you were saved, by grace, automatically. But a number of them believed this was true even if they did a lousy job of following God.
That thinking is actually the problem John the baptist had with them:
Luke 3.7-9: He then said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Just because we’re saved doesn’t mean we can live any way we want. Be good! Produce fruit! Because if we act like we have no respect for God whatsoever, do we actually even have a relationship with him? Are we saved?
In every religion—Christianity too!—we’re gonna find a faction who can’t wrap their heads around grace, and keep insisting God, or the universe, works on karma. Because karma is fair and grace is not. Karma means we deserve to be saved, either by birthright or earning it. Grace means we don’t deserve squat—but God saves us anyway, because love.
There may have been Pharisees who taught works righteousness. But that’s not what official, formal Pharisee teachers taught. Check the Mishna.
Karma turns the gospel into a false gospel, a heretic gospel, a cursed gospel. That’s a lot of what Galatians is about: The gospel of grace. And don’t go corrupting it with works-righteousness ideas!
Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel… [1.8] You’re gonna hear other Christians teach works-righteousness ideas. And some of them are gonna claim they got it from the Holy Spirit himself. And no they didn’t.
People assume Paul mentioned “an angel from heaven” as hyperbole. That’s only because they don’t think angels do that kind of stuff. I’m quite sure Paul wasn’t speaking hyperbolically. Remember Stephen? (Betcha Paul did.)
Acts 7.53: “You received the law under the direction of angels and yet have not kept it.”
Popular Pharisee culture taught that angels helped the Jews follow the Law. And no doubt some of the legalists in Galatia were insisting, “You have to follow the Law to be saved, ’cause angels.”
But here Paul says phooey on angels. Even if an angel says this stuff, it’s still wrong. That angel is only pretending to be from heaven. Way more likely it got thrown out of it, along with Satan. [Rv 12.9]