2 Corinthians 1

CHAPTER 1

 

Greetings (1:1-5)

1 Paul was an APOSTLE appointed directly by God and by Jesus Christ. He did not receive this appointment through any man. In the New Testament, an apostle was one who had received special authority from Christ to preach the Gospel and to establish churches. Most of the New Testament apostles had seen the resurrected Christ with their own eyes. Paul had seen Jesus while traveling to the city of Damascus to persecute the Christians there (see Acts 9:3-6; 26:12-15; 1 Corinthians 15:8). At that time he received from Jesus the appointment to be an apostle to the Gentiles, that is, to all non-Jews (Acts 9:15; 26:16-18). And now Paul writes to the Galatians—and to us—with the full authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let the Galatians, therefore, heed Paul’s word. And let us do likewise (see Romans 1:1; Ephesians 1:1 and comments).

Notice here that Paul has been called by both Jesus Christ and God the Father. Christ and the Father are one God. They always do everything together. Even though in some verses only Christ is mentioned and in other verses only God is mentioned, we must remember that they always work together.

We Christians today have also, like Paul, been called to serve Christ. Even though we do not have the special authority that Paul received, nonetheless we have all been appointed to be disciples and co-heirs of Christ. Let us not suppose that it is only special apostles who can do Christ’s work. God has given each of us our own work to do for Him, and He also through the HOLY SPIRIT gives us the necessary grace and strength to do that work. Jesus Himself said: “… anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).

2 It is not certain which Galatian churches Paul is addressing in this verse. Many Bible scholars believe that Paul is writing to the churches in the southern Galatian cities of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (see Acts 13:14; 14:1,6,21-22; 16:1-2). Paul had visited all these cities on his first and second missionary journeys.

3 Paul prays for GRACE and PEACE for his readers. Grace and peace are the two main pillars of the Gospel. First grace; then peace. Grace is always first. Everything ultimately comes from the grace of God. By grace we are called. By grace our sins are forgiven. By grace we are saved. By grace we are justified and made holy, and by grace we have peace with God. Without grace there is no Gospel of Christ. Because of God’s grace, Christ came to earth and gave himself for our sins (verse 4). Grace is the undeserved, unlimited, freely given love and mercy of God. Let us never stop praising God for the glory of His grace (see Romans 1:7; Ephesians 1:2,6 and comments).

Again notice that grace and peace come from both God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ together. God and Christ are one (see John 10:30 and comment; General Article: Jesus Christ).

4-5 Christ gave himself for our sins. His sacrifice is complete and fully sufficient for our salvation. We need do nothing but place our faith in Christ.

Christ rescues us from the present evil age—that is, the world. The world is Satan’s kingdom; Satan is the prince of this world (John 16:11). Christ doesn’t take us out of the world; rather, He rescues us from the evil of the world (John 17:15).

No Other Gospel (1:6-10)

6-7 Paul is astonished at the behavior of the Galatians. The Galatians had only recently received the Gospel of grace, and now so quickly they had begun to turn from it.

Some Jewish Christians had come from Jerusalem and were trying to persuade the new Galatian believers to follow a different gospel, a “gospel” of salvation by works instead of by grace, and were thereby throwing the Galatians into confusion (verse 7). But their “gospel” is no gospel at all, says Paul. There is only one GOSPEL—the Gospel of salvation by grace.

What a sad and frightening thing these Galatians were doing! They had received the free and unlimited grace of God through the preaching of Paul. Now they were deserting both Paul and the God who had called them. They were denying and throwing away God’s grace.

Paul is writing to oppose these false teachers who were trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. They were teaching that Christ alone could not save men, but that to be saved it was necessary also to obey the Jewish law. Such teaching makes the grace of Christ of no account. When grace is taken out of the Gospel, no Gospel remains. Paul does not want to see his spiritual children turned from the true Gospel in this way.

There is something that we must keep in mind as we read this letter. Paul is writing here about some Jewish Christians who were giving the Galatians the false teaching that it was necessary to follow the Jewish law to be saved. For us, this serves as an example of similar kinds of false teaching that continue to threaten Christian churches right up to this present time. No matter what country we are from, there are always those who teach that it is necessary to follow some law, or some religious custom or ritual in order to be saved. This is an utterly false and dangerous teaching. The truth is that only by God’s grace is man saved. This is the essence of the Gospel of Christ.

8-9 From these verses we learn how great, how important is God’s work, God’s Gospel. We dare not change God’s Gospel in any way. No preacher or teacher—not even an ANGEL—has the authority to change God’s word. To preach and teach God’s word is a heavy and awesome responsibility. We must preach and teach it faithfully, because if we preach a Gospel contrary to what is in the Bible, we shall be eternally condemned by God.

Let those who hear the word also take heed to hold fast to the one true Gospel, and not let themselves be deceived by false teachers.

10 Paul’s opponents in Galatia, that is, these Jewish Christians, accused Paul of trying only to please men. They said that when Paul taught that it was not necessary to follow the Jewish law, he was merely trying to make the Galatian Gentile believers happy; he was trying to make it easy for them to obtain salvation.

But Paul says here that he is not trying to please men (see 1 Timothy 2:6). Indeed, Paul is about to sternly rebuke the Galatians in this letter. Paul says here that it is a very difficult thing to please men and at the same time be a servant of Christ. No matter what other men think, a servant of Christ must preach the Gospel faithfully (1 Thessalonians 2:4). The preacher’s supreme purpose is this: to honor Christ and to lead men on the path to salvation (1 Corinthians 9:19,22-23).

Paul Called by God (1:11-24)

11-12 In these verses, Paul tells the Galatians that he is a true apostle. He preaches the true Gospel, which he received directly by revelation from Jesus Christ (verse 12). Paul first received this revelation when the risen Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-5).

The Gospel of Christ is not something that man made up. Apart from Judaism and Christianity, the other religions of the world are derived from the philosophy and ideas of men. But the Gospel of Christ is not like that. It is the good news of what God Himself has done. It is the full and final truth about God and about the way to obtain salvation.

Usually we Christians first receive the Gospel from hearing the preaching of other men or from reading the Bible. Sometimes we receive teaching directly from Christ through His Holy Spirit. Whenever we receive direct teaching through the Holy Spirit, it is never a new or different teaching. The Holy Spirit always agrees with what is written in the Bible.¹ Paul, however, received the Gospel from Christ Himself, before the New Testament was written. If Paul had received the Gospel from some other man, he would have in a way been “lower” than that man. He would have been a “student apostle,” or an “under-apostle.” But Paul is fully equal with the other apostles like Peter (Cephas), John, and James (verse 9). No man has taught him the Gospel. He is a true apostle, and he teaches the true Gospel. Let the Galatians not doubt that!

And let us who study this letter of Paul not doubt it either. In the world today there are many doubters and agnostics. They say: “How can man know the truth? He can’t.” They also say: “All religions are good and beneficial, and all lead men to heaven.” But such people think wrongly. The Gospel of Christ is the one and only true Gospel. Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

13-14 Paul here reminds the Galatians of the great change that had taken place in his life. With such great severity and violence he had persecuted the church of Christ in the beginning! (Acts 8:3; 9:1-2; 22:4). How strictly and zealously he had followed Judaism,² the religion of the JEWS (Acts 22:3; Philippians 3:4-6). The Jews believed that only through obeying the Jewish law could man be saved, and Paul had shared completely in this belief. But now Paul’s main message is that man is saved only by grace through faith in Christ—this same Christ whose followers he had initially persecuted so intensely. Only God Himself could have brought about such a great change in Paul’s life.

15 God had appointed Paul to be His apostle before he was even born. In the same way, God appoints each one of us from birth—indeed, from before birth (Psalm 139:13-16). In fact, He has chosen us from before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). God does not choose us according to our own works or worthiness, but only according to His grace. Paul says here: God called me by his grace (see 1 Corinthians 15:9-10). We do not earn or merit our calling; God calls us before we are born.

For what does God call us? First, He calls us to be saved. Second, together with being saved, He calls us to be His adopted children (Ephesians 1:5), to be co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). Third, God calls us to some task or service that He has prepared for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). Paul’s special service was to preach the Gospel to the GENTILES (verse 16).

16 Paul writes here: God was pleased to reveal His Son in me.³ It is not enough that Christ be revealed “to” us; He must also be revealed in us. Christ—that is, Christ’s Holy Spirit—must dwell in us, or else our religion will be but a hollow form and our lives will have no spiritual power.

17 For three years after his conversion, Paul did not meet with the other apostles such as Peter and James, the Lord’s brother. He did not receive teaching from any other man. He was taught directly by God and by Christ.

After his conversion, Paul went away into Arabia for a period, but it is not known what he did there. Perhaps he spent the time in prayer and in meditation on the Old Testament Scriptures, in the course of which he learned further about the work God had called him to do.

After his time in Arabia, Paul returned to Damascus,⁴ which is where he had first gone after his conversion. Then, after three years in Damascus, Paul finally went up to Jerusalem⁵ (verse 18).

We see from this that for Paul a time of preparation was needed. This is surely true for all of us. We do not immediately become mature Christians. God wants to prepare each one of us, and that takes time. For Moses, the great Old Testament leader of the Jews, the special time of preparation lasted forty years. In fact, it wasn’t until Moses was eighty years old that he was ready to do the work that God had called him to do (Exodus 7:7; Acts 7:23,30). Let us not think, therefore, that we can be ready immediately!

By God’s grace we are called. By God’s grace we are prepared. Each of us is being prepared continually day by day, and so we shall continue to be prepared until we die. All of us need to learn more and more of the depths and the glory of God’s grace.

All is by grace. By God’s grace the stars and planets are held in their courses. By God’s grace the right distance is preserved between earth and sun, so that we neither melt with heat nor freeze with cold. By God’s grace we breathe, we eat, we laugh, we live. God does not need man’s puny efforts to accomplish His purposes. All is accomplished by His grace. Neither does God’s love for us depend on what we do for Him. He doesn’t love us because of what we do; He loves us because of what we are—that is, His own children. And we are His children purely through His grace. Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us seek to live our whole lives to the praise of his glorious grace (Ephesians 1:6).

18 Three years after his conversion Paul finally met Peter.⁶ Paul did not learn to be an apostle from Peter. Paul and Peter were equal in apostolic authority. But why does Paul feel the need to write this? The reason is because Paul’s enemies in Galatia were saying that Peter was a genuine apostle, but that Paul was not.

This first visit of Paul to meet Peter is also described in Acts 9:26-30.

19-20 The other apostles mentioned here are mainly the original twelve disciples of Jesus (minus Judas Iscariot). But in addition to the Twelve, there were other apostles also, among whom was James, the brother of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:7). At the time Paul wrote this letter to the Galatians, James was the main leader of the “mother church” in Jerusalem (Acts 21:18; Galatians 2:9). Here Paul says that on that visit he did not meet with any of the other apostles except James.

21 Paul stayed in Jerusalem for only fifteen days (verse 18). He did not preach in the surrounding province of Judea. Instead, he left the area and went to preach to the Gentiles in Syria and Cilicia.⁷

22-24 The churches of Judea, the southern province of Israel, remembered Paul (or Saul) as a persecutor. They had heard all about his evil deeds. But because Paul did not preach in Judea, the Judean Christians did not get the chance to become acquainted with the new Paul, the apostle of Christ. Nevertheless, they heard about Paul’s preaching in Syria and Cilicia, and they praised God because of him. Those whom Paul had once persecuted were now thanking God for him. But the new Galatian Christians, whom Paul had never persecuted, were turning away from him. Those whom he had loved like a father from the beginning had begun to reject him.

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