I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another Gospel. Galatians 1:6
A good number of years ago, Murray McCandless and Fred Hannah were holding Gospel meetings in a little brown tent in Hampton. One evening, a small group of well-dressed, well-groomed young men arrived and sat in the row of seats at the back of the tent. They had the standard name tags that identified them as ‘elders’ of the Mormons. They appeared to listen carefully to what was being preached, and during the closing prayer, slipped out of the tent and disappeared. Whatever the purpose of their visit, they must have quickly realized they were not going to achieve anything when Murray began to speak. He abandoned the message he planned to use, and read Galatians 1:6. From this text, he preached on the dangers of other gospels and the evil of those who preach other gospels. We never saw those Mormons again. They do have a false and dangerous gospel, although their teachings have lost credibility because they have been scientifically proven to be rubbish. However, there is an even more dangerous false Gospel, and the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians to warn about it.
The other gospel of which Paul is writing was that taught by Jewish teachers who insisted that the Gentile believers in Christ are required to fulfill the ordinances of the Jewish religion in order to be saved. Simply put, they were saying that salvation consisted of faith in Christ, plus obedience to religious form. This dangerous doctrine continues today, and is much more widespread than most of us realize. It is a major part of the teachings of most so-called Christian denominations, and even in the cults. Other world religions follow a distorted form of the same doctrine, replacing Christ with their own dead figureheads. It is the doctrine of Cain: do what I believe is right to satisfy God.
Is this other gospel taught or followed by Christians in any of our Assemblies. Not that I know of. We place the word Gospel on our Gospel Halls to indicate that we believe in the only Gospel in the Bible, that salvation is rebirth only by repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As other groups, including some that claim to be somewhat like ourselves, drift into a gradual acceptance of another gospel, or a social gospel that appeases conscience but ignores the need to be born again, we need to be very clear in our presentation of the Gospel. We can never water it down, or deviate from the clear teaching of Scripture. As Paul says in this verse, the Gospel is the grace of Christ. Nothing more, nothing less. -Jim MacIntosh