God’s Word for You

Galatians 1:8 Anathema

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, May 24, 2024

8 But even if we or an angel from heaven would preach any gospel alongside the one we preached to you—we must curse him!

Verse 9 will express a similar thought. The difference is that here, the “improbable if not incredible” occurrence (“even if we or an angel from heaven”) should preach like this, but verse 9 sets out a very likely and actually provable situation (“if anyone should preach like this”). Like what? The content of the preaching is a gospel, a so-called gospel or sham gospel, alongside the gospel that Paul and Barnabas had preached, proclaimed, and taught to the Galatians.

We need to explain the curse, of course, but first, let’s look at Paul’s Greek words, “any gospel alongside the one we preached to you.” There is a similar expression in the Greek translation of Daniel 3:19, where Nebuchadnezzar heats the fiery furnace “seven times ‘beyond, beside’ (παρ’ ὃ) what it needed to burn.” Again, Paul says to the Romans, “Do not think of yourselves ‘beyond’ what you should” (Romans 12:3). Here, he describes a gospel that is preached either in place of or alongside the one already preached. Either would be equally disastrous. In the First Commandment, God says, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). The “before me” (Hebrew al-panay) shows that no deity should supplant or replace him in our hearts—heaven forbid! But God will equally not tolerate any other god on the throne with him or beside him. That would be an act of rebellion; an act of war, just as when David’s sons Absalom and Adonijah both tried their hands at replacing their father, forgetting that they were trying to outdo the apple of God’s eye and the greatest military leader in the history of Israel. And just as God will tolerate no other deity on his throne with him, so also he will not tolerate any path to enter into his heaven apart from the one he has already given to mankind, “for there is no other name under heaven give to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). So “alongside” is every bit as wicked and intolerable as “besides” in the matter of the gospel of salvation. What Christ has done for us all stands by itself: completely sufficient, thorough, and done.

As to the one (even “we or an angel from heaven”) who might try to bring something else along? Paul speaks strongly because it is a dire emergency. Luther was a master of debate and rhetoric, and he said: “Paul curses himself first, for clever debaters usually begin by criticizing themselves, in order that then they may be able to reprove others more freely and more severely” (LW 26:55).

So let someone try this, let them set something up on God’s throne in addition to Christ as a way to heaven, and what will happen? Curse them! The Greek term anathema (ἀνάθεμα ἔστω) has even come into English: Anathema! This was a thing totally cursed by God, doomed to destruction. “The city of Jericho and everything in it is to be ἀνάθεμα forever” (totally destroyed, never to be rebuilt, Joshua 6:17). And when the men of Judah and Simeon completely destroyed the Canaanite city of Zephath, they called it Hormah, which in Greek is Anathema (Judges 1:17).

In practical terms, what does that mean for the Christian who hears a false teacher? Total separation: Don’t believe him, don’t listen to him, don’t associate with him. Do not let any of this theological yeast into your heart, for it will only damage, hurt and kill. Why? Because the word of God is precious and has supreme authority. Also, even a tiny amount of that yeast, that false doctrine, will begin to contaminate the whole lump. And, we won’t let it go without saying: As an act of love, we will let the false teacher know that his teaching is false, so that God’s word might work repentance and bring him around from his false teaching. For even a little bit of false teaching, something that is “well meant,” cannot be allowed to stand. The synergists teach that redemption is impossible unless man contributes something to it, no matter how small. Now, their teaching really stems from an attempt to explain why some people are converted and others are not. But since they do not treat God’s word as the only authority for doctrine, they let their imaginations run wild, and have come up with a doctrine that sets Christ aside just as the gospel-twisting Judaizers did in Galatia.

The warning is a command to Christians. We must declare false teachers to be teaching falsely, and to be condemned. Surely if God said that something as minor as false measures in the marketplace were to be accursed (Micah 6:10), how much more must false teachers be held to account. We cannot turn a blind eye to errors flying out of the pulpit. If Christian churches continue to join together without any concern for one another’s doctrinal errors, they will eventually make the bizarre claim that as long as someone claims to love God, that no false doctrine exists or is even possible. What they will do with Paul’s contrarian Epistle to the Galatians is anybody’s guess; most likely it will be ignored, just as the law sections of Isaiah and Jeremiah and the rest of the prophets are ignored. A Professor in our seminary wrote with alarm about “the growing infidelity to the Scriptures as the verbally inspired, inerrant Word of God. One major reason for this is the fact that more and more churches are determined, if and when they set up statements of faith, to follow the principle expressed in a song popular some time ago: ‘Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.’ As a result error is not eliminated either, is not even exposed, but rather tolerated and swept under the rug. The saddest thing in all this is, that precious souls are being deceived and confused, are not able to recognize error when they are confronted with it, and eventually are swept away in the stream of indifference toward revealed truth.”

The angel Gabriel. The apostle Paul. Martin Luther. That Pastor Smith who writes devotions. If any one of them were to preach anything apart from Christ crucified for our sins, what must we say? Let them be accursed, anathema, forever! And since “he who conceals his sins does not prosper” (Proverbs 28:13), his sins need to be exposed. Let him be accursed so that he can also repent! Souls are at stake—even the souls of the false teachers.

Praise God that he patiently takes each one of us in his hands and forgives our sins for Christ’s sake. It is Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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