Galatians 1:6-9
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
Paul comes to the point here without delay. It is striking to realise that this is the
only epistle in which he does not give thanks to God for his readers, and go on to pray
for them (cf the other epistles' introductions, e.g. Philippians, Colossians, even 1
Corinthians, where there was much to concern the Apostle). It is a measure of how urgently he felt he should write to the Galatians, and how seriously he regarded the issues
facing them. Paul is 'astonished': 'dumbfounded' would be a better word to express the
strength of his feeling, combining astonishment with dismay at what had happened
among them. 'So soon' may mean either 'so soon after your conversion, when you are
yet young in the faith', or, 'so soon, in the sense that you so readily and so quickly fall
from the faith after the temptation came from these false teachers, i.e. at the first breath
of the enemy's opposition'. 'Removed' is in the present, active tense 'you are so quickly
deserting Him who called you'. The word means 'to turn renegade against', and is used
of desertion or revolt, in the military sense, or of a change in politics, religion or philosophy. 'Trouble' has the force of 'raising sedition', or 'shaking one's allegiance'. 'Pervert'
means to reverse, to change to the opposite. The very words Paul uses show how seriously he regarded what was happening in Galatia. It is indeed a wonderful thing to become a true Christian - Paul's phrase 'called into the grace of Christ' indicates as much.
What a beautiful phrase! It is like standing outside a vast treasure house, and the door
opens and the keeper of the treasure says, 'Come on in'. But what a tragedy to be moving out of that into something that in its very nature is the denial of the true riches,
something that, although initially it may seem to offer something better, is inevitably
subject to the law of diminishing returns, and will in the end lead to poverty, barrenness
and loss.
It is possible for young believers to be drawn away in this way; Satan will see to that. Whenever a true work of grace is wrought, the evil one counter-attacks, and this is one of the ways in which he does so, introducing confusion into the young believer's life (it is not only young believers, of course, that can be so beguiled; older, experienced believers can also be drawn away from the truth). But we should note Paul's words: it was certainly a distortion of the gospel that had come in; but the resultant effect of this was not merely a doctrinal matter: they were drawn away not only from true doctrine, but from Christ Himself. And this is the seriousness of the situation. This lays a tremendous, awesome responsibility on those who are guilty of drawing people away from the truth of the gospel. It is well for us to remember Jesus' solemn words about it being better for a millstone to be hung around our necks and our being cast into the midst of the sea than that any of Christ's 'little ones' (young believers) be hurt or harmed. Viewed in this light, the strength of Paul's language in these verses does not seem misplaced or too extreme; indeed, he is simply echoing our Lord's own solemn words.