Jesus Plus Something Else: Why Does the Old Galatian Error Feel So Familiar Today
The most dangerous threat to the gospel in the first century church was not pagan immorality or obvious heresy. It was the sincere, Bible quoting insistence that Jesus was not enough, that grace must be supplemented by human obedience to a visible code. We call it Judaizing. Paul called it “another gospel” (Gal 1:6–9) and pronounced a double curse on its teachers.
The Judaizers did not deny Christ. They loved the Scriptures. They prized holiness. They simply believed that belonging fully to God and growing into mature covenant membership required observable markers in addition to faith: circumcision, Sabbath observance, Jewish festivals, and food laws. To the Galatian churches they whispered, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1) and “You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you” (Gal 4:10–11). Paul’s stunned response cuts to the heart: “After beginning by the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by the flesh?” (Gal 3:3).
Two thousand years have passed, but the clothing has merely changed. Modern evangelical moralism rarely demands circumcision or kosher tables. Instead, it quietly adds its own required markers: the right stance on alcohol, the right schooling choices for children, the right entertainment boundaries, the right political posture, the right spiritual disciplines checklist, the right vocabulary of spiritual experience. These things are presented, explicitly or implicitly, as evidence that one is truly serious about Jesus. Grace gets you in the door, but these observable commitments prove you are staying in the house and rising in its ranks.
The parallels are uncomfortably precise:
The Judaizers said, “Faith in Jesus + circumcision and law-keeping = full salvation.”
Modern moralism says, “Faith in Jesus + cultural separation and visible piety = full assurance and maturity.”The Judaizers measured spiritual progress by conformity to an external code.
We measure it by conformity to cultural distinctives.The Judaizers created two classes of Christians: the merely justified and the truly committed.
We do the same with “carnal Christians” on one side and the “sold out,” “on fire,” “radical” believers on the other.Paul’s verdict was merciless: “You are trying to be justified by the law; you have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace” (Gal 5:4).
The same verdict hangs over every system (ancient or contemporary) that makes ongoing acceptance with God depend on performance rather than on the once-for-all righteousness of Christ.
Yet we must not overreact and treat every call to obedience as legalism. The same Paul who cursed the Judaizers also wrote, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12), “Train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim 4:7), and an entire letter (Titus) filled with concrete ethical commands. The New Testament refuses both ditches: adding to Christ and subtracting from obedience.
The decisive difference is order and motive. The Judaizers (and their modern descendants) obeyed in order to be accepted. Gospel freedom obeys because it is already accepted. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Good works are not the root of our standing before God; they are the fruit that grows naturally from a tree already declared righteous by faith alone (Rom 5:1; Phil 3:9).
The Spirit who declared us righteous when we first believed does not abandon the project of making us holy. He simply refuses to let us take credit for the progress. “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:13). Boundaries, disciplines, and deliberate choices remain vital: prayer, Scripture intake, sexual purity, generosity, church fellowship, even principled separation from certain cultural practices, but they are now responses of gratitude, not payments for acceptance.
The gospel, therefore, delivers us from both legalism and license. It will not allow us to supplement Christ with our own righteousness, nor will it permit us to treat his righteousness as a covering for continued rebellion. In Christ we are complete (Col 2:10). From that completeness flows a life of joyful, Spirit empowered obedience that no longer asks, “What must I do to be accepted?” but sings, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” (Ps 116:12).
Let every generation beware the ancient error dressed in contemporary clothing: the sincere, zealous, Bible saturated conviction that Jesus + something else = the real Christian life. There is still only one gospel, and it remains outrageously simple: Christ alone, received by faith alone, producing, by the power of the Spirit, a life of love that is offered freely because it was first received freely.
To Him be the glory, now and forever.
QUESTIONS
Where in your own walk with Christ do you feel the subtle pull to add “something else” to the gospel, whether rules, achievements, or spiritual practices, as if they make you more acceptable to God?
How does the temptation to rely on your own effort echo the serpent’s lie in Genesis 3, and what practical steps can you take to center your trust on Christ’s finished work instead of your performance?
When you think about your church or community, what cultural or religious “add-ons” to the gospel do you see most often, and how might you gently point others back to the sufficiency of Christ alone?