Galatians 1:6–9

No other gospel

A brown papyrus leaf on a black ground, densely written in Greek, with the title ‘To the Galatians’ below a line partway down. — Papyrus 46, the end of Ephesians and the opening of Galatians (1:1–8), c. 200 (University of Michigan) · Source

Paul’s letters usually open with thanks for the people he writes to. Galatians has none: after the greeting he goes straight to his astonishment (Galatians 1:6–12).

I am amazed how quickly you are deserting the One who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is not even a gospel. Evidently some people are troubling you and trying to distort the gospel of Christ.

Galatians 1:6–7

Many commentators hear two words for ‘other’ here. The "different gospel" of verse 6 is , different in kind; verse 7 then says it is not , another of the same kind. What the troublers called a gospel could not stand beside the gospel as a second one. The KJV keeps the play of words ("another gospel: Which is not another"); the BSB makes the sense plain: "which is not even a gospel."

The teaching laid circumcision and the works of the law on Gentile believers as the condition of being justified (Galatians 2:16, 5:2–4). Wesley says it was not properly another gospel: "For what ye have now received is no gospel at all" Wesley. News that hangs a person’s acceptance with God on terms no one can keep is no longer good news.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a curse!

Galatians 1:8

The verb , "to bring good news", stands twice in this verse: "should preach a gospel" and "we preached". The test is not who brings the message but what it is, and Paul puts himself and the angels under it. In the next verse he says it again (Galatians 1:9). The gospel he preached "was not devised by man" (Galatians 1:11); he received it by revelation from Jesus Christ (v. 12). Wesley takes the two denials apart: Paul did not receive it all at once from a man, nor was he taught it "Slowly and gradually, by any man" Wesley.

The church at Corinth heard the same warning. Paul was afraid for them: "if someone comes and proclaims a Jesus other than the One we proclaimed" (2 Corinthians 11:4), or they receive a different spirit or a different gospel, they put up with it easily. The two words of Galatians stand here too: allos for the other Jesus, heteros for the different spirit and the different gospel. Another Jesus, another spirit and another gospel go together. In his commentary on Galatians, published in 1535, Luther read the letter as the one that keeps law and gospel apart and guards justification by faith Luther, Lectures on Galatians.

ObjectionThen is every church that thinks differently preaching "another gospel"?

What Paul cursed was not a difference of custom or emphasis but a teaching that added a condition of salvation to the grace of Christ. The same Paul told the church in Rome not to judge one another over food and days: "Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind" (Romans 14:5). A custom left to conscience is something to bear with; the same custom made a condition of being right with God becomes another gospel, which is why Galatians grieves over the keeping of "special days and months" (Galatians 4:10). The gospel’s centre is what he received and passed on: that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). Matthew Henry, on this very passage, adds: "In reproving others, we should be faithful, and yet endeavour to restore them in the spirit of meekness" Matthew Henry. Telling a heresy from a difference is the subject of How can I tell a heresy or cult?

Paul did not give in to the false brothers for a moment, "so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you" (Galatians 2:5).

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Source

Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians 1535 — Luther's classic on law and gospel and on justification by faith.