The following video is the introductory sermon of a 40 message series on the epistle of Galatians. It is linked below for those who would like to explore it.
Getting the gospel right, John MacArthur: the introduction to his series on the epistle of Galatians
The following bullet points are highlights on MacArthur’s 48-minute sermon. [Bracketed statements, emboldening and underscoring are mine]:
- MacArthur spent 20 minutes or so opening his sermon with examples from the lives of Job and Martin Luther, as men who sought to be right with God and found no reconciliation [until God intervened in their lives]
- Both men had a fear of God; Luther’s fear was spoken of more than Jobs [probably because there is much in history about how he came to Christ – I’ve seen the movie, Luther, several times and it shows the high points of that]
- Today, professors are deceived by the constant hearing of “God loves you unconditionally” [they mostly perceive therein, that they need not change after they recite the ‘sinner’s prayer’]
- You’re headed towards experiencing God’s eternal wrath unless you’ve found the answer to Job’s question
- Job’s question is the original statement of the issue of all religions: HOW CAN A PERSON BE RIGHT WITH GOD?
- Job’s friend, Bildad, gives the answer: you just need to be better, blameless, more righteous, have more integrity
- It’s the question in Psalm 130:3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? OR, Psalm 143:2 Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. OR,
- Isaiah 64:6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.
- OR, Micah 6:6 “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
- How can I be right with God, the pleading cry of Job, the psalmist, the prophets, Luther; how can one escape guilt, death, eternal punishment, and receive eternal life
- ALL RELIGION GIVES THE WRONG ANSWER: be good, be better, go about to establish your own righteousness
- Romans 10:3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
- That righteousness that is acceptable to God does not come by working [to make yourself righteous], it comes by believing
- Christ put an end to the tyranny of the law, that is Paul’s gospel and that is what Luther found when he was teaching Galatians [29 minute mark of video]
- There are only 2 possible options [regarding righteousness]
- The narrow and broad ways
- The narrow way is the way of the gospel, of grace, of faith, and it leads to heaven
- The broad way is the way of works and religion which says that it leads to heaven but actually leads to hell [A W Pink calls this way the way of ‘flesh pleasing’ which may, at best, look moral and obedient, but is not – I am planning to post his thoughts as soon as I type the points]
- There is NO salvation apart from belief in the true gospel [see CATEGORIES, Gospel, for many posts on that]
- All other messages, religions, gospels… are demonic deceptions, Satanic religions in one form or another
- To say what the apostle Paul did in Galatians 1, that there is NO other gospel, is not a popular perspective
- The Roman Catholic Church doesn’t like that, so they developed “natural theology” which indicates that people with no gospel, no knowledge of Christ, will show up in heaven
- How so? The second Vatican Council interpreted by the Pope: “Those who live in accordance with the beatitudes and who bear lovingly the sufferings of life will enter into the kingdom of God.”
- Thus, they believe that there is a natural way to God if one behaves in a beatitude-like manner [see beatitudes Matthew 5:3-12, if you’re even in your 20s, you know that such a life is impossible in the flesh, without being sustained by the Holy Spirit]
- Protestants have a similar system, called, “wider mercy”
- “God’s mercy is wider than just Christianity or just the gospel
- MacArthur gave an example re a book, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism
- There is also, the new perspective on Paul
- The writings of N T Wright were discussed and briefly read from to indicate such beliefs as above [see footnote at end of post about Wright]
- Wright stated that to believe that God the Father’s wrath against sin was satisfied by Calvary, is to hold Pagan-like beliefs, as they satisfied their deities similarly
- MacArthur read several verses from the Bible about imputation to show the foolishness of Wright’s beliefs [Brian McLaren must follow Wright, as he has written similar things]
- Wright stated that the doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by “the gospel;” the gospel is not an account of how people get saved.
- MacArthur read, 1Corinthians 15:1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
- N T Wright, is N T Wrong
- Wright has influenced many young pastors via seminaries
- Contrasted with Luther’s fear of God, Wright has led many to have no fear of God and to go to hell in a pleasant, self-deceived frame of mind
- Luther discovered as he taught Galatians that salvation is by FAITH, “the just shall live by faith”
- Luther was driven by his fear of God until he discovered the above, after which he had the peace of God [a peace and conviction that enabled him to stand against the Roman Catholic Church]
- Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
- Romans 3:21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:
- The above also teaches that salvation in the Old Testament was by grace through faith [Romans 4 and Galatians present that clearly]
- Galatians 3:21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. [see verses 15-29 for a fuller understanding]
- Luther said that no law is able to give life, it only kills; the law does not justify but has the opposite effect
- [Romans 3:20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. See verses 9-31 for more clarity on the role of the law in God’s economy – and consider that all religions of the world practice that one must follow something like the law to earn righteousness, they err seriously]
- Galatians 3:10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
- Galatians 1:6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—
- [The gospel Paul preached is non-negotiable]
- 2Corinthians 11:4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
- God does not accept another gospel for salvation
- Some current forms of ‘another gospel’ include: the works gospel; the social gospel; the prosperity gospel; the gospel of natural theology; the gospel of wider mercy; the gospel of the new perspective of Paul…; all such carry a curse from God
- Revelation 5, beginning at verse 6, MacArthur read about the only gospel approved by God, that of the Lamb
- Revelation 5:9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”
***The DVD, Luther, is available at Amazon. I’ve seen all three versions and the one starring Joseph Fiennes and Claire Cox is most enjoyable, and it is sufficiently accurate to be an introduction to the Protestant Reformation for those who have little or no understanding of this major event.
***Nicholas Thomas Wright, known as N. T. Wright or Tom Wright, is an English New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian and Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010.Wikipedia
Getting the Gospel Right — John MacArthur
This is the introductory sermon to a study on the epistle of Galatians
YouTube GTY link of this series of 40 sermons on the epistle of Galatians:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcpTMSL-FR-e-z1DwOnt44nK0reC1NRZW
318,951 views Apr 12, 2017 Exposition of Galatians
[Link to Downloads of this sermon / series at GTY.org] For details about this sermon and for related resources, click here: http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/…
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