When I was a new Christian, still living in Northern California, I used to pick up hitchhikers, because it was a good opportunity to witness to the gospel. I had a lot of good conversations with people that way, but one response came up again and again. People would tell me things like: “I believe in Jesus, but not in organized religion. I believe in Jesus, but not in the Church; the Church is full of hypocrites.” I remember being startled at how regularly that objection came up. People seemed to have a vague sense of goodwill toward Jesus, but wanted nothing to do with His Church.
I still notice a similar tendency. People want to have a spiritual relationship with Jesus, but they see the Church as more-or-less optional. And, of course, if the Church is optional, as soon as something happens that they don’t like, they stop going. I’ve met people like this, who haven’t attended church in years but who still profess to have some sort of relationship with Jesus Christ.
Here’s something I came across a few years ago. It’s a list of the 10 top reasons one preacher gave for no longer attending sporting events:
10. My father took me to a game every weekend when I was growing up and it was awful.
9. I don’t want to take my children to a sporting event because I want them to choose for themselves what sport they like best when they get older.
8. Every time I go to a sporting event they ask for money.
7. The bleacher seats are too hard and uncomfortable.
6. The people sitting around me on the bleacher seats aren’t very friendly.
5. The games are scheduled at times when I want to do something else.
4. Every now and then a game goes into overtime and I’m late getting home.
3. The pep band plays songs that I don’t recognize and I can’t sing along with them.
2. The coach never comes to visit me in my home between games.
1. And the number one reason that this preacher no longer goes to sporting events: the referees make decisions with which I disagree (taken from a printed sermon by Dr. Robert Ives, “My Heart, Jesus’s Home,” at Elizabethtown BIC Church, May 12, 2002).
I used to use the same excuses that I’ve heard others use. I remember saying, before I was a Christian, “the Church is full of hypocrites.” I’d heard others say it, and it sounded like it must be true. Of course, I didn’t know many Christians at the time, so I really didn’t know what I was talking about. The thing I’ve noticed over the past 29 years is that there are lots of hypocrites around, and some of them are Christians. There are lots of people who pretend to be something that they’re not. People in sales, or politics, or advertising are especially tempted in this way; people in leadership often feel like they need to present a certain “image” to be successful, and often that image is a lie. People who do that habitually are hypocrites; they’re phony’s, pretenders, people who are pretending to be something they’re not. The thing that hasn’t been clear to me is that these kinds of people are more plentiful in the Church than they are anywhere else.
We saw, last week, that Paul is concerned about more than his individual relationship with Jesus. He’s part of something bigger than himself; he’s involved in more than just his own spiritual journey. St. Cyprian, writing in the early 200's, said that “Without the church as mother one cannot have God as father” and “Outside of the church there is no salvation” (quoted by Roger Olson, The Story of Christian Theology, p. 114). That sounds strange to us in the early 21st century, because we’re so used to thinking of salvation in individualistic terms. But the truth is that God does not deal with us individualistically. He graciously calls in the context of our daily lives, and then as we turn to Him we find that we are part of His Church, the bride He’s preparing for His Son. God is building His Church, and He mercifully and graciously includes us.
Paul is demonstrating to the Galatians that he is a true apostle. The churches there have been under the influence of false teachers, and one of the areas these teachers have been attacking is Paul’s apostleship. They want to undermine his message, and one way to do that is by saying that he is not a genuine apostle at all. Paul is at a disadvantage, in many ways, because he came along after all the other apostles and began his relationship with the Church as a persecutor.
The whole reason Paul has written this letter to the Galatians is to defend the true gospel and to undermine the influence of these false teachers. But part of that task is defending his own calling as an apostle, because the authority of his message is tied to that calling. That’s why he stresses so strongly that he wasn’t taught the message by another person but received it directly from Jesus Christ. The message he preached at Galatia was a message from God Himself, because Paul is a true apostle, one set apart by God and sent out to deliver a message.
So he’s demonstrating to the Galatians that he is a true apostle, but his purpose is not to denigrate the other apostles. Paul isn’t asserting his independence. He’s not saying, “these people have no right to tell me what to do or say.” He’s showing the Galatians that he is part of the group, that he and the original 12 apostles preach the same message. Peter was the apostle to the Jews, and it’s likely that the Galatians thought they were aligning themselves with Peter. They wanted to follow the teaching of those who said it was necessary for salvation to put themselves under the ceremonial law of the Old Testament. And, no doubt, they thought they were in good company. Surely Peter, the apostle to the Jews, would be in agreement with them.
Paul’s point is that this is simply not true. It’s not that the Galatians are aligning themselves with Peter. The Galatians are departing from the apostolic message. If they keep going in this direction, they’ll be cutting themselves off from the Church, the Church founded by the apostles. They’ll become a cult, a heretical sect cut off from the body of Christ. Paul wants the Galatians to see, not his independence from the other apostles, but that he and the other apostles preach an identical message. Paul wasn’t taught by them, but Jesus gave him the same message that He’d given to the original twelve. When Paul met with them and told them the message he was preaching to the Gentiles, he says “those men added nothing to my message.” They saw that his message was the same as theirs, that there was nothing missing. So he goes on: “On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews.... James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go the the Gentiles, and they to the Jews.” They’re part of the same One Church, preaching the same gospel; if the Galatians follow these false teachers, they’ll be putting themselves out of the Church, and it’s the Church that has the message of salvation.
We need the help of the Church to stay on track spiritually. The Bible is our only infallible authority, but people often misread the Bible. Most false teachers claim to be getting their messages out of Scripture. And not everyone has the time or the gifts to examine and refute every false teaching that comes along. That’s why we’re part of a larger body; and it’s as we all make use of our gifts that together we make up the body of Christ. But that body includes many who are now in the Lord’s presence. Charles Hodge was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary in the 19th century who had some helpful things to say about the importance of listening to these people who went before us in the Church: "Protestants, in rejecting the doctrine of tradition, and in asserting that the Word of God as contained in the Scriptures... is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, do not reject the authority of the Church as a teacher. They do not isolate themselves from the great company of the faithful in all ages, and set up a new faith. They hold that Christ promised the Holy Spirit to lead his people into the knowledge of the truth; that the Spirit does dwell as a teacher in all the children of God, and that those who are born of God are thus led to the knowledge and belief of the truth.... Any doctrine, therefore, which can be proved to be a part of the faith... in all ages of the world, must be true. It is to be received not because it is thus universally believed, but because its being universally believed by true Christians is a proof that it is taught by the Spirit both in his Word and in the hearts of his people.... From the faith of God's people no man can separate himself without forfeiting the communion of the saints, and placing himself outside the pale of true believers" (Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, pp. 249‑250). Paul wants the Galatians to know that the gospel he preached to them is the same message they would hear in the churches of Judea, the same message they would hear from the apostle Peter.
Paul wants the Galatians to know that “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:4-6). They can’t abandon the gospel without also putting themselves outside the Church. Are there hypocrites in the Church? Yes. Will people in the Church let us down? Yes. Paul goes on to show, a little later, that even Peter, the leader of the original 12 apostles, continued to fail in significant ways. The Church is made up of people who believe the gospel, who are in the process of being transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. But the process isn’t complete, so the people of the Church are imperfect. But here’s the important thing: we don’t have the right to leave the Church because of that imperfection. And if we do leave, we’re cutting ourselves off from the body that Paul calls the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). We’re cutting ourselves off from the body of Christ. Leaving the Church because of the failings of others is like jumping out of the ark because you’re sick and tired of dealing with Noah and his family. You’re abandoning the only safe place because you’re irritated with some of the other people who’ve found refuge there.
The Galatians were on the verge of abandoning the Church by believing a different message. But people leave the Church for all different kinds of reasons then try to persuade themselves that they’re still on track spiritually (I'm not talking about leaving one particular church and going to another, I'm talking about abandoning the church altogether). Paul had one of the most brilliant minds in the ancient world, and he also had an exceptionally strong personality. I suspect he had his share of personality conflicts in the Church (we know that he and Barnabas split up their missionary team over a conflict). He was a great thinker. But he didn’t set out on his own. He preached the message he’d been given as a part of the one true Church, the body of Christ. And his commitment to the Church is a model for us. The Church of Jesus Christ is the ark of salvation. It’s the only safe place of refuge in this fallen world.
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