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About Jesus - Steve Sweetman Chapter 2 Paul
Accepted By The Apostles (ch. 2:1 – 10) Paul says in
verses 1 and 2 that he went back to The reason for
this visit was to "set before them (them meaning the apostles) the gospel
he preached among the Gentiles". Obviously the problem of Paul’s gospel
was still a point of dispute. Paul took with
him Barnabas and Titus. Titus was an uncircumcised Greek. Paul knew very well
that this would present a problem and therefore the issue would come to a head.
You might say that Paul was using Titus as a test case. R.C. Lenski in
his commentary on Galatians translates the words "seemed to be
leaders" as "men of repute" thus agreeing with Kenneth Wuest‘s
translation. Linksi feels that the thought behind "seemed to be
leaders" should be understood as "they who seem to be something to
others" (Linski‘s commentary on Galatians page 71) Paul may speak clearly
and even harshly at times, but I don’t think he put people down by his words. In Acts 23: 1
– 5 Paul meets with the Sanhedrin and said to one of them, "God will
strike you, you whitewashed wall". Some men standing by said to Paul,
"you dare to insult God’s high priest"? Paul answered, "I did
not realize that he was the high priest, for it is written, do not speak evil
about the ruler of your people" By this you see that Paul, even though he
disagreed with someone did speak respectfully of them. He gave honour to those
whom honour was due, as he said in Romans 13: 6 and 7. Paul says that
he met with those "who seemed to be leaders" privately "for fear
that he had run in vain". Once
again, according to Kenneth Wuest the phrase "seemed to be leaders",
would suggest a put down of these men by Paul, but the Greek does not suggest
that at all. When Paul
speaks here of a fear of "running in vain", he is not afraid that his
ministry might be all a big mistake, or a waste of time. His fear is seeing the
Judaizers come and destroy all that he has built. Paul often uses the metaphor
of running a race as an analogy. His ministry was not a hundred yard dash, but a
marathon. He ran to win. In verse 3 we
see Titus mentioned again. He was not compelled to be circumcised. This matter
arose because some "false brothers" had spied on them and discovered
that Titus was uncircumcised. Paul says that
these false brothers "spied on their freedom", wanting to make them
slaves. Paul "did not give into them for a moment". Paul was set free
from the Law, so why would he want to be enslaved by it again. "No
way", says Paul. The word
"spy" (ch. 2:4) in Greek is from "katascopio", meaning to
get down and view closely. The word "infiltrated" is from "paralathra"
meaning, to come in alongside unnoticed. These men who were spying out the
Gentile’s freedom were acting like real spies. They did not come openly to ask
about their freedom. They came into their midst, acting like one of them. They
were unnoticed by the church, as spies would be unnoticed. The church thought
they were one of them. They came alongside the church, looked closely at their
freedom and once they saw that Paul wasn’t teaching the Law, they tried to
expose Paul for being a false teacher. Once again in
verse 6 Paul uses the phrase "those men who seemed to be important,
whatever they were, it makes no difference to me". Paul may be speaking
respectfully as I have mentioned above, but you do get the sense that he was
stressing his independence from them, as well as his displeasure. Still these
men "added nothing to my message", Paul says in verse 6. "On the
contrary, they saw that I had been given the task of preaching the gospel to the
Gentiles". Paul is saying, that after he told his story, they could add
nothing. They could not suggest anything that would enhance his teaching. The leaders at The only thing
that these leaders suggested to Paul was to remember the poor, which Paul was
already doing anyway (ch. 2:10) Paul
Opposes Peter (ch. 2:11 – 21) Paul recounts
the story in this section when Peter came to This was the
situation. Peter participated in the freedom that Paul preached while he was in The problem
arose when certain men from James in (ch. 2:12)
Peter’s actions spread to others as well, so that even Barnabas, one of
Paul’s best friends, "joined him in his hypocrisy". (ch. 2:13) Here
we see Peter, one of the twelve, one of the great men of faith in a moment of
frailty, in a situation of hypocrisy. In verse 14
Paul says, "when I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of
the gospel…" The idea that the Jewish Christians, especially Peter,
disassociated themselves from the Gentile Christians does not fall in line with
the good news of Christ. Why is this so? Because the gospel is supposed to bring
unity, unity between God and us, and unity between fellow brothers in Christ. Peter, by his
actions was tearing apart this unity, thus he was not acting in line with the
truth of the gospel. This to Paul was serious business. I often wonder what Paul
would think about our present day church with all of its factions. I think that
he would oppose us to our faces as well. Every
time there is a church split today, the split is an offense to the gospel.
As a result of
Peter’s actions, Paul confronts Peter in front of everyone present. Paul’s
major point was that Peter being a Jew, lived like a Gentile. Paul had no
problem with that. That was in line with the gospel. Where Paul had problems was
when Peter wanted to force the Gentiles to live like a Jew. It was not fair. If
Peter being a Jew could live like a Gentile, why couldn’t the Gentiles live
like Gentiles. It made no sense. Beyond the logic of Peter’s action, we note
that Peter was not acting in line with the truth of the gospel. Peter’s
actions were denying the truth, and so are ours when we divorce ourselves from
our brothers in Christ. Paul continues
in verse 15 and 16 to say that "we who are Jews from birth … know that a
man is not justified by observing the Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ".
If Jews are now saved by trusting Jesus alone, even more so should Gentiles be
saved by trusting Jesus alone, since they were never under the Law in the first
place. Further more in verse 18 he says that no man can be justified by obeying
the Law, so why is Peter trying to live according to the Law in this situation .
If no man can be justified by obeying God’s Law, then it is clear that no man
can be justified by obeying any man made law that we may try to institute. The last
paragraph of chapter two at first glance may be hard to understand, but let me
try to clarify what I think Paul is saying. Verse 17 says, "if, while we
seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are
sinners, does that mean Christ promotes sin"? Remember, Paul
is still trying to defend his point concerning Peter’s hypocrisy. He is not
changing the subject here. This paragraph is to further explain Paul’s
thinking. He is saying,
that we as true Christians, those "who seek to be justified by Christ"
alone; if we revert back to our old ways, we are sinning. In this case the old
ways for Peter was reverting back to Law. Peter was seeking to be justified by
Jesus alone, yet he reverted back to actions based on the Law. This was sin. Was
Christ promoting this sin. No, not at all. Paul goes on to
say, "that if I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a law
breaker". Peter destroyed the Law in his life when He accepted Jesus’ way
of salvation. In reality, it was not Peter, but Jesus that destroyed the Law.
Peter, by accepting Jesus alone for salvation participated in this destruction
of the Law. Yet now he was trying to rebuild that which was destroyed by living
according to the Law’s rules. By doing this, Paul says that he has
"proven to be a law breaker". We need to note
that Paul in these verses is using himself as the example. He is not centering
Peter out. He says, "if I rebuild, I prove to be a law breaker". He
could have easily put Peter’s name in these sentences instead of the personal
pronoun "I", but he didn‘t. Although Peter is in the wrong, and Paul
is upset, he still honours Peter for who he is. He is pointing these things out
to Peter for his own benefit, and for the benefit of the church . He hopes that
Peter can change his ways and continue on in faith alone. Paul goes on to
say that he is dead to the Law. The Law has no more influence over him. He is
dead to the Law in order that he might live for Christ. Jesus has taken the
place of the Law in every aspect. The Law is gone forever. It has been
destroyed. Jesus has taken the place of the Law. Don’t try to rebuild it
again, he says. Verse 20 says,
"I have been crucified with Christ". This means that all that took
place in the cross is now become part of Paul‘s life. Many things happened at
the cross. The Law was put to rest. Our sins were forgiven. It paved the way for
the Holy Spirit to come and live within us. There are many aspects of the cross.
This is a discussion for another time. One result of being crucified with Christ
is that Christ now lived in Paul. That is true for us as well. He goes on to say
that "the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God…"
Paul is living by faith. Remember the definition of faith is "trusting
Jesus". Paul is living his life by trusting Jesus alone, apart from the Law
that was destroyed on the cross. Paul says that
Jesus "loved me and gave Himself for me". The Law could not love Paul,
nor could it give itself for Paul. Jesus, the Son of God could both love us and
has indeed given Himself for us. "I do not
set aside the grace of God", Paul says in verse 21. What Peter was really
doing in reverting back to the Law was setting aside the grace of God. He was
replacing God’s grace with Law. This is a major sin. This is the worst sin
that Christians can commit in my thinking. Yet we as Evangelicals are guilty of
the same sin. We have added rules. We say that in order to remain a Christian,
we have to do certain things, and not do certain other things. There can be no
rules added to God’s grace. There can be no stipulations attached to the cross
of Christ. He did it all. If we add anything to what Jesus has done with our own
rules, we are setting aside God’s grace. We are telling Jesus that what He did
on the cross is not good enough, and that we need to help Him out a little by
adding our own ideas concerning how to be saved. I cannot think of a worse sin. "For if
righteousness could be gained through the Law, then Christ died for
nothing". Paul makes my point clear here. If we add anything to what Jesus
has already done, if we try to be justified by anything else, then to us, Christ
died for nothing. If we add rules to Christ’s salvation, we tell Him that what
He did was not good enough. We also tell Him that He died for nothing, and in
fact in this situation he did die for nothing. His death, his act of love is
meaningless to us. Once again, I cannot think of a greater sin than this. If you
in fact lay aside God’s grace, then I feel that you are in danger of loosing
your salvation. This is the only way to loose your salvation. Paul will have
more to say about this point. Imagine if you
were Peter being confronted to your face openly in front of the whole church.
How would you feel? You might feel pretty uncomfortable. I think Peter may
have been an impulsive man. At times he did things that he later regretted. This
probably was one of those times. When Paul said the words, "if
righteousness could be gained through the Law then Christ died for
nothing", I imagine those words cut right to Peter’s heart.
Remember, Peter was in the garden when Jesus was arrested. He was at the cross.
He saw the sword being thrusted into the side of Jesus. He saw it all. I imagine
that in Peter’s mind and heart he relived that whole experience again and
suddenly realized, "no, Jesus did not die in vain". Peter would have
repented of his actions, most likely with much sorrow. No way would Peter want
to destroy the work Jesus did on the cross. He would trust in Jesus alone, even
though that would be hard to understand.
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