“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” This timeless bit of parental advice is usually given to children prone to complain about everything and everyone—all the time. There are many adults who could still benefit from taking this advice! But when it comes to eternal matters, when it comes to defending the purity of the gospel, “nice” does not cut it.
Paul is writing a letter to the Galatians that follows the usual way letters were written in the first century. Yet we have seen this is not merely personal correspondence. This is a letter from an apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul is commissioned by the risen Jesus to preach and teach his one true gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit. So this letter is the very Word of God. Still, at this point in the opening of the letter, you might expect Paul to say something sincerely nice. He does that in all his other letters. You expect him to give thanks for God’s grace, evident in the churches of Galatia, and to assure them that he always remembers them in prayer with deep affection.
But Paul does not have anything nice to say at this moment. Why not? Their situation is grave. He is writing to them out of his apostolic astonishment. Like Israel worshiping the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai, the Galatians have turned aside quickly from the Lord and the one true gospel—as even we are prone to do. Why? Because idolatry is natural to our sinful hearts, even the self-idolatry of self-righteousness and self-justification. The truth is, the gospel is counterintuitive to us. And so Paul sets aside niceness to speak the hard truth to them and to us.
How astonishing it is for anyone to desert the gospel of grace and peace for another so-called gospel! First, we see the surprisingly fast fall from the gospel in verses 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.
Not, “I thank God for you!” but “I am astonished at you!” In fact, Paul is in a continual state of astonishment: “I am continually astonished.” His shock is perpetual. Why? Paul had preached the gospel of Christ and him crucified in the region of Galatia among the cities of Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe.
The Holy Spirit had worked powerfully through the gospel to create faith in the hearts of many. In Acts 13:48–49, Luke reports that the Gentiles were “rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region”—that is, the region of Galatia.
God had granted wonderful success to the ministry of the gospel on this first missionary journey of Paul. Many were converted. Churches were planted in key cities. Now the true gospel would sound forth from these churches, and God’s elect would continue to be gathered in and built up in Christ. Or so Paul had hoped.
Paul and Barnabas returned to their sending church in Antioch in Syria. They gave the good report in Acts 14:27: “And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.”
Some short time after that good report, Paul apparently received a bad report. Something had gone terribly wrong in these freshly planted churches. What happened? Whatever had happened, the effect is expressed in verse 6: “You are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (emphasis added).
Reality check: As faithful ministers of the gospel quickly learn, Satan is always hard at work to undermine the Word of Christ and him crucified, to appeal to the flesh, and to subvert the cross. Martin Luther put it this way: “The church is a tender plant. It must be watched. People hear a couple of sermons, scan a few pages of Holy Writ, and think they know it all. They are bold because they have never gone through any trials of faith. Void of the Holy Spirit, they teach what they please as long as it sounds good to the common people who are ever ready to join something new.”1
The Galatians are not merely forsaking the sound doctrine of Christ and him crucified. They are in the process of deserting their God, just as Israel so quickly forsook Yahweh for the golden calf. They are quickly deserting the God who delivered them from their bondage to sin, the God who called them by His almighty Word and Spirit. This kind of call is not merely the outward call of the gospel given to everyone to repent and believe the good news. No, this is the effectual call of God. It enlivens people who are dead in their sins and helpless in their unbelief to trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.
Do you believe the gospel? If so, this is how, and this is why you do. God powerfully called the Galatians—and he called you, Christian— by the grace of Christ. You did not achieve your salvation by your decision. God called you by the grace of Christ, even his saving favor that he gave you in Christ from eternity. God appointed you to eternal life in Christ. And then, at some point, He called you by the grace of Christ. This is the only reason you believe the gospel. Every spiritual blessing you enjoy is given to you freely by God in Christ and because of Christ. Why would you desert such a God? How could you? Thus, Paul’s apostolic astonishment.
For what are the Galatians in the process of deserting God? They are “turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one” (vv. 6–7). There are false teachers, as Paul says, “some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ” (v. 7). As Luther says, “When the devil sees he cannot hurt the cause of the Gospel by destructive methods, he does it under the guise of ‘correcting’ and ‘advancing’ the cause of the Gospel.”2
These false teachers are Jewish Christians. Like Paul, they believe Jesus is the Messiah. They believe Jesus is the Son of God in the flesh. They believe Jesus died for our sins. They believe Jesus rose from the dead bodily. But they do not believe that Jesus alone—the Son of God incarnate, crucified, and risen—is enough to justify you as a Gentile before God.
So they have something to add to Paul’s gospel—namely, the works of the law. To be justified—to be declared righteous by God and before God—you must believe in Jesus. (According to them, Paul got this much right. But he forgot to tell you the rest.) You must also do the works of the law. You must believe in Jesus and become an observant Jew in order to be justified.
This—and every variation of this—is a different gospel, not that there is another gospel. There is only one. There is never a “new and improved” gospel. Why not?
The true gospel says Jesus alone is your redemption and your righteousness before God. His cross paid the debt of your sin in full. This means he has forever delivered you from hell. Jesus’s righteousness—His life of perfect obedience to God’s law—is credited to you. This means he has granted you access into heaven. To go there, you must be perfectly righteous, and Jesus is your perfect righteousness. Jesus did it all; all to him you owe.
And how did you receive all He did for you in dying for your sins and rising for your justification? Simply by trusting in Him. Faith plus nothing. As Luther says, “It seems a small matter to mingle the Law and Gospel, faith and works, but it creates more mischief than man’s brain can conceive. To mix Law and Gospel not only clouds the knowledge of grace, it cuts out Christ altogether.”3
How do you diagnose a different gospel, which is no gospel at all? Ask this question: Jesus plus what equals my justification before God? The only right answer is “Jesus plus nothing.” If it is Jesus plus my observance of the law of Moses, as taught by these false teachers in Galatia, this is another gospel, which is no gospel at all. If it is Jesus plus my ongoing, meritorious cooperation with sacramental grace, as taught by the Roman Catholic Church, this is another gospel, which is no gospel at all. If it is Jesus plus my covenant faithfulness, which is faith plus works as taught in the Federal Vision error, this is another gospel, which is no gospel at all.
Or, if Jesus is my initial justification by faith alone, but my final justification on judgment day is Jesus plus my Spirit-wrought works—a two-stage justification—this is another gospel which is which is no gospel at all. Or if that justification is more about church membership than salvation and you become a member of the people of God by faith and maintain your membership in the people of God by works—as taught by N. T. Wright with his new perspectives on Paul—this is another gospel, which is no gospel at all. If it is Jesus plus social justice for justification, this is another gospel, which is no gospel at all.
All these are deadly, damning errors. Why? They mix together the law and the gospel. Jesus plus anything else for your salvation equals another gospel—and there is no other. Add any works under whatever label you wish to the gospel, and you nullify the grace of God. You are saying that Christ died for no purpose. You are making his cross of no effect. You are saying His righteousness is insufficient. You are saying His resurrection did not remove the sting of death, which is sin, and the power of sin, which is the law.
Here is the blasphemous and necessary implication: Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, failed to win salvation for sinners by His life, death, and resurrection. His work is not finished, as he declared on the cross. But what he began, you must finish by your works. This is a blasphemous lie, and no wonder Paul is absolutely astonished that the Galatians are so quickly falling for a different “gospel.”
Why do so many trouble the church by perverting the gospel? Because the old Adam lives. You have within you a recalcitrant, self-righteous Pharisee. He is an unbelieving, self-justifying legalist. And he must be put to death—constantly—because he loves and readily embraces any man-made, legalistic religion. And he loves legalism because it preaches—to our flesh.
Next time we will look at how false teachers are doubly damned, how they seek to discredit those who preach the good news, and how what they teach is, in fact, bad news.
Notes
- Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, trans. Theodore Graebner, accessed January 16, 2026.
- Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, 15, Kindle.
- Luther, Epistle to the Galatians, 17, Kindle.
©Tony Phelps. All Rights Reserved.
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Tony Phelps
Tony grew up in Rhode Island. He was educated at University of Rhode Island (BA) and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He worked in the insurance industry for ten years. He planted a PCA church in Wakefield, RI where he served for eleven years. He has pastored Covenant Reformed Church (URCNA) in Colorado Springs (2015–18), and Living Hope Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Allentown PA (2019–25). He is currently pastor of Christ Our Hope Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Charlestown, RI. Tony is married to Donna and together they have three children.
More by Tony Phelps ›
I am a believer and as a believer I believe that Salvation is by GRACE ALONE, thru CHRIST ALONE and NOT by Works, so no man can boast, just as the Bible clearly states. However, I don’t consider my “acceptance” of this belief, to be, what some would classify, namely, Calvinists, as “Works” or “Another Gospel.” Jesus offers to
us HIS Free gift of Salvation. My response to accept or reject that FREE GIFT is NOT “works” or “another gospel”. It’s a CHOICE/FREE WILL.
Hi Kellie,
I can’t account for what people may have said to you but the Reformed churches don’t deny that we make a free choice to believe. The question is how it is that people who are dead in sins and trespasses can make a free choice? Remember that in Gen 2:17 the Lord said, “the day you eat thereof you shall surely die.” The penalty for sin is death (Rom 6:23). Dead men make free (uncoerced) choices but they choose sin and death. I was not always a believer. I remember what it was to be in open rebellion to God, to hate God and his truth. I also remember coming to faith. I remember freely choosing but Scripture explains how and why I freely chose to believe.
Paul says:
It is because, after the fall, by nature, we are dead in sin that our Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus:
New life (regeneration) is God’s sovereign gift to his elect. So Paul says,
We we’re given new life by God’s free, sovereign grace. We were given the gift of faith by that same sovereign grace. It’s all of grace. Yes, we do freely believe but we do so only because God gave us a new heart, a new mind, and new will.
Salvation is so of God’s doing that Paul even calls us a “new creation in Christ” (2 Cor 5:17). If you remember Genesis 1 and 2 God spoke into nothing and made all that was. Then he fashioned us out of dirt and breathed life into us. So, to call us his “new creation” is to say that the same sovereign power by which we were initially created is the same sovereign power by which we have been re-created.
The Westminster Confession of Faith (chapter 9) helps us to articulate this mystery:
As to being able to reject God’s sovereign grace, that’s another thing. It’s true that according to Romans 7 we do continue to struggle with sin all our lives and those are our free (uncoerced) choices but falling away would mean that we are co-equal to God. I once thought that we are but I see now that is not true. There are not two Gods in the world: God and I. There is only one God. Paul says as much in Romans 9. He uses the metaphor of the potter and the clay intentionally. He is the potter, I am the clay. That’s God’s Word. I know that that the culture says that we are co-equal with God but it’s not true. We cannot raise ourselves from the dead spiritually or bodily. We could not save ourselves from the flood. We could not save ourselves from Pharaoh and his armies. That’s why Paul says it’s all of grace.
Jesus even says that no one shall snatch us from his hand.
That would include us. We cannot snatch ourselves from his hand and that’s wonderful good news because, were it possible, we would.
Indeed, our Lord even says that the Father gave us to his Son before all worlds:
I know my own heart and will and I’m so thankful for the grace of Jesus that saved and keeps me!
This essay might help put together some pieces.
Great article. No other gospel! Amen! I will be sharing this article. Thank you Tony. 😊
You first seem to define works of the law as being an observant jew.
“You must also do the works of the law. You must believe in Jesus and become an observant Jew in order to be justified.”
But then you go on to say that christian sacraments, covenant faithfulness, and Spirit-wrought works also count as works of the law. Do you have textual reasons for that switch? Because to me replacing “works of the law” with any of those completely changes Paul’s meaning. “You are saved by faith apart from repentance and baptism,” or “apart from walking in accord with the Spirit.”
I never see a hint of Paul saying that.
Luke,
Anyone who treats baptism the way that the Judaizers treated circumcision is a Judaizer. We are not justified through faith in Christ and circumcision. We are justified through faith in Christ alone (sola fide). Anyone presenting himself to God on the basis of his baptism or even Spirit-wrought sanctity is a Judaizer. One difficulty here might be the expression “observant Jew.” The issue was less being observant per se and more the freight that was loaded into what it meant to be “observant.” Paul was indifferent about circumcision for Christians when it wasn’t treated as a means to justification (e.g., Timothy) with God but when it was treated as a means to justification or a ground, then he opposed it vehemently (e.g., Gal 5:2–6).
Rom 3:28 does mean that we are saved apart from repentance and baptism inasmuch as neither of these is the instrument of justification or salvation. Repentance is a fruit and evidence of new life and true faith and baptism is a sign and seal of God’s promise to believers but not an instrument or ground of justification or salvation.
I was specifically asking about the use of “works of the law.” All what you said above can be true without it having anything to do with what Paul is telling the Galatians.
Circumcision and baptism/Spirit wrought works don’t seem to be in the same category for the reason you gave, baptism and Spirit wrought works are an effect of faith while circumcision is not. Interpreting Paul as saying we are “justified by faith in Christ and not by the fruit of our faith” would be a really interesting statement, but I don’t see how that’s what he means by “works of the law.”
But are you defining works of the law as any human action? Or maybe a further qualification of any human action done for the purpose of be justified by God? Circumcision being an action, and a stand-in for all other actions, thus faith is juxtaposed with all actions?
Circumcision isn’t a “work of the law” per se. Like Christian baptism it was instituted by God to be a sign and seal of the covenant of grace but the Judaizers turned it into a “work of the law” by making it something by which they could commend themselves to God. The same is true of Christian baptism or “Spirit-wrought works.” After all, the medieval church taught that condign merit was “Spirit-wrought” but by teaching that we are right before God on the basis of sanctification, partly wrought by the Spirit and partly wrought by us, they corrupted the gospel. Spirit-wrought sanctity is only and ever a fruit of new life and true faith.
Yes, the “works of the law” are any act whereby we seek to commend ourselves to God or where an act is said to be an instrument of justification/salvation.
The medieval church was wrong and the NPP is wrong today to restrict “works of the law” to Old Testament ceremonies. It misses Paul’s point. Seeking to present oneself to God on the basis of obedience is “works of the law.”
Yes, faith as the sole instrument of justification and salvation is juxtaposed with all our works. Faith is God’s work in us and his gift to us and it looks only to Christ and his finished work for our justification.