Paul, an Apostle
Galatians 1:1-2 · Vern Peterman · Apr 29, 2007
Galatians (2007), No. 03
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926025444485

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning, brethren and sister. Well, kids will be dismissed to their classes here. The special music will have to be rescheduled for another time. Our singers are not in the best of health. So anyway, we can pray for them. We are this morning kind of turning a corner.

Yes, I realize we started studying Galatians two weeks ago. However, we're turning a corner here. We've been looking at Galatians, the big picture, for the last two weeks. And we've been looking at Paul's letter to the church at Galatia in sort of an overview fashion and then taking a brief look at specific passages within the book. Today we're going to take the big dive and go into the first couple of verses.

And so anyway, as we take, that's a little cold here, let's warm it up. Oh, that's not quite right either. Anyway, as we go through this book, just want to give you some little introduction. There's going to be little or no moose in this thing, okay? You've heard the saying, Rolling Stone gathers no moose, so that'll be true of this. Okay. We may have some critters, we'll have to see, so we'll find out about that and we'll let you know, certainly. Okay.

Now, one of the things, of course, we are beginning the first couple of verses here in what we've described as a large chiasm. What is that? The whole book has a mirror image pattern, and you can find that on a couple of prior handouts and messages, and so I'll let you follow up on that if you'd like.

We're just going to begin at the start here. Paul is addressing a large problem. And so he is just starting that now. He is not actually going to give direct attention in today's passage, the first two verses, to the problem, but he's going to lay a foundation that I think we'll see quite valuable in understanding what is the truth here. So as we go through this, first of all, we're going to see this first word. What a surprise is Paul. Paul himself is announced here.

This is typical of letters of Paul's time where you start off with the person who is writing the letter giving their name. That was the usual pattern. Of course, we have a contrary pattern of we read the letter and then wait to the end to find out who it was, right? So they actually did something that made actually a little more sense than the way we do it, but nonetheless, that was the pattern.

And we look at Paul, and we think about this, from Dr. Lute's book of Acts, the last half of it, of course, deals with the Apostle Paul. He first shows up in the end of chapter 7, but mostly you see the last half of the book of Acts focusing on Paul.

Paul's 13 letters. Some would add to that Hebrews, but that's not something we're able to establish. So Paul's 13 letters certainly give lots of information, and we're going to see in Galatians that it's one of the letters that actually reveals a great deal about Paul's own history and his own apostleship. It's an early letter, so it doesn't include some later things, but still gives us some unique and special insights. There's also something we'll be looking at in our second Peter elective. 2 Peter 3, 13-16, that passage is also a place where Peter writes about Paul, and right in the middle of that, this is not on your handout, but right in the middle of that, verses 15 and 16 indicate that Peter considered Paul's letters to be scripture.

And he also acknowledged that sometimes they were a bit more difficult to understand, but nonetheless, they are revealed by God. They are God's revelation for our benefit. Put those all together, and we actually know quite a bit about the Apostle Paul. We were given quite a bit of information about his life, both before he was a believer and afterwards. And one of the things that's quite clear, as we study those pieces of information from scripture, is Paul is a man of great contrasts. And let's take a look at one of those.

He was born as Saul the Jew. That was how he was initially referred to in the book of Acts, at the end of chapter 7, where he was called a young man at that point. He was steeped in the law. He claimed that himself a few years back when we studied Philippians. Paul said he laid out seven different things that made him especially well qualified in Judaism, but certainly steeped in the law.

He persecuted the church not just to the point of irritation, but he himself said to the point of death. Luke records him as breathing out threats and murder. When he looked at Christians, he wasn't just saying, I want to kind of get those people straightened out. I would like to see those people sort of put in their place. No, he said, I want them dead. How about that? I want those people just put out of this earth.

Paul was born again as a believer. Acts chapter 9 records that, and then you'll see subsequent recitations of that in the book of Acts. Interesting, when you put the information together about Paul, he was called Saul, and then Paul, he was from Tarsus, he was from the tribe of Benjamin. His full Roman name would be something like Saulus, Benjaminus, Tarsus, Paulus. Okay? I'm not sure how he wrote that when he signed things, but that's quite a name, quite a handle. That would be his full Roman name.

We know that he was a steward of grace. He wrote in Ephesians 3, as we studied a couple of years back here, he wrote in Ephesians 3, he says, I am a steward of grace. As I preach the gospel of grace, I am one who has been given responsibility to convey that to others. As we look at the area where he wrote, At this letter we see the area of southern Galatia, that is the southern part of the Roman province of Galatia, particularly these four cities. Antioch, and this is Pisidian Antioch. Remember we said before there were 17 Antiochs in this part of the world. You can imagine that, keeping that straight, it's really something. And so this is Pisidian Antioch.

Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe are the four primary cities that he was involved with there. He founded and established the first Gentile churches. Now I need to make a clarification when I say that. The first churches in the Gentile lands that also included some Jews.

The clarification is as a clear mission of an apostle. There were churches that were established by others, but as a clear mission of an apostle and as a specific assignment, Paul was the one who did that. Let's look at Paul's earthly resume. We look at the list of the things that qualified him here on planet Earth.

He said he was born a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin. He made that claim right at the outset when he wrote to the church in Rome and also as he wrote to the church in Philippi. Now, when you think of tribe, you've got to keep something in mind. A lot of times when we hear the word tribe, we think of, you know, some tribal people. It makes me think of, like, my grandmother used to be a missionary to the cannibals in Fiji. And we think of tribal people. What he means by this is something that relates to a handout. You're laughing over this? Okay, all right, go ahead.

Anyway, the tribe point that he's making is not that there's some tribal identity in some sort of what we would term primitive sense. but from the standpoint he was from of the sons of Jacob, of the lineage descended from Benjamin. And as we look at that, why would he make that point, and why would that be important, is the two tribes of the southern kingdom, in other words, the one tribe that was loyal to Judah, the tribe of David, the tribe from which Jesus descended, The one tribe that was loyal to that tribe was Benjamin. All the other ten tribes were disloyal. And so that's his point. So here in the southern kingdom, we have the tribes of Benjamin and Judah.

Well, you folks put up with a lot, I don't know. Born in Tarsus, raised in Jerusalem. Now, people will kind of debate amongst themselves as to how much was Tarsus and how much was Jerusalem. The truth is, we don't know exactly when he made the switch, and it's possible he went back and forth. But it seems most likely that the latter part of his youth or young adulthood was certainly in Jerusalem.

It says that he was educated. under Gamaliel, who is a well-regarded Jewish rabbi. As the Jews' way of saying how well Gamaliel was regarded, one of the statements made when Gamaliel died is they said that when Gamaliel died, the law died. Of course, they had high regard for the law. So that gives you some sense of it. Gamaliel, whom Paul names, was grandson of Hillel. another famous rabbi who lived in the century before the New Testament era.

Paul also was a Roman citizen. He claimed that. It shows up several times in the last half of Acts, beginning in chapter 16. And that very claim is what caused him to end up going to Rome, because he appealed to Caesar. That's a right that he had as a Roman citizen.

By the way, one of the interesting things, we'll oftentimes see this costume with the toga, typifying Rome and Romans. That was actually something that only Roman citizens were allowed to wear, the toga, and classically with a purple or scarlet edging on it.

Paul himself, only in one spot, but it's clear he was a tent maker by trade. In Acts 18, first few verses, he shared that with Priscilla and Achilla. And it also allowed him to go from one city to the next as he was establishing and building up the churches. He could support himself fairly easily because all he had to carry was his tools, buy the materials, work at whatever hours he could fit in, make the material, sell it there, and then not have to carry anything but tools on to the next place.

He was likely fluent in four languages, and one of those, of course, would be Greek. That's the language in which this letter to Galatia was written. It is also the language that he likely spoke in a great many of the places where he presented the gospel and taught. As a Roman citizen, it's not absolutely certain, but quite likely that he spoke Latin in some degree. One of the things that came along with being a Roman citizen was frequently training that gave him background.

He would also, being under the rabbis and having studied the Old Testament, would have known Hebrew and a related language, Aramaic. It was a language that the Jews had spoken in Israel for about five centuries prior to Paul's birth, and they had brought it back from Babylon.

Okay, there was also, as we mentioned, an aggressive persecutor of the church. That's Paul's earthly resume here. He was, in the instance of Stephen, when Stephen in the book of Acts was before the council, as we see finishing up in the end of Acts 7, Paul was there kind of approving and holding the clothing of those who were taking the steps to stone Stephen to death.

Now, here is a supplement that's available on the cabinet on the right there, and be sure to take your supplements, okay? Alright. So anyway, there's supplements there, feel free to have one. My point in bringing this up, there's certainly lots of detail in it, okay?

The point is this, Paul started off as the ultimate supporter of the law. Why do I say ultimate? He says, the law to the death. If anybody doesn't follow the law, if they claim to be Christians, take them out. That was Paul's position. He was the ultimate law man. What happened? The Lord made him the ultimate grace man. The ultimate spokesman for grace. Changed him from one extreme to the other. Isn't that phenomenal? The Lord didn't just kind of slowly adjust him. The Lord took him out. Here's Paul who becomes a believer and says, Paul, there's something you've got to learn. Takes him completely over to the other side of the scale.

So anyway, feel free to take your supplement and take a look at that. Now, beyond that, Paul also had a special assignment as an apostle. He was an apostle to the Gentile lands. I say Gentile land because the scripture will say he is an apostle to the Gentiles. In truth, he went to the Gentile lands appealing to both Jews and to the Gentiles, right? That was his special commission and assignment. Now, one of the things we'll also point out, and we will see some evidence of that here in this book of Galatians, is Paul wrote of some things that were unique or almost entirely unique to his writings.

And one of them is that believers have the adoption of sons. We introduced that last week. When we get there in the passage, we'll look at it in far more detail. When we think of adoption, we oftentimes think of adopting a baby or adopting someone who is farther along but still in youth. Adoption in the Roman sense was almost always done to someone who was older, frequently at the time when they were an adult, and it had a phenomenal significance. When Paul wrote, we have the adoption of sons, people were mind-blown at hearing that. Those were shocking words because of the phenomenal privilege that that gave.

Paul was the only one who appealed, and he repeatedly appealed, to this teaching. Paul also uniquely taught about the body of Christ. We saw as we went through Ephesians and Colossians that the apex, the ultimate of teaching on the body of Christ is found in those two books.

Believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote that as he wrote to the church at Ephesus and to the church at Corinth. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit. That has to do with a claim of ownership, a claim of security, and a claim of possession. Alright, now, believers have all been identified and united with Christ.

Those are teachings that Peter writes and writes implying that truth. Paul writes about it repeatedly in detail and we're going to see it particularly in a couple of passages as we go through the book of Galatians here. He also listed and explained spiritual gifts. Peter makes some mention of it, but Paul is the one who lists and explains those spiritual gifts.

Now we have, particularly here in this passage, apostles he's going to talk about. We're going to see some others that he makes a point of mentioning and in some degree describing. And guess what? There's another supplement. They're in the on the cabinet. So that's a listing of the spiritual gifts and what they do, what their purpose is, examples. And so feel free to take your supplements. All right.

The other thing is the Jews and Gentiles are both in Christ. That's something that Paul makes very clear, some reference to it in Peter's writing, but definitely Paul's writing and dead to the law. We'll see it here in the book of Galatians. We will also see it in other books, and we'll make reference to it there, but particularly here. So those three, adoption of sons, we've been identified with Christ, and we're in Christ and dead to the law, those three areas are going to be things that Paul will bring up here in Galatians, that are part of his unique family of teachings.

Alright, so here's this word, apostle. And the Greek word there is apostolos. So we've got an English kind of form of that that we're used to thinking about. This word apostle or apostolos in New Testament times meant a special messenger. It wasn't just a general messenger like take this message somewhere. Tychicus, for example, took the letter of Ephesians and the letter of Colossians, and delivered those. He was a messenger in that sense. But no, Paul was a special messenger by occupation. A general messenger was an angelos.

So that would be a different word. Now, I've got a question here for you. How do you know the difference when you look at it between a messenger, just a straight messenger, because you see him running, right? and the Greek runners. The messengers had clothes on. That's how you can tell the difference.

Now, the English word ambassador conveys much of the meaning of apostolos. We have this idea, a lot of times apostle will get kind of a strange sense of it. If we're trying to think, well what does that mean? Our idea of ambassador has a lot of the same similar idea. Paul was an ambassador for Christ.

In fact, he even refers in those terms. He's a messenger that has a couple of characteristics. He's sent for a special purpose, and he also has a delegated authority. Delegated authority. So those two things. From the one who sent, Jesus Christ being the one who sent him. Now, here are the qualifications of an apostle. There are five of them. If you have five fingers on your hand, you can count them out. I've got one that's a little bent, so you have to forgive that.

One is they had success in evangelism. What does that mean? It means that an apostle was kind of a gift that was an umbrella gift that had several of what would ordinarily be seen as spiritual gifts included in the one. He had a gift of evangelism. Success in evangelism was one of those characteristics.

Another, the capacity to suffer patiently. The capacity to suffer patiently, and many of the apostles, it's clear from scripture, suffered a great deal. There are extra biblical accounts of how a number of the other apostles died. In fact, we have only in scripture clearly written James, the brother of John. the capacity to suffer patiently even unto death.

Thirdly, they received their gift and office by a sovereign decision of God. Paul makes that clear as he begins his letters. I am an apostle by God's appointment. God made the appointment. I didn't appoint myself. And it wasn't some other human being who did it.

Fourthly, he had to have been an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus Christ. The twelve, the ones that we see listed in Acts chapter 1, the twelve had seen Christ as he was resurrected before his ascension. Paul was unique in that regard in that he had seen Christ after he was ascended and resurrected. The fifth there is endowed with power to perform signs, wonders, and miracles.

That is one he is also going to bring up in the book of Galatians here. We're going to see that as we get through the book. Alright, now, the next part, this is interesting because he's got a parentheses. Some of the translations don't quite put it that way, but it is a parenthetical idea at least. So, this is kind of an unusual thing for Paul to have written. Why did he write that?

Alright. We're going to see a little bit more later these Judaizers, and that's not an explicitly biblical term, but one that's been laid on these guys that go around teaching that Christians have to abide by the Law of Moses. They wanted to put all the Gentile believers under the Law of Moses. Give them all the rules. Every single rule. Here's all 613 laws on one slide. Okay? That's the whole thing. Honest. Here's number 143 through 148, just so you won't question it. That really is all 613 laws on one slide. Now, all the Gentiles would have to learn all these laws. You ready? Oh boy. 365 of them are things not to do. The rest of them, things that you must do. And some of them may to us seem rather strange.

This is an unusual parenthesis here, but one of the things that Paul makes a point of, he was not one of the original twelve apostles from Jerusalem, nor sent by them, because that's what the Judaizers were saying, is Paul isn't one of the original twelve. He wasn't sent by the guys from Jerusalem. He's not a valid apostle. Don't listen to him.

You've got to be under the law. That's what the Judaizers were saying. So after he says, Paul, an apostle, is laying down a piece of truth that will help them understand and help establish what is the truth, that he wasn't sent by those in Jerusalem. Paul says, you got that right. I was not sent from Jerusalem. That's not where my authority comes from. He's going to tell them as he gets into this letter that he indeed was not sent. I was not, he said, sent from Jerusalem. Didn't happen. I wasn't sent from there.

I was sent by the Lord Himself. He was sent as an ambassador, a special ambassador by the risen Lord Himself. He had authority through God the Father who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. That's where his authority came from. That's the point he's making. Right at the outset. So they understand very clearly where he came from as an apostle. He came by the Lord's sending. He came by the Lord's deliberate intent.

Then he says, all the brethren who are with me. Okay, you might be wondering, all the brethren who are with me. Now, just how many brethren is Paul talking about here? Well, let's think about this for a minute. Here is Paul, and he's been sent on his first missionary journey to these churches that he's writing to here.

And this is the way the book of Acts says that he was sent on that journey. Acts 13, 1-3. This is on page 2 of your handout. Now there were at Antioch in the church that was there, prophets and teachers, and some specifically are named. There may well have been others, but these are given.

Barnabas, that was the man who went along with Paul on his first missionary journey. Simeon, who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and both of those, by the way, are probably from North Africa, And Manian, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, one of the descendants of Herod the Great, the one that was ordering the babies to be slaughtered in Bethlehem. So, one who had been brought up with him, apparently a family friend or something of that sort. And Saul. later to be called Paul.

So here are some of the leaders of that church, ones who are prophets and teachers, and we see Paul listed among them. Obviously, Barnabas and Saul were ones that were sent, so these others remained, and so there would be these by name, and who knows how many others that were with them that Paul was writing about, the other brethren who were with him.

They were sent from Antioch and they returned to Antioch. So that would make sense that it's the people of Antioch, the brethren that are there, the brethren and sister that are there, that he is writing about. Writing to these four cities. Then he went on his second journey after he had been to the Council in Jerusalem, Acts chapter 15, and then went back through Antioch to give the message about See, the apostles in Jerusalem don't want people to be living under the law, and then went to each of these churches. Each of these four churches that we see referenced to in the book of Galatians.

Remember that the Judaizers had been carrying this message, and he wanted it to be corrected. Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And in verse 5, it is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the law of Moses, all 613 laws. Now, so here Paul and Barnabas were sent on this first missionary journey from the church at Antioch, and by the way, since we have 17 Antiochs, this is Antioch on the Orontes River.

They established these churches in Galatia, and then returned to this church. He wrote this letter, though he doesn't give names, certainly the names that we see in the book of Acts, chapter 13, first few verses, among others, would be included in these brethren who are with him. OK. Now, finally, the last part of there, the churches of Galatia.

This was likely the first of Paul's 13 letters, this one that we're reading here, first out of the 13. The ones we have a copy, he may have written others, and there seems to be indication that he did. But it was also the only one that was explicitly written to a group of churches, that is, out of Paul's letters. All the other letters were written to a specific church or individual believer. Now, we're going to go to Galatians 1, 1 and 2, expanded and explained. You have that on your handout, and I'm going to expand and explain what this is about.

When we went through the book of Philippians, what we did is we, at the end of each time of teaching, went through and had sort of a further explanation and expand the idea so that everything is understood. It makes the passage a little wordy, but it also, I think, makes it easier to understand what everybody is trying to get across. We this morning don't have Bob and Joanne Lockwood with us, but they suggested and we followed up with the idea that we take those and collect them up. And so we have even online that collection of expanded and explained for Philippians. And we'll do the same thing here as we go through Galatians, OK? We'll wait till the end to accumulate it, but at least we'll have it as we go along. So let's step our way through it.

Paul, that being my Gentile name, an apostle, that is, a special messenger and one who is sent by special commission, that is, not sent from any group of human beings, nor through any human being, but by means of Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, And by the way, I have seen the resurrected Lord myself. He was saying that not as I'm passing this along as a piece of secondary information, but I have seen the Lord myself. That's one of his qualifications as an apostle. Verse 2, And all the brethren in Christ of both Jewish and Gentile ethnicity who are with me here in Antioch, to the churches, that is, the local gatherings of believers in Christ in Galatia, which were founded through the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ coming to me personally and sending me personally." This is the expanded and explained understanding, and as we go through Galatians, we'll do this with each passage and then collect them up when we're done.

For a minute here, I'd like us to kind of put ourselves in Paul's shoes. What are we doing? We're wanting to go from the ultimate spiritual tragedy here. So I'm going to describe a tragedy. Don't get too depressed, okay? Alright, hang on. Think of this. You're in Paul's shoes.

The people in whom you've invested a few years of your life, the ones who are the very first fruits of your mission, you've been assigned that mission directly from the Lord. These people, these ones who are near and dear to your heart, whom you have before you in your mind's eye all the time, these are the ones that you've taught the truths given to you directly by the Lord. Can you imagine that? The Lord Jesus Christ taught him these truths. Now, those personal revelations from the Lord Jesus Christ given to you You passed them along and those people listened. The saints whom you poured your life into, you put your life on the line, suffered great persecution. You did that in order to give them the pure and unadulterated gospel directly as you received it from the Lord Jesus Christ. How are we doing so far? How are you doing in Paul's shoes?

These same people were tragically being persuaded to live under the Ministry of Condemnation, that's what the Law of Moses is called in 2 Corinthians 3, Ministry of Death, and by their own lives instead of Christ's own life. They walked right back into bondage. From the ultimate spiritual tragedy, dark, to the ultimate spiritual strategy. If that's a tongue twister, bear with me.

So, what do you say at a time like that? You've been in Paul's shoes, you've walked in Paul's shoes here, and you've kind of gotten a glimpse of what Paul has seen and what he has been put through. I imagine him being floored by what he's heard. What do you say?

He hadn't even said yet that he was writing to the churches of Galatia before he begins directing them to the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. Think of it. When you're feeling like you lost your bearings in life, turn and look to Christ. They've lost direction, badly. What does He do? Points them to Christ. What better thing to do? When the focus on this world and the things, because remember what the law does is it makes this world and us get to be what counts.

Make sure you don't eat that apple with the worm. Don't you touch that lobster. No fair eating shrimp. Be careful what you do on Friday afternoon on into sundown Saturday. Don't you dare work. Even today the Jews have extended that don't work on the Sabbath to having the elevator buttons in Jewish buildings all programmed for each floor so you don't have to push a button. on the Sabbath, because that's work. The individual pieces of toilet paper are already pre-removed, because tearing it off of the roll is work.

That's the mindset. Everything gets focused on here, on planet Earth. What you do, what you don't do, what you eat, what you don't eat. Where you go, where you don't go, how far you go. Everything is focused here. That was the tragedy of the law that he was turning around. When this world is drawing our focus to this world, and it will, even the law will draw our focus to this world. Look what he does. He points to the one who paid his life to buy ours. He points to the one who is really life. No matter where we happen to be, I don't know what kind of a week you've had. I can have some kind of a guess as to what kind of weather we've had. No matter where we happen to be, the call to turn to Christ is always valid. Always. Always. Think of it, that's what our eternity will consist of, won't it? We won't be looking at the clock saying, this look into the Lord is great, but why are we having a coffee break? This worshiping the Lord is just phenomenal, but I'm getting kind of tired. No, instead, we will worship the Lord.

Why not start now? Look to Him now. Behold Him even now. You see, he's going to spend the next six chapters of this book He's going to give us the details here of this ultimate spiritual strategy. But he starts right off. He says, I'm going to give you the details, count on that, but let me just begin right off. I'm going to point you to Christ. I'm going to put your focus upon Christ. The one with whom I spent time personally, The one who taught me directly, Paul says, that risen one that I've seen and spent time with, with whom I have an intimate relationship even now, that's the one I'm going to point you to.

All the time. Every time. No doubt about it. He's going to point our attention to Christ. Isn't that a wonderful thing? Not just head knowledge. Oh, we'll learn some things. But Him. Him. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at your precious Word, how marvelous that we are pointed to and drawn to to behold you, Lord. And as we look at the precious truths of your Word, as we look at the things that you have laid out for our benefit, we pray that indeed every time we would be reminded to look afresh, to look anew at our wonderful, amazing Lord. It is marvelous, amazing grace. We thank you for this precious lesson that Paul has just begun to teach us here. In Jesus' name, Amen.