and Galatians 1:11-12 The Gospel of the Glory of Christ
Acts 26:14-16 · Mike Doyle · Jan 20, 2019
Galatians (2018-20), No. 07
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261913447370

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

My scriptures are Galatians chapter 1 verses 11 and 12. But I think as we go along this morning, hopefully you'll see why I had them read those verses, because I thought that's kind of where the direction we're going to go in. I have a cold, as you can tell, so I'm liable to start hacking. I have water. I have cough drops. So I think I'm prepared. But if you don't understand what I'm saying, raise your hand and I'll cough it up. So, using these passages, and I'll read them so that you kind of know where we're starting.

Galatians chapter 1, verses 11 and 12, Paul says, For I certify, or I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man for I neither received it from man nor was I taught it but I received it through the revelation of Jesus Christ and last week Roger talked a lot about the fact that in the previous verses Paul says if anyone teaches or preaches any other gospel than what I'm preaching to you, let him be accursed. Let him be condemned.

And so, Paul's going to launch now on an effort to explain why he says what he says, because it's a pretty bold statement when you think about it. Stated negatively, Paul says, the question is, why should Paul's gospel be the standard by which all others are judged. I mean, think about it.

Paul was, what, 50 years, 60 years after Christ was born, and probably 15 years after he left the planet. Here's Paul, 10 years. Here's Paul, and he's proclaiming a gospel, and he's bold enough to say, my gospel is it. If there's anything other than, preached anything other than what I say, let him be accursed." Well, he's saying like, this is the only gospel, it is the one gospel which I'm proclaiming. Any variation from this message, you suffer the eternal judgment of God. That's really bold, don't you think?

Because we're talking about 33 years of Christ being on the planet, We're talking about 12 apostles that show up and talk before Paul even shows, even appears on the scene. So I'm thinking that no one has the right to use such language or to make such a claim except God himself. He's the one that can make that claim because he's the one that is God. In Galatians chapter 1, 11 through 24, I think Paul establishes his message as, in fact, it's identical with what God's message is. It's identical. So, I think we must... How do I say this? It must be seen as rising from the words of Galatians 1, 6 through 9, and it answers the question, why does Paul say that? Why does he insist that his gospel is it?

He says in Ephesians 3.8 that unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. We're getting the key there, the unsearchable riches of Christ.

So when Luke read Acts 24, When they had fallen to the ground he said he's in Acts 26 by the way, he's talking to Felix and Festus and he's given a Demonstration to them about his Christianity because there he's he's under arrest and so he's explaining so he tells them how he got saved He said I heard a voice Saying to me in the Hebrew dialect Saul Saul Why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goats. What that means is that in his conscience, the Spirit of God is talking to him and he's resisting.

And I got to thinking, well, when would he have heard information about Christ and who he was? And I think it was when Stephen stood up before the Sanhedrin and gave them what for about their Messiah. And we'll cover some more of that as we go today. And he held the coats while Stephen was stoned to death. So he's heard it, and he's trying to justify in his mind or push against it.

And the Lord said, or he said to the Lord, who are you, comma, Lord? Oh, I have a change of mind right there. We have a change of mind instantly because he says Lord. And the Lord Jesus' answer said, I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting. So Christ assimilates himself with his church. They're one. And then the Lord says to him, get up and stand on your feet. For this purpose, I've appeared to you. What happened there?

Paul sees the glorified Christ in the heavenlies, and he's getting his instructions from the glorified Christ in heaven. So the Lord says to him, I appear to you a minister and a witness of these things, and not only these things, these other things which you have seen, and things which I will also appear to you in the future.

Other than Stephen, this is the second man that has ever seen Christ in glory from the earth. Stephen saw him right before he died. And what he did was he gave his spirit to Christ. He saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father in glory. Paul's ministry starts with that glory. That's his first introduction to who Christ is.

So right away, he's got a little bit different take than anybody else on the earth in terms of what Christianity is all about and what it's going to be about. the significance here, what's the significance of not learning the heavenly truth from man? In other words, what's happened here is there's a movement from the church being an earthly organization and a lot Jewish based, based on what Peter had to say at Pentecost, but now here's a man who has seen Christ in the heavenlies.

And as Roger talked about last week, he said, for do I now persuade men or God? Was Paul wishing to gain favor with God or with men? Or do I seek pleased men? If I please men, I shouldn't be a servant of Christ. So his job is to communicate this, initially this message he saw, of Jesus Christ standing in glory.

He was perfectly aware that this kind of uncompromising message that he had said about, if anybody teaches the gospel other than me, other than the one that I teach, would be obnoxious to most anybody. They would say, well, who do you think you are? And even those, it even produced ill will probably amongst the saints.

So now, the same thing would be called not very loving. If Roger were to stand up here and say, now, the gospel I'm preaching to you today, if you don't buy it, be accursed. You'd say, bye, Roger. And you're not very loving. In fact, it's not the lack of love to speak uncompromisingly, but it is the lack of love to judge those who do.

He says it is the way not to please men, but to please God. It was in that very way that Christ had called him to be a servant. So he says in verse 11, I certify, I certify, which means I'm putting credence to this, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not after men. For I didn't receive it from men, neither was I taught it by men, but by revelation of Jesus Christ." So Paul here really denies three possibilities of teaching, how he learned. So the first thing he says is that what I preached was not according to man.

In other words, men dream of proclaiming a gospel themselves. But the problem is that men would exalt themselves. Men exalt men. by offering blessings to himself and the result is all of their efforts are directed towards them. And the word man in this verse just is a generic word that means all of mankind. And the word according is just a Greek preposition that means introduced as a standard of man. So the gospel doesn't meet, his gospel doesn't meet human criteria because man would always choose to flatter himself and affirm his personal goodness. We talked about that in Sunday school.

Paul's gospel doesn't do that. What it does is that the glad tidings that he's seen, while indeed they bring blessing to men, they do so in a way that brings glory to God and not man. The second issue is The glad tidings that Paul did did not come from men as its source. Paul's gospel was not received by men or from men.

It was a formal expression referring to people in that time that were taught of other men. If you were like Paul, you were taught of Gamaliel and you learned and you memorized and you got everything together and you learned it from a man. Paul is emphasizing how he's different from all of those ways in how he received his gospel. It's not different.

It was not delivered to him via human teaching, but strictly by revelation direct from God. And the last one is, he was not taught the gospel by a man. In other words, God didn't use an intermediary. He didn't reveal this information to one man so that he could tell it to Paul. Paul didn't go up to Jerusalem and talk to the other 12 apostles about, well, what do you think's going on, fellas?

And they said, well, here's the deal. Paul got it directly, directly from revelation of Jesus Christ. So you could say the last half of verse 12, which is a strong adversative sentence setting up a sharp contrast, he says, The words revelation of Jesus Christ may be taken in two ways. You could say, well, he received the revelation about Jesus Christ. Or you could say he received the revelation from Jesus Christ. Which one do you think it is? Obviously, it's the one from him.

So there's something, no doubt, that's extraordinary in the manner in which the Apostle Paul had the gospel made known to him. Now, I repeat this verse because he recognizes who he is. And in Ephesians when he says, to me the very least of all saints, he didn't think of himself as somebody special. He was the least of all saints. Is this grace given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ? and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things. Paul, if you think about it, Paul was not converted like you and I were converted.

How were we converted? Some man or woman or some information came to us through a man, didn't it? And so we either rejected or we believed. In this case, we all believed what we heard through someone who was to come and tell us. Paul didn't come that way. He came directly by a revelation of the Holy Spirit showing him Christ in glory and Christ talking to him. And this increasing knowledge that Paul is going to have about the church is, again, the work of God himself directly to Paul.

He's going to show him the oneness of the body of Christ with Christ in the heavenlies. In Hebrews, it talks about the fact that we're to enter into the Holy of Holies by the blood of Christ. It doesn't explain that you have to be like Christ in order to go in there. But the writer of Hebrews just says, go in and stay there. It pleased God to do that.

When Paul hears from the Lord Jesus that he's persecuting Christ himself, you think it made a connection in his mind very quickly that there's a connection between those people who are of the way, Christians, and this glorified Christ who I have just met. There's a oneness there that no one else had talked about previous to that. He was persecuting the saints, and the Lord says, to persecute them is to persecute me. They were one.

The church, we, the body of Christ, and the Lord Jesus are united. We're not members of Christ's divinity, but we're members of his body. And while he was on earth, We weren't members of his body because the corn of wheat must fall on the ground and die. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. So we died with him and we were united to him in his death, his burial, and his resurrection. So Christ in heaven and the saints on earth are one body. We're united.

And Paul learned that the very day he was converted. So having the substance of this view, the apostle says, I certify, brethren, that the gospel that I preach was not preached to me by any other man, but directly from Christ. So let's just, for example, let's say we took Paul's epistles out of the Bible. We just got the scissors out and we took the 13 epistles out.

What would we miss? What wouldn't be there? What was Paul uniquely commissioned to do? The first thing is that there would be a body of truth so void of spirituality that we would be more Jewish than we are Christian. The body and bride, we wouldn't know anything about being the bride of Christ. We wouldn't know anything about grace. We wouldn't know anything about positional truth, all the things that Paul says about who we are in Christ, nor would we know about our condition. We wouldn't know about identification. We wouldn't know about the heavenly characteristics of the Church. Union with Christ and His Church.

If you take 13 epistles out of the Bible, from Romans to Philemon, You're deprived of almost all Christian doctrine. All of it. For instance, if you were to take Paul's epistles from the Word, you can't find anything about the church being the body of Christ. It's not there. Because none of the other apostles ever talk about Christ and his body.

You wouldn't find anything about the great mysteries of the rapture. of the church, or the present hardening of Israel, you wouldn't find that anywhere. You wouldn't find the great doctrines of propitiation, that 25 cent Christian word, that means Christ's work on the cross satisfied God, totally. You wouldn't know about reconciliation, total and complete. Justification. identification, redemption, or especially sanctification. We wouldn't know anything about that. You can't find what is perhaps the most tremendous fact of every Christian life, the personal union of the believer with Christ. You wouldn't find it in any of the other epistles.

Paul alone is divinely chosen at the very beginning to be the one who lays out that truth for the ages to come. Excuse me, one other thing about that in connection with the gospel. Paul is the only one, and actually it answers one of the questions on your... What should we title Paul's gospel? If you're going to put a title to it, what would you do? Would you call it unique? Would you call it different? I think you'd call it the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ.

Because that's where it started and that's where it ends with him. It's all about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Apostle uses that phrase not merely just, oh he's glorious, but he uses it as the gospel of the glory of Christ. What he's revealing is who Christ is in the glory and our connection with him and how we got there. The true force of this expression is that the gospel of Christ is Christ has been glorified at the right hand of the Father.

You don't learn that from anybody else. The glad tidings that we have a Savior who's risen and ascended and glorified. Paul's information. And we are called to all the special effects that that glory can confer on us, as well as we're called to understand that we did die with Christ on the cross. Other apostles never wrote of the subject of the church being made one with Christ in the heavenlies.

Possibly then Paul was only the one that was in a position to say, If anyone add anything to my gospel, let him be accursed. That's why, I think. Although Paul added something to their gospel, they never added anything to his. Never. I have another question here that isn't on your list, but it's on your paper. It says, can we trace the expanded revelation Paul's gospel can we actually see it? Revealing and growing as we go through the scriptures.

I think if you start in Acts 3 You look at the Peter and James or John and they heal a man at the temple and here's what Peter says He says the times of refreshing shall come From the presence of the Lord and he shall send Jesus Christ who before was preached unto you and whom the heaven must receive until the time of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets since the age began." What's Peter talking about?

He's talking about the church as it exists on the earth and what the expectations of the apostles and the members of the church were. He ends up by saying, this same Jesus which was taken from you into heaven shall come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven." So the focus before Paul shows up on the scene is a church that's on the earth waiting for their king to come and return.

At this juncture they knew that their Lord had gone to heaven but they expected his return. They connected all of their ideas of the place he went to, but he went there to prepare a place for them, and he was going to come and return and take them with him. He promised them in John 14 that that's what he was going to do. And where he said that he was that they should also be at some point. His return to earth was their great primary hope. That's what they were really hoping for. The problem was that fairly soon the leaders of Israel began to persecute the church. And they made life very tough for them.

And in Acts 6 and 7, you run into this really interesting man named Stephen. And what Stephen does is they grab him and they arrest him and they haul him before the Sanhedrin and they want him to explain himself. And he begins to explain who Christ is in terms of the Messiah and King and that he is the Jewish Messiah and that he has started a new thing called the church and he got so they got so excited about what he said so aggressive that they took him out to stone him to death because they just couldn't take in what he was saying about this Jesus Christ And the last time that happened was when John the Baptist was killed and their opposition to Christ, whom John presented, is now at the stoning of Stephen.

It's the same kind of reaction. They openly unmask and expose their hatred and rebellion in their hearts for a glorified Christ. So now an interesting thing happens. I think if you study Acts 6 and 7, and into aid. What you're looking at is a church, and we're even before that, you're looking at a church that their expectations were that Christ was going to return soon and set up the kingdom.

That was their viewpoint. But this little incident with Stephen, Stephen was God's minister to talk to the Sanhedrin, and when they wouldn't accept anything he said and they stoned him to death, they were telling God We don't accept your premise. As a matter of fact, in the very end they say, we will not have this man to rule over us. Guess what? No kingdom. And that's in Act 7. We see that the hope of Christ's return to earth and set up the kingdom, which was the hope of the gospel preached by Peter and the other apostles, can no longer be counted on because they have rejected, the nation of Israel has rejected him.

So Stephen is taken to glory as he sees the glorified Christ. The next big event that happens is in Acts 9, Paul is saved. And he's saved on the road to Damascus. And there's a transition point there, because he sees something different than the other twelve apostles were talking about and preaching about. Saul of Tarsus sees Christ in the heavenlies, glorified, and it has total influence.

I thought one time in my life, how different would it have been for anybody I knew who was a Christian, if that's how they got saved. Because I got saved like you did. Somebody told me about Christ dying for my sins, being buried and resurrected, and I was told that if I believed that, that God would save me for all eternity. But what if I was walking down West Colfax one day, and there goes the light, and I see the glorified Christ in the heavenlies? Do you think it'd have an impact? Yeah, I think so.

Paul's the only one that sees that. And on not only that, he gets instructions about it. So his witness, because Stephen was stoned, here comes Paul, and this is God's expanded revelation as to what he really wants to do with the church. He wants to show them how the grace that he has in mind for them, way beyond what they knew up until that point. So when the glorified Christ says to Paul, I've appeared unto you for this purpose, I came to you to show you a purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things that you've seen, what did he see? He saw the glorified Christ. And of those things which I'll appear to you further. So it's interesting that the Lord Jesus says, here's where we start, Paul, And now I'm going to show you some really interesting things that are mysteries that nobody has seen before.

So, not only Christ risen, but also Christ ascended into glory. Stephen had seen Him there and committed his spirit to Him, but Saul sees Him and is commissioned to be a minister and a witness of those things. Here's the introduction of the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ According to the fullness of God's heart This is what he had in mind the whole time So we've already seen that the salvation through a risen Savior Could be and what could be and was well known and the Saints maintained through the Holy Spirit here on the earth in one mind one soul remembering the death of the Lord and breaking bread. This was while they were still linked to the earth and to the temple services.

And their hope entirely connected with the earth as waiting for the Lord's return to establish His kingdom, Acts 1.6. But now things change. Now have a different or an expanded gospel. But this hope could no longer be presented because, as I said, because of the stoning of Stephen.

And Paul realizes that he's been given this grace to present this information and he is the last, he views himself as the least worthy person on the planet to have this information. The nature and scope of this gospel can best be established by tracing the lines of the truth through Paul's writings. Paul's writings, which like rays emanating from Christ, the center and source, lead the heart back to Christ himself and feed it with an excellency and glory.

Saul's first sermon that he preached, what does he say? He doesn't say Christ the Messiah. He said Christ is the Son of God. That's the first thing he preaches. He's the Son of God in the full orb of who God is. In the epistle to the Romans, Paul says the gospel of God, Romans 1.1, the gospel of his son, Romans 1.9, and my gospel, Romans 16 25. Same thing.

The first characteristic we find is justification by faith, because God's righteousness has been revealed in Christ. The righteousness of God is according to the characteristics of Paul's gospel. The righteousness of God is established in the cross of Christ.

He bearing in himself a judgment on man so that there is an end to that which offended God. He was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. There is an end of man as man is in the flesh. Adam was set aside. The old man was crucified with Christ. Therefore, Therefore, with the righteousness of God, there's another characteristic, namely, the end of man in the flesh. We were talking at Sunday school this morning about, and Courtney was talking about, the issue with God is this. Are you godly or are you not? And it all had to do with God being holy. Holiness, God has set apart unto himself.

He's totally righteous and He's totally good. And if you want to spend eternity with Him, you've got to be just like Him. Well, we're not talking about adding something on to Adam to make him look better or be better. We're talking about a brand new creation in Christ Jesus that is what? It's God-like. It's just like Him.

So, there's an end of man in the flesh. Then comes eternal life. Grace reigns Through the righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord Romans 5 21 Further characteristics are not in the flesh But you're in the spirit Romans 8 9 It is the principle of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which has made me totally free from the principle of sin and death positional truth, but look at that truth and If any man not have the Spirit of Christ, what does it say? He's none of his.

We have the Spirit of Christ. This is all new information, new information. So in closing for today, let's embrace all that is conferred on us by the epistle of Romans and Paul's gospel. Righteousness, the righteousness of God was established in Christ. The judicial ending of the old man. The gift of eternal life. And you remember in John 17 what God said or what Jesus said eternal life was? It's not a commodity in a bottle.

It is to know him and the one who sent him. And not only just know about him, but to know him on his level. In order to do that, you have to be like him. And that's God's big secret. He makes us like Him so that we can know Him. The Spirit of Christ, so that Christ in me is the summing up as well as the fullness of all the blessing that we have in Christ.

So let's close. Let's pray. Our dear Father, how we thank you. It takes probably the rest of all of our lives and then actually be able to leave and go to eternity to enter into and recognize the blessings that you have in store for us as your sons. How thankful we are and we pray in your son's precious name. Amen.