Galatians 1:7 - Homiletics

The true character of the perverters.

The apostle says that the "different gospel" to which they were verging was really not another ( ἀλλὸ )—not a second gospel. He abruptly corrects his phraseology so as to forbid the idea of the possibility of another gospel. There is only one gospel—"the gospel of Christ." The gospel of the Judaists, though it formally accepted Christianity, revealed a different way of justification. If it is a gospel at all, it is only in this sense, that it is an attempt to pervert the gospel of Christ. The passage suggests—

I. THAT THE PERVERTERS WERE WELL - KNOWN PERSONS . "Certain persons." The allusion is not to their fewness or their insignificance. He speaks of them in this manner without conferring any celebrity upon them, or exciting personal animosity against them. They may well rest in oblivion.

II. IT SUGGESTS TWO CHARACTERISTIC QUALITIES IN THEIR CAREER .

1 . Their unsettling influence. "They trouble you." They disturbed the minds of quiet and honest Christians by unhinging doubts. They disturbed the peace of Churches by the cleavage of new doctrines. They created schisms and rivalries that led to the weakening of Christian love, and ultimately made way for Christians "biting and devouring one another" ( Galatians 5:15 ).

2 . Their downright perversions of the gospel. "They would pervert the gospel of Christ. So far as the Galatians were concerned, it had not become a case of actual perversion. But there could be no doubt about the tendency of the Judaist teaching. It was a reversal of the gospel, not merely by mingling law and gospel, but by practically neutralizing all the merit of Christ which is the great characteristic fact of the gospel.