Galatians 1:6
Turning to a different gospel
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγέλιον euangelion · gospel
Original
Translations
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 —
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
I wonder that you are so quickly removed from Him who called you in the grace of Christ to another good news—
그리스도의 은혜로 너희를 부르신 이를 이같이 속히 떠나 다른 복음 좇는 것을 내가 이상히 여기노라
그리스도의 은혜 안으로 너희를 부르신 분을 너희가 이렇게 속히 떠나 다른 복음으로 옮겨가는 것을 내가 이상히 여기노라.
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on Gal 1:6-9 as a whole
Those who would establish any other way to heaven than what the gospel of Christ reveals, will find themselves wretchedly mistaken. The apostle presses upon the Galatians a due sense of their guilt in forsaking the gospel way of justification; yet he reproves with tenderness,…
Read the whole commentary →Wesley Gal 1:6
I marvel that ye are removed so soon - After my leaving you. From him who called you by the grace of Christ - His gracious gospel, and his gracious power.
Read the whole commentary →
Note
Paul's letters usually pass from greeting to thanksgiving (Romans 1:8, 1 Corinthians 1:4). Galatians has none. Paul wishes the churches grace and peace, closes his praise with "Amen," and goes straight to "I am amazed." The churches of Galatia had received the gospel from him, and they were turning to something else.
The gospel here is the noun , and in front of it stands : a "different" gospel, one of another kind. Paul does not treat it as a second edition of the same news. In the very next verse he will deny that it is a gospel at all (Galatians 1:7).
The verb, metatithesthe, is a word for changing place or changing sides. Hebrews uses it when Enoch "was taken up" (Hebrews 11:5). It is in the present tense: the Galatians have not finished leaving. They are on their way out, and the letter is written to turn them round. Notice, too, whom they are leaving. Not first a doctrine but a Person: "the One who called you by the grace of Christ." To change the gospel is to walk away from the God who called them by it.
The English versions show two sides of the verb's form, which can be read as middle or as passive. The KJV's "ye are so soon removed" hears the passive: someone is moving them, and the next verse names the people who are troubling them. The BSB's "you are deserting" hears the middle: they are doing it themselves. Both were true in Galatia. The KJV also has "him that called you into the grace of Christ," grace as the place they were called into; the BSB has "by the grace of Christ," grace as the means of the call. The Greek en chariti can bear either. The LSV renders the noun "another good news," which keeps in sight what the word means: news, and news that is meant to be glad.
Matthew Henry notes that even here Paul "reproves with tenderness, and represents them as drawn into it by the arts of some that troubled them" Matthew Henry. Wesley reads the grace of Christ as "His gracious gospel, and his gracious power" Wesley: the call that brought them in was already the gospel at work.
"Gospel" was not a word Paul coined, and the Galatians lived among many kinds of good news, an emperor's birthday among them the Priene inscription. Paul's quarrel in this verse, though, is not with Caesar's. It is with a message inside the churches that kept the name of the gospel and changed what it said.
Many messages still carry that name. This verse moves the question from the name to the content: is it still news of the God who calls by the grace of Christ?
Source
- The provincial assembly of Asia, The Priene calendar inscription — 9 BC. Makes Augustus's birthday the first day of the year: "the birthday of the god was the beginning of the good tidings (euangelia) for the world because of him." English: Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East (1910).