Galatians 1:8
Not even an angel
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγελίζομαι euangelizomai · to speak good news
Original
Translations
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!
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
but even if we or a messenger out of Heaven may proclaim good news to you different from what we proclaimed to you—let him be accursed!
그러나 우리나 혹 하늘로부터 온 천사라도 우리가 너희에게 전한 복음 외에 다른 복음을 전하면 저주를 받을지어다
그러나 우리나 혹은 하늘로부터 온 천사라도 우리가 너희에게 선포한 복음 외에 어떤 다른 복음을 너희에게 선포하면 그는 저주를 받을지어다.
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 1:8
But if we - I and all the apostles. Or an angel from heaven - If it were possible. Preach another gospel, let him be accursed - Cut off from Christ and God.
Read the whole commentary →
Note
Before Paul condemns anyone else, he puts himself on the scale: "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!" The gospel does not take its authority from the one who brings it. It measures him.
There is no noun "gospel" in the Greek of this verse. Paul uses the verb twice, so that it runs, word for word, "if we or an angel from heaven should gospel to you beside what we gospelled to you." The first form, euangelizētai, is a present subjunctive with ean, a supposition: if it should ever happen. The second, euēngelisametha, is an aorist indicative, the preaching that did happen, once, when Paul and his companions came to Galatia. The supposition stays open to every case; the standard is fixed to one message already given.
The little word par' (para with the accusative) can mean "beside, beyond" or "against." The KJV takes the first sense: "any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you." The BSB takes the second, "contrary to." Galatia shows how close the two senses lie. What the troublers set beside the gospel, circumcision as a requirement, turned out to be against it: "You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ" (Galatians 5:4).
The curse is . In the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, the word stood for what was devoted to God for destruction, as Jericho was (Joshua 6:17); in the New Testament it comes six times. Wesley's gloss is short: "Cut off from Christ and God" Wesley. Yet the same apostle, writing to Rome, could wish that he himself "were cursed and cut off from Christ" (Romans 9:3) for the sake of his own people. The man who pronounces the anathema is a man who could wish to bear it for others; the word does not come from hatred. Matthew Henry puts the sentence plainly: "The apostle solemnly denounces, as accursed, every one who attempts to lay so false a foundation" Matthew Henry.
ObjectionWhy does Paul bring in an angel?
When Paul first came to Galatia, its people welcomed him "as if I were an angel of God" (Galatians 4:14). He does not trade on that welcome. Not even a real angel from heaven, he says, has the right to change the gospel. A message is weighed by what it says, not by the standing of its messenger or the wonder of the way it arrived.
What the Galatians needed was not a more wonderful messenger but to set nothing beside the gospel they had first received.
Source
- Jewish translators at Alexandria, The Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) — 3rd–1st century BC. The Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, often quoted by the New Testament writers. It mostly renders בָּשַׂר (basar) by εὐαγγελίζομαι (euangelizomai) (2 Samuel 18; Psalms 40:9, 68:11, 96:2; Isaiah 40:9, 52:7, 61:1), and calls the reward for news εὐαγγέλια at 2 Samuel 4:10. English: Brenton (1844).