Galatians Chapter 2

Galatians chapter records two events in Paul's life that prove that the apostles in Jerusalem were in agreement with his teaching that the Gentiles did not need to be circumcised to be saved.

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Well, welcome to the Axe 242 podcast. If there's any questions or anything that comes up today, you can always email me. Um, Alex Nash, I'm the host, and you can always email me at axe242 podcast at gmail.com, um, thinking about maybe doing a website or something at some point so that it could be a little more formal and I could put up my notes that I take for this and study notes and all that, but I haven't done that yet, so it's axe242 at gmail.com. Feel free to email me. Um and I'd I'd love to hear any any comments or or feedback or any thoughts that that you have on this. Or I know most of you that are listening probably know me as as well, although the listening uh base has expanded quite a bit. But um I'm assuming that most of you still know me, and of course you can always just reach out and text me or call me too. Um last time, as probably most of you know or all of you know, we went through Galatians chapter one and just kind of gave an introduction to this book and the great burden that Paul had, and of course the Spirit of God had and used Paul to write about was such a terrible burden that he even describes himself as a woman in labor all over again, uh worrying about them and striving that Christ be, as he says, formed again in them. Um when we come to chapter two, he's continuing on, he's he's really laser-focused at this point and throughout the next couple chapters on disproving this idea that you have to be circumcised in order to be saved and keep the law in really any way. And so in the last chapter, he had finished up by just explaining that he was an apostle and he had gotten his message directly from God, and it wasn't third hand, it wasn't through anybody else, and so he knew that what he was presenting was was correct. And um, but in this chapter, he's going to start to show that even if he did get it directly from God, he's not without corroboration in that, if you will. There are others, and specifically the apostles in Jerusalem, um that also agree with what he's saying. And so the fur he's gonna tell two instances in his life where he knows this for a fact, if you will, and he's sharing it with these ones. The first time is an instance 14 years after the instance he had just been talking about, which was when he went up and spent 15 days with Peter before being sent off to uh Tarsus because of persecution. Now, I believe the reason that he's going to tell this particular story is because it emphasizes a point that could have been raised against him after he had made the previous point, and that is that if he says that he got this directly from God and it didn't have any, um, he wasn't influenced at all by any any of the apostles, remember he stresses how he didn't even spend time with the apostles until he spent those 15 days with Peter. If that is true, then how can he be sure that what he is presenting is is correct? Because what if he was confused or something? Um, you know, we do have the concept in scripture of the witness of two or three is far more powerful and only to be accepted over the witness of one. So he turns to uh these apostles, this account from when he went up to the apostles in Jerusalem. Again, and this happens 14 years after, as I've said, and he goes along with both Barnabas and Titus. Now, the events that led to his going up, as he tells it, are essentially two things. So, number one, he had he had this gospel that he had gotten from God, and he had begun to preach it, and he had begun to tell people about it. And that was one thing that had happened. And one of the parts of this gospel is the is the completion of the law, if you will, or or the um ineffect of the law, maybe I could put it that way. And so for Gentiles, he was telling them they did not need to keep the law or be circumcised. That was a big question at that time. And that was part of this gospel that he was presenting. So that was that was one thing. And then the other thing that came along was that there were people that were sneaking in. And I don't think this is hyperbole at all. He says, false brethren sneakily or uh secretly brought in who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. He this was possibly because he was a Pharisee or he had been a Pharisee, and so he had connections and he knew about some of these things, or possibly just through his observation or through the Lord revealing this to him directly. I we don't know exactly how he knew this, but in some way he knew that there were false Christians who were posing as Christians and were coming in and they were spying, they were trying to figure out why this group of this sect of Judaism, as they saw it, were fellowshipping with all these Gentiles who were uncircumcised and weren't keeping the law. You have to remember that at the end, even of Acts, when Paul goes to Rome, remember those who are in Rome, they say, We haven't heard anything about you, Paul, but we know that this sect that you're part of everywhere, it's spoken against. It was called the sect of the Nazarenes. And the Jews at that time viewed Christianity as we know it today as the sect of the Nazarenes, as a Jewish sect. But as more and more Gentiles were saved and not being circumcised and yet were part of this sect, there was something very, very strange about this sect in the eyes of Jewish leaders. And they wanted to make sure that all the Jews who were part of this sect remained within Judaism. Now they persecuted them anyway, even if they were in Judaism, but it was much better in their mind that they remain inside of Judaism and keep the law. That was the all-important thing. And part of the law was to not fellowship with Gentiles who were not circumcised, you know, who were not converts to Judaism, in other words. Jews had fellowship with Jews, they married Jews, they did things with Jews, they abhorred the Gentiles. That was kind of the standard status quo, and that was viewed as keeping the law. So he goes here, and with that in mind, they they had clearly sent out some spies or something to try to make sure that these ones stay within Judaism. Paul was aware of that. So he goes to Jerusalem. It says it was because of a revelation that he went up to Jerusalem. And it says, I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles. But he didn't just go to the whole assembly in Jerusalem or any part of it as he does in other cases, like in Acts 15, when he says the assembly at Jerusalem received him and he and he presented to them all of these sort of things. In this particular instance, he just went privately to those who were, it says, of reputation. Now, this is going to be, as we learn from verse 9, James and Peter, or Peter, James and John, who, as it says, were reputed to be pillars. So Paul goes to Peter, James, and John, and he tells them, This is the gospel that I'm presenting. And I'm telling the Gentiles that they don't have to keep the law and that they don't need to be circumcised. And here's Titus. Titus he had brought along with him. And he says, here's Titus, he's a perfect example. He's a Greek, he's saved, he's not circumcised, and he's not keeping the law. And he's finding out, are these apostles there? Are James, Peter, and John, are they going to agree with him? Or are they going to say, no, Paul, you're wrong. Of course the Gentiles need to keep the law. And Titus, let's circumcise you right now if you want to be saved. But that's, praise the Lord, not at all what happened. James, Peter, and John knew what the Lord had taught. They knew that what they had was not a salvation by the law at all. The Lord Jesus had said, I am the way, not I and the law am the way. It's just I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me. So they knew that truth. And so they didn't disagree with Paul at all. It says, on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised, and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Peter and John gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship. So not only did they say, yes, we agree with you, Paul, they actually gave him the right hand of fellowship. Now, how this actually looked or what the custom of the right hand of fellowship was, I'm not familiar enough with to be sure. But regardless, this was their proof that they supported him and agreed with him and that he should go out with their blessing and preach that to the Gentiles. And then it just says that they asked him to remember the poor, the very thing I also was eager to do. So they did say, Paul, while you're preaching, please uh remember the poor, give money to the poor. So this is corroboration, right? Paul had said, I got this message directly from God. But here is three chief apostles, Peter, James, and John, three, the three closest to the Lord Jesus, and um, I guess maybe it's James the Lord's brother. I'm guessing I'm not sure which James this was. I assume it was James the less, as he's known to history, the brother of John, James the son of Zebedee. But regardless of whichever James it was, these were three pillars, three ones of reputation, three that none could dispute had the right message, right? You weren't going to disagree with these three. And now you don't have the witness of two or even of three, but of four, that the Gentiles were not to be circumcised, that this was not a part of their salvation. So he moves on. That was that was one account. He's going to move and tell another account. Now, essentially, I I believe the reason that he goes on to tell this account is to um drive home this point. He's going to do something that is essentially just almost never done, uh, where he is going to tell an account that puts his fellow apostle Peter in a bad light. Now, there's other reasons why the Spirit of God does this, reasons maybe associated with how Peter has become an exalted figure in the Catholic system, and he's now called the first pope and all of these sorts of things. But regardless, this happened. Peter sinned in a very public, very dangerous way. And Paul publicly rebuked him in front of everybody. And yet Peter and Paul remained on good terms. In fact, Peter, in his epistle, he calls Paul his beloved brother. And he refers to Paul's writings as the scriptures in Peter's letter. So what we have here, though, is an event where it, if you will, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Peter was in agreement with Paul on these matters. So the event that he tells is that Peter had they had been at Antioch, which is where Paul and Barnabas were from. I shouldn't say we're from, but we're living at the time. They'd been there for a few years. And um, Peter comes and visits, and oh, wonderful, Peter's here, you know, and and they gather, of course, the whole assembly together and everything else. And there's both Jews and Gentiles that were there at Antioch. And um, and Peter's just happily fellowshipping with them all. And then a couple of people arrive from James. It says, uh uh, when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing those of the circumcision. That's how it should read. The uh what happens is that James, you know, just like Pete Paul would send Tychicus or Timothy or Titus or whoever on these different errands, right? You didn't have USPS, you didn't have email, and so you had to hand deliver messages and check in on this assembly and on that status report and deliver funds here and there and do all kinds of things. All of these ones would would do that. And I guess I take it that these ones from James were that, were those kind of people. And we know that those in Jerusalem, even after this, were very zealous of the law. In fact, at one time, James uh tells Paul when he's visiting, he says, Look how many thousands there are that believe, and they are all zealous of the law. There was a lot of zealousy for the law. And regardless of what it was, these individuals that came, Peter, he feared them. And uh that's a very natural thing for us. It's something that's very dangerous, too, uh, to be afraid of what people might think or say or something like that. Peter was obviously very freely fellowshipping with the Gentiles before that. And then they came and he intentionally uh makes sure that he separates himself from the Gentiles. And you just kind of imagine sort of a setting like this with a bunch of tables or something around, and everybody happily fellowshipping, and then these ones arrive, and it's a big deal, and everybody goes and greets them and whatever else, and and happy and whatever. And then Peter just makes sure that he grabs his stuff and uh and separates himself and goes over on the other side of the room. And it says, what happens is that it says the rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy. Now, hypocrisy comes from a hypocrite, which is an actor, was a Greek actor. They put on these masks and they would act and people would, you know, laugh or cry or whatever it was supposed to be. Um, but that was a hypocrite. Sort of like a lore uh medieval fool or something like that, an actor. Anyway, why does he call it hypocrisy? Well, it's because five minutes before the people arrived, they were happily fellowshipping with the Gentiles. And now they're pretending that, oh yes, we're all good Jews and we don't fellowship with those nasty Gentiles. And so they're sitting all off on a corner. It's hypocrisy. It's blatant, obvious hypocrisy. And how would the Gentiles have felt having, you know, been excited and whatever to see Peter and fellowshipping with him? And then all of a sudden, oh, all these Jews are leaving, and uh, oh, we're just over here by ourselves. Paul sees what's happening, and as sad or as distressing as that event is by itself, that was kind of normal. It was status quo for how Jews treated Gentiles. Of course, the only exception being that they never would have fellowship with them in the first place. But Paul sees this as a direct attack on the gospel. He says, When I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I find this so interesting. It's the gospel that must be defended. And here he is looking at it and seeing an attack on the gospel. Now we might think of it just as a weakness, a weak moment in Peter, or just we might think of it as any number of things. Paul sees it as an attack on the gospel. And why does he see it in those terms? Well, we're about to learn why he sees it in those terms by what he says to Peter in the presence of all. And I'm gonna kind of go through this this quote a little bit, a little bit more verse by verse, and try to explain it because this can be confusing and it's it's very important. So he says to Peter, if you being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? It's a very simple question. Um he said, Peter, five minutes ago you were having fellowship with the with the Gentiles. You weren't living like a Jew. Now all of a sudden you seem to think that if the Gentiles want to fellowship with you, they should become Jews and start living like Jews, or they can't fellowship with you. Why, why is that? So he just rips the mask off of this hypocrisy, if you will. And he says, Why? How does that make sense? Why would you do that, Peter? And then he goes on, and he says, We. And we, when he says we, we have to understand that that's Peter and Paul. This is a direct address from Paul to Peter, and he says, We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles. He said, That's that's where we we started. We started out in that kind of mentality. He says, But knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified. He says, we we started out thinking that we were Jews and that we weren't these awful sinners from among the Gentiles, and we were just fine. But through the intervention of the Lord Jesus, we have learned that we are not going to be justified by the works of the law, that we are turning, uh need to turn away from that to be justified by the Lord Jesus Christ, by faith in Christ Jesus. And so as a result, they turned away, right? And as he says, um, they live like the Gentiles, if you being Jew, live like the Gentiles, because they had turned away from the law. And then he says, but if while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be, or far be the thought, or God forbid. If, while seeking to be justified in Christ, if in that condition of turning away from the law and seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners. We find that that isn't enough. We actually are now sinners, and we're like the Gentiles without the law are, and now we need to turn back to the law. Is Christ then a servant of sin, a minister, a servant of sin? Christ would have been wrong to call us away from the law to faith in himself. He would have been a servant of sin to do that, someone who was calling us to sin away from the law. May it never be. For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. This is what Peter was doing. He had been a good follower of the law before the Lord Jesus came into his life. And then through uh the teaching of the Lord Jesus, his death and resurrection, and then especially the vision that Paul, remember Peter on the rooftop receiving the vision of the net let down with all the creatures and the Lord saying, Don't call anything unclean that the Lord has called clean. And he understood it and he even had spoken up for the Gentiles and when they were saved and initially brought into the church and all these sort of things. Well, he had he had that truth, and he had turned away from the law, and he'd stopped following the law, as is obvious because he was fellowshipping with the Gentiles. He had turned away from the law, and it sought to be justified only by faith. And now, in this moment, when these ones from James arrived, he in effect had turned back to the law, in essence saying that he would be a sinner of the Gentiles if he didn't do that. So he had turned back to the law. What that had done is try to rebuild what I have once destroyed, as he puts it here. It's like if I go and I start tearing down some old shed outback or something like that. And then I get halfway into it, and then I start saying, Oh, this is a mistake. And I start picking up the very boards I just broke down and cut up and everything else and start trying to nail them back together. Anyone looking on would shake their heads and would say, you know, obviously he made a big mistake when he started trying to tear it down. He never should have tried to tear it down. That was a mistake. So you see, if it was a mistake to never turn away from the law, then it was a mistake to put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that makes Christ a servant of sin, an emissary of the devil. What a horrific thought. Now, Peter, of course, would it would, I'm sure, say, I I had no intention of saying anything like that by just going and sitting over here, you know, lighting up Paul or something like that. I don't know. What he said, or if he said anything, or what happened after this. But that was the effect of him giving in, yielding by subjection, right? As was referenced earlier. He said, We did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour. Things that come up like this, whether it's teaching and meeting or someone acting in this way, they cannot be yielded to by subjection. Someone can't say something and then we just sit by and let it go. Many, many things, it says, let your yieldingness be known to all men. Many things we just yield and we just let them go by. And we don't feel the need to jump up and down and condemn our brethren. But when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to something like this, it has to be defended. So then he goes on, um, for through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. He recognized, and Paul here we notice he he switches to the I in verse 18, right? Instead of we, he switches to I, if I rebuilt what I have once destroyed. He's he's using himself as a typical example. But he says, Through the law, I died to the law. He expands on this a lot in the book of Romans, and we don't have time to go through any of that. But I'll just say briefly that through the law, I died to the law, means that I saw the law and how it condemned me, and I accepted it, or I accepted its condemnation so that I might, if you will, die and begin to live for God. Or as Kelly says, this refers to his, quote, refers to his going through the sense of condemnation before God, end quote. So I, through the law, died to the law, I accepted its condemnation, so that I might what? Keep the law? No, so that I might turn from the law, put my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and live to God. Now, this death that results in life is the concept of substitution, and he he brings it in more fully. He says, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Now, what he is describing is the death of himself and the replacement of his life with the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, these are could be in some ways complicated topics, but let me just try to explain it very simply. He says, I am crucified with Christ. Let's just take that statement to start with. If I am crucified with Christ, the only way that can be true, because I obviously wasn't crucified with Christ, I wasn't even born yet. The only way that that can be true is if the Lord Jesus Christ took my place and died, which he did. There's many scriptures that talk about this. In fact, Peter even writes about this in his own epistle. Um, if I can find the verse here, I believe it's in 1 Peter chapter. Okay, it's in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 24. And I'll just read it. It says, He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by his wounds you were healed. So in any case, what we see here is I have been crucified with Christ. That happened through substitution, that the Lord Jesus took my place and he died in my place. And therefore, I can say, who died? Well, if the Lord Jesus was in my place when he died, I can say that I died. So I can say, I have been crucified with Christ, or in Christ, or I have been crucified with him. And it is no longer I who live. I'm not even alive. If I died 2,000 years ago, I'm not even alive anymore. But who is alive? Well, Christ lives in me. Because the Lord Jesus went through and died, and then he rose again. Well, again, if he was in my place, who rose? Well, I rose. I have this life. But whose life is it? Well, it's the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you I hope you understand how death in that way leads to life? It's only through resurrection. Death only leads to life through resurrection. But it's the resurrection of somebody else. Now, yes, I will have my part in his resurrection later. But at the present, it's it's his resurrection that I am able, if you will, to live, or which gives me life. And then he goes on to sort of the practical of it. He says, in the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. I am able to live Christ's life by faith, by trusting in him. If I am trusting in the Lord Jesus, then I will do what he says. I will listen to the Spirit of God that's within me, and I will follow his leading. And in that way, I will live his life. And anything that isn't that, because we know very well that I sin, and we all sin many times. Whatever isn't of that, it died at the cross. It died 2,000 years ago. Now, I don't mean to get sidetracked with this, but it is a wonderful and a precious truth that we are dead and yet we are alive and yet not us, but Christ lives in us. And this is a wonderful verse to show that. But um I'm just gonna finish up. It says, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly. If we were to add the law or tried to add the law back in, it nullifies the grace of God. It nullifies grace and gift are two very closely related words. If I do the law, then I am working towards this, and I eventually, if you will, earn my salvation. And so it's not grace, it's earned. And it says if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly. If I am able to be saved by my law-keeping, my tremendous law-keeping, then there was absolutely no point in the Lord Jesus Christ dying at all. So to summarize, he makes these two points. Yes, he he got this gospel directly from God. It was, it differed. He was able to tell them that they were wrong in what these ones, these false ones, were teaching them. But he even if he got it directly from God, it was corroborated by the apostles in Jerusalem, and then very specifically by Peter. Peter had come to Antioch, this event had happened, and clearly Paul and Peter were still in the same body. Peter had accepted this reproof. He hadn't stormed off and left and started his own thing or excommunicated Paul or anything like that. And so this is proof. This is more than substantial proof. This is the witness of more than even three to show that what they were being taught by these false teachers was not only wrong, but it was damnable.