[BBC List] On Perverting the Gospel of Christ

[Mike Abendroth]

On Perverting the Gospel of Christ

by John Calvin

  _____  

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace
of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that
trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 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. 

Gal. 1:6-8

  _____  

Now we will look more deeply into the subject I touched upon this morning. I
said that whereas Paul does not spare the Galatians, neither does he wish to
shut the gate of salvation to them completely. He intends to bring them to
repentance, and for this reason he speaks of the grace of God into which
they had all been called. Yet, he does not flatter them; rather, he rebukes
them for their sins. In particular, he rebukes them for their fickleness,
for they had listened to deceivers who came in among them distorting the
pure doctrine of the gospel. In order to make them better perceive their
treachery, Paul says he marvels that they have forsaken their heavenly
calling so quickly and easily. He wonders how it is that they have been led
astray so swiftly, and how it is that they have remained in that state,
given that they had felt and experienced the grace of God in our Lord Jesus
Christ. Because he is seeking to restore them, he is not saying at the
outset that they have completely turned away from the gospel, but rather
that they have been overtaken by temptation through seducers, who sought no
less than to pervert the truth of God. There is only one pure gospel, as
also there is only one Jesus Christ on whom it is founded. It is not for us
to create the gospel anew; indeed, if we seek to add anything to the pure
seed which we have received from our Lord Jesus Christ, we are destroying
what God has established. This, in sum, is what Paul is teaching us in this
first verse.

It might seem that Paul is being overly harsh and severe in rebuking the
Galatians' weakness, seeing they had never once thought of rejecting the
gospel, nor Jesus Christ who had been preached to them. But Paul pays no
attention to the way they viewed the situation; he sees it as it really is -
in other words, that once people turn away from the truth of God, they are
rejecting Jesus Christ and cutting themselves off from him. Some people may
think this strange, for many would like to mix light with darkness. Indeed,
the confusion that exists in Popery is an outstanding example of this. They
make many wonderful claims to the effect that they are upholding the
Christian faith into which they have been baptised. But, for all this, it is
clear that they have turned everything upside-down. Superstitions reign, and
they practise open idolatry of a worse kind than has ever been known, even
among the pagans. Any reverence for God is destroyed, since each one sets
himself up as a saviour in place of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the Papists
would respond by saying that they are not apostates, and that they have not
abandoned Jesus Christ. But our Lord Jesus Christ is no ghost; he cannot
change according to the whims of men. In short, he cannot be separated from
his church. Thus, whatever the Papists may claim, they rob Jesus Christ of
all his authority. 'If there is only one mediator,' [they say], 'what about
the male saints, our patrons, and the female saints, our advocates?' If we
speak to them of the sacrifice by which our Lord Jesus Christ has obtained
perfect justification for all believers, once and for all, [they will say],
'Are we not supposed to say Mass every day and offer Jesus Christ again as a
sacrifice to appease the wrath of God?' If we speak to them of free
forgiveness of sins, [they will say], 'What about the ways in which we have
made satisfaction for our own sins, and thus earned God's pity?' If we say
that we can only be made good by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit,
and that until God transforms us, we are full of sin and rebellion, [they
will say], 'What? What about our free will?' In short, they will name the
name of Jesus Christ often enough, and will still give him his title of
Redeemer, but they will divide his office and put it on offer so that each
man may claim a share in it for himself. They also imagine that the saints
and angels in paradise are their patrons, and that, therefore, they have
infinite means of coming before God, for so it seems to them. Now, we may
well conclude that the Holy Spirit has good reason to call them apostates;
for they have forsaken Jesus Christ, and cut themselves off from him. They
even misuse his name. But Jesus Christ never changes; we have seen that Paul
says in 2 Corinthians that we will not find in him yes and no (2 Cor. 1:19),
because he remains constant. Thus, whatever the Papists babble about
Christianity, it is nothing but mere hypocrisy and lies. They falsely and
wickedly use the name of the Son of God, either as a mask or as an idol.

This, then, is why Paul accuses the Galatians of having been led astray. If
we ask what they had done, the answer is that they sought to observe the
ceremonies of the law as if they were necessary. Yes, it is true that these
ceremonies had been ordained by God. Of course; yet, they were a temporary
condition for the people of old, for at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
all this had to cease. Because the Galatians were mixing old figures and the
shadows of the law with the pure light of the gospel, Paul, unable to bear
it, says that they have rebelled and turned away from God. But there was
something worse: namely, that they were making the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ altogether void, by believing that man can merit and acquire his own
justification before God, and make himself acceptable in God's service. When
these deceivers introduced this particular error of keeping to the 'former
shadows', it led the Galatians to believe that they were presenting God with
meritorious service. Yet, our salvation must be free, or Jesus Christ is no
longer anything. We call it free salvation simply because it is given to us
by God, and we come to him to be fed, with nothing but a hungry desire for
what we are lacking. We should approach God as miserable beggars, if we
would be justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For if we imagine
that we have one drop of merit, we will not be motivated to come to him. One
of the learned ancients said, and not without reason, that we cannot receive
the salvation offered to us in our Lord Jesus Christ unless we can first
erase the memory of all our merits, and acknowledge that we are only full of
wretchedness. Paul, therefore, was completely justified in saying that the
Galatians had fallen away from Jesus Christ and from God the Father.

However, there was another problem: they had been deluded into believing
what others desired them to believe. They had been subjected to a slavish
bondage, which robbed them of the peace of conscience that they ought to
have had in the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, together with the reconciliation
we have through his sacrificial death and passion, we must also be set free
from the rigours of the law to which we were once in bondage. To explain
this (as we will soon see more clearly; for here I am dismissing these
matters, but we will see their wider implications shortly), you know that it
says in the law that all those who do not fulfil what God commands to the
last letter will be accursed (Deut. 27:26). Yet it is impossible for us to
reach such perfection. Therefore, it was necessary for our Lord Jesus Christ
to obtain our liberty, and to free us from the yoke of the law, which we are
unable to bear, as it says in the fifteenth chapter of Acts (Acts 15:10).

We have now seen, in effect, why Paul accuses the Galatians of rebelling,
and why he calls them traitors to God and to our Lord Jesus Christ: they had
robbed him of the loyalty that they had promised. By this, we too are being
admonished to keep to the pure and simple doctrine of the gospel, without
straying in one direction or another. For it is not enough to have the name
and title of Christians, or to bear the mark of baptism: we must continue
steadfast in the doctrine of the gospel. As we have said before, our Lord
Jesus Christ cannot deny himself. He can only be known in the way he has
been revealed to us by God the Father, our own various conceptions of him
being irrelevant. The gospel shows us why he came, his office, the benefits
that we receive from him and the strength that he gives us. If we do not
have the pure and simple doctrine which our Lord Jesus Christ has revealed,
we have nothing at all, but if we have been taught it, let us hold on to it
to the very end. If we draw back, even just a little, it is nothing short of
unfaithfulness. Indeed, we must remember that terrible Fall, where we,
together with others, fell and became entangled with so many errors, lies
and deceits of Satan, that Jesus Christ was totally unknown to us. Since God
has now, in his goodness, taken us from such an abyss, let us resolve to
have firm and constant faith, so that we are no longer shaken like reeds in
the wind. Let us remain firmly rooted in the gospel, grounded upon the
invincible power of our Lord Jesus Christ. In him all the promises of God
are 'yes and amen' (2 Cot 1:20); their truth and their fulfilment is in him.
Therefore, let our faith rest steadfast in these facts. This is what we must
retain in our minds from Paul's teaching in this passage.
 

To make the Galatians even more ashamed of themselves, he speaks to them of
the calling of grace. We can relate the words, 'from him that called you',
as much to Jesus Christ as to God the Father, there being no great
significance in this. We can, however, understand what Paul is saying. He is
criticising the Galatians for their base behaviour; for they had even less
excuse for going astray, considering they had experienced the goodness of
God. For if God calls us, even if he summons us in order to put us to shame,
we are still his creatures, and, therefore, owe him our obedience. We must
always submit to his authority, whatever he decides to do with us. It is our
duty to say to him: 'Here I am. What do you require of me?' Whereas, if we
make excuses when God calls us, we are perverting the proper order of
things. But God not only calls us to himself, he gives us all the treasures
of his goodness in our Lord Jesus Christ. He gives himself willingly to us,
asking of us only that we should be his own. Since God treats us with such
kindness, and ravishes all our faculties with admiration for him, this
should render us most unwilling to draw back. Nevertheless, if we do happen
to wander to and fro after we have come to him, we will have much less
excuse, and will therefore suffer a more severe and a more terrifying
condemnation, as I have already suggested.

We see now why Paul mentions the grace into which the Galatians had been
called. In fact, we are more guilty today than our fathers were under the
law, if we fail to abide in the pure doctrine of the gospel, without
swerving from it. For although God led our forefathers to salvation under
the law, yet that calling was not accompanied by such open and abundant
displays of the riches of his mercy as we now have in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us examine ourselves. If God has already made his grace known to us, may
this inspire and encourage us to have even greater boldness and invincible
strength, so that we may continue in our calling, until we reach the place
to which he is calling us. When we compare ourselves with wretched, ignorant
unbelievers, our ingratitude is all the more apparent, in that we have had
fuller and nobler grace shown to us. We know that many poor souls stray far
and wide. They are, however, subject to condemnation: 'For as many as have
sinned without law shall also perish without law' (Rom. 2:12). Now, as for
us, God has declared his will to us in such familiar terms, and has given us
the opportunity to learn the doctrines of the gospel (if we would only apply
ourselves to them); therefore, our condemnation will be even greater than
theirs, if we do not make every effort to devote ourselves entirely to God,
as I have already said. This makes our responsibility all the greater.

Paul adds another point here: that all this had happened so quickly. Indeed,
it is terrible that the Galatians, who had been taught from the lips of the
apostle, had defiled themselves during his lifetime. This made them even
more blameworthy, because just three days [as it were] after receiving the
gospel, they fell away by mixing false teachings with God's truth. Had they
kept the faith until a good while after the death of Paul, it does not
follow that this would have excused them in God's sight, if they had
subsequently fallen away. For as the truth on which our faith is grounded is
everlasting, although the heavens and the earth are passing away, even so
our faith must endure to the very end (Luke 21:33). Our faith should not
depend on the life or death of men; it should be anchored in heaven.
Therefore, if we change from one day to the next, we shall have the more to
answer for, and our ungratefulness will be even more pronounced. In fact,
what Paul says here about the Galatians is far too much in evidence today.
Those who have been taught the gospel become discontented after three years
[or so] if they do not have some novelty or other, for they have 'itching
ears'. Many vain people backslide because they are not content with the
truth in the gospel. They always want to be moving house [as it were],
because they need some new thing to feed their foolish imaginations. Others
grow dissatisfied when they see that the gospel has not brought them any of
this world's goods. There are even some who turn away when they find that
they may well be persecuted, and have many enemies. They will have to suffer
while others prosper (or so they think). Thus, you can see how many desert
our Lord Jesus Christ, not just as one generation succeeds another, but even
as those who appear to be his followers turn and rebel after three, or
perhaps ten years.

How closely then do we need to hold on to this teaching, since it applies to
us. Let us consider the grievance Jeremiah had against the Jews. He says, in
effect, 'Go to distant lands, run to the isles, observe what is done by
other people. Each one keeps to his own idols', adding, 'which are yet no
gods' (Jer. 2:10-11). Satan had deceived them by calling this worship, and
they were so set in their ways that they could not be moved. (I hope you are
as steadfast as they were, since God has revealed himself to you, and you
have a full and certain knowledge of his will.) Surely, however, the same
could be said of us nowadays: for we have seen how unbending the Turks
[Moslems are being referred to here as "Turks" - Ed.] are! And although the
wretched Jews are no better than unclean dogs, yet they are very persistent
in maintaining the authority of their law. As for the Papists, their
foolishness is so apparent as to make them hideous; even children could
judge them. Yet for all that, they burn with such mad zeal to maintain their
blasphemous practices. As for ourselves, as soon as the devil beckons with
his finger, we are enticed away. It seems as if each of us is on the lookout
to see if there is anything new; the slightest thing will immediately weaken
us and lead us astray. There is enough sin here without going any further.
We must, therefore, take heed to the accusation which is made here by the
mouth of Paul against the inconstancy of those who turn away from God, so
soon after he has called them into the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

At this point, Paul states that the cause behind all this is that, 'there be
some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ'. Here, Paul is asserting that anything which we may add to the
gospel is nothing but mere smoke. Eventually we will discover that it is the
devil who has conceived such nonsense in order to deceive miserable fools
who cannot adhere to God's truth at all. 'This is nothing other than some
people troubling you,' he says. It is true that this expression 'nothing
other' [The Authorised Version of 1611 renders this 'not another [gospel]',
thus reflecting a view different from that given in Calvin's French
translation. Trans.] seems to imply that the whole matter is of no
importance. However, Paul is saying that the Galatians were wrong to be
troubled by those from Jerusalem and Judaea, who told them they must not
separate the law from the gospel. 'No, no,' he says, 'there is only one
Jesus Christ. There is only one doctrine that will lead us to him, and give
us faith, through which we may obtain salvation. If we wish to have and
maintain a pure knowledge of the gospel, we must realise that this is where
we find perfection; those who go further are simply trouble-makers throwing
everything into disarray.' This text is well worth noting. We learn from it
that if our Lord has given us the privilege of being taught in his school,
we must no longer have weak faith which can be blown here and there. We must
have resolute determination, so that we can say, 'Here is the faith by which
we are going to live and die.' We meet many who do not openly oppose the
teaching of the gospel, and who even suffer us to preach the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, if we were to ask such people what they disagree
with in the gospel, [their answer would be] 'Nothing!' But then, if they
were to see an altar adorned with grotesque statues, sure enough, they would
flock to it! They would go and hear Mass and do all the other excesses of
the Papists; it is all the same to them. And if all this is set before them
as error, they still cannot see that it makes any difference. Take good note
- such base behaviour reveals that they do not have faith. How? Well, this
is how we can know, and even feel, if we ourselves are believers: when we
have discernment about the gospel, and conclude that it is the infallible
truth of God, and that it cannot lead us astray if we follow it. However,
the Papists have invented a faith (as they call it) which is veiled; this
suits them fine (even though the poor souls know nothing), as long as they
continue to say, 'I rely on our Holy Mother Church; I hold to what she
believes.' These people openly display that they have no faith, and do not
know how to be saved. It is written that we can only obtain justification
and salvation through faith, when we embrace Jesus Christ as the one who
communicates all blessings. Therefore, if the Lord Jesus Christ is unknown,
there can be no faith. Popish leaders and teachers have been bewitched by a
most awful deception of Satan to speak as they do, which proves to us that
they have no knowledge of God; indeed, they are following the path of
reprobates.

Let us observe, then, that when Paul tells us there is no other gospel, he
wants us to abide in the Lord Jesus Christ and to remain faithful to him,
now that we realise the gospel has come from him, rejecting anything which
is contrary to its teaching. If we have such maturity, we will be equipped
to do battle with Satan, and to oppose all the various opinions that are in
the world today. We will never be shaken, whatever troubles come our way;
nor will we ever lack the assurance of faith. However, if we waver, we will
be just like little children: if they are offered an apple in one hand, sure
enough, they will run to it. If they are then offered some other pleasant
thing in the other hand, they will reach for that in the same way! Having
deserted the first thing, they will rally around the second. If, I say, we
are as fickle as this, then it is a sure sign that we are completely
unfaithful. Know, therefore, that there must be harmony between our faith
and the gospel. Having given ourselves totally to it, we will never turn
aside, because we fix our faith on what is contained therein, as we have
already said. Not that we can all be as well-versed as each other; for it is
certain that most of those whom the Lord Jesus Christ has in his flock do
not understand the tenth part of the Holy Scriptures! Yet, whatever else we
do not know, we should have the following beliefs in common: that, (1) There
is one God the Father, in whom we all believe, who has adopted us out of his
pure mercy. (2) There is only one Jesus Christ, through whom all blessings
are given to us. (3) We are made regenerate by the Holy Spirit.

Concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, we must also be aware that he is our
Advocate, and that without him we cannot approach God. We would not dare to
say 'our Father' unless we were members of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ
-unless he spoke on our behalf as our intercessor and friend, guiding us, as
it were, by the hand to bring us to God the Father. If we do not know these
things, then we cannot obtain salvation. Paul accuses the Galatians of
failing to recognise that there is only one gospel, which cannot be altered.
He does not want them to grieve our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is to be
heeded. He also warns us of seducers, who seek to turn us from the pure
simplicity of the gospel of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ. He teaches us
to regard them as abhorrent, for (as we shall soon see more clearly) they
pervert the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. How dreadful it is that the
gospel, the foundation of our salvation, and the key that opens the gates of
paradise, should be perverted! It is our only treasure. We were banished
from the kingdom of heaven and could not come near to it, until God made a
way, through the gospel, for us to be his people and for him to be our King,
so that we can be led and governed by his authority. Inestimable treasures
are contained in the gospel. God is reconciled with man; the gates of heaven
are opened to us; our Lord Jesus Christ has been given to us as our
inheritance; we are made partakers of all the good things that he has
bestowed upon us; and we are assured of our eternal salvation. It were
better that the whole world should perish and be consumed than that this
gospel should be perverted. This is what Paul says about all those who come
to trouble us, after we have been so faithfully taught, and of all those who
bring us little novelties, mixing in their own inventions here and there -
these people turn men from the kingdom of God, and from his royal throne, so
that they are no longer governed by him, and thereby the sceptre of our Lord
Jesus Christ is no longer extended to them for their salvation. If God's
honour, and our own salvation, is as dear to us as it ought to be, and if
sharing in all the blessings of heaven is precious to us, then whenever we
are approached by such scoundrels seeking to detract from the majesty of
God, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and even our salvation, ought we
not to shun them and cast them out as we would the most deadly plague in the
world? This, in short, is what we must do: we must cling with strong
affection to the gospel, and not allow anyone to corrupt it in any way. We
must not let anybody confuse our minds by their claims to be bringing us an
alternative view. Even if the people who speak to us have great knowledge,
and are skilful, sharp-witted and very eloquent, we must reject them as
abominations, people who have come to draw us away from the purity of the
gospel. This is what Paul is teaching us here.

Having spoken of this, Paul then adds, that if either he, or an angel, came
to preach any other gospel than that which the Galatians had already heard,
they were to reject them. They must be treated as accursed people, and as
devils, and be excommunicated. We see here that Paul becomes heated (in a
manner of speaking), as he is seeking to promote constancy in the faith so
that we will not be shaken. Yet he does not do so without good reason. For
we know how fragile we are, and not only fragile, but worse than this, we
are vain and rebellious. When we are first taught from the Word of God, if
we are not genuinely touched, we find it the strangest book in the world;
for the teaching of the gospel is always foolishness to the human mind, as
we have seen on previous occasions (1 Cor. 2:14). And the reason for this?
Because we are vanity: our hearts have wandered and gone astray, our natures
incline and tend to falsehood, and we almost wilfully desire to be beguiled.
Because our minds are thus corrupted, we should not be surprised if we do
not desire the Word of God and if it does not become a part of us. For our
only activity is in rebelling against God. Although we think we are doing
right, we are, in fact, blind. In short, the Scriptures do not say without
cause that all men are 'vanity and leasing' (Psa. 4:2). We are in rebellion
against God, pulling in the opposite direction when he calls us. God has
granted us the privilege of being drawn to himself, and of realising that
his truth is what we must hold to. He has so mastered us that we are no
longer full of guile, but willing to be completely subject to him. Even so,
the devil is still able to lead us astray at any moment, because we are so
fragile and inconstant! We have seen this happen to those who were
mirror-images of holiness (as it were). We have been shocked to see them
change so quickly and wander from the right path. What causes this? As I
have already said, even when we are in good form, we cannot remain in this
state long before we travel in the opposite direction; that is, unless God
works in us and strengthens us in our weakness.

This is why Paul upholds the teaching of the gospel in such a forceful way
(occasion having been given him by the Galatians, who had gone astray
because they had been taught to observe the ceremonies of the law). Seeing
such an example and such a picture of man's great weakness and fickleness,
Paul states that the truth of the gospel must supersede anything that we may
devise. He also implies that we ought not to be deceived by the knowledge,
skill or eloquence of men, for even if the angels from heaven had entered
our ranks, we should rather count them as devils. But this, apart from
anything else, must have seemed a very strange thing to say. What! The
angels from heaven! But what else is it to which he refers? His own
preaching. He does not simply speak of the gospel of Christ, but of the
gospel which he had preached to them. And can he be superior to the angels
from heaven? Well, in the first place, we see that it is nothing to praise
the gospel in a general and vague sense; you must know, its teaching. After
all, there are many who will mock the folly of the Papists, but if you were
to ask them the rudiments, which even little children know well, they do not
know them. If one says one thing and another says something else, it is all
one and the same thing to them. There is no difference; it is as if they are
throwing salt, water, mustard and bitter juice together in a recipe! They
will speak often enough in general terms about how we must preach the
gospel, and yet they do not know what it is! In order to correct such a sin,
Paul speaks of the gospel which he preached to them. By this (as I have
said), he is showing us that we ought to know the substance of the doctrine
which is brought to us in the name of God, so that our faith can be fully
grounded upon it. Then we will not be tossed about with every wind, nor will
we wander about aimlessly, changing our opinions a hundred times a day; we
will persist in this doctrine until the end. This, in brief, is what we must
remember.

Because Paul speaks in such bold language in defence of his teaching, this
should make it all the more genuine to us. He does not speak with human
arrogance or presumption, but in the name of God. Indeed, there is no
question here of his boasting about himself; he proves this by saying, 'if
I'. He puts himself first, as if he is saying: 'Even I myself, if I change
my doctrine, or if you find I have swerved in any way, let me be regarded as
a devil.' Here, Paul is showing that he was not seeking to gain a reputation
for himself, nor was he fighting for his own cause, so that people would say
how intelligent, wise and gifted he was. No; he puts himself on the level of
all believers and says: 'Let us all embrace the whole of our Master's
teaching, which God has entrusted to us, and to which we must submit our
conduct. For although I have taught you this doctrine, yet it is not mine,
but it is of God, who never changes. If I change, do not be shaken, nor
surprised about this, but treat me as a devil, count me accursed. As for
yourselves, remain grounded in the truth that you have always known. I would
rather you saw me as accursed and abominable, and even the angels from
heaven also, than that you forsake the truth about the Son of God and turn
away from it.' We can see from this what Paul desired: that God's truth
should be revered amongst men, as it deserves to be, and that it should be
esteemed in such a way, that all our senses, thoughts, desires and
affections should be subdued and held captive to it. It is not lawful for
any living creature to change anything in the gospel, for God has spoken by
the mouth of his only Son. May he be our master indeed, and may each of us
obey him without question. This is what Paul desired. But since we cannot
now finish commenting on the rest, it will be reserved for next Sunday, in
God's good pleasure.

Now let us fall before the majesty of our great God, acknowledging our
faults, and praying that he will make us ever more conscious of them. May
this lead us to a right repentance, and make us grow and increase in faith,
as true sacrifices to him. Since our Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our
redemption, let us also seek to dedicate ourselves fully to him. May we be
led by him to persevere, so that in life and in death we seek no other
contentment or rest than to acquiesce in his good will. May we glory in
nothing other than the salvation which he has purchased for us. May this
grace not only be granted to us, but to all peoples and nations on earth,
etc.

 

 

Charis, 
  
Mike Abendroth 
  

'God rides forth conquering in the chariot of His Gospel. . . He conquers
the pride of the heart, and makes the will which stood out as a Fort Royal
against Him, to yield and stoop to His grace; He makes the stony heart
bleed. Oh! it is a mighty call! Why then do some men seem to speak of a
moral persuasion? That God in the conversion of a sinner only morally
persuades and no more? If God in conversion should only morally persuade and
no more, then He does not put forth so much power in saving men as the Devil
does in destroying them.'   Thomas Watson

www.bbcchurch.org 
  

 

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