ANATHEMA!

The gospel divides! 

It is good news to those who accept God's grace, but it brings anathema on those who distort the truth. Paul wrote, "But even if we or an angel out of heaven preach a gospel to you other than the one we have preached to you, let him be anathema" (Gal. 1:8). Paul repeats the statement in the next verse with the slight change of a gospel "other than what you have received." There is only one gospel for all Christians.

The verse begins with a strong adversative "but" (ἀλλὰ) followed by the concessive "even if" (καὶ ἐὰν) to demonstrate the result of preaching a distorted gospel. Usually, the concessive would be written, "if even" (ἐὰν καὶ) with the subjunctive to indicate future possibility. However, when written "even if" (καὶ ἐὰν) as here the concessive introduces an extreme case which is viewed as highly probable (Burton, Moods and Tenses, 115). Paul knows that some are preaching a different gospel, so he uses the extreme form to make his point. This is not merely hypothetical but highly probable.

Paul rips into preachers who distort the gospel whether by adding to or subtracting from the truth. He reserves his most potent attack not for the Roman or Jewish enemies of Christianity but for the professed preachers of Christianity who preach an "other than" gospel! Any gospel "other than" (παρ´ ὃ) the apostolic gospel distorts God's grace for man's message. Paul used the same preposition when he wrote that unbelievers "exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than (παρὰ) the Creator" (Rom. 1:25). No man can lay any other foundation for Christianity rather than (παρὰ)  the one that has been laid (1 Cor. 3:11). The preposition can also be translated "more than" (Moule, Idiom Book of NT Greek, 51). Jesus told the tax collectors to collect no more than (παρὰ) what they should collect (Luke 3:13). The Corinthians gave "according to their ability and more than (παρὰ) their ability" (2 Cor. 8:3). We are just as wrong whether we preach a gospel more than or other than the one we received from the apostles.

"Let him be accursed" (ἀνάθεμα ἔστω). The word (ἀνάθεμα) comes from two Greek words "up" (ἀνα) and "set" (τίθημι) so anathema meant something that was set up. It translated the Hebrew word for what is banned in the Old Testament, dedicated to God as an offering or a punishment. The ban could be applied positively to what was given over to God in worship without any possibility of getting it back again. It could also be applied to what was given over to God's judicial wrath to be destroyed. Either way, whatever was under the ban belonged to God to do as He pleased.

The ban was not the same as excommunication (Ezra 10:8). In excommunication, the person was exiled from the community of faith but not given over to God for destruction. The ban handed what was banned over to God for destruction.  The Talmud taught two kinds of bans. The first ban could be pronounced by anyone and simply banned the person from attending the synagogue. The second ban could only be decreed by a court since it was a far more severe punishment. A parallel can be found in the church. Anathema is not merely an act of church discipline separating the person from the community of faith, but it was a delivery of the person into the hand of God to be punished by God. Paul used the term in this way when he wrote "I could wish that I myself were accursed (ἀνάθεμα) from Christ" for the sake of his Jewish kinsmen. He would suffer the damnation of God if it meant that his countrymen would come to Christ! (See NIDNTT, 1:413-515: TDNT, 1:354-355). To be under the ban is to be cursed by God, to be handed over to the judicial wrath of a holy God.

To be cursed by God is far worse than physical death. I will never forget my ordination service in 1980. My dad, now with the Lord in heaven, preached a message to me on that day in the presence of all. He spoke with tears streaming down his cheeks when he said, "David, I would rather preach your funeral sermon than hear that you turned away from Christ!" His greatest fear was not that I should die before he did but that I should be declared anathema!

Oh God, keep me faithful to preach your true gospel of grace until I breathe my last breath!