1:6-7. 6I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

Paul wastes no time in coming to the point! The Galatians are turning from the Gospel of grace to what seems to be a different Gospel. They are deserting him, his message, his God, his Christ.

Paul is shocked. He reserves his harshest words for the deceivers, but he is seriously agitated, troubled, with the deceived. He can’t believe it!

Luther suggests here that one should soothe a child bitten by a dog but condemn the dog! That will be Paul’s approach a little later. But his grief cannot be hidden at first.

Of course, he says, there really is no other Gospel. There is not a true Gospel and a false Gospel. Or a normal Gospel and a “Full Gospel,” as we hear in our day. Not a “regular Gospel” and a “Gospel of the Kingdom,” as we also have dangled before our eyes.

When you hear a definition of Good News, it is either the Gospel or not the Gospel. It is the Gospel or a perverted formula of words which is not to be accepted as Gospel. No personal opinions are allowed on this! We will speak more of this in verses 8 and 9.

Some evil teachers had come in and were trying to distort Paul's message. We know them today, these first century perverters of the Truth, as “Judaizers.” They came out from Jerusalem but were not necessarily sent out by the Jerusalem eldership. They were establishment. Men who had been around, probably from the beginning. They had perhaps even seen and known Jesus. They knew about and maybe participated in, Pentecost.

But something inside of them would not accept the idea that Moses was to go, that Moses was now past tense. They had been “good Jews” for so long that it irked them to think they would have to give all their family tradition away just to follow this Jesus. So, they didn’t. They accepted Jesus’ message and perhaps His Person. But they would not ask Moses to please exit the back door. They were attempting to enshrine both men in their hearts.

Their passion for the Law was so great that they became obsessed with the idea of following Paul around, and when he left a city or church, they would show up in that same congregation and correct the apostle.

Luther mentions that perhaps they considered Paul an upstart. He was new to this whole Christian thing, even though his Jewish credentials were strong enough. He must be confused a bit and needed some time to grow up in these new things of God. They would educate the churches about Paul, let them know that there was no need to do away with the works of the Old Covenant. Paul was an extremist.

Even though most of Paul’s new people were Gentiles, the Judaizers encouraged even them to add Moses and all he taught alongside Jesus and His new teachings. Circumcision, they said, is still a sign of the covenant. Get circumcised, men. These old laws were made for our good. Follow them! The Temple stands, go there, do what the priests tell you.

In church after church the Judaizers attempted to squash the life out of Paul’s converts. Their attempts were becoming fruitful.

Paul rushed back to do something but much of the damage was done. He brought the issue before the eldership at that point, and wrote this scathing rebuke that we now read, to the Galatian churches.

Paul was so grieved! He had seen people coming to the birth in Christ, and now it was as though a wild animal had invaded the nursery and was tearing out the eyes and ears and limbs of all the little babies lying there. What could he do?

In Luther’s day, the application of this epistle could easily be made to Popes, cardinals, bishops, monks – and Luther made it – who did, in his opinion, far worse than the Judaizers. In Romanism, said Luther, not only a law commanded by the Bible [Moses] was enjoined on the people as salvific, but works never even commanded by God but made up by Roman decrees.