Biblion Bible Commentary
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No Other Gospel
Galatians 1:6-9
6 I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different “good news”, · WEB
The desertion is described as leaving a person rather than a position, and the curse is pronounced twice — once on an angel.
The verb in verse 6 is the one used of a soldier deserting his post or a citizen defecting to another party, and the object is not a doctrine. They are deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ. Paul consistently frames the danger as personal rather than propositional.
So quickly is a rebuke about pace. And the phrase a different gospel is immediately withdrawn in verse 7 — which is not another — because a gospel with conditions attached is not a rival version of the message but a different thing wearing its name. What the troublers do is pervert, a word for turning something into its opposite.
Then the curse, and it is pronounced twice for emphasis rather than by accident: verse 9 says as we have said before, so I now say again. The Greek word is anathema, which occurs nine times in the New Testament and twice here.
What makes verse 8 remarkable is who is included. Even though we — Paul himself — or an angel from heaven. The test is not the messenger's rank, and Paul deliberately places himself and a heavenly being inside the scope of it. A gospel is verified by content, not by credentials, and the man who has just spent five verses establishing his own authority now says that authority would not survive preaching a different message.
The standard invoked is that which we preached to you and that which you received. Something already delivered is the measure.
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