Paul with other apostles in Jerusalem
2
📚Then fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas 📖, and took along Titus 📖 also. 2 📚And I went up in accordance with a revelation 📖, and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles, but I did this privately 📖 to those of reputation, lest by any means I was running, or had run my race, in vain 📖. 3 📚Yet not even Titus, who was with me and who was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. 2:3 Circumcision was one of the important issues of the day – v 12; Gal 5:2-3, 6, 11; 6:12-15; Acts 15:1-5; Rom 4:9-16. The question was, did Gentile Christians have to become converts to the Jewish religion, accept circumcision and keep the law of Moses? The answer Paul and all the apostles gave was “no”. Titus was a test case. He was a Gentile believer, and the apostles in Jerusalem accepted him as a true follower of Christ even though he was not circumcised.⚜
4 📚And this came up because of false brethren brought in secretly. They came sneaking in to spy on our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into bondage.
2:4 These “false brethren” were Jews whom the believers in Jerusalem regarded as fellow believers. The aim of these Jews was to bring all Christians, Jew or Gentile, under the bondage of the law of Moses. Paul knew that one reason Christ came was to set people free from this law. The real question was, how do people obtain salvation – by obeying the law, or by the grace of God? The answer is very plain – Gal 5:1-4; Acts 13:38-39; 15:10-11; Rom 3:24-28; 6:14; 7:4.⚜
5 📚We did not yield submission to them, no, not for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.
2:5 Paul knew that yielding to false teachers even for a moment could result in great loss for the churches of Galatia. And in all he did he kept in mind the effect it might have on other people.⚜
6 📚But from those who seemed to be something (it makes no difference to me what they were – God shows favoritism to no man), for those who seemed to be something in conference added nothing to me. 7 📚On the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been entrusted to me, just as the gospel for the circumcised had been to Peter 8 📚(for he who was working effectively in Peter in the position of apostle for the circumcised, the same one was working effectively in me for the Gentiles), 9 📚and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.
2:6-9 Paul was not one to exalt men, either himself or others – 1 Cor 3:5, 22, 23. In this case, the important thing to him was not what people seemed to be, or the great privileges they had, or the high position they occupied, or their reputation with others. His one concern was whether they accepted as true the gospel Christ had revealed to him. And he could inform the Galatian churches that Peter, James and John, the leaders of the Jerusalem church, were in agreement with him about the meaning of the gospel (v 9).
In verses 7,8, and 9 the words “uncircumcised” and “circumcised” signify Gentiles and Jews. In those days people often spoke of these two groups of people in this way.⚜
10 📚But they wanted us to remember the poor. I too was eager to do the same thing.
2:1-10 Paul continues the subject he introduced in chapter 1. There he says God called him to be an apostle and revealed the gospel to him. Here he says the other apostles accepted him as an apostle and recognized that the gospel he preached was the same as the gospel they preached.⚜
2:10 When Paul took the gospel to the Gentiles, the other apostles did not want him to forget the physical needs of the Jewish Christians in Judea. Paul himself was eager to help meet the needs of the poor there – Acts 24:17; Rom 15:25-28; 1 Cor 16:1-4; 2 Cor 8; 9. In the middle of a profound theological discussion this word about helping the poor shows the importance they all attached to such service. See also Ex 23:11; Deut 15:7-8; Ps 41:1; Prov 14:31; 19:17; 21:13; 29:7; 31:9; Matt 19:21; 2 Cor 9:9.⚜
Paul and Peter in Antioch
11 📚But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was to be blamed.
2:11 We do not know when Peter came to Antioch or the specific purpose of his visit. At that time Antioch was the largest city in that part of Asia and the center of Gentile Christianity (Acts 11:19-26; 13:1-3).⚜
12 📚For before certain men came from James 📖, he ate with the Gentiles, but when they arrived, he drew back and separated himself for fear of those who were of the circumcision. 13 📚And the other Jews also played the hypocrite 📖 with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.
14 📚But when I saw that they were not behaving in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, “If you, being a Jew, live the way the Gentiles do 📖, and not like the Jews, why do you compel 📖 the Gentiles to live like the Jews?
15 📚“We who are Jews by nature, and not Gentile sinners,
2:15 Paul also was a Jew by birth and speaks from that point of view now.⚜
The truth Paul taught
16 📚know that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, and we too have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law. For by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.
2:16 He says that the Jewish Christian leaders had learned a very basic and important truth – salvation cannot come by trying to keep the law God gave through Moses. Sinners, whether Jewish or Gentile, can be justified only by faith in Christ (compare Acts 13:38-39; Rom 3:24-26, 28, 30; 5:1). Any pressure brought on Christians to make them think they had to follow the rules and regulations of the law struck at the heart of the gospel. It still does. Any teaching that keeping any religious law whatever leads to salvation or contributes an iota to salvation is false. Any teaching that self-effort, and good works, and human merit can lead to salvation is equally false.⚜
17 📚“But while we seek to be justified by Christ, if we ourselves also are found to be sinners, is Christ therefore a servant of sin? Absolutely not!
2:17 For the sake of some who might not have had a full understanding of the truth, Paul begins to answer a possible objection against the gospel. The language here is quite obscure, but it is very probable that this objection is the same he speaks of in Rom 6:1, 15. He admits that all who are justified, including himself, are sinners. But does this mean that believing in Christ actually encourages sinning? The answer is, “absolutely not” (see note on this expression at Rom 3:30). See Romans chapter 6 and notes.⚜
18 📚For if I rebuild the things I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
19 📚For I through the Law am dead 📖 to the Law, that I might live for God. 20 📚I have been crucified with Christ 📖. Nevertheless I live – yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me 📖. 21 📚I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes by the Law, then Christ died in vain”.
2:11-21 In this section Paul continues to defend his authority as an apostle. He was absolutely sure that Christ had revealed the gospel to him (Gal 1:12). So he was willing to stand publicly against anyone who spoke or did anything to bring the truth into doubt. Peter was a leader among the original apostles of Christ. He was a good man and one whom God had greatly used (Acts chapters 2–11). But he was not perfect, and there came this time when Paul, for the sake of the gospel, had to rebuke him to his face.⚜
2:21 The teaching that men can be saved by keeping God’s law makes the death of Christ meaningless and useless. So Paul has no hesitation in rejecting it. Why would Christ come and die for people to make them right with God if they could make themselves right with God by what they do? The choice is plain – salvation by grace or no salvation at all.⚜