One of Aesop’s Fables is about a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
A wolf had his eye on a certain flock of sheep, but he couldn’t get any of the sheep he wanted because of the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs.
Then he saw the skin of a sheep that had been flayed, so he put the skin on as a costume and went among the sheep as one of their own.
The lamb who belonged to the sheep the wolf was wearing began following the wolf in sheep’s clothing. He led the lamb apart from the rest of the sheep and made a meal of her.
The wolf was able to deceive the sheep and keep feasting on them for some time.
But eventually, the shepherd, in examining his sheep, discovered the wolf, and killed him. (Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing by Jim Heidebrecht)
After exposing the dangers of the false doctrines that threatened the Galatians, Paul now exposes the wicked character of the wolves in sheep’s clothing among the Galatians.
Like his Lord, Paul had great patience with those who were caught in even the deepest moral sin. As much as they condemned the sin itself and warned against its consequences, their love for the sinner was always evident.
But also like the Lord, the apostle’s most scathing denunciations were reserved for those who pervert God’s truth and lead others into falsehood.
In an age of dangerous tolerance, the challenge for each of us is to recognize error and deal with it as God desires. Unchallenged, error can warp our judgment, poison our relationships and inhibit our worship. What seem like a little tolerance of a difference of opinion, especially in things essential for salvation, can bring ruin in a spiritual life, a household and even a church.
In Galatians 5:7–12 Paul gives us tell tale warning signs to watch out for in false teachers in order not to fall into their trap. He presents six characteristics of the Judaizers that are general enough to fit all other teachers of ungodliness, ancient or modern.
FALSE TEACHERS:
1) HINDER THE TRUTH: GALATIANS 5:7
Galatians 5:7 [7]You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? (ESV)
The first and most obvious characteristic of the false teachers are that they distorted and hindered … the truth.
You were running well reflects the figure of a race, which Paul frequently used (see Rom. 9:16; 1 Cor. 9:24; Gal. 2:2).
• The verb is in the imperfect tense, referring to the Galatians’ past responses to the Gospel Paul preached (Witherington III, Ben: Grace in Galatia : A Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. Grand Rapids, MI : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998, S. 371)
While Paul had ministered among them, the Galatian believers had no trouble living their Christian lives by faith. They were running well until, apparently soon after Paul left, the Judaizers began leading them away from the way of grace and faith back into the way of law and works (see 1:6–7), which was crippling in its inconsistency.
Because Paul had already made clear who their spiritual enemy was, the question Who hindered you …? was rhetorical. The question was not about the identity of the false teachers but about their having been able so easily and quickly to deceive and mislead the Galatian believers.
• In essence, Paul was asking: “How could you have allowed those men to overturn what I carefully taught and you eagerly accepted as God’s Word?” he was asking “Who do they think they are and who do you think they are, that they can arrogantly undermine my own apostolic authority (see 1:1; 5:2) and the clear teaching of the Old Testament (3:6–29; 4:21–31), which they claim to revere?”
• We must never allow emotional appeal to be the determinant of truth. Too many people base what they believe on a personal feeling about the speaker. That is how con men deceive.
o Rule one in discernment is consider the source, before your heart.
The hindering action that Paul referred to here, the original usage of hinder/cut in (ἐνέκοψεν, enekopsen) was to chop up a road before an advancing army to impede their progress. Later the word seems to have been used also in an athletic context, as one runner might “cut in on” another runner, making that runner break stride and even fall (Boles, Kenneth L.: Galatians & Ephesians. Joplin, Mo. : College Press, 1993 (The College Press NIV Commentary), S. Ga 5:7)
• Galatians 5:7 could read: “You were running well. Who cut in on you so that you stopped obeying the truth?”
• The verb ‘hinder/cut in on’ is in the aorist tense, indicating an activity that has already transpired (Witherington III, Ben: Grace in Galatia : A Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. Grand Rapids, MI : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998, S. 371)
• In the races, each runner was to stay in his assigned lane, but some runners would cut in on their competitors to try to get them off course. This is what the Judaizers had done to the Galatian believers: they cut in on them and forced them to change direction and go on a “spiritual detour.” It was not God who did this, because God had called them to run faithfully in the lane marked “Grace.” (Wiersbe, Warren W.: The Bible Exposition Commentary. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1996, c1989, S. Ga 5:7)
Obeying the truth could refer to the true gospel, that is, the way by which people are saved (cf. Acts 6:7; Rom. 2:8; 6:17; 2 Thess. 1:8). Or the phrase could refer to the true way in which the saved live out their redeemed lives in obedience to God’s Word and Spirit (cf. Rom. 6:17; 1 Pet. 1:22). Paul seems to be using the phrase in both senses, because the legalism of the Judaizers was hindering the unsaved from coming to Christ in faith and the saved from following Him in faith.
The church has always faced the danger of legalism, because the inclination of the flesh is always to live for its own purposes and in its own power. The false teachers who were leading the Galatians astray were far from well-intentioned. Their purpose was to gain a following for themselves (Gal. 4:17). They were forerunners of all the self-promoting false teachers who have plagued the church throughout its history and will continue to do so until the Lord returns. “There will also be false teachers among you,” Peter warns, “who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves” (2 Pet. 2:1). Paul warns that “the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron” (1 Tim. 4:1–2). They are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. … These men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected as regards the faith” (2 Tim. 3:7–8)
FALSE TEACHERS: 1) HINDER THE TRUTH: GALATIANS 5:7
2) ARE NOT OF GOD: GALATIANS 5:8
Galatians 5:8 [8]This persuasion is not from him who calls you. (ESV)
Please turn to 2 Thessalonians 2
The second characteristic of the false teachers was their ungodliness. Their legalistic persuasion is not come from God, from Him who calls true believers. God is here uniquely identified as the sovereign who has effectually called all who believe and are saved. The work of salvation is entirely God’s doing and none of man’s (Rom. 8:28–30), and any teaching that says the gracious work of God in saving people is insufficient is false.
Legalism is never from God:
2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 [13]But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. [14]To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (ESV)
The Judaizers’ “gospel”, which was not the gospel at all (Gal. 1:6–7), was not from God.
FALSE TEACHERS: 1) HINDER THE TRUTH: GALATIANS 5:7 2) ARE NOT OF GOD: GALATIANS 5:8 AND
3) THEY CONTAMINATE THE CHURCH: GALATIANS 5:9
Galatians 5:9 [9]A little leaven leavens the whole lump. (ESV)
A third characteristic of the false teachers was that they contaminated the church, spreading their heresy among both true believers and would-be believers. Just as a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough, so a small amount of falsehood can corrupt the thinking and living of a large group of people.
The figure of leaven is generally used simply to indicate permeating power, whether of something good or evil. It is used in this general sense in Galatians 5:9.
• Leaven/Yeast, is a powerful fungus that can cause a lump of dough to rise into bread, ferment liquids into alcohol, or cause painful infections (Galaxie Software: 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press, 2002; 2002)
• The natural tendency of leaven, or yeast, to affect all the meal with which it comes in contact. Used here in Galatians, it shows that a little error must inevitably lead to more. Evil is never static. It must defend its lies by adding more lies (MacDonald, William ; Farstad, Arthur: Believer’s Bible Commentary : Old and New Testaments. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1995, S. Ga 5:9)
In Scripture, leaven often represents sin directly, as in Jesus’ warning about “the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” which referred to their false teaching (Matt. 16:6, 12).
• Paul also used the figure of leaven as representing the actuality of sin as well as its power to infect and permeate that which is good (see 1 Cor. 5:6).
• Just as a single cell of cancer can metastasize until it spreads throughout the physical body, a single false doctrine can multiply itself and spread throughout a body of believers. A great forest fire can be started by one spark.
The Judaizers were not so foolish as to unload their entire doctrine upon the Galatians at one time; they injected it little by little. Paul refers to the little leaven that had already been injected, the fact that the Galatians had begun to observe times (4:10) although they had not as yet yielded to circumcision. If it be not stopped, that little would eventually leaven and alter everything (Lenski, R. C. H.: The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, to the Ephesians and to the Philippians. Columbus, O. : Lutheran Book Concern, 1937, S. 266)
Quote: Illustrating the destructive chain resulting from a seemingly small action,
Benjamin Franklin wrote: “For want of a nail the shoe was lost,; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; and for want of a rider the battle was lost.”
Illustration: The seriousness of errant doctrine can be compared to a howitzer artillery gun aimed a mere one degree off target. The difference seems slight and negligible at first, yet the results of the error increase dramatically throughout the flight of the shell, until it totally misses its intended target.
So it is with false doctrine. At first it may seem to be a tolerable mistake, a little error—but not that serious. But, as with all errors, the effects compound over time until they become so serious that they may not be correctable (Green, Michael P.: Illustrations for Biblical Preaching : Over 1500 Sermon Illustrations Arranged by Topic and Indexed Exhaustively. Revised edition of: The expositor’s illustration file. Grand Rapids : Baker Book House, 1989)
Tolerance is a highly valued trait in our society. If it means civilly allowing differing opinions in civic society, then that’s fine. If it means acquiescing to error for a false sense of harmony, it is deadly. Tolerating something that is error, especially to things of Biblical doctrine or church polity, is abhorrent to God.
Foreshadowing our next point, look how God regards this:
1 Corinthians 3:17 [17]If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. (ESV)
FALSE TEACHERS: 1) HINDER THE TRUTH: GALATIANS 5:7 2) ARE NOT OF GOD: GALATIANS 5:8 3) THEY CONTAMINATE THE CHURCH: GALATIANS 5:9 AND
4) THEY WILL BE JUDGED: GALATIANS 5:10
Galatians 5:10 [10]I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. (ESV)
A fourth characteristic of the false teachers of Galatia was their destiny of judgment.
Paul introduces this declaration with a word of encouragement to the true believers. I have confidence in the Lord, he said, that you will take/adopt no other view, that is, no other view than the true gospel of grace he had taught them when he ministered among them and that he was so strongly emphasizing in this letter.
In the same vain of what we looked at in Romans 8 last week in the Chain of Salvation, the apostle had a similar word of encouragement for the Philippian church:
Philippians 1:6-7 [6]And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. [7]It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. (ESV)
Please turn to John 10
The apostle could have confidence, because he had confidence in the Lord, that the Lord is the one who began the work to change hearts and promises to complete His task. True confidence, true security rests in God.
The destiny of believers is secure:
John 10:28-29 [28]I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. [29]My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. (ESV)
• The Galatians and all true believers will ultimately not reject their true salvation for a false one (John 10:4–5, 14). They will both persevere and be preserved.
But that is not the destiny of ungodly teachers who lead the Lord’s people astray:
Matthew 18:5-6 [5]"Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, [6]but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. (ESV)
• The child/little ones refer to God’s followers in general (Mt. 10:40-42). It is a sobering warning to anyone who would teach. Christ is the Great Shepherd and takes the misleading of His sheep very seriously.
Please turn to 2 Peter 2
The one who is troubling/disturbing you shah bear the penalty/his judgment, Paul declared, whoever he is. Because the Judaizers stood against God and His truth, they would carry the full weight of their own judgment.
2 Peter 2 is a great extended passage of how false teachers work and deceive:
2 Peter 2:1-19 [2:1]But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. [2]And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. [3]And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. [4]For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; [5]if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; [6]if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; [7]and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked [8](for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); [9]then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, [10]and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, [11]whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. [12]But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, [13]suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. [14]They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! [15]Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, [16]but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. [17]These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. [18]For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. [19]They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
There are some very serious lessons from these examples:
• God will severely judge false teachers. He has provided numerous examples.
• The danger for us to recognize, is that false teachers can often be friendly and cunning.
FALSE TEACHERS: 1) HINDER THE TRUTH: GALATIANS 5:7 2) ARE NOT OF GOD: GALATIANS 5:8 3) THEY CONTAMINATE THE CHURCH: GALATIANS 5:9 4) THEY WILL BE JUDGED: GALATIANS 5:10 AND
5) THEY PERSECUTE TRUE TEACHERS: GALATIANS 5:11
Galatians 5:11 [11]But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. (ESV)
A fifth characteristic of false teachers is that they persecute true teachers, in this case, Paul. False religion has always been and will continue to be the most aggressive and dominant persecutor of the church (cf. John 16:1–3; Rev. 17:5–6). Satan fights God, and satanic religion fights the true faith.
Among their other deceptions and lies, the Judaizers apparently claimed that Paul preached circumcision just as they did. They probably recited the example where Timothy, who was half Jewish, Paul had him circumcised in order to minimize criticism from Jews among whom they would minister together (Acts 16:1–3). But Paul never advocated circumcision as having any part in becoming or living as a Christian.
“If I still preach circumcision as I did when I was a Pharisee,” he asks, “why am I still being persecuted by the Judaizers? If He preached circumcision as a necessity for salvation, he would be one of them and they would not challenge him.”
As Paul had already explained, he could never advocate circumcision as part of the gospel, because to do so would be to “nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law,” which circumcision represented for the Judaizers, “then Christ died needlessly” (Gal. 2:21). Then the offense/stumbling block of the cross would have been removed/abolished.
The cross was an offense/ stumbling block to the Jews partly because they could not accept the idea of a suffering, much less crucified, Messiah. But it was even more an offense to them because it robbed them of their most distinctive outward signs of Jewishness, the Mosaic law and circumcision. If the cross obliterated even the true Judaism of the Old Covenant, how much more did it obliterate the false, man-made Judaism represented by the scribes, Pharisees, and Judaizers?
Quote: The early church Father Chrysostom commented that the cross was a offense/stumbling block to Jews primarily because it failed to require obedience to their ancestral laws. When they attacked Stephen, he observed, they did not charge him with worshiping Christ but with speaking “against the holy place, and the law” (Acts 6:13).
• As we have previously seen, Paul confessed that when he “used to persecute the church of God beyond measure, and tried to destroy it,” he did so because he was “extremely zealous for [his] ancestral traditions” (Gal. 1:13–14).
• The Jews were scandalized by the cross because it nullified not only the Mosaic law but also their highly revered rabbinic traditions.
The cross still offends unregenerate people today for the same basic reason. Whether Jew or Gentile, everyone is prone to trust in what they can do for themselves and are offended when told they can do nothing at all to make themselves right before God.
• To preach the cross invites persecution because it is the supreme offense to works righteousness. But as Peter boldly proclaimed before the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, “There is salvation in no one else: for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
FALSE TEACHERS: 1) HINDER THE TRUTH: GALATIANS 5:7 2) ARE NOT OF GOD: GALATIANS 5:8 3) THEY CONTAMINATE THE CHURCH: GALATIANS 5:9 4) THEY WILL BE JUDGED: GALATIANS 5:10 5) THEY PERSECUTE TRUE TEACHERS: GALATIANS 5:11 AND FINALLY:
6)THEY SHOULD BE CUT OFF: GALATIANS 5:12
Galatians 5:12 [12]I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! (ESV)
Paul closes his polemic against false teachers with one of the harshest statements to come from his pen or lips. He was so passionately opposed to the heresy of the Judaizers that he wished they would emasculate/mutilate themselves.
Apokoptō literally means “to cut off,” especially a member of the body, and hence to emasculate/mutilate. The word was often used of castration, and that is clearly Paul’s meaning here.
Illustration: He is probably referring to the cult of Cybele, a popular pagan nature goddess in Asia Minor during Paul’s day. Many devout male worshipers in the cult castrated themselves, and all its priests were self-made eunuchs.
Paul was not expressing a crude and cruel desire for the Judaizers’ punishment. God would take care of that (v. 10). He spoke rather of their mutilating themselves. His point was, “If the Judaizers are so insistent on circumcision as a means of pleasing God, why don’t they go all the way and castrate themselves as the supreme act of religious devotion? If, like the pagans, they believe human achievement can earn divine favor why don’t they go to the pagan extremes of self-mutilation, like the Cybelene priests?”
• This particular train of thought could also be taken to mean that Paul hoped the resulting “impotence” of these men would make them unable to produce any more “children” (followers) (Barton, Bruce B.: Galatians. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House, 1994 (Life Application Bible Commentary), S. 172)
• In a logical sense, this is the reductio ad absurdum, Paul is showing the Galatians the logical outcome of the Judaizers doctrine.
In a general sense, Paul desired that the Galatians would sever themselves from this false teaching and the Judaizers would sever themselves from the congregation.
Paul’s remarks are ironic because of course if the agitators did emasculate themselves this would disqualify them from full participation in the Jewish community of faith, because Lev. 21:20 says that a man who has his male member cut off “shall not enter the assembly of the Lord” (cf. Lev. 22:24). (The Judaizers) rite of dedication would become a rite of exclusion.54 What Paul is really referring to here is the agitators inflicting the oath, curse upon themselves, and so cutting themselves out of the covenant community rather that cutting off the Galatians from the Christian community (Witherington III, Ben: Grace in Galatia : A Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. Grand Rapids, MI : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing)
To add any human effort or act to God’s gracious provision through the death of His Son is to exchange the saving gospel of Jesus Christ for the damning falsehood of paganism.
Application: Unless you have removed these words to just a historical or theological argument, there should be some conflict in your mind at this point.
1) What about the method of explaining theological truth that we saw in 1 Peter 3:15
1 Peter 3:15 [15]but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, (ESV)
• Paul does not seem to be gentle or respectful.
• First, 1 Peter 3:15 is for those who are asking you, those who genuinely desire to know.
• The Judaizers only tried to exploit the Galatians, as False teachers do today.
2) The second issue revolves around how you feel about those who would promote false teaching. If you truly desire to be Christ like, as Paul is showing here, you will be vicious and intolerant of error to the point of denouncing non-repentant false teachers as broods of vibers, and white washed tombs.
• If this approach seems too harsh or not your responsibility, then you do not regard false teaching like Christ, the Prophets or the Apostles do.
o When your friend comes to you with a book that is heretical, do you keep silent for the sake of the friendship? That is not Christlike.
o When someone at work talks about a TV preacher that said the essence of all religion is a loving God who accepts various viewpoints, do you respond in saying, “that’s not what God said”? If not, then that is not Apostolic.
o If someone tries to peddle a pack of mind numbing lies on the side of a bus, that “there probably is no god, so just enjoy life”, do you say but what about if I enjoy taking your wallet by force? Then what about war crimes committed, do we tell the relatives of the victims, that “it’s just life”? Then what about if that bus ran over your child, how could you come to grips with that? If you could not respond like that, then you would not be imitating the pattern of the prophets, Christ and Apostles themselves.
• I think we all need to be a whole less tolerant of false teaching and root it out where ever it may be. It truly is the Godly thing to do.
(Format Note: Outline and Some Base Commentary from MacArthur, J. (1996, c1987). Galatians. Includes indexes. (137). Chicago: Moody Press.)
