Paul reminds the Galatians of the gospel and he does so with God's authority. Paul rebukes the Galatians for favoring a false gospel over Jesus. He cautions them that even if he or an angel were to present a gospel different than what Paul has been teaching, he should be accursed. The following is an outline of these lessons:
1. I am coming to you under command of God and of Jesus Christ (1a)
2. You are being deceived by teachers trying to get you conformed to the Law. I once defended the law as the means of righteousness and stand against Christ, too, but Jesus appeared to me and revealing that He was my righteousness (1b)
3. The gospel I received from Him was tested and tried by the Jerusalem apostles and they approved of what I had been taught by the Lord Himself (2a)
4. Even Peter was deceived in the early days from this gospel of grace when he gave in to the pressure of Judaizers, but I corrected him (2b)
5. Remember that the means of righteousness has always been by faith! God even credited Abraham as righteous by his faith (3a)
6. If we could have been made right by the law, Christ wouldn’t have come. The law’s purpose was to teach us that we needed someone else’s (Christ’s) righteousness (3b)
7. You are now sons of God! Do not submit to rules and regulations to get His favor like slaves might do (4a)
8. We are children of promise. Cast off your rules and regulations which were only given to us to bring us to the freedom that is ours when we trust Christ (4b)
9. That does not mean you are free to live for yourself in a fleshly manner (5a)
10. Rather, serve others through love through walking by the Spirit. You will certainly know which of those two you are doing by the fruit in your life (5b)
11. That service will sometimes look like correcting and teaching others in a spirit of meekness, since you, too, can fall, and will sometimes look like giving to others (6a)
12. Whoever tries to look by their flesh wastes their time. Those who are content to trust the Lord for their righteousness and walk in accordance with that promise will receive grace and mercy from God (6b)