Galatians 1:7 - There is no other one

1:7

“which is really no gospel at all”. Seeking to change by our own efforts promises life, but delivers nothing, it is no gospel at all. Now, when we live by grace, when God works in us, we will work, in fact we will work harder than we have ever worked before. Just think about your own life, about the parts where things do work fairly well. I find two things are present in these areas. On the one hand there is a gratitude to God, a knowledge that it is only by His grace that this area works well, and with this is a joy. On the other hand it is an area where I will devote much effort, being prepared to pay a price. The two go together. In Galatia there were people who were telling them that they needed to work in order to make progress, in the sense of work without grace. We will get into the specifics of what they taught as we work through the book, but here Paul is talking in generalities, so we will look at the general principle. These people were causing confusion and perverting the gospel of Christ. Do you know, if we tell people they need to make progress by work alone (bearing in mind my comments about how grace and hard work go hand in hand) we will only cause confusion in their lives, and we are not presenting the gospel. Also, note that Paul here is talking about the gospel in their ongoing lives. The gospel is not just about the initial point of conversion it is about the whole of life.