The Gospel Which Ye Received

The whole paragraph becomes most clear if we understand that “the Gospel which ye received” refers definitely to the occasion and manner in which the good news was first received by the Church or the Individual. Similarly the announcement of the word (ἀγγελία τοῦ λόγου) mentioned in Act 15:16, took place on the first journey: on that journey the apostles brought the good news to Antioch and Lystra and Derbe (Act 13:32; Act 14:7, Act 14:15, Act 14:21). But on the second and third journeys “strengthening” is the term employed (Acts 16; compare Act 15:41, Act 18:23), In Act 15:35 διδάσκοντες καὶ εὐαγγελιζόμενοι describes the two processes of teaching the converts and carrying the good news to those who had not yet heard it.

In view of this difference it is highly probable that Paul’s second visit to Galatia was a brief one, in which he confined his attention to strengthening and instructing the converts without seeking to carry on a further process of evangelisation. That has been assumed on the authority of Acts in the reckoning of time in my Church in the Roman Empire, p. 85; and it seems to gather strength from the language of Galatians. Εὐαγγελισάμεθα and παρελάβετε refer to the single occasion when the Churches were formed, the first journey; and the instruction given on the second journey is distinguished from it. Paul does not trouble himself to prove that the second message was consistent with the first. He merely says, “if the second message was different, a curse be upon me: you must cleave to the first, which came direct from God”.

The point, then, which Paul sets before himself is not to show that he has always been consistent in his message, but to show that the original message which he brought to the Galatians came direct from God to him. If he makes them feel that, then the other accusation of later inconsistency on his part will disappear of itself.

This method is obviously far the most telling. Even if Paul, by a lengthened proof (always difficult to grasp for those who are not very eager to grasp it), had proved that he had really been consistent, that did not show that he was right or his message divine. On the other hand, if he showed that his first message was divine, then the Galatians would from their own mind and conscience realise what was the inner nature and meaning of his conduct on the second journey.

The line of proof is, first, an autobiographical record of the facts bearing upon his original Gospel to the Galatians, and thereafter an appeal to their own knowledge that through this first Gospel they had received the Spirit. That was the ultimate test of divine origin. Nothing could give them the Spirit and the superhuman power of the Spirit except a divine Gospel.