Theological term
Judaizing Heresy
2 sermons · All terms
The Astonishment of Paul
Paul's opening salvo in Galatians 1:6–9 is a study in holy alarm: the apostle marvels not with wonder but with grief that the Galatian churches are so quickly defecting from the gospel of grace to a Judaizing corruption that mingles law-keeping with faith. The Judaizing heresy — like Roman Catholicism, the New Perspective on Paul, and the Federal Vision after it — does not abolish Christ but supplements him, which Paul declares is no gospel at all, because justification is either entirely by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, or it is not justification at all. The sermon traces three movements in the passage: Paul's astonishment at the defection, the nature of the false gospel as something that is 'not another,' and the double anathema pronounced on all who pervert the gospel regardless of their authority. The application calls hearers to a 'blessed intolerance' toward gospel corruption, to precision in doctrine, and to the personal embrace of Christ's doing and dying as the sole ground of acceptance with God.
Galatians 1:6-10
Galatians 1:6–10 confronts the Galatian churches' rapid defection from the gospel of grace to a Judaizing heresy that added circumcision and law-keeping to faith as a condition of justification. The sermon argues that any addition of human merit to the work of Christ — however small — destroys the gospel entirely, because salvation is either by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, or it is by the law, and the two cannot be mixed. The Apostle Paul's double pronouncement of anathema on false gospel teachers is examined in its Old Testament background (the herem principle) and applied as a call to doctrinal precision, vigilance against indifference, and refusal to supplement the finished work of Christ.