The Marks Of A True Messenger Of God

Because the true gospel is all about what God did, Paul could announce to the Galatians that grace and peace was theirs. That was a fact, not a wish. In the same way I can announce to all of you today that your sins are forgiven, not will be forgiven if you first live a good life, or if you will only first believe in Jesus. That’s right, whether you believe it or not your sins are forgiven. Of course if you don’t believe, then Jesus’ work of salvation is worthless to you and you will not benefit from it. It’s like the child who throws away his birthday card from Grandma with $10 in it. He loses out on the $10, not because Grandma didn’t send him any birthday money, but for whatever reason, whether carelessness or ungratefulness, he threw out what had been given to him.

If the true gospel is the message of God’s free gift of forgiveness for all people with no strings attached, why is it that true messengers of God will sometimes seem to withhold forgiveness? Why, for example, did Paul urge the Corinthian congregation to expel a man from their midst who was guilty of sexual immorality (1 Cor. 5)? Should the congregation not have simply forgiven the man? After all hadn’t God already forgiven him? Although God had forgiven that man, the man, by continuing in his sin without remorse, abused God’s forgiveness. Just as the $10 Grandma sent to her grandson for his birthday was not meant to buy illegal drugs, so God’s forgiveness is not a license for us to sin with reckless abandon. By calling for that man to be expelled from the church, Paul was only doing what Jesus had prescribed in Matthew 18. Jesus tells us that expelling those from our congregation who claim to be Christian but refuse to be sorry for and turn away from sin, is the most loving thing we can do to get these people to see that by their impenitent attitude are trampling God’s forgiveness and are therefore guilty of unbelief. We expel impenitent sinners, not because we think we are better, but because we want these people to turn from their sins and benefit again from the forgiveness that is theirs through faith in Christ.

Paul not only spoke the true gospel as a true messenger of God; he also defended it. He wrote to the Galatian Christians, “6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” (Gal. 1:6-8).

Paul was eager to defend the Galatian Christians against the Judaizers because he knew that their false teaching would lead to loss of faith. How were the Galtians to know that the Judaizers were false teachers? Not by their appearance. The Judaizers were no doubt nice people who may have not even meant to preach false doctrine. That still didn’t change the fact that they had added to God’s Word and were now leading believers astray. Even if the Judaizers had been a band of angels, the Galatian Christians were not to listen to them as long as they distorted God’s Word.