It is Jesus plus nothing that equals everything

How often do we drift? Correction in our lives can come from many sources: Teachers, mentors, strangers, the conviction of the Holy Spirit or all of the above. But how often are we prone to fall back into our old ways, repeating the things we have just been admonished of? Or yet, how often do we add our reason into Scripture to justify our actions? This is the story of Galatians, a drifting church that swayed from Paul’s teaching in favor of their gospel. Paul’s purpose, then, was–and is–to remind a forgetful church of the revelation he has shared with them about Jesus Christ and have them come back into remembrance instead of continuing further into deception. 

‍

Deception can be tricky. It is not always displayed ostentatiously with an obvious parade preceding it to ensure acknowledgment; deceit can be–and often the biggest ones are–innocuous, easy to miss. Perhaps, even, they are labeled as correct in the name of tolerance and love. The church of Galatia believed the lies of others concerning the words Paul had taught, edits and additions that seemed so good that they had to be true. They bought the lie, but Paul explicitly rebuked this: The gospel is not theirs to edit. The words that Paul spoke were not his own, but rather were from God so that no man may have any right or authority to edit, add or remove these words. This timeless strength of the gospel is well and alive today, too: It is not ours to edit. The Bible presents challenges, and in these challenges we have three options: To accept it, to reject it or to edit it. 

‍

To accept the Bible’s challenges is to accept the authority of the Bible and stay consistent with professed belief of its goodness and truth. So then, the way forward is to find the heart of God in it and what He wants to teach with that, and why He would include those words in the first place. To reject it is to perceive an irreconcilability in the challenge and, out of dismay, forsake the Christian faith and leave it; the challenges the Bible presents are not easy to grapple with. The third option is to edit the challenge–a form of rejection, perhaps, but a rejection of the challenge, not the faith–and instead of forsaking the faith one fabricates an answer that is becoming to personal preference. A point of tension this is seen in is, of course, homosexuality. This often brought up issue serves as a monumental point of breaking for Christians: some have accepted it and tried to understand why. There are those who have left the faith because of its harshness. Others have willingly edited Scripture to make it more inclusive and feel nicer (and, others still, it is worth mentioning, have stumbled into inaccurate interpretations in the genuine pursuit of an answer). The Galatians accepted Paul’s teachings of the truth of Christ and how Scripture points to Him. But after Paul’s departure the Galatians quickly separate from this truth to adopt an easier, more lenient alteration. Paul, in his letter, expresses that he is astonished at how quickly they have done so, but that is the power of clever deceit: not only can it be easily missed, it can be mistaken as the “actual” truth. 

‍

Galatians 1 is the introduction of a grander whole and serves as a call to action. It is a stark reminder that we must be watchful and smart. Deception is observed all around us in our age: news, the internet, justice systems, and amongst our fellow believers. In all that we hear we must go back and test it against Scripture, and anything that contradicts it–even if it should come from an angel–is a lie that must be corrected. 

There is no right addition to God’s Word–it is His alone, without anything else. 

‍

It is Jesus plus nothing that equals everything.