Presbyterians adhering to the Westminster Standards do not follow the church calendar as a matter of conviction. We do not observe various man-appointed holy days. We observe fifty-two God-appointed holy days per year—the Lord’s Day. Many American evangelicals will observe not only Easter and Christmas but also Super Bowl Sunday by canceling worship. Many more uphold “Hallmark holidays,” observing Mother’s Day in May and Father’s Day in June. Ironically, the typical Mother’s Day and Father’s Day sermons are good examples of exactly how we can mishandle God’s law and his gospel. What do I mean?
Moms get a lot of love in these typical sermons just for being moms. Preachers of these sermons seem to say, “Implicitly, mom, you are righteous just because you are a mom and you do and sacrifice so much for your children.” This is nice and is often true, but that is not the gospel. Instead, we need to say, “Mom, Christ alone is your righteousness. And the best thing you can do as a mom is to point your kids to Christ!”
What about typical Father’s Day sermons? Dads, on the other hand, often get hammered with nothing but the law, selectively applied. “The world is falling apart, the culture is collapsing, it’s all your fault and you need to fix it, Dad. No gospel for you!” Instead, we need to say, “Dad, you are a sinner, and you need Christ. And your children need Christ. And the most important thing you can do, Dad, is point your kids to Christ.”
This is why we are considering Galatians—that we might be better equipped to rightly distinguish God’s word of law and gospel. We learn why we must always keep the gospel front and center.
The apostle Paul’s testimony proves the heavenly origin of the gospel he preaches. First, we see that the true gospel is not man’s gospel in verses 11–14.
There are Jewish–Christian false teachers troubling the churches of Galatia. These are predominately Gentile churches that Paul has recently established. They accuse Paul of being a bad apostle and an unfaithful minister of the gospel.
We can sense that accusation behind what Paul said in Galatians 1:10: “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant [or slave] of Christ.”
Apparently, these false teachers accuse Paul of trying to please man because he does not require these Gentile Christians to believe in Christ and keep the law of Moses in order to be justified. He does not put the heavy yoke of the law on their necks.
Why not? Not because Paul is a man pleaser but because justification is by faith alone in Christ alone. This is not a message that pleases man. Paul preaches it because it is the true gospel, and he aims to please God. If Paul were to preach another gospel, he knows he would fall under the curse of God. There is no other gospel. In fact, look at the trouble it is making for Paul! To preach that Christ alone saves sinners apart from anything we do provokes the hostility and persecution of men because this gospel absolutely shreds the pride of man. You cannot justify yourself by what you do, nor can you add anything to what Christ has done for your salvation.
If the “gospel” you are hearing flatters you because of your contribution to it, you can be sure that you are not hearing the true gospel. If the gospel we share never offends anyone we share it with, then we must reevaluate what we are sharing. Do we preach the law faithfully? Are we clear on the sinfulness of our sin, that our sins are so grievous in the sight of the Holy One that we deserve eternal damnation? Do we preach the gospel faithfully? Are we clear on the graciousness of God’s grace, that salvation is a sheer gift, freely given to us by God in Christ? There is a double offense to our pride and a double humility the Word of God should produce in us. God’s law first honestly humbles us as we realize we are sinners who deserve nothing from God but his holy wrath. Then the gospel happily humbles us as mere beggars of God’s grace who must simply receive salvation as his gift, with an empty hand.
So Paul begins his spiritual autobiography, his testimony, to prove that the true gospel is not man’s gospel. It starts in Galatians 1:11–12:
For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Paul’s biography will prove that he is a true apostle of the true gospel of God’s free grace. Jesus Christ revealed this gospel to Paul on the Damascus road. Where was he going and what was he doing when that happened? He was carrying letters from the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem to the synagogues in Damascus with authority to arrest any Jew found to be following Jesus.
But then Jesus arrested him. This once-crucified Jesus now appears to Paul with the blinding glory of God. Jesus speaks to Paul as the glorified God-man, the one raised from the dead. Jesus asks Paul why he is persecuting him. The risen Lord makes clear that to persecute His church—united to him by faith alone—is to persecute him. And then Christ commissions Paul to be his apostle to the Gentiles.
Paul makes clear that he was obedient to his apostolic commission. He did not preach to the Galatians a man-pleasing gospel of justification by faith plus works. The false teachers from Jerusalem are smearing Paul by suggesting that his apostolic credentials are suspect. And this means his gospel is inaccurate or incomplete.
This kind of smear of the apostle Paul persists to this day. How do people seek to discredit the gospel? Some set the “religion of Jesus” against the teaching of Paul, as if Jesus teaches that we should just love our neighbors as ourselves. We should just try to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Live by the Golden Rule and you can make this world a far nicer place. These silly folks miss the fact that Jesus is preaching the law in those places to show us how far short we fall of what God requires of us. You do not love your neighbor as yourself. You do not live by the Golden Rule—because you are a sinner. They also conveniently ignore that Jesus himself teaches us why he came into this world: to give his life as a ransom for many, to lay down his life for his sheep— that whoever believes in him would not perish in their sins but have eternal life. He is given the name Jesus because it means “the Lord saves,” and Jesus came to save his people from their sins. Jesus continually preaches the absolute necessity of his upcoming cross and resurrection as the only way sinners can be saved.
So Paul preaches Jesus’s gospel—the same gospel Jesus preached, the same gospel this risen Jesus revealed to Paul as his apostle. More literally, verse 11 says that Paul gospeled that gospel to the Galatians. This is what the word translated “preached” here means; it is the verb form of the word we translate “gospel.” Paul evangelized them with the evangel.
The gospel is not sinful man’s opinion about Christ. It is Christ’s good news for sinners. By definition, the gospel is good news. It is an announcement of something that happened. Jesus died for our sins, and he rose from the dead on the third day. And so, the gospel is not a call for you to do something but to receive something. This is the good news from God about what Jesus did to save you from your sin. Good news is meant to be believed and received with joy!
And who is the most unlikely person on planet Earth to proclaim this good news about Jesus, the crucified and risen Messiah? Especially to the Gentiles? Paul, also known as Saul of Tarsus, the former Pharisee of Pharisees. And so Paul turns to his life story before he met the risen Christ in verses 13–14:
For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.
Paul hated the name of this Jesus of Nazareth, and he hated those who followed him because Jesus was crucified—he died a cursed death and rightly so!—for blasphemy. This Nazarene was rejected as the Messiah by the leading lights of the Jewish faith in Jerusalem. The Romans treated him as the lowest of criminals by nailing him to one of their awful crosses—a cruel executioner’s rack. And the Jews know what the law says about anyone hanged on a tree: That person is under the curse of God, not only in this life but in the life to come! And yet these followers of this crucified Jesus dare to proclaim Him as the Messiah— and even the Son of God! He rose from the dead, they say! But if this is true, where is the messianic age of glory? Where is the glorious restoration of Israel the Messiah is supposed to bring? Is not the Son of David supposed to “make Israel great again”?
Paul thought that in his service to God he had the zeal of Phineas—that priest who killed two idolaters in the act of immorality. Paul was an up-and-coming rabbi—the top student of the top rabbi Gamaliel. Paul was zealous to the extreme for the traditions of his Jewish ancestors.
But notice what Paul says. He now knows he persecuted the church—this called-out covenant assembly—the church of God. What does this mean? This means God’s people are now those who believe in and follow this Messiah, whether Jew or Gentile! This Jesus, by dying on the cross and rising from the dead, saves and renews his people and calls them to be His church, His people, in this world. This is an absolutely revolutionary change of thinking. How did this happen to Paul?
What about you? Think about your spiritual autobiography, Christian. What did you think of Jesus before you believed in Jesus? Maybe you were hostile to him. Maybe you were something like Paul, perhaps not as extreme, but you despised Jesus overtly. More likely, you were indifferent to Him—not with a violent hatred but with the hatred of ambivalence. You viewed Jesus as utterly irrelevant to your daily life. “I’m just trying to make friends.” “I’m just trying to have some fun.” Or make a living. Or raise a family. Or just survive. “I’m no Jesus freak. I’ve got a life to live.” Or maybe you denounced Jesus with your faint praise: “Yes, Jesus is a wise teacher who shows us the way of love. The world would be a better place if we all lived by the Golden Rule.”
Paul hated Jesus violently. But then something changed, and he began to preach this crucified and risen Christ as the only Savior of sinners. You may have despised Jesus by ignoring Him as utterly irrelevant, or as a mere teacher of love, but now you believe in Him. If this is so, something changed in your case, too, big-time. What happened to Paul—or to you? Or if you are not a Christian, what must happen to you if you are to ever become one—even as impossible as that might seem to you at this moment? As Jesus says in John 3, “You must be born again to see the kingdom of God”—that is, it is absolutely necessary for the Holy Spirit to give you a new birth, to take away your heart of unbelief and give you a new heart of faith.
©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.
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