Galatians 1:8-9 - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

"But rather even if we or an angel out of heaven may be evangelizing [to you] beside what we evangelized to you, let them be accursed.  As we have foretold and now again I am saying, if any is evangelizing you beside what you received, let them be accursed."

-Being quite certain of the Good Message ("evangel", eu-angel in the Greek - eu meaning good, and angel being the divine messenger) which he and Barnabas delivered to the Galatians in the first place, Paul is adamant that they should not ever listen to any other teaching about how to be saved, not no time, not no how, not ever.  Doesn’t matter who it is - not if it was Paul himself coming back and teaching something different, not even if some (being in the guise of an) angel from heaven were to come and attempt to instruct them differently about how to be saved - they should give absolutely no attention whatsoever to any message contrary to that with which Paul originally evangelized these believers.  (Um, this may have been helpful advice to heed for a number of founders of notable judeo-christian spinoffs who claimed to have seen an angel, don’t you think...?)

-Paul takes this adamance even further by insisting that any person - himself included - who would dare to disseminate a distortion of that Good Message - THE Good Message - which they had initially received from Paul and Barnabas, should be cursed, set apart to complete and utter destruction.  That person or being, there should be nothing left of them, not a trace, save perhaps an awareness of their accursedness.  And that’s how it should be - both the teacher and their teaching need to be forever eliminated and prevented from being able to lead anyone astray from the pure and simple message of devotion to Christ, by grace alone, through faith alone.  And Paul says it TWICE here, which means he really means it, cannot put it strongly enough.  A bonafide case of the good, the bad, and the ugly, this.  The Good Message, being distorted by bad messengers, who deserve nothing less than an ugly outcome (destruction).  Many ways to err, to miss the mark in this life, but - the truth upon which one’s eternal destiny hangs in the balance?  This is the ONE area above all others where no one can afford to err in the least.