Bewitched

A Different Gospel

^{Galatians 1:6}I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another (heteron) gospel: ⁷Which is not another (allo); but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

According to the King James version, it seems that Paul could not make up his mind; is it another gospel or isn’t it? I have not found an English version that captures the essence of Paul’s point, so I will have to resort to the Greek to clarify what Paul is saying, in a way that makes sense.

The first time Paul speaks of another gospel, he uses the word, heteron. One need not be a Greek scholar to recognize this word as meaning different. Heterosexual is someone who, in contemporary terms, is straight: someone attracted to a someone of a different sex. 

The second time Paul speaks of another gospel, he uses the word, allo, meaning similar.

What Paul is saying is that the Galatians have embraced a different gospel, which is not even similar to the one he had preached.

Anathema

^{Galatians 1:8}But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed (anathema).

Paul has harsh words for those who preach a different gospel – anathema. This word is the same in the Greek and the English. It means a formal ecclesiastical ban, curse, or excommunication. 

What was simple in Paul’s day is not so simple in our day. There are many who have been brought into the kingdom of God under the guise of this different gospel, and now claim that theirs is the gospel of Paul, and that any other gospel than the one they received is foreign. I would not contest the salvation of those who have found Jesus Christ in this manner, but the ones who preach the different gospel test Paul’s patience, to put it mildly.

So which gospel is Paul’s and which is the different gospel?

Bewitched

^{Galatians 3:1}O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? ²This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? ³Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

How can we know which gospel is Paul’s gospel and which is another gospel? In this verse Paul elaborates on characteristics of the “other” gospel.

The crux of Paul’s argument is that, although they had received the Spirit by the hearing of faith, they continued their walk by the flesh. What does that look like? Let us take a closer look at one trusted source of Evangelical teaching, Evangelical Convictions, an Evangelical Free Church of America publication.

Begun in the Spirit

We believe that the true church comprises all who have been justified by God’s grace through faith alone in Christ alone.

This is the opening line in the EFCA Statement of Faith under the heading, Church, Article 7. This is a good beginning, the right place to start. This is what it looks like to receive the Spirit by the hearing of faith.

From there, everything goes south.

The Great Commandment

^{Matthew 22:35}Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, ³⁶Master, which is the great commandment in the law? ³⁷Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind ³⁸This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

A hotly contested issue at the time, Jesus, in answering this question settled it once and for all. This is almost universally recognized as the Great Commandment. Jesus said it; who could argue?

However, please look closely at the question Jesus was asked, and who asked it. Which is the great commandment in the law? The question was asked by a lawyer, one familiar with the law of Moses. Of all the commandments in the law of Moses, which was the greatest? The Greek word for greatest is megas, referring to its physical size. The idea is that these commandments encompass the greatest number of the commandments of the law. That was the question that Jesus answered.

The law of Moses was the law under the old covenant. With the introduction of the new covenant came a new set of commandments.

^{John 15:10}If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

Jesus made a clear distinction between his Father’s commandments and his own commandments. Under the new covenant, a new law was established.

^{Romans 8:2}For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 

This new law was to set us free from the law of sin and death. It was called the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This is the law of the new covenant, where sins are remembered no more, where the law would be written upon our hearts, where I will be their God, and they will be my people.

A Closer Look

Please examine closely the language of the Great Commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. When Mark speaks of the Great Commandment, he adds with all your strength.

Let’s focus on strength and emphasize a different word: all your strength. The strength with which you love is all yours, none of it is God’s. 

Consider the second commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. That is also devoid of God. You can do your best, but it accounts to nothing.

That is why the law of Moses is referred to as the law of sin and death, because it was to be obeyed apart from God, the very definition of death.

^{Romans 8:3}For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

When it comes to obeying the Great Commandment, our strength, even all our strength, is weakness; the flesh is weak. No one is saved by the works of the law.

^{Galatians 3:12}And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.

After Jesus answered the question, he said that on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. When you pick up the two commandments, you are actually picking up all of them. The law of Moses is not of faith.

^{Romans 10:3}For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Under the old covenant, the Holy Spirit did not indwell the person, so they had no choice but to do things on their own. Under the new covenant, the Holy Spirit indwells believers, but they still have a choice whether to submit to the righteousness of God and yield their members as instruments of righteousness to God, or continue to act apart from God, continue to love with strength that is limited to their strength, being ignorant of the righteousness of God. That is what it looks like to continue in the flesh.

^{Romans 8:1}[There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

We picture walking after the flesh as living in lust, but walking after the flesh is living within the limitations of your own means instead of yielding your members to God as instruments of righteousness and relying on the strength of the Spirit. Being driven by the objective to obey the law of sin and death, with all your strength, is living after the flesh.

^{Romans 8:13}For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

We think of mortifying the deeds of the body as eliminating sin from our lives. That puts our focus on sin. Under the New Covenant, sin is remembered no more. The deeds of the body are the things we do apart from God, apart from the Spirit, that includes things we might consider as good things.

The New Commandment

^{John 13:34}A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

Look at the language of the second half of the new commandment. The first part resembles the Great Commandment, love your neighbor as yourself, but the second part is extremely different: as I have loved you. And how has he loved us?

^{John 15:9}As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

Jesus loves us as the Father loved him, with the strength of the Holy Spirit, and we are to love one another as he has loved us, with the strength of the Holy Spirit.

The Perverted Gospel

Now consider a goal of the EFCA Statement of Faith, as stated in Item 3 in the EFCA document, Distinctives of the Evangelical Free Church of America.

We join with other Christians and other denominations of like, precious faith in common goals and ministries to accomplish the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

Put aside, for the moment, whether EFCA accurately speaks for the entire Evangelical Movement. Although they reach souls for the kingdom of God with their message of grace, faith, and Christ, what they have embraced is the epitome of the different gospel of which Paul warned us: beginning in the Spirit and attempting to be perfected by the flesh. They begin by faith, but purpose to continue in their walk by attempting to accomplish the law, the Great Commandment, something that had already been fulfilled by Jesus.

In Romans 8:13, Paul says that we are to mortify the deeds of the flesh. The stated goal of the Evangelical Free Church is to accomplish the deeds of the flesh, not mortify them. There is definitely a conflict here. The Evangelical gospel is a different gospel, not even similar to Paul’s gospel.

This is not an oversight that can be fixed by deleting one sentence. This is pervasive throughout the EFCA doctrinal statements in all three forms, the Statement of Faith, the Distinctives of the Evangelical Free Church of America, and Evangelical Convictions. The doctrine could perhaps be fixed in the first two documents, but Evangelical Convictions, although extremely well written and a pleasure to read, would require a rewrite from the ground up.

Although I consider this one issue to be a major doctrinal misstep, it is only the tip of the tip of the iceberg of what is wrong with the Evangelical movement.

Why It Matters

The Commandment of the New Covenant is the New Commandment. The New Commandment is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. If you introduce people to the New Covenant and all it promises, but don’t educate them on the law of the New Covenant works, you are crippling them. Their priority is to clean up their lives of sinful behavior, rather than bearing the fruit of righteousness.

Under the Old Covenant, our account kept track of sin. Under the New Covenant, our account keeps track of righteousness, or fruit. Under the Hybrid Covenant, you begin in faith but continue in the flesh. Those who preach that gospel are anathema – not my words.