The Gospel is of God, Not of Man (No Other Gospel #4)

The basic premise of Galatians is that there is only one true gospel and no other. Paul states that in very strong words in the opening verses of Galatians. Having stated his basic premise, Paul moves on to the actual defense of the gospel, trying to explain what the gospel is, why it is the one true gospel, and how it differs from the false teaching of the Judaizers. The true gospel was different from the false gospel in regards to its origin, its nature, and its result. And its origin is the first point Paul tackles. As before,  Paul states his basic proposition before moving on to expand upon the idea.

For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:10-12)

Galatians is an argument. In it, Paul is answering the false charges and objections of the Judaizing teachers. The people at Galatia knew what they were being taught, so Paul could directly address it, but since we don't, it can occasionally be hard to follow what's going on. Someone has said that reading the epistles of the NT is like listening to only one side of a telephone conversation. We have to use some intelligent guesses to fill in the missing information.

Most likely the Judaizers were trying to undermine the gospel which Paul had preached by undermining Paul's authority as an apostle. After all, he had not been one of the twelve. He had not, so far as we know, ever met Jesus during His earthly ministry. He had not sat at the feet of Jesus and heard His teaching. No doubt they were saying that Peter, James, and the other disciples were the true apostles and Paul was just some random guy who had learned of the gospel from them and then preached it, but that he really didn't know what he was talking about--and that, therefore, his gospel lacked credibility. It may be that they went so far as to say that he was just a charlatan, trying to preach his own brand of the gospel to gain a following.

We are familiar with this kind of thing. Many cult leaders come up with their own ideas out of nowhere and then peddle them around to flatter and impress men and gain a following. That seems to be what the Judaizers were accusing St. Paul of.

So, first, Paul categorically denies that he was preaching to please men.

Imagine you're going on a trip to a certain location, and you have two people with you in the car who both claim to know where they're going and how to get there and so they are giving you, the driver, instructions on how to go. For the first several miles, things go well and their instructions generally agree. But suddenly you come to a crossroads, and one person says: “Turn right” and the other says “Turn left.” Obviously, you cannot follow both. So at that moment, you are going to have to choose to ignore one or the other. And when you do, only one is truly giving you directions and the other is just talking. In the same way, we cannot give listen to God and to something or someone else, because eventually God's direction will differ and then we will listen to God and ignore everyone else. Or we will listen to something else and ignore God. No man may serve two masters.

That is what Paul is saying in verse 10 “if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” That phrase “if I yet...” can also be translated “if I still...” That is to say, once he had lived his life trying to please people and had put the will of God as secondary. Before his conversion it seems he had been more interested in the approval of his peers than of God--but now he was more concerned with following God than he was in what anyone else thought.  His ultimate loyalty was to God and not to men. Despite what the Judaizers may have said, he was not working to please men but God. The word translated “persuade” at the beginning of verse 10 can also have the idea of trying to gain the approval of someone or please them. Paul is making it clear that his one goal was to please God, not men. Perhaps he may also have been making a silent accusation against the Judaizers, saying that unlike him, they were trying to please men rather than God.

And this idea of pleasing God rather than man goes along with Paul's main thought which is that the gospel does not come from man but from God. The other apostles did not make up the gospel but received it from Jesus. And Paul, who preached the same gospel, did not make it but received it from Jesus. This was not the creation of man but of God. There are many philosophers and thinkers who have come up with ideas about the world and about life--many of them very intriguing and profound and worthy of respect. But obviously, they are still only the thoughts and discoveries of one man and all men are fallible. But the gospel was not something Paul figured out on his own. Paul was not an original man who came up with an interesting idea of his own. This was something that came straight from God. The rest of the chapter and most of the next will be dedicated to expanding on this idea, showing the divine origin of the gospel. This is Paul's proposition here: The Gospel is of God, not of man.

We have to bear this in mind as we move forward because if we're not careful we'll misunderstand what Paul is saying in these chapters. Paul makes a point of contrasting his revelation with the other apostles and just superficially it sounds as if Paul is condemning the other apostles. But on closer inspection, we'll see that Paul is asserting this central premise--that the gospel comes from God, not from other men. He didn't get from the other apostles. And the other apostles didn't get it from him or from one another. Rather, they all received the gospel from God. The Judaizers claimed that the gospel was Paul's creation--but in reality, it was the other way around. It was the message of the Judaizers which was a human creation. The gospel was not of human origin but came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.