Galatians 1:6–7

Memory Verse

I marvel that you are so quickly turned away from the One who called you by grace from Christ into a different gospel, which is not another of the same kind, except there are some troubling you and who desire to pervert the gospel of the Christ (Galatians 1:6–7).

Religious works of the flesh promote a gospel that is not good news. Certain Jews from Jerusalem, claiming to represent the apostles, imposed upon the saints in Galatia a works-based standard of maturity. According to them, in order to be saved, one had to be circumcised and observe the Mosaic Law. These men were not proclaiming this for the sake of salvation, but to display their own righteousness before others through external works so that they would not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ (Galatians 6:12).

Salvation is by grace through faith in the reality that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. Works do not prove that we are saved. Indeed, “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20), but when we strive to demonstrate our righteousness before others through works, those works do not proceed from faith.

Those who boast of their credentials or the “good works” they have performed in order to appear righteous before men, distort the gospel of the Christ. They change it into a different gospel—one grounded in self-effort and public displays of righteousness.

Let our works arise from believing God’s Word, manifesting the righteousness we possess in Christ—not as a performance for human approval or to avoid the persecution and separation that comes from truly desiring to do the will of God (2 Timothy 3:12).