Don't let anybody ever tell you that a concern with doctrine is impersonal.

If you turn away from the true doctrine of the gospel once for all delivered, you're turning away from a person, Paul says, in this verse, the person of God.

The gospel is a very personal call of God into fellowship with Him.

You know, some people treat doctrine like it's this cold, academic, impersonal thing.

But the Apostle Paul, especially in his letter to the Galatians, won't let us think like that.

I'm Dan Kroover. In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper shows us from the opening chapter of Galatians

that turning from the gospel

isn't just turning from a set of doctrines.

It's actually turning from the living God himself.

This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on February 6th,

1988. Would you turn with me to Galatians chapter 1, verses 6 through 10? The main truth now that underlies this text in Galatians chapter 1,

verses 6 to 10, is that there is only one gospel. In verse 6, Paul says that the Galatians are

turning away to what he calls a different gospel. Then he realizes that that could communicate something

very wrong. And he qualifies it immediately in verse 7, not that there is another gospel to turn to,

but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel.

Now, I think verse 7 is very clear in what it teaches.

There is no other gospel than the one Paul preached when he established those churches.

To be sure in verses 6 and 7, the people, whoever they are,

will run into them again and again in verse 7, are using the term gospel to designate their

teaching, but it is no gospel, but a perversion according to the apostle.

Now, that truth, there is only one gospel, has two big implications for us today.

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