“Make love, not war!” may have been a popular slogan, but it is not always feasible. Doctors must make war against disease and death; sanitary engineers must war against filth and pollution; legislators must war against injustice and crime. And they all fight because of something they love!
“Ye that love the Lord, hate evil” (Ps. 97:10). “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good” (Rom. 12:9). Paul waged war against the false teachers because he loved the truth, and because he loved those whom he had led to Christ. Like a loving father who guards his daughter until she is married, Paul watched over his converts lest they be seduced into sin (2 Cor. 11:1–4).
The Judaizers were identified by the false gospel that they preached. The test of a man’s ministry is not popularity (Matt. 24:11) or miraculous signs and wonders (Matt. 24:23–24), but his faithfulness to the Word of God (see Isa. 8:20; 1 Tim. 4; 1 John 4:1–6; and note that 2 John 5—11 warns us not to encourage those who bring false doctrine). Christ had committed the gospel to Paul (1 Cor. 15:1–8), and he, in turn, had committed it to other faithful servants (1 Tim. 1:11; 6:20; 2 Tim. 1:13; 2:2). But the Judaizers had come along and substituted their false gospel for the true gospel, and for this sin, Paul pronounced them accursed. The word he used is anathema, which means “dedicated to destruction.” (Read Acts 23: for a forceful illustration of the meaning of this word.) No matter who the preacher may be—an angel from heaven or even Paul himself—if he preaches any other gospel, he is accursed!
But there is a second characteristic of Paul’s adversaries: the false motives that they practiced. His enemies accused Paul of being a compromiser and “adjusting” the gospel to fit the Gentiles. Perhaps they twisted the meaning of Paul’s statement, “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). They said, “When Paul is with the Jews, he lives like a Jew; but when he is with the Gentiles, he lives like the Gentiles. He is a man-pleaser, and therefore you cannot trust him!”
But in reality, it was the false teachers who were the man-pleasers. “These men are paying you special attention, but not sincerely,” Paul wrote (Gal. 4:17). “They want to shut you off from me, so that you may keep on paying them special attention” (Williams). Later, Paul also exposed the false teachers as the compromisers, going back to Old Testament practices so that they would not be persecuted by the Jewish people (Gal. 6:12–15). Paul was definitely not a man-pleaser. His ministry did not come from man (Gal. 1:1), nor did his message come from man (Gal. 1:12). Why, then, should he be afraid of men? Why should he seek to please men? His heart’s desire was to please Christ.
When Verdi produced his first opera in Florence, the composer stood by himself in the shadows and kept his eye on the face of one man in the audience—the great Rossini. It mattered not to Verdi whether the people in the hall were cheering him or jeering him; all he wanted was a smile of approval from the master musician. So it was with Paul. He knew what it was to suffer for the gospel, but the approval or disapproval of men did not move him. “Therefore also we have as our ambition … to be pleasing to Him” (2 Cor. 5: nasb). Paul wanted the approval of Christ.
The servant of God is constantly tempted to compromise in order to attract and please men. When D. L. Moody was preaching in England, a worker came to him on the platform and told him that a very important nobleman had come into the hall. “May the meeting be a blessing to him!” was Moody’s reply, and he preached just as before, without trying to impress anybody.
Paul was not a politician; he was an ambassador. His task was not to “play politics” but to proclaim a message. These Judaizers, on the other hand, were cowardly compromisers who mixed law and grace, hoping to please both Jews and Gentiles, but never asking whether or not they were pleasing God.
We have noted three steps Paul took toward engaging these false teachers in battle: He explained his authority, expressed his anxiety, and exposed his adversaries. But how is he going to attack his enemies? What approach will he use to convince the Galatian believers that all they need is faith in God’s grace? A quick survey of the entire letter shows that Paul was a master defender of the gospel. Take time to read the entire letter at one sitting, and, as you read, note the three approaches that Paul took.
His first approach was personal (Gal. 1—2). He reviewed his own personal experience with Jesus Christ and the message of the gospel. He pointed out that he had received the gospel independently, from the Lord and not from the twelve apostles (Gal. 1:11–24), but that they had approved his message and his ministry (Gal. 2:1–10). Furthermore, Paul had even defended the gospel when Peter, the leading apostle, had compromised his earlier stand (Gal. 2:11–21). The autobiographical section of the letter proves that Paul was not a “counterfeit apostle,” but that his message and ministry were true to the faith.
Galatians 3 and 4 are doctrinal, and in them Paul presented several arguments to establish that sinners are saved by faith and grace, not by works and law. First he appealed to their own experiences (Gal. 3:1–5). Then he went back to the Old Testament law in Galatians 3:6–14 to show that even Abraham and the prophets understood salvation as being by grace through faith. Having mentioned the law, Paul then explained why the law was given originally (Gal. 3:15—4:18). He then used the story of Sarah and Hagar to illustrate the relationship between law and grace (Gal. 4:19–31).
The final two chapters of the letter are practical in emphasis, as Paul turned from argument to application. The Judaizers accused Paul of promoting lawlessness because he preached the gospel of the grace of God; so in this section, Paul explained the relationship between the grace of God and practical Christian living. He showed that living by grace means liberty, not bondage (Gal. 5:1–12); depending on the Spirit, not the flesh (Gal. 5:13–26); living for others, not for self (Gal. 6:1–10); and living for the glory of God, not for man’s approval (Gal. 6:11–18). It is either one series of actions or the other—law or grace—but it cannot be both.