Galatians 1–2

At once, in the very first words of the letter, Paul replies to the attack of his enemies. They had said, Paul is not an apostle. He is not one of the twelve apostles. He has not seen the Lord. The apostles at Jerusalem did not send him out, nor did they give him authority to go. No one has properly ordained him.

If not "from men," then men were in no sense the source or originators of either his apostleship or his message. If neither was "through man," then he received both straight from the Lord, and man was not even the channel through which they came.

The Greek word "apostle" means "a sent one." But it means more than that. It has the meaning "sent from," so the name "apostle" carries the authority of the one who sends him.

Peter received his apostleship from the Lord while He was on earth. Paul received his from the Lord in ascended glory... No other apostle could say, "not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead." At the very least, they were apostles before God the Father had raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

God revealed in the person of Christ, shown as Father, stands in clear contrast to Judaism, which could never bring God into the light. The resurrection of Christ from among the dead is the introduction of an entirely new order of things. Law did not raise Him: it only put Him to death for our sins, but after that it had no power over Him at all (Rom. 7:1). Law could claim nothing, because His death met its claims. He was "raised from the dead by the glory of the Father" (Rom. 6:4), the power that far exceeds that of law, into a position of glory where law has no place, sin has no place, death has no place.

He announces himself at once, and boldly, as an apostle — which they denied. But he is an apostle not from men, nor through man: not through Peter, nor through any other, whoever it might be. Far better than that, he is an apostle through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who had raised Him from the dead, the true source of all blessing and all authority. It is always the way of those who do not love the truth to ask by what authority it is proclaimed.

Not a word about their being in Christ or in God the Father! Not a word about their being saints in Christ Jesus and faithful brothers. He says the very least it is possible to say about Christians together here on earth. He calls them "the churches of Galatia." He does not link them with any others. They are set, so to speak, on their own, as the naughty ones.

Why is it that to the disorderly Corinthians Paul used such strong expressions of affection, and none to the Galatians? Writing to them, he says the very least that it is possible to say about Christians together here below. Not a word about their being in Christ or in God the Father! Not a word about their being saints in Christ Jesus and faithful brothers. He speaks of them as "the churches of Galatia"; he does not link them with any others, but sets them, so to speak, apart as naughty by themselves.

He does not add, "beloved of God," as he does to the Romans, nor "to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus," as to the Corinthians. It is the shortest address he could write, and unlike his usual warm style. How could it be otherwise? These people were toying with the very foundations of Christianity. What could he say for them?

In spite of their fleshly walk and spiritual decline, the Spirit of God addressed the Corinthians as the church of God, sanctified in Christ, called to be saints. The Galatians were giving up the essential truths of the gospel of grace. They were leaving it and going back to the law as a means of justification. So in writing to them, the Spirit of God does not use these distinguishing terms. He does not recognise as the church of God those who fall away from grace. From this we may learn that doctrinal evil is an even more serious matter than moral evil.

Though Paul cannot praise them, he can still offer them "grace and peace." Perhaps they will refuse grace and choose law, turn from peace and receive a curse. Still, grace and peace are sent to them. That grace and peace come from the highest source, even "God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." It is very beautiful to see the Father and the Son linked together in their loving care of believers.

This greeting is especially important, if only because it is repeated so constantly in the New Testament. But the Galatians could not enjoy either grace or peace while they were trading in law. These are the precious fruits of the work of Jesus, and they are for the enjoyment of our souls day by day.

"Grace to you" is not only that you stand on the foundation of grace. "Grace to you" means you live from moment to moment in the resources of God's grace. This letter will unfold those resources of grace, in contrast to the resources of the flesh or the resources of the law… The source is one, but there is also a distinction. The name God the Father brings out the family aspect; the name Lord Jesus Christ brings out the kingdom aspect, or His authority.

Sadly, we pass over these gracious words very lightly. The apostle felt what he said in the power of the Spirit: favour and peace from the Father and the Son. Mercy is added only in the letters written to individual believers. When believers are looked at as a whole, they are seen as the fruit of mercy already shown — God sees them under the influence and energy of the love and grace that had saved them. But as individuals they need mercy every moment.

The third expression is a doubled form. It gives a much greater sense of vastness: "to the ages of ages." It is used five times of the life of God Himself… and ten times in expressions of glory to God (Gal. 1:5; Phil. 4:20…).

Note too that the brief praise in verse 5 does not belong to the Father only. It stands in a closer relation to that name, but it belongs to the Son as well. Verse 3 gives us its double object. Glory always matches grace.

In this brief greeting, Paul speaks of God as Father three times, "to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen" (v.5). Every word is full of meaning: not one shred of glory attaches to man's capabilities or accomplishments. The will of God the Father has triumphed gloriously.

The passage in Galatians links three things together: Christ giving Himself for our sins, our deliverance from this present evil world, and the eternal glory of God the Father. The first looks back, the second relates to the present time, and the third looks forward… Christ did not give Himself for our sins to leave us tied to this world. He did it so that we might be here for His own pleasure and for the Father's will.

That God may receive glory is the final goal, and also the motive. It certainly was the motive of Paul's service. He was so concerned because he knew this: if the Galatians came under the influence of these false teachers, there would be no glory to God the Father. If we are under the influence of Satan's reasoning in the religious world, then there will be no glory to God the Father.

There is a remarkable abruptness in the way the apostle enters at once into his subject… But now he turns at once to the great matter he had in hand. His heart was too full of it, so to speak, to spend more words than were needed.

Our deliverance cost the blessed Lord all that the cross involved, and the end in view is the glory of God the Father… If the mighty work that freed us from bondage brings glory to God the Father in every age, then our own age should have its own blessed part in a response of praise and worship.

Verse 5 ends the "greeting." In Paul's other letters, a word of thanks or praise usually follows, addressed to the church he is writing to. But there is no such word here. Paul does not call the Galatians "saints." It is the only letter of Paul in which this word does not appear. He does not call them "faithful brothers" or "holy brothers" as he does other Christians. But again and again he calls them "brothers." That shows the burning love that filled his heart as he wrote these severe and stern rebukes.

His heart was too agitated not to go at once to the point of their danger. So he adds no further introduction. He stays ominously silent about their state, for it really could not be spoken of. He begins at once.

"So soon removed" seems to me a somewhat stronger expression than the one the Spirit of God uses. It means, in the process of removing. They were shifting, being moved away "from Him who had called them into the grace of Christ." The evil and the danger were not yet fixed. Paul could still look to God about them.

They had not yet abandoned the faith. But they had started a change that would surely cut them off from Christ if they kept on with it.

Theirs was not a slow decline after long years of professing faith. It was a very sudden turning aside. How could they be so fickle? To turn now to law was to turn from God. He had called them through Paul to grace, not to law.

There was likely no thought of such a thing in their minds. They were probably quite sincere in believing they were honouring God. They thought that by obeying the law of Moses they would keep their standing before God — that is, keep themselves saved by their good works. Paul exposes it in no uncertain terms. He plainly sees the real effect of this twisting of the gospel. In the end it leaves God out altogether and makes the law the basis of blessing.

"In Christ's grace" means in the power of Christ's grace. It is not, as the King James translation has it, "into the grace of Christ" — no, the call is in the power of the grace of Christ. Here the grace of Christ stands over against what we will see later in Galatians: the power of the law, which is tied to the flesh.

What were they moving on to now? A different gospel, which is not another... So if the grace of Christ was the spring and power of their calling, the gospel was the means of it. But now they had left this for something different. Notice, it does not say contrary to it, but a different one; and for that very reason he says it is not another. It does not deserve the name of another gospel. God owns only one. He permits no compromise about the gospel, and neither should we.

Are you trusting Christ alone, or Christ and something else? Christ and your good works? Christ and your overcoming? Christ and your watching? Christ and the law? If you have added any of these, or anything else, to Christ, then you are just as bad as these Galatian Christians.

What were they moving to now? A different gospel, which is not another. In our English version it looks like a paradox — "another gospel, which is not another." But the language the Holy Spirit used had enough words to allow a different shade of meaning... Observe, it does not say, contrary to it, but a different one: and for that very reason he says, it is not another. It is unworthy to be called another gospel. God owns but one. He permits no compromise about the gospel; neither ought we.

It is as if he felt that using the word "gospel" in a comparing sense dishonoured something holy. So he hurries to give God's "glad tidings" back the unique place that belongs to it. There cannot be another gospel than His own... The teaching these plunderers of the flock brought in was not a second gospel to those who understood what it meant. It brought no gladness in its sound. No joy or peace could come through a ministry that turned them from their Saviour to themselves.

The men who had gone to the Galatian churches and disturbed them were Judaizing teachers... They taught that a simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is not enough for salvation. They said that to be saved you must keep the law, and that a Christian must observe the rules of the law of Moses. They put special stress on circumcision... To establish themselves, they tried to undermine Paul's apostleship, and they attacked his authority.

These false teachers did not directly deny the facts of the gospel, but they perverted them. A perversion is often more dangerous than a flat denial. In a perversion there is enough truth to deceive the unwary, and enough error to make the truth of no effect.

The Gospel is Christ's death for our sins, His burial, and His resurrection for our justification. To add one single thing to it as necessary for salvation is to pervert the Gospel.

This is the same word as in John 14:1, "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me." If we have true faith in Christ, then we never need to be disturbed. The storms of life may beat upon us. The servants of the enemy may bring their false teaching. But through it all, if our eyes are on Christ, we never need to be disturbed... We find this word "disturb" again in Galatians 5:10.

To put Gentile Christians under law in any shape or form is to "trouble" them, and "pervert the Gospel of Christ."

I am fully convinced that the same Galatian evil that was active then is at work today everywhere in Christendom. It may take a slightly different form from place to place. But wherever you turn... you will find the mingling of the law in one form or another along with the grace of Christ... the same poison, here diluted, and there concentrated, is found everywhere.

Scripture often repeats things. Repetition proves both the earnestness of the one who speaks and the value he places on what he says. As we read these passionate declarations, we should remember that the words and the feeling behind them are the Lord's. An apostle's curse is as harmless as a pope's if he speaks it merely on the impulse of his own excited feelings. But Paul's words, when written to the churches, were his own no longer, but the Lord's (1 Cor. 14:37). It is as if a double Amen closed the living door of safety (John 10:9). It is shut against the hopes of all who presume to trust a lie instead of God's revealed and living truth.

He does not mean that he has just told them (v. 8), but that on his last visit he saw this danger and warned them most solemnly. He saw this evil teaching beginning to come in among them, and he told them then. Anyone bringing good news besides what you received, cursed be he! He had told them before, and now he repeats it twice: "Cursed be he!" "A threefold cord is not quickly broken."

The apostle stands by the truth preached and received. What he preached was the truth on this matter. He does not deny that others preached it; but if they did, they preached the same truth. To depart from this was fatal. If he had preached the full truth of the gospel, he insists that they had received it. He will not hear of any pretended misunderstanding. He refuses all cover for different thoughts.

Even as I write, a friend has put a book in my hands. It boldly teaches that salvation is only by the death of Christ AND the Ten Commandments. This is the teaching of the false teachers at Galatia, and God says to all such, "Cursed be he!" How many preachers and teachers tell their hearers, "Believe in Christ AND keep the law!" "Believe in Christ AND do the best you can!" "Believe in Christ AND DO something besides."

But, you say, surely if an angel from heaven brings me this good news, then I can believe it! No, not even if an angel brings it! Even the angel is cursed. Remember that Satan himself is changed into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14).

Some have suggested that passion carried Paul away when he heard people challenge his authority, and that he wrote unwisely. They forget that it was not Paul who penned these words, but the Spirit of God. The curse on those who pervert the gospel of Christ is fully justified when we consider what is at stake. Perverting the gospel touches the unspeakably blessed work of Christ on Calvary's cross. If righteousness is in any way through the law, by what man does, then Christ died in vain (2:21).

The apostle's words completely rule out all the development or further light that men speak of. Such teaching would set aside the sufficiency of Christ's work alone to secure the salvation of everyone who believes.

These false teachers had said, Paul is trying to persuade men to follow him by being all things to all men. (See 1 Cor. 9:22.) Paul answers, You may judge for yourselves. What am I doing now? Am I seeking to please you in this letter? Am I now seeking to please men, or God? They knew very well that Paul was not trying to please them, or to please any man.

His whole life aimed at one thing: to show himself to God as a workman who did not need to be ashamed. But to persuade God of his faithfulness, as His messenger and witness, Paul had to stay close to the words of God. There had been a time when he persuaded men, and served the traditions of his ancestors with tireless zeal. Men were indeed his aim, but not their approval. He went after them like a fisherman after their souls. The net he fished with was not worldly wisdom, but the grace of God.

He knew well that speaking this bluntly offended people. It even stirred up ill-will among real saints of God. Today the same thing would be called a lack of love. But speaking without compromise is not a lack of love. Judging those who do speak that way is.

No one was more careful than he was not to wound anyone needlessly. No one was more patient with people who were slow to grow in the truth. But when the foundations of Christianity came under attack, the apostle forgot men and acted for Christ.

The preachers of a perverted gospel are marked by one thing: they cater to what people want. A time comes when people "will not endure sound teaching," and they "accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions" (2 Timothy 4:3). And Jude describes these "men-pleasers" as "loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage" (Jude 16).

A popular preacher loves and looks for a wide field of work and crowded audiences... But he should beware. This desire can become his trap, when service and religious fame take the place of Christ as his goal. Sadly, more than a few servants of Christ who were once respected have fallen asleep on the laurels of their religious reputation.

Some try so hard not to be man-pleasers that they fall into the opposite evil. They become thoroughly unpleasant. The apostle sought to to "please everyone in everything" for their good (1 Corinthians 10:33). Still, when the truth was at stake, he wrote as bluntly as he does here. On one hand, his life and conduct aimed to commend him "to everyone's conscience" (2 Corinthians 4:2). On the other hand, he worked to be agreeable to God.

The letter he wrote to the Galatians under the guidance of the Holy Spirit is the most solemn, sharp, and combative letter that ever came from his pen. It contains no word of praise or thanksgiving, unlike his other letters. It begins right after the greetings with "I wonder…" and ends before the final greeting with "From now on let no one trouble me…" (Gal 1:6; 6:17). Still, he is full of love for his children in the faith (Gal 4:19). Again and again he calls them "brothers" (Gal 1:11; 3:15; 4:12, 28, 31; 5:11, 13; 6:1, 18).

False human teachings had since poured into their minds and corrupted them. Their treacherous guides also worked hard to belittle Paul's ministry, unfairly comparing his late-born claim to be an apostle with the claims of the original disciples. So he had to state again, in this formal way, that his gospel was genuine and came from God. That gospel had once been its own witness to their gladdened hearts, and had shown others its source by its effects.

In verse 1 he tells them he was an apostle, not from men, or by a man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father. Now Paul tells them the same is true of his gospel. The good news he announced to them is not according to man. He did not receive it from man, and no one taught it to him. This good news was not prepared in the minds of clever men. It was not reasoned out from the Old Testament. Neither Peter nor any of the other twelve apostles had told it to Paul. Paul had not gone to a college or Bible school to learn it.

He had not learned it from any man. He held it directly from the lips of the Lord, when He revealed Himself to him in glory… He might well hold it firmly and refuse all else that man might add to it. It made no difference what excuse men had for teaching better than the Lord Himself — whether they sought to add the law to the gospel, or claimed to know a better way of producing holiness than the means used by God.

First, the good news that he preached was "not according to man." Men dream of a gospel that would exalt man. It would offer him blessing as the result of his own efforts. God's good news does bring eternal blessing to man. But it brings that blessing in a way that gives eternal glory to God.

"I like hearing Mr. So-and-so," is the cry. "He speaks so reasonably. There is such common sense. He has such faith in humanity, and makes you feel so much more hopeful and content in this rather discontented world." Quite so! The fact is, it is all so thoroughly after man. That is why it is all so pleasing to the natural man. Yet it is false. It is not the gospel of God.

The apostles announced Christ as the Messiah. They made known forgiveness of sins through His name. But they did not bring out the heavenly glory of Christ as Paul did. He brought out all these truths, and more that they never touched on. That is why he so often speaks of "my gospel." Of course, in the great truths of the gospel, there could be no difference between what Paul and the other apostles preached. But what Paul preached went far beyond theirs. There was nothing contradictory.

The next point he brings into his argument is his earlier way of life. Speaking of his gospel, he says he did not receive it from any man, and no one taught it to him. It came by the revelation of Jesus Christ. They might have raised a doubt about this; but he shows that all his previous life was opposed to the gospel. There was not another such opponent of Christ as he had been. "For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it." There may be a small word here for them. They were beginning to persecute everyone who opposed their ideas about the law, and were getting into a bitter spirit.

While others were hearing the gospel preached and coming into the Church, he was persecuting it. His zeal for the Jew's religion and the traditions of the fathers completely blinded him to the preaching of the apostles. It is clear, then, that in his unconverted days he was unreached by the preaching of others.

"For you heard of my manner of life formerly in Judaism, that surpassingly I kept persecuting the assembly of God, and I kept making havoc of it." Galatians 1:13 [Judaism means the Jewish rites, customs and ceremonies.]

What made him chief of sinners was not immorality. It was the dreadful will and purpose with which he set himself against the purpose and mind of God. Listen to his own account of it: "I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth."

In his life he combined three things: great zeal for Jewish tradition, progress in Judaism that went further than others of his own age, and heavy persecution of the church of God. Twice in verses 13 and 14 he speaks of "the Jews' religion." This is significant. The Galatians had fallen into the trap of trying to bring the very essence of that religion into the gospel. He would have them realise — and us also — that far from being an addition to the gospel it is opposed to it. He had been brought clean out of it by his conversion.

Paul persecuted the Church (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13; Philippians 3:6). He did not persecute only the believers at Jerusalem, but through them the whole Church. He even heard a voice asking, "Why are you persecuting Me?" (Acts 9:4-5).

Grace is the foundation of it all — free, sovereign grace. What use were his privileges as a Jew to a man caught red-handed on his mission of blood, as Saul now is! This is not a repentant sinner asking for and finding mercy. He is an enemy, and it is as an enemy that he is reconciled to God. Legality is an impossibility for a man in his position. He cannot dream of any of those half-gospels with which men fool themselves first and then their hearers.

"and in Judaism I kept blazing a path ahead of and beyond many of my own age in my nation, being more exceedingly zealous of my ancestral traditions." Galatians 1:13-14 [Judaism means the Jewish rites, customs and ceremonies.]

The scribes and others held on to these traditions with great tenacity. A Jew's standing among men grew in proportion to his zeal for spreading and developing them. Before his conversion, Saul of Tarsus gained distinction in Jerusalem by his devotion to the tradition of his fathers... So tradition becomes evil when it adds to the word of God, or takes something away from it. Once fully developed, it becomes a harmful substitute for the word of God.

His zeal for the Jew's religion and the traditions of the fathers blinded him to the preaching of the Apostles. It is clear, then, that no preaching from others reached him in his unconverted days.

He knew all about this Judaism which they were getting back into. He did not speak as one who had been a stranger to it. On the contrary, he had made the very greatest advances. He was an enthusiast for the law, beyond the people of his own nation around him. As evidence of this, he went beyond them all in persecuting the Church of God and destroying it. How the essential opposition of principles comes out here! Here he was following only the human school. The traditions of his fathers stirred up his zeal, with all their appeal to nature and self-interest.

Twice in verses 13 and 14 he speaks of "the Jews' religion." This matters. The Galatians had fallen into the trap of trying to bring the very heart of that religion into the Gospel. He wants them to see — and us also — that it is not an addition to the Gospel at all. It is against it. His conversion had brought him clean out of it.

He was allowed to win the prize in the great legal struggle with his "equals in his own nation." He won it only so that he might throw it down at the foot of the Cross, like a withered, worthless thing... As the chief of legalists, Saul stood no nearer to Christ than he did as the chief of sinners. His noblest efforts in the school of legalism held no more justifying merit than his wildest acts against the name of Christ. He was saved by grace, saved by blood, saved by faith.

We may have been completely sincere in our religious convictions. But if they came from tradition instead of from God, the light of God's truth wakes us up to a discovery. In the very thing we were most proud of, we were most contrary to God... Those who take their religion from tradition, and not from the Word of God, are the fiercest opponents of the doctrines of grace.

Notice first how directly and solemnly he refers everything to the supreme will and power of God. "It pleased God." Here we listen to the voice of the new creature acknowledging its Maker and giving Him glory. As a Christian apostle and minister of God, both he himself and his teaching are distinctly "of God."

Jeremiah 1:5 and Galatians 1:15-16 show that God marks out and calls His servants even before they are born. In view of this He shapes the vessel for His purposes and arranges all the circumstances of his later life. God designs everything he passes through to prepare and train him for his divine calling in life. This is so even while he may still be unconverted, and may not yet know his heavenly calling.

He shows that it was God who called him away from the law. The Galatians were beginning to take up that law again. When Paul was in the very middle of it, he was an enemy of Christ. It pleased God to separate him from his mother's womb. But to call him, he insists, was much more; this call was of grace.

Three steps in Paul's history are plainly marked for us. First, God set him apart even before his birth. Then He called him by the grace of the gospel. Third, God revealed His Son in him, so that He might be the theme of his testimony among the nations. Paul was born of the purest Hebrew stock. Even so, he needed to be set apart as much as if he had been a pagan. God set him apart from his Judaism — a point of much importance to the Galatians.

A short time before, he had been a persecutor. He had advanced in Judaism beyond many others of his own age and nation. Now sovereign grace lays hold of him, while he is at his most active against the name of the Lord. He becomes an apostle sent directly by the Lord to the Gentiles, sent by a glorified Jesus.

The words are an open confession. For years he had given himself to hard work, to eager learning, and to loyalty to the Jews' religion. All of it was only an empty (though ignorant) effort to block the purpose of God. His will was set against God's, while he no doubt persuaded himself that the stronger his will, the more he pleased God.

God's sovereignty in the choice of the vessel is strikingly seen. Who was more suitable to write the letter to the Galatians? Who was better fitted to press justification by faith alone, apart from works? Who better fitted to pour contempt on the first man and all his efforts to be righteous? Who was better fitted to show the believer's complete deliverance from law? Could a converted tax collector do it as well?

God has spoken in this world, and He is still speaking. He has spoken of the Son, and He still speaks only of Him. This had a captivating effect on the apostle. We may not be up to it, but in our measure we too should know what we are separated to. The word saint which we bear says that we are separated. The same grace that separated the apostle has separated us.

It was all grace. Paul had done nothing to earn such a meeting as that on the Damascus road. Paul had only tried to persecute and kill Christ's people. Paul had been persecuting the Christ. And this is the man the Christ chooses, to set him apart to the good news. What grace! Why did He choose Saul of Tarsus? The only reason Saul can give is God's grace, and that "God was pleased to reveal His Son in me." … Is it any wonder that Paul could not, and would not, give up grace? The law could only have condemned Saul to death, but grace makes him a chosen instrument.

Notice how unusual the expression is — "to reveal His Son in me". He is the only apostle who uses the phrase, and it is typical of him. To Peter the Father revealed His Son (Matt. 16); but Paul's word goes further. It involves union with Christ, and Paul was the one honoured to teach this truth. He learned the first part of it at his conversion. This huge fact came home to him: in persecuting the saints he was persecuting Christ, for the saints were in Him and He in them.

God was pleased to take away the veil that now hides His Son from view. So the glory of the Son of God changed the whole of Saul's life. And in him God unveiled His Son to those around him. Many a man and woman came to know the Son of God through the sight that Saul of Tarsus had of Him on the Damascus road. God used Paul to tell out the gospel. But Paul's own person also gave the strongest witness to its power.

This is true conversion, true faith. Sovereign grace reveals the Son of God in us, a glorified Man, and — if we have already understood the truth — a Saviour who has borne all our sins. But it is the revelation of Christ in us. In Saul's case, this revelation was also in order that he might preach Him among the Gentiles.

So the gospel God commissioned Paul to preach was not just the announcement of certain truths. It was about the person God had revealed in him. He preached the Jesus who had appeared to him in heavenly glory as the Son of God. The gospel came to the Gentiles in the power of that revelation, so that they would be brought into the light of the glory of God. In that light flesh shows up as wholly bad and condemned. Yet in that same light there is life, righteousness, and glory for man. Paul had not dimmed this revelation by consulting flesh and blood. Flesh and blood could have no part in revealing it, or in helping it.

Did he need to go up to Jerusalem to receive apostolic ordination, or even apostolic instruction? Not for a moment did he dream of such a thing. He says, "I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me." So he proves with care that he had nothing to do with apostolic authority, teaching, or succession. The Spirit knew well all that would come in later through the false claims of men.

The moment we confer with flesh and blood, our testimony and service are spoiled, because flesh and blood can never obey. We must obey God's command at once, through grace. Then we are blessed, and God is glorified. God's own word as the basis of what we do will always give our actions strength and steadiness. If we act only on impulse, the action will fade as soon as the impulse fades.

Had Paul gone up to present his credentials to the others, he would have lowered and obscured his apostleship. He would have done all he could to destroy its special blessedness and peculiar glory. But he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. And God held the reins, to keep the truth pure and unspoiled... Some time later he does see Jerusalem, but he sees no more than Peter and James — not the apostles as a body, officially.

Did he need to go up to Jerusalem to receive apostolic ordination, or even apostolic instruction? Not for a moment did he dream of such a thing... So he carefully proves that he had nothing to do with apostolic authority, teaching, or succession. The Spirit knew well everything that would come in later through the false claims of men.

Some men were made apostles at an earlier date than Paul could claim for himself (Gal. 1:17). He fully accepts them; yet from them he received neither his apostolic commission nor the gospel he preached. He was an apostle of Jesus Christ, one sent by Him, and by God the Father, who raised Him from the dead.

He went into Arabia, into the desert. He needed privacy, to be alone with God, so he could take in the wonderful truth he had received. This is worth noting for all of us, and above all for young converts who may feel the pull to seek publicity when they need to be out of sight. From the wilderness Paul goes not to Jerusalem, but returns again to Damascus — the place of his wonderful conversion.

Arabia is a very large country. Mount Sinai, where God gave Moses the law, is in Arabia. Elijah had gone away into Arabia to escape from Jezebel, and to be alone with God. And I am sure Saul of Tarsus also went to Arabia to be alone with God... Every true servant of God must have time to be alone with God.

A time of quiet, away from everyone, came at just the right moment. A short stay in Arabia provided it... Looking at the account he gives us of this part of his life, we would place it just after his conversion. It came before any public ministry, or even any contact with the disciples in Damascus.

People may wonder where that visit to Arabia fits in, the one he writes about in Galatians 1:17. We think it probably happened during the "many days" that verse 23 of our chapter mentions, since he tells us that he "returned again to Damascus."

The Spirit of God appears to include in the first verses the three years the apostle spent in Arabia. That fact carries great weight, coming right after his conversion. The Epistle to the Galatians uses it with great force (Gal. 1:17), to prove how little man, even the twelve, had to do with it... God meant it to stand apart from Jerusalem and the twelve. His call, his apostleship, and the gospel he preached came straight from the prime source of grace, truth, and authority: the risen Head and God Himself.

These teachers who pressed the Jewish law came from Jerusalem. Of course, they presented themselves as carrying all the authority of that great centre of the apostles behind them. They painted Paul as an upstart apostle. He was not part of the original band of apostles, they said, and so he lacked full and proper authority. That is why the apostle begins his letter with some personal history.

God planned it this way on purpose. Saul went to Arabia, then returned to Damascus, and only after three years did he go up to Jerusalem. He did not go to receive office from the hands of the apostles, but to get to know Peter. He stayed only fifteen days, and saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother. In this God put to death the Jewish system at its best, and all order handed down by succession.

We cannot be sure whether this period starts at his conversion or at his return from Arabia. But Scripture is often unclear on such small points, and that will never trouble a sound-minded believer.

The Apostle had spent three years in Arabia and Damascus. Then he paid a visit of fifteen days to Peter at Jerusalem. The only other Apostle he saw was James, the brother of our Lord. So this visit was not an official one to receive instructions or ordination. It was a personal one, to get to know Peter.

He went only to get to know Peter, and stayed with him — how long? Fifteen days. That is far too short a time, if it were a question of proper training in the testimony of the twelve apostles. But in fact he did not see the twelve. He saw Peter... So he accepts the challenge that unbelief had thrown down. He is glad to admit what they counted a defect.

God had formed him, and God saw that the right time had come for him to go to Jerusalem to visit Cephas (the Aramaic name for Peter). Why did Paul feel the need to visit Peter? Peter had opened the door for the Gentiles (Acts 10), and the Lord had used him. But now the Lord was preparing Paul as the vessel He would use widely among the Gentiles, so they needed this contact. Paul went to see Cephas to tell him what had happened to him... Paul did not need a crash course from Peter, not at all. He went to have fellowship with him, and so that Peter could judge whether Paul's mission was right or not. In those fifteen days Peter would have had time enough to correct him, if that had been needed. But it was not long enough to train him for the mission. God had trained him during those three years in Arabia.

We would like to know what these men of God discussed at that time, but the Spirit of God has not chosen to lift the veil. We may be sure that many precious details of our Lord's life on earth came into their everyday talk, for Peter had seen them himself. And Saul would surely tell his new friend and brother something of what he had learned in God's school, both in Damascus and in Arabia.

Paul's teaching was independent of human teaching (1:11-17). It was independent of the churches of Judea (1:18-24). And I would add: it was independent of the other apostles too. He was in fellowship with them, but they had not sent him.

Paul visited Jerusalem and stayed with the Apostle Peter for fifteen days. The letter to the Galatians is one fierce protest against an attack on the gospel of the grace of God. That attack came by bringing in Jewish legal principles. Paul was careful to define his position as the Apostle to the Gentiles. He owed that position directly to God's appointment. It had no connection with Jerusalem or with the other apostles sent to Israel. The matter was very serious; the very foundations of the faith were at stake. That is why he was so careful to state which apostle he had met, and to point out that he had met no other.

Why did he not see the rest? The only reasonable explanation is that they were away elsewhere on their Master's work... This verse means one thing above all. His heart was fully open to the comfort of being with his fellow workers in the ministry. Yet his own liberty of service did not depend on their approval in any way.

The James who wrote the letter of James was not the brother of John. Herod killed that James in the very early years, as recorded in Acts 12:2. The writer was the James spoken of in Acts 15:13 and Acts 21:18. Paul calls him "James, the Lord's brother," in Galatians 1:19. He also acknowledges him as one of the "pillars" of the church in Jerusalem in Galatians 2:9. As far as we can tell, he never went out to Judea or Samaria or to the ends of the earth. He stayed in Jerusalem, and there he came to hold a position of great authority.

But James was not a "disciple." He was one of the Lord's brothers, and they did not believe the whole time the Lord was living here below: "For not even his brothers believed in him" (John 7:5). "His brothers" were sons of Mary born after His own birth. Some would like to make them sons of an earlier marriage of Joseph. We know nothing of such a marriage, and neither do they. We do know that Scripture is quite plain.

Yet only a few verses further down in this same chapter I read the words: "James, the Lord's brother." Paul writes it as simply as he might have written, "I saw Timothy," or "I saw Peter." It was probably only a little over thirty years since James shared the same humble home with "the carpenter" of Nazareth... These simple words tell me that my Lord is truly Man. The first verse of Galatians tells me with trumpet tones that Jesus is truly God. The nineteenth verse tells me with equal certainty that He is also truly Man.

He was probably not one of the twelve apostles. Acts 1:14 first mentions the Lord's brothers meeting with the apostles, and it speaks of them as distinct from the apostles... Scholars say that the Greek wording of Galatians 1:19 does not have to mean that James the Lord's brother was an apostle.

"Then He appeared to James" — one of the Lord's brothers, who did not believe in Him in the days before Calvary. The Lord's death atoned for that sinful unbelief. His appearing in resurrection swept it away. So James loved to speak of himself as the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why make such a solemn declaration to confirm a story so likely in itself, and told so simply and plainly? We can be sure what lay behind it. While Paul was away, people were trying to spoil God's work in the Galatian churches, and they had made misleading claims about his earlier history. Those claims had no doubt done real damage. So he is not content to correct a false statement with a true one. He also appeals to the God in whose name and power he claimed to work. That fits a man who claimed so clearly to be God's minister and messenger.

Paul is answering his enemies, the false teachers. They said Paul did not receive his teaching or his authority from the apostles at Jerusalem. No, Paul says, I did not. And I will prove from my own history that it was impossible for me to receive either my authority or my teaching from men. And now in verse 20 he makes it doubly sure. It is like our Lord's words that He loved so well, "truly, truly." Paul adds, "In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!" His enemies had suggested that his conduct had been deceitful, and perhaps they had said he was not truthful. So Paul makes this solemn statement that should close the mouths of his enemies.

This is a short parenthesis. Why does Paul say this? There had been false teachers among the Galatians. Their only way to attack Paul was to question whether he was a real apostle. That is why Paul stressed his divine call: "an apostle—not from men nor through man" (1:1). And that is why he gave so many historical details. He wanted them to understand what God had done and what had happened to him.

His call was in no way from men, nor through man. It came through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from among the dead. The gospel he preached was the same: it was not according to man. He did not receive it from man, and no one taught it to him. It came by revelation of Jesus Christ. God meant it to be independent of Jerusalem and the twelve apostles. Paul's call, his apostleship, and his gospel came straight from the first source of grace, truth, and authority: the risen Head and God Himself.

It is a complete mistake to think that either of them forbids an oath taken in court. The examples given rule that out. They are not the kind a judge requires in court or on any other formal occasion. They were, or could be, the common phrases of everyday speech… Even with no judge present, on a serious enough occasion, we find the apostle confirming what he taught the believers by something equivalent: Romans 1:9; Romans 9:1; 2 Corinthians 1:23; Galatians 1:20; Philippians 1:8.

The Apostle adds solemn weight to his words by reminding us that he speaks "before God," and adds, "I do not lie." It would be good for us all if we always spoke as those consciously in the presence of God, and could truly say, "before God, I do not lie."

In Acts 9 we saw that Paul preached boldly in Jerusalem, and so the Jews "were seeking to kill him." What an example of diligence Paul is to us there. He was in Jerusalem only fifteen days, but in that short time he found opportunity to preach boldly. The Lord met him in a vision in the temple and told him to leave. As we have seen, the brothers sent him to his native home in Tarsus. Paul leaves all this out of Galatians, though it is so much to his credit. He says only, "Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia." Tarsus was a city in Cilicia, and it was "no obscure city." Cilicia and Syria had close ties in many ways, so that often they were almost one. Cilicia is northeast of Syria. You will remember that Damascus was in Syria. So you can see that Paul was going further and further away from Jerusalem in his work for the Lord.

Paul's teaching was independent of human teaching (1:11-17) and independent of the Judean churches (1:18-24). I want to add that it was independent of the other apostles too. He was in fellowship with them, but they did not send him. They recognised the work he had done in Cilicia and they glorified God in him, so there was a form of fellowship. But his point was that the Judean churches had not sent him to Cilicia.

Galatians 1:21 is no real difficulty. It only tells us that he then came to the regions of Syria and Cilicia, which was easy by ship. The next verse shows that he was still unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ.

From Jerusalem, by way of Caesarea, to Tarsus was his recorded route, as we have seen. At Tarsus he appears to have stayed some time. The broader language of this verse lets us fairly infer that he made it his headquarters while he served the gospel in those parts. There at least Barnabas sought him out and found him.

So before Barnabas went out to call him in Acts 11, Paul had worked there, although we do not know exactly how long. Assemblies had probably formed there, because we have references to assemblies in that region. For example, Acts 15:23 says: "The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings."

The Spirit of God never occupies us with the private lives even of the holiest of His people. Otherwise they might come between our souls and Christ. Admiration of man comes more easily to the natural heart than admiration of Christ. A veil is therefore drawn over the whole of Saul's stay in his native place.

Was this then a reproach? Let it be so: it was true. It was really part of God's wonderful ways with him. It showed the true character of Christianity and of its ministry, in contrast to Judaism. It was therefore not only for him, but for the instruction of the Galatians and of us all. Once understood, it completely cut away all the earthly baby-clothes of the heavenly church and of the Christian. Those who lived in Jerusalem were too ready to keep the clothes and the cradle. These had their place and use at first, but they had no claim to a place among the Gentiles.

After his visit to Jerusalem he went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. He received no messages and no authority from the assemblies of Judea. They did not even know his face. When they heard what he was doing, they did not interfere with him or give him instructions and advice. They did not complain that he was preaching apart from the authority of the twelve apostles.

We must notice the difference between the "assemblies of Judea" and the assembly of Jerusalem. The assembly in Jerusalem had almost surely got to know Paul in person, though he was there only fifteen days. But he left so suddenly, that the assemblies outside Jerusalem had no chance to get to know him.

Was this then a reproach? So be it: it was true. It was really part of God's wonderful ways with him. It showed the true character of Christianity and of its ministry, in contrast with Judaism. So it was not only for him, but for the teaching of the Galatians, and of us all. Understood rightly, it cut away all the earthly baby-clothes of the heavenly church and of the Christian. Those who lived in Jerusalem were too ready to keep the clothes and the cradle. These had their place and use at first, but no claim to be kept up among the Gentiles.

Paul describes the assemblies which were in Judea as in Christ. This was true of all of them, but it marked out the assemblies in Judea as distinct from any synagogue of the Jews. They were assemblies of Christ, and in Christ. No Jew could ever have used these terms and truths, or even claimed to accept them.

There were other assemblies in Judea which were not in Christ. He had once been well known to those. From city to city he hunted the blameless sheep of Jesus, imprisoning and beating in every synagogue those who believed and called on that name. But no assembly of God's living worshippers in Judea had ever seen his face until the time he speaks of.

The Galatian behaviour amounted to blaming God. These churches did not blame God, and they did not find fault with his testimony. They glorified God in Paul. The Galatians were looking with longing at these early churches of Judea. Yet those churches were glorifying God in him, while the Galatians themselves quarrelled with the rich mercy God had been showing the Gentiles.

How transforming is divine grace! It turns a thief into a giver, and a persecutor into a preacher. But what a rebuke for the assemblies of Galatia! They were criticizing the devoted apostle, and slighting him because his ministry had no Jewish source.

As the good news of the change in Saul of Tarsus kept going round among the assemblies of Judea, they kept glorifying God. Can you not guess what thanks and praise went up to God in their prayer meetings? A very early writer said: "He does not say, They marvelled at me, or praised me, or were struck with admiration of me. He attributes it all to grace. They glorified God, he says, in me."

Was this then a reproach? Let it be so: it was true. It was really part of God's wonderful ways with him. It showed the true character of Christianity and of its ministry, in contrast with Judaism. So it was not only for him, but for the instruction of the Galatians, and of us all. Once you see this, it cuts away every earthly baby-wrapping from the heavenly church and from the Christian. Those who lived in Jerusalem were too ready to keep the baby clothes and the cradle. These had their place and use at first, but no one should keep them going among the Gentiles.

After his visit to Jerusalem he went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. So far from receiving any communications, or authority, from the assemblies of Judea, he was unknown to them even by face. This only they knew, that the one-time persecutor was now a preacher of the faith which once he had sought to destroy. They heard what he was doing. They did not interfere with the Apostle or send him instructions and advice. They did not complain that he was preaching apart from the authority of the twelve apostles. Instead they glorified God for all that He was doing in and through the Apostle.

How transforming is divine grace, turning a thief into a giver (Eph. 4:28), and a persecutor into a preacher; but what a rebuke for the assemblies of Galatia! They were criticising the devoted apostle and slighting him, because his ministry had no Jewish source. Meanwhile the assemblies of Judea glorified God for His admirable work of sovereign favour — and from them he might have expected some prejudice.

What is the faith? It is the whole body of truth revealed by God at the beginning; that which was given by God once for all to the saints (Jude 3). It comes from its divine source, so it is (1) God's revelation. It finds expression in Christ and in the Scriptures, so it is (2) the truth. It is a present unseen system in which believers are to stand fast, so it is called (3) the faith — "the faith of God's elect" (Titus 1:1).

How vivid the whole scene is! We can see those early Christians talking together: "Brother, have you heard? Saul of Tarsus, who helped kill Stephen, is preaching the good news!"… As the good news of the change in Saul of Tarsus kept going round among the assemblies of Judea, they kept glorifying God. Can you not guess what thanks and praise went up to God in their prayer meetings? A very ancient writer has said, "He does not say, They marvelled at me; they praised me; they were struck with admiration of me: but he attributes all to grace. They glorified God, he says, in me."

What grace in God; what a change in the man! It is the same grace towards all who are saved, but Saul was a marvellous testimony to it. That testimony would make the grace plain and clear to all. The apostle himself says: "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life" (1 Tim. 1:15-16).

These verses use the imperfect and present tenses, which show continuous action. "I remained unknown … they kept on hearing … our persecutor … keeps on announcing the good news of the faith he once kept on destroying." How vivid the whole scene is! We can see those early Christians talking together: "Brother, have you heard? Saul of Tarsus, who helped kill Stephen, is preaching the good news!" … The news of the change in Saul of Tarsus kept going round the assemblies of Judea. And they kept glorifying God. Can you not guess what thanks and praise went up to God in their prayer meetings? A very ancient writer has said, "He does not say, They marvelled at me; they praised me; they admired me: but he credits everything to grace. They glorified God, he says, in me."

How transforming God's grace is! It turns a thief into a giver (Eph. 4:28), and a persecutor into a preacher. But what a rebuke for the assemblies of Galatia! They were criticizing the devoted apostle. They slighted him because his ministry did not come from a Jewish source. Meanwhile the assemblies of Judea — the very people he might have expected prejudice from — glorified God for His wonderful work of sovereign grace.

God was pleased to take away the veil that now hides His Son from view. So the glory of the Son of God changed all of Saul's life, and in him God unveiled His Son to those around him. Many men and women came to know the Son of God through the sight that Saul of Tarsus had of Him on the Damascus road. Paul was not only the instrument God used to spread the gospel. In his own person he also gave the strongest proof of its power.

When they heard what he was doing, they did not interfere with the Apostle. They did not give him instructions or advice. They did not complain that he was preaching without the authority of the twelve. Instead they glorified God for all that He was doing in and through the Apostle. So the very man these false teachers were trying to belittle was the man in whom the assemblies in Judea, the centre of the legal system, found reason to glorify God.

These churches did not blame God, which is what the Galatians' conduct amounted to. They did not find fault with his testimony either. They glorified God in Paul. The Galatians were gazing longingly at these early churches of Judea. Those churches were glorifying God in Paul, while the Galatians themselves were quarrelling with the rich mercy God had been showing the Gentiles.

The Judean assemblies received the report that their former persecutor now preached what he had once fought against. And they glorified God in him. What sweet fruit of the grace of God, which worked powerfully in them as well as in him!

God ordered it so that no less than fourteen years passed between two visits. The first was the fifteen days he spent with Peter, a few years after his conversion (see Gal. 1:18). The second is this visit to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus, the one Acts 15 speaks of. So into those fourteen years came his time of service at Antioch (Acts 11:25-26), and his first missionary journey (Acts 13 and 14). So when he went up he was no beginner looking to be taught what to preach. He was a well-tested apostle with a clear message of his own.

The important thing for the Spirit of God was to remove every excuse for connecting Paul's mission or ministry with Jerusalem. The principle of apostolic succession is cut off by implication. Years passed before these visits. Even more telling is what the visits were like when he did go. Both rule out any idea that his ministry came from Jerusalem.

We do not know from which point these fourteen years are to be counted, from his calling or from the time he went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas.

After fourteen years he went up again to Jerusalem, and the reason was the Judaising Christians. False brothers had been brought in unnoticed. They came in secretly to spy out the freedom the Gentiles had in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring them into slavery... Paul and Barnabas had strongly resisted these false brothers, who had come down from Jerusalem. But God had not allowed them to succeed. No doubt this was so that Jerusalem itself, and the apostles linked with the assembly there, would be the ones to recognise the liberty of the Gentiles. Otherwise there would have been two churches: one bound by the law at Jerusalem, and one free from the law at Antioch. By the wisdom of God, Jerusalem itself declared that Christians from the nations were not under the law. So all remained united.

He went up with Barnabas, taking Titus with him. It was by revelation, not by summons from Jerusalem, and not to gain a title from it... This was not the smallest concession to Jewish prejudice. It was a powerful blow against it. So, going up with Barnabas, he took Titus, a Gentile, along with him; and even so by revelation. The aim was that the twelve apostles should secure Gentile liberty, and that the church at Jerusalem should condemn the Judaizers. That is the opposite of getting his authority from either.

Paul was so clear, and knew the Lord's mind so well, that he says those at Jerusalem added nothing to him when they met. He was so clear about it that he took Titus with him, uncircumcised as he was. For Paul the question was already settled, and taking Titus proved it.

The question was raised whether the Gentile disciples had to be circumcised. So Paul and Barnabas went up to Jerusalem about it (Paul is now usually named first). Acts 15... Later Paul proposed that they revisit the cities where they had preached. Barnabas insisted on taking his nephew Mark; but Paul objected, because Mark had left the work earlier. Barnabas held to his wish, so they parted. In this way these two valuable servants of the Lord were separated, who had risked their lives for the name of the Lord Jesus.

Paul speaks of it here to show that he went up only because it was the will of God. He did not go because it depended on the authority of those at Jerusalem. But the gospel itself was in question. So he was content to tell the others what he had been preaching. He did this privately, though, with those who were pillars, in case he should in any way have run in vain.

How does this verse relate to Acts 15:2? There is no conflict. It was important that Paul was not sent by men. That is why in Galatians 2 he makes the point that even when he went up to Jerusalem, he went by divine revelation. Acts 15:2 is simply God's confirmation of the decision of the brothers in Antioch.

Suppose a decision at Antioch had won the case for the Gentiles, and they had kept their liberty despite the Jews. Then there would have been an immediate danger of two assemblies forming and of unity being lost. So all of Paul's spiritual and apostolic power was not enough to overcome the opposing spirit at Antioch and settle the question. It was God's will that Jerusalem should settle it. The Christian Jews themselves — the apostles, the elders, and the whole assembly — were to pronounce the freedom of the Gentiles. In that way holy liberty and unity would both stand.

Here we can see the wisdom of the apostle. He spoke privately to the leaders before the public discussion came on. That way it would be clear that there was no contradiction in the teaching of those who worked among Jews or among Gentiles — whatever difference there might be. He laid before the twelve the gospel he preached among the Gentiles. Did they judge it defective, as those who had misled the Galatians did? Did they add anything to him? The context shows they did neither.

Notice how the Holy Spirit speaks of Paul communicating his gospel to those in Jerusalem. This was a death-blow to the insinuation that he had received it in some irregular way... There are two things to take account of in communicating truth. It must be certain that it is truth from God, and it must also be truth suited to those you address. They might have needed all of it, but they were not in a condition to receive it. The more precious the truth, the greater the harm, in a sense, if you give it to people who are not in a state to profit by it... Some people are still under law and do not know their death to it in Christ's death and resurrection. Such people first need a firm footing in the grace of God.

The last part of the verse — making sure he was not running or had not run in vain — does not show doubt on the apostle's part. But someone had to call the other apostles to face this question: was Paul's ministry from God, or had his work of past years been wasted? There can be no halfway point here for Paul: there must be a definite declaration.

He went up and communicated to them the gospel he was preaching. The opposition ran so high that he did this first of all in private, with "those who seemed influential." Legalism was sweeping the crowd, and he did not want that outbreak to work disaster among those who had been gathered from the Gentiles. This is what he means when he says he did it to make sure he was not running or had not run in vain. There was no yielding to the opposition in the slightest degree.

The opinion of a worldly-minded believer is clearly of little or no value, but that of a godly and mature believer may well be highly valued. In Galatians 2:2 the apostle Paul gives us an example of this. He was the apostle to the Gentiles, and received his gospel and his instructions on how to preach it by direct revelation from the Lord — yet he was not above conferring privately with those who were reputed to be spiritual men in Jerusalem.

The word "Greek" has three meanings in the New Testament. First, a Greek by nationality. Second, set against a Jew, it means any Gentile — he need not be Greek by nationality. Third, in a wider sense, it means all nations who are not Jews, but who lived under the influence of Greek learning and customs. In this verse, we believe the meaning is simply that Titus was a Gentile.

The apostle had referred to these facts. He set out his gospel to them, privately to those of reputation. Along with that, he took Titus with him. Everyone knew Titus was a Greek, and yet no one compelled him to be circumcised. Paul leaves all this to weigh on the minds of the Galatians... If you read the third verse as an aside in brackets, it makes the passage clearer.

The word "compelled" in this verse tells us that the Jewish teachers made very strong efforts to force circumcision on Titus. As we read further down in this chapter, we will be astonished at the power that these men had in the Church in those days. Clearly they were determined not to receive Titus as a Christian unless he agreed to be circumcised. That mark was a sign that he was under the law.

Titus was a living demonstration of the liberty of the gospel of grace. That liberty belongs to both Jewish and Gentile believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why it was so important. If they had forced Titus to be circumcised, it would have implied that Paul's ministry had been in vain. But the decision in Jerusalem showed that the leaders agreed with Paul's teaching and supported it.

In this Paul was very bold; yet it was not the boldness of defiance, but of Christian liberty. In front of everyone, he took an uncircumcised Gentile brother into the very centre of Judaism. Who that was taught by God could refuse him, however full of Jewish feeling that person was?... But Titus, unlike Timothy, was a pure Gentile. To circumcise him in order to please believers among the Jews would have compromised the truth of the gospel. Titus was saved as a Gentile, entirely apart from ordinances or works of law.

Timothy's father was a Greek, so Timothy had not been circumcised, and Jewish circles would not have accepted him. Paul knew this and circumcised him. On the surface that seems totally at odds with his attitude to Titus — see Galatians 2:3-5. But with Titus the whole truth of the gospel hung on the question, while with Timothy no such question was involved at all. In Timothy's case it was simply a matter of removing something that would have got in the way of his service for the Lord. Paul was not concerned to keep up an appearance of consistency that would have been only skin-deep.

"Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing." In itself it makes no difference. But the moment anyone tries to impose it, we must resist firmly. Otherwise the liberty of the gospel is broken into, or conscience towards God is wounded. Here it was "false brothers," not unbelieving Jews, who tried to impose circumcision and so make the gospel Jewish.

Comparing Galatians 2:3 with 1 Timothy 4:3-5, we see how man's will is as ready to demand as to forbid... Grace knows what is consistent with the truth of the gospel.

In Galatians 2:4, Paul refers to these as "false brothers secretly brought in". Notice they were "brought in", and so he calls them "brothers", but he brands them as "false".

They were not true believers in Christ at all. They had outwardly accepted Christianity. But they knew nothing of the power of the precious blood of Christ to cleanse their sins. They were only professing Christians… Someone had brought these false brothers in by stealth, without the other brothers knowing. The Greek word describes what we now call "fifth columnists." These are enemies brought in secretly. They pretend to be friends and do their evil work from the inside, instead of attacking from the outside as honest men do.

We need not suppose that all, or even any, of the people described here joined the Church with openly fraudulent intentions at the start. But their confession of the name of Christ was certainly premature, if not insincere. Their hearts were still willingly wearing the yoke from which Jesus died to set His people free.

The enemy had sent false brothers, spies, into that public gathering to spy out the liberty of the brothers. The liberty they had in Christ Jesus was at stake. The enemy used these spies, these false brothers (not believers), to examine the territory. They were preparing to return later with a greater attack.

It was no misunderstanding of principles that caused them to act this way. Their motives were wilfully, deliberately evil. That is a strong statement, but the Spirit of God inspired it.

Paul plainly hints at what these false brothers aimed at. This shows the connection between legalism and the untruthfulness of those who come in secretly to spy out a liberty they do not understand.

Paul urges us not to be trapped by the yoke of bondage. Law occupies me with myself, and a man who is occupied with himself is bound to be wretched. There is nothing in him that can answer to God's claims… Liberty — freedom — is what belongs to a Christian. It is not liberty for the flesh, but freedom from the flesh, and from all that kept the soul in bondage, darkness, and distance.

Paul resisted the circumcision of Titus, yet he allowed the circumcision of Timothy. The cases look alike, but Paul acted very differently. Behind that difference lies a principle. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing. In itself the matter does not count either way. But the moment someone tries to impose it, we must firmly resist, so that the liberty of the gospel is not damaged and conscience towards God is not wounded. Here it was "false brothers," not unbelieving Jews, who tried to impose circumcision, and so to bring the gospel under Jewish law.

The word "to spy out" is used in the Greek Old Testament for spying out a city. It means to spy out with the intention of overthrowing, as an enemy does… These false teachers were so sure of success that they had no doubt they would bring the church of God into abject slavery — slavery with no hope of release. That is the true position of those who are under the law.

Let us mark well what the word "submission" means. Error never puts itself on a level with truth. It makes a bold bid for the mastery. It is one form of the natural opposition of the flesh to the Spirit, and Satan is the one who stirs up the flesh in all its forms. So if we tolerate open error in doctrine, we give the devil both a place and the first place in the house of God.

He will not compromise when the truth is at stake, not even on the plea of showing grace and love. Other Scriptures tell us to "be subject to one another" (1 Peter 5:5). But when the issue is "false brothers," and the truth is at stake, the apostle will not submit for an hour.

They had to be circumcised. Circumcision was not put exactly in the place of faith. But after they believed, it was brought in as a way to get righteousness. It was something added to the work of Christ. This might seem a small matter, but the apostle never wrote more strongly than he did on this subject. Their different gospel, which was not really another gospel, said this: having Christ was not enough without circumcision and the law.

Titus was a living demonstration of the liberty of the gospel of grace for both Jewish and Gentile believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why it was so important. If they had forced Titus to be circumcised, it would have meant that Paul's ministry had been in vain.

The apostle resisted the circumcision of Titus, and yet he allowed the circumcision of Timothy (Acts 16:1-3). The two cases look alike, but the apostle acted very differently in each. "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing." It does not matter in itself. But the moment someone tries to impose it, we must resist firmly and at once. If we do not, the liberty of the gospel is damaged, or conscience towards God is wounded. Here it was "false brothers," not unbelieving Jews, who tried to impose circumcision, and so to make the gospel Jewish.

It shows how something we must resist firmly in one situation may be allowed in another. In the case of Titus, they demanded circumcision to set up a principle that cut at the very root of the gospel.

Others might yield, for the sake of peace. But Paul would never yield — no, not even for an hour. The word translated "remain" carries the sense of "firm possession." Paul and Barnabas fought a bitter fight. They fought so that we in China, and the whole Church of God, might hold a precious truth firmly and never give it up. That truth is complete justification and sanctification by faith alone, and not by works of the law.

The false brothers had tried to make the churches in Galatia believe that Paul was not a true apostle. Their reason was that he had not received his authority or his teaching from the apostles at Jerusalem. Paul has shown us that he received both from the Lord Jesus Christ, and not from any man. These false brothers wanted to make Peter and James and John head of the church, so that everyone had to receive authority from them. These men were apostles. They had seen the Lord and been with Him on earth, and people looked up to them as men of very great importance. But Paul rejected their authority outright. To Paul, Peter was only a man.

Apart from these false brothers there were those in the church "who seemed to be influential." Because of their gift and spiritual state, such men might rightly hold a leading place. Even so, their prominent position carried no weight with the Apostle when the truth was in question. God shows no partiality. With God what counts is not how prominent a man is before others — not the person — but what there is of Christ in the person. Paul may honour such men and love them as brothers, but they added no authority to what he had already received from Christ.

"God shows no partiality": a hard saying. Who can hear it? Peter had to learn it through a clear revelation from heaven (see Acts 10). Paul learned it by kicking against the goads, until the grace of God subdued him. And we have to learn the same lesson under God's hand. God does not look at personal qualification, or at the things we do, or at official position. He looks at what His own grace makes a person to be in Christ, and at the gift He gives by His sovereign will.

The language here is not belittling toward them. It is a frank, straightforward statement of truth. When he says, "what they were makes no difference to me," he adds, "God shows no partiality." So he places himself on the same level, as far as personalities are concerned. The truth does not gain its character from the importance of its messengers. Could those men who had actually lived with the Lord on earth give nothing to enlighten Paul? No, their knowledge was not greater than his. The revelations given to Paul were of a higher character than the gospel the others had preached. His ministry is connected with Christ ascended and glorified, Head of the new creation and of the church.

"Added nothing to me" refers to authority and capacity rather than to information.

His own words are: they "added nothing to me." It is also possible that the meaning is: they "imposed nothing on me."

Paul honours the men whom the Lord truly called as apostles, and whose faithfulness to their trust confirmed that title. Nothing in the words used here belittles or undervalues those whom the Lord had called before him. In themselves both he and they were nothing. As God's ministers and Christ's apostles they stood on the same footing, whatever the difference in gift.

These Jewish teachers hinted that Paul and the other apostles did not really agree. All such hints came to nothing. It turned out that Paul was the one who gave, not Peter, and the three leading men there had given him the right hand of fellowship.

These Jewish teachers hinted that Paul and the other apostles did not really agree. Every such hint failed. It turned out that Paul was the one who gave the teaching, not Peter. The three leading men there had given Paul the right hand of fellowship.

We must not think that the "good news of the uncircumcised" differs in any way from the "good news of the circumcised." It is not a different good news. There is only one good news, but it goes to different people: one to the Gentiles, the other to the Jews. We must also notice that Paul stands on equal ground with Peter. One is the apostle to the nations, the other is the apostle to the Jews. Peter is not set even slightly above Paul.

Every careful reader of Scripture will see this. In both Peter and Paul the gospel was the Spirit's testimony to Christ, yet the two preachings had clearly different marks. Peter spoke of One who had walked here, well known by all the Jews. Wicked men crucified Him, yet God raised Him up and lifted Him to glory. In His name forgiveness of sins is now preached to all. Paul, on the other hand, starts with His glory.

We should watch closely the distinction drawn here between the gospel of the uncircumcision and the gospel of the circumcision. Peter was entrusted with the second. Its main aim was to bring the elect of Israel out of bondage under law into the adoption and liberty of sons. The gospel of the uncircumcision holds more. Besides the fullest explanation of God's free grace and of the mystery of the Church, it also contains distinct and special prophecy.

Apostleship in the work of the gospel depended upon the gift of God. God had worked among the Gentiles through Paul and Barnabas. He had worked in the same way among the Jews through Peter... They owned the grace of God in that work. So they agreed that each should serve according to his gift, in the sphere God had entrusted to him. So Paul became the apostle to the Gentiles, to whom Christ had sent him; and Peter the apostle to the Jews only, among whom God had blessed him.

They saw that God had entrusted Paul with the gospel of the uncircumcision, just as He had entrusted Peter with that of the circumcision. So God had worked, and they bowed to it. Peter's own letters... fit this arrangement that God set in place, for both are written to believing Jews. Peter left the work among the Gentiles to the far mightier hand of Paul.

"He that worked in (energized) Peter for the apostleship of the circumcision, worked also in me (energized me) toward the Gentiles." God gave both Peter and Paul divine power. He stirred them with divine zeal to carry out the commissions He had entrusted to them.

Whether among Jews or Gentiles, it was God who worked; and the labourers were only the vessels of His grace. It is a happy thing to see these men recognizing the grace given to each other. God had called and commissioned them alike. Yet their line of work was quite different, and neither had received any kind of authority from the other.

Apostleship in the work of the gospel depended on the gift of God. Now as God had worked among the Gentiles through Paul and Barnabas, He had likewise worked among the Jews through Peter... and owning the grace of God in the work, they agreed that each should labour according to their gifts, in the spheres entrusted to them by God.

They in no way controlled his ministry, but saw the grace that God had given him. Looking at God and at His power at work in Paul, they felt that he and Barnabas were the most fitting persons to deal with the uncircumcision.

There was unity. Why was this unity there? Because the One who worked in Peter was the same One who was working in Paul. That is where the unity came from. It was not a man-made unity, it was a divine unity, and they were subject to it.

Peter and John were "uneducated, common men," yet that did not stop God from working powerfully through them. Saul of Tarsus had been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and that by itself was no help to him. He could say that the One who worked in Peter for the apostleship of the circumcision was mighty in him toward the Gentiles. It was the same power in both, and there is no other power.

Notice also that Paul stands on an equal footing with Peter. One is the apostle to the nations, the other the apostle to the Jews. Peter is not set in the smallest degree above Paul... Sadly, many millions of Gentiles today believe that Peter is the head of the church, and even its foundation. The Lord blessed Peter greatly, but he is the apostle of the circumcision, and only of the circumcision.

Peter was above all the apostle of the circumcision. Yet it was through him that God first opened the door of the kingdom of heaven to the Gentiles. And though Paul had gone to the Gentiles, the Spirit of God used him to write to believers of the circumcision the finest treatise on what Christ and Christianity mean for the law and the prophets... With admirable wisdom the Lord directs the work and the workmen, but never exclusively. The apostle Paul is here the proof of it on one side, as Peter is on the other.

Collectively God's apostles and prophets are called the foundation of the Church (Ephesians 2:20). Individually they are here called "pillars." The word hardly needs explaining, since its force and fitness are easy to see. Each faithful witness is a pillar of the truth that he maintains. The Church, or true assembly of the faithful, is collectively the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15)… John, James and Cephas were what they seemed to be: inspired witnesses and scribes of Christ.

The James who wrote the letter of James was not the brother of John. Herod killed that James in the very early years, as recorded in Acts 12:2. The author of the letter was the James spoken of in Acts 15:13 and Acts 21:18. Paul calls him "James, the Lord's brother," in Galatians 1:19. In Galatians 2:9 he acknowledges him as one of the "pillars" of the Church in Jerusalem.

The writer was no other than James "the little," son of Alphaeus or Clopas… the same man who took the lead after the martyrdom of the son of Zebedee, as is plain in the Acts (Acts 12:17; Acts 15:13; Acts 21:18). Compare 1 Corinthians 15:7 and Galatians 2:9, 12.

As the model minister of Christ, he received his commission and authority to preach from Christ Himself. It did not come from man, and it did not come from the church. He takes great pains in Galatians 1 to prove that this was from God. He never went to Jerusalem, not even to the apostles, to get authority to preach. They only recognised him.

Paul had received his commission straight from heaven. Peter, James and John could rejoice to acknowledge the grace and the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ to this chosen vessel of mercy. But they did not dare to add anything to it, or to come in between the Master and His servant.

He puts James first among the pillars, as we see in Acts 15… Apostleship in the work of the gospel depended on the gift of God. God had worked among the Gentiles through Paul and Barnabas, and He had worked in the same way among the Jews through Peter… They saw the grace of God in this work. So they agreed that each should labour according to their gifts, in the spheres God had entrusted to them.

We must not think that the good news for the uncircumcised differs in any way from the good news for the circumcised. It is not a different good news. There is only one good news, and it goes to two different groups: one to the Gentiles, the other to the Jews. Notice also that Paul stands on an equality with Peter.

There is great beauty in verse 9. James, Peter and John approve Paul's ministry without reserve. These men are recognised as pillars of Christianity, yet they show no hint of envy and no thought of limiting, qualifying or adding to Paul's distinctive ministry… How sweet this unity is! In holy subjection under the hand of God, it can show itself in such diversity.

They saw that God had given him grace, as He had given it to them, and their hands gave a ready outward confirmation of the glad conviction in their hearts. Taking the circumcision as their own appointed field, they joyfully sent their fellow workers off on their own separate charge, to seek Christ's "other sheep" among the Gentiles (John 10:16).

These Jewish teachers hinted that Paul and the other apostles did not really agree. All such hints came to nothing. It turned out that Paul was the one who passed on the truth, not Peter, and that the three leaders there had given the right hand of fellowship to Paul.

He went up this time by a revelation from God. He met with James, Peter and John in private, and told them the gospel he preached. They fully endorsed it and added nothing to it. Their only wish was that he should remember the poor — which, Paul writes, he had been eager to do. So the meeting with those who seemed to be pillars added nothing to his gospel.

We cannot overlook how often the poor believers at Jerusalem are remembered. No doubt their circumstances gave them a special claim. Hardship had likely set in, and persecution had left some widows and orphans. There were not only many believers there. Jerusalem was also the one place where, so far as we read, they sold their possessions and goods to give to all, as anyone had need. But there, in part through this surprising witness of unselfish love, poverty came later. And no one among the Gentile churches urged help for the believers in Judea as strongly as our apostle did.

How strikingly beautiful in such a letter is this desire of James, Peter and John, for it is the effect of the grace of God known and enjoyed. This is another contrast to mere law-keeping, for the Law gave nothing: it only demanded... God gave His own beloved Son. We prove that we truly know Him by showing the same mercy, grace and kindness to others.

Remember that Paul and Barnabas had already visited Jerusalem with gifts for the poor Jewish Christians, sent by the Gentile Christians (Acts 11:27-30; 12:25). The brothers at Jerusalem ask the Gentile Christians to remember the poor, even though they are not under law and not required to be circumcised. This care of the poor was a very strong bond between the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers. There was much to divide them, and much to cause jealousy between them. But the loving care of their wealthier Gentile brothers for the poor believers in Judea bound these Jewish and Gentile Christians together.

Why, we may ask, this particular request? Was it only because experience had taught them how hard it is to combine charity with active ministry? Or did it point to the poverty of many believers at Jerusalem, still suffering the effects of the famine foretold long before? Whichever it was, we cannot help noticing in it a provision for keeping practical and sympathetic unity among the naturally different elements that make up the Church of God... If we know and keep in mind Christ's poverty, we will not ignore His quiet but clear calls on our sympathy. They reach us in the known troubles and needs of those who bear His name (1 John 3:17-18; 4:20).

About the collection for the believers, we see how constantly the apostle keeps in mind what the leaders at Jerusalem urged on him: that he should remember the poor. He gave the same directions here as he had given to the assemblies of Galatia. On the first day of the week, the Christian's day, each was to set aside a sum as God had prospered him. Then no collection would be needed when the apostle arrived... He clearly did not want casual giving or a passing impulse. He wanted a systematic recognition of the goodness of God, and of how much we need one another.

Some from Judea had taught the believers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." Peter had been taught the folly of this in a remarkable way (see Acts 10:9-16). For a while he learned his lesson. He said to Cornelius, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean." After Peter had returned to Jerusalem, he defended his conduct in eating with uncircumcised people. When he went to Antioch he at first ate with the Gentiles. But when certain men came from James, "he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party."

Before certain men came from James, "he ate with the Gentiles." That was a mark of fellowship with them. Even now, and everywhere, it is the well-known sign of the same thing... In ordinary life, sharing a meal is the token of friendly feeling. With Christians it ought to be so all the more, for their calling is to walk in everything with godly sincerity.

If Peter had the mind of the Lord in separating himself from the Gentile believers at Antioch, then something else was needed. For why did he now refuse to eat with them? Only because they were uncircumcised. If Peter was right, circumcision still counted for something, since it gave the Jew an advantage. In other words, faith in Christ needed a work of the law added to it for justification. Someone might argue that this was a small thing. Give up that one point, and Jewish and Gentile believers would have peace. But this "small thing" undermined the whole truth of grace, and cast a slur on the work of Christ.

His cowardice was all the more shameful now, because he had confronted the strict Pharisee-minded believers in Jerusalem once (Acts 11) and again (Acts 15). It was worse still because he was so honoured and influential. But the apostle to the Gentiles was faithful and resisted him to the face, because he was "condemned" — not merely "blameworthy," which is how the Latin version wrongly softens it.

No wonder the other Jews followed their leader. But what can we say when we see even Paul's own fellow-worker led astray!... It is a great test for the saints when such men go astray. Satan knows how to mislead lovely characters, so that he may the better achieve his unworthy ends. Their personal qualities and their past faithful service have won such men a place in the hearts of the saints. All of this puts the unwary off their guard, and so traps their souls. It is not safe to follow even "a good man." In such times the eye must be off men and fixed on the Lord, to reach a sound judgment.

To Paul, Peter was not a superior before whom juniors must keep a respectful silence. God had worked powerfully in Peter. Even so, his fellow apostle stayed faithful to the One who had called him. He could not let anyone falsify the gospel, which the Lord Himself had entrusted to his care. Eager as he was, poor Peter always cared too much about the opinion of others.

Notice how Peter writes of Paul, the man who once had to withstand and rebuke him at Antioch. There is not a trace of bitterness, nor a trace of the law-keeping spirit Paul had to withstand. Martyrdom was approaching for both of them, and it is "our beloved brother Paul." Delightful, is it not? Here is the freest flow of Christian affection. Here is the fullest acknowledgement of the grace and gift given to another man rather than to himself.

"Dissimulation," that is, hypocrisy, is Paul's word for it, because they were acting straight against their own conscientious convictions. Truly, "the fear of man lays a snare" — even on apostles of Christ!

Peter withdrew and separated himself. He did not do it because he was convinced he had done wrong. He simply gave way to the opposition he feared, where Paul had not given way. Such an example in such a place soon did great harm. The other Jews put on the same act with him. Again, it was not conviction, but a backward move made despite their convictions.

What a poor thing man is! We are weak in proportion to our importance before men. When we are nothing, we can do all things, as far as human opinion is concerned. At the same time, we have a bad influence on others in the same measure that they influence us. And they influence us in the measure that we give in to the desire to keep our reputation with them. Even the respect people rightly give us becomes a means of evil.

That the other Jews should follow their leader may not be surprising. But what can we say when we see even Paul's own fellow-worker led astray! He had worked with Paul in the gospel. He had joined him in planting Gentile churches everywhere. He had served with such acceptance and blessing in this very church. He of all people should have been proof against such a thing. The Spirit describes him elsewhere as "a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith." ... It is not safe to follow even "a good man," as many in our own day can sadly testify. In such crises, the eye must be off men and fixed on the Lord, to reach a sound judgment.

If they could not make Gentile converts live like Jews, then those who had been Jews should certainly keep apart from them. So the dividing wall would go back up in practice... True, no word of God imposed the law of Moses on the Gentiles. But the word of God had clearly imposed the law on the children of Israel. Must not all such still keep it? If so, they must then separate socially from other Christians. Paul and Barnabas had defended the stronghold of Christian truth with success. Now it seemed about to surrender without conditions.

He had once been the strictest of Pharisees, full of zeal for the law. Yet by grace he held his ground. He stepped into the gap and preserved the truth for the whole Church of God. At that moment he was, you could say, the one strand of the rope that kept the whole from breaking.

Peter forgot how Paul had opposed him to his face at Antioch, and had to shame him in front of them all. This is what grace can do. Grace is a fine thing, and this is a fine touch of it, as the curtain falls on the Apostle Peter. Whatever the scene at Antioch had stirred up in his heart was settled forever. He simply loved Paul, and loved him all the more because of his faithfulness.

This walk was not "straightforward," they were not going in a straight path. We need to walk straight. Peter was deviating, he made a detour. Sometimes we have to make a detour because the road is blocked. This detour was not allowed, because it compromised the truth of the gospel. This great truth and the unity of the company were at stake, and by the grace of God, Paul's action preserved them. Why was the rebuke public? The mistake had happened in public, so it needed a public correction. And the man who made it was a leader.

The root of Peter's failure, as so often with us, was the vanity of the flesh that wanted to look good in other people's eyes. He feared that he would lose his reputation with those "of the circumcision." This fear led him to pretend and take a crooked path. He no longer walked straight according to the truth of the gospel. By his act he ignored the unity of the Spirit, denied the truth of the gospel, and brought in division among the saints.

Peter at Antioch was clearly inconsistent with the truth of the Gospel. He does not appear to have at all denied it in his teaching. In theory he admitted its truth, but his action in withdrawing from the Gentile believers, and no longer eating with them, was disobedience to the truth. In practice it built again the "dividing wall" which the Cross had pulled down. It implied that believing Jews still lived in the life of Judaism, and believing Gentiles in the life of the Gentiles, instead of both now being in the life of Christ.

In some simple matter of everyday life there may be, in effect, an abandonment of Christ and the truth of the gospel, a lie against His grace… We tend to make light of what concerns God, and to treat what affects ourselves as very important… So the truth of the gospel hung on a dinner. The simple act of eating or not eating with the Gentiles reveals a person's heart on the question of deliverance from the law.

Why then would Peter force the Gentiles to keep Jewish custom before they could be given full Christian fellowship? It was a complete reversal of behavior. The principle in it was that of leaving Christianity and going back to Judaism.

What had Peter been doing? He had never held the law as a rule for the Jewish believers. Why, then, did he yield to an act which implied it among the Gentiles? If it was not so in Jerusalem, where God had long ago bound it on their conscience, what a turning away from the truth! A man who knew his own deliverance was now insisting on it in practice at Antioch.

The more a man is honoured, the greater the stumbling-block to others if he fails — and in this case there was true ground for respect. That is what happened here. All the Jews, and even Barnabas, joined Peter in the pretence, and no longer dared to walk with the Gentiles. The unity of the Spirit was lost, as also the truth of the gospel. Paul could not let this pass. When he saw that Peter was not walking straight, he rebuked him in front of everyone. Authority cannot make evil good nor good evil.

It was faithfulness to God that gave the rebuke, and grace that enabled Peter to profit by it. The result was that the gospel of Christ was preserved.

The Jew had a claim of righteousness, because he was under law. But if he sinned, he carried extra guilt. He had broken a law he knew, and that law was the law of God. So he was a "transgressor." The Gentile could not be one. As a rule the Gentile knew nothing about the law, and most of them had not even heard of it. So it is quite wrong to use that word of the Gentiles, as if they were transgressors. Scripture never speaks that way, but calls them lawless or sinners; as for instance Galatians 2:15 says, "sinners of the Gentiles."

"Sinners from the nations" was the way the Jews looked at the Gentiles. The Jews believed they were better than the Gentiles. Paul uses those old words back to Peter — words that showed the natural pride of heart which refused to admit "there is no difference." Peter knew this was true. He knew well that there was "no difference" — not in sin before God, and not in salvation by grace alone, without works.

"We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles." This again is a hard saying. No one is a Christian by nature. He may be born to Christian parents, brought up under Christian discipline, and keep to Christian ordinances. But unless he is born of God, all such outward privileges are worth nothing to him. Here is the real point: how few ask themselves — Am I in Christ? Now the Jew had natural hereditary privileges. He was born a Jew.

It is good for us believers from among the Gentiles to keep fresh in our memory the healthy though humbling fact that, apart from a living faith in Christ, "sinners of the Gentiles" is our natural and true description. It is a title of dishonour, which faith exchanges for a new and lasting name of praise.

In verses 15 and 16 we have the apostle's assertion which followed his question. In this assertion Paul could link Peter with himself, and Peter could not deny it. "WE," he says. "We, who are Jews by nature" have recognised that justification does not come by "the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ." So we turned from law to Christ, and He justified us.

These Jews by nature were not sinners of the Gentiles. But God had taught them a much deeper truth. They came to see that under the law they were helpless, hopeless debtors to the Lord. They also saw that outward Jewish privilege was completely empty and misleading... What should have been their crown of honour had become their yoke of degradation.

He speaks of something they might have boasted about, since he was a Jew himself. But they had come to see that no person is justified on the principle of works of law. This took the whole foundation from under the feet of those who made the Law their support. It completely destroys confidence in the flesh. It brings all people down to one level of spiritual helplessness and nothingness.

Refusing to share a table with fellow believers who were not circumcised looked like a small thing. Yet Paul saw the truth of the gospel at stake. A straw is enough to show which way a stream flows, and Paul judged this the same way... Paul reminded his Jewish brother of the ground on which they all stood before God. Had they ever found justification by law? Had the law ever done anything for them but condemn them?

He speaks of what might have been an occasion for boasting, since he himself was a Jew. But God had given them light to know that no person is justified on the principle of works of law. This took the whole foundation out from under the feet of those who made the Law their support. It destroys confidence in the flesh completely. It brings all people down to the same level of spiritual helplessness and nothingness.

Bear in mind that when the apostle Paul dwells on law, he does not limit his remarks to the Jewish law, but argues on the principle itself. He says, and means, not just that you cannot be justified by the works of the law, but by no law at all. If there were a law that could justify, it would have to be the law of God given through Moses. But Paul goes further: by works of law you cannot be justified. The law principle is opposed to justification instead of being the means of it.

What is it to be "justified by the law"? Does the person who holds that "man must do his part and God will do His" come near that ground, or not? Law works are not bad works. Its first and great commandment is, "You shall love the Lord your God." The second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself"... Yet those who are of the works of the law — standing on that ground before God — are under the curse.

Justification is judicial righteousness. In other words, God counts us righteous before Himself... It means that God accounts us judicially righteous, in His own presence. That is the believer's standing: positive, absolute and unchanging, now and forever. It is not just pardon or forgiveness, which is negative in character. It is a positive state of settled and permanent righteousness in Christ before God.

The Greek New Testament uses three prepositions with the verb to justify. All three occur in two verses in Galatians (2:16-17). We are said to be justified by, or on the principle of (ek), faith, in contrast to works. Justification flows from faith, not from works. Then we are said to be justified instrumentally by, or through (dia), faith. We are also said to be justified by, or in (en), Christ, in contrast to being justified by, or in (en), the law.

Peter and Paul themselves have no hope of being justified by works... Whether Paul or Peter, Jew or Gentile, Galatians or Chinese, there is no difference. We all have sinned. The only hope for every one of us is Christ Jesus, and only faith in Him. Why then, Peter, are you adding your own works?... Do you not remember your own Old Testament, where Psalm 143:2 says, "No man living shall be justified"?

But then he goes further. He says, "But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin?" This is what Peter's conduct would have led to. Had Peter been right, it was clear that the gospel had put Peter in the wrong. The gospel had led Peter to treat Jews and Gentiles all alike. In his ways and words, the gospel had led him to approve the tearing down of the dividing wall. If Peter was acting rightly now, all this had been a mistake, and so the gospel — and, solemn to say, Christ Himself — would be a minister of sin.

"While" is all wrong; it should be "if, in seeking to be" — then Christ is a minister of sin.

Justified in Christ is always used in contrast to being justified in the law. Does justified in the law mean justified by being in the law? Of course not, everyone will say. No more, then, does justified in Christ mean justified by being in Christ. The phrase justified in tells of the cause of justification. It shows that we are justified on the ground of the thing named — whether the law, Christ, or His blood.

If you profess faith in the Lord Jesus and then go back to the law, the effect must be to leave you a sinner… The law never gives deliverance from sin. As the apostle says elsewhere, "The power of sin is the law."… The soul that has to do with the law never knows deliverance from sin. The law only detects the evil; it does not lift the soul above it. So it leaves the man powerless, miserable and condemned.

Peter's action seemed to suggest that we need something more to complete our justification, even when we stand in all the value of Christ's work — law-keeping, or the keeping of Jewish customs. If that were true, is Christ not then discredited? Paul states it in the strongest words: is Christ not even "the Minister of sin" instead of the Minister of justification? To ask such a question is to answer it. It is impossible!

Peter was a Jew like the rest. When he refused to eat with the Gentiles, he was building the system of the law again… But he had given up that way of justification to believe on Christ, so that he might be justified by faith in Christ. Now, by building the system of the law again, he made himself a transgressor for having left it. Yet it was Christ who had led him to leave it. Christ then was the minister of sin! This could not be.

Suppose you can start again fresh as a Christian every Sunday, and yet still need a priest to declare you forgiven. That leaves room for the heart to be false to the Lord all the rest of the week. It also denies, in practice, that His work is effective… While the law is kept up, there is no deliverance from the condition of a sinner. Christian worship is impossible in such a case.

It was Peter himself who had first opened the door of the good news to the Gentiles. It was Peter himself who had first eaten with them. It was Peter himself who defended what he did when "the circumcision party criticized him" (Acts 11:2) about it. It was Peter himself who had begun building. Now Peter reverses his whole course. He had been tearing down the ceremonies of the Jewish law. He had been tearing down the wall that divided Jew from Gentile. Now he is building that wall up again, and tearing down the freedom of Christ. So if he is right now, he shows everybody that he was wrong before. He shows himself to be a transgressor.

If I was not a transgressor in destroying, then I am certainly a transgressor in rebuilding. If one was not a transgressor in giving up Judaism for Christ, then how can he ever dare to go back to Judaism again?

Now I have left the law, argues the apostle, to come to Christ. If I set it up again, then I was wrong to destroy it. But Christ led me to do it. So He has brought me into what is wrong. That is what you do when you set up the law again: you make Christ a servant of sin.

So we never hear the Gentiles called "transgressors" in their guilt, because they were not under the law as the Jews were. We read of "Gentile sinners" (Gal. 2:15), because they were sinful men, of course, though they were not under the law. (Rom. 2:14) On the other hand, when we have in view either Adam, who had a law (Rom. 5:14), or the Jews, who had the law (Hosea 6:7; Gal. 2:18), the word "transgressors" fits and carries its full force.

If I agree, as a Christian, to distinctions in the flesh, I make nonsense of my own confession. I make myself a transgressor twice over, and hopelessly so. For if the law's claims on a believer's conscience still hold, then I transgressed it when I stopped doing legal works so that I could be justified by faith. But suppose the law's rule over me ended when I received and confessed the Son of God. To treat Jewish ceremonies as still valid is to revive the hostility that Christ has killed. That would make me a transgressor of the new covenant as well as the old. If that is the case, I have no sure footing. If Christ is enough, I dishonour Him by going back to the law.

If God brings souls out from under law, it is transgression to go back to it in any form. But if God does not set them free like that, then it is transgression to leave it. Let the Galatians settle the question before God. Was He leading them there, or was it the enemy?

He had been under law as a Jew. What was the effect when God applied law to his own conscience? It made him feel himself a dead man. Romans 7 reasons it out: the law came, and he died... The law is never life to the dead; it kills morally those who seem alive... The Spirit of God can use it to make a man feel that everything is over with him. But He goes further in grace. By that very law He brings the man in dead to the law, and not merely condemned.

God Himself, by His strong hand, taught the greatest expert under the law that all the law could do for him was to kill him... He had boasted in the law. He had thought, wrongly, that it gave him righteousness. But what were they worth now that he knew the law in its spiritual reach — now that "the commandment came" to his conscience in its true light? It was a "ministry of death." The very law he looked to for life struck him dead as to all expectations from it. Until that law was out of the way, he could not live to God.

Now the law has power over a man only as long as he lives. In bringing out the effect of this truth, the apostle uses the example of the law of marriage... In this illustration, the husband died. But when we apply it to ourselves, the law does not lose its force and its rights by dying. It loses them by our dying. The law does not die — for in that case sin would be free — but we, by the body of Christ, are dead to the law.

The law had pronounced the sentence of death and condemnation on him, and through the law he had died to the law. But the sentence of the law fell on him in the person of Christ. Christ took the curse of the law, the condemnation, on Himself. Believing in Christ, he had died as to the old man. The law had slain him, but Christ had died in his place.

Paul did not count himself dead to the law so that he could live to himself and his own will. That would be pure lawlessness. He counted himself dead so that he might live with God Himself as the End and Object of his life. Previously the law had controlled him, or rather had failed to control him. Now God really did control him... Now He is fully revealed in His Son. So we pass from the control of law to the control of the One who gave it. That control is far higher, and it works on the opposite principle: grace.

The teaching in both passages makes the same point. Neither life nor fruit to God can go together with a legal conscience. The reason is that such a conscience is in every case an evil conscience.

There was no striving, as we often see these days, to keep the law in a spiritual way now that he was converted... The law never produced life in a single soul: it kills. Whereas here you find Paul dead to the law, but alive to God on a totally different principle... What is the spring of the new life? Not the law, but Christ.

For the one who believes in Jesus, Christ our Substitute has already taken that death sentence in His own death. His death was the death of our old man — the man under judgment. So the believer can say, "I have been crucified with Christ." We passed through death in the death of our Substitute, so we are free from the law. The law can condemn a man to death for the life he has led. But once the man is dead, he no longer lives the life the law applied to. The law can have nothing to say to a dead man.

The word of God treats the believer's crucifixion with Christ as a finished act that will never happen again. He died once, and we were then, and there, and forever identified with Him... God never tells the believer to crucify himself or his flesh. He counts it as already done.

All this involves a paradox, which the apostle states in verse 20. He has been crucified, he says, and still he lives. Crucifixion has reached me, yet it has left me a living man. It has reached me because I am joined to Christ. Its effect is to push self, the old "I," out of the way and put Christ in its place. He now lives in us by His Spirit, so that His character can be seen in us.

Though crucified we live. We are still living people on earth, yet we no longer live the old character of life. We live a life of a new order, a life whose character, summed up in one word, is CHRIST. Saul of Tarsus had been crucified with Christ. Yet the individual known as Saul of Tarsus was still living. Still living, yet in an entirely different character... he did not keep his old name. Soon after his conversion he became known as Paul, which means "Little one." He must be little if Christ is to live in him.

Self, wretched self, which is the end and object of the natural man in everything he does, is gone... Christ enters and takes the place of self. "For to me to live is Christ" — that is, to have Christ, not self, as my end and object. Christ, not self, is the spring now.

This new life, like all life in the creature, has and must have an object to sustain it. If the Lord Jesus is our life, He is also personally the object of that life... Faith sees Christ, looks to Him, trusts Him, feeds on Him, and rests in His love. It knows with joy that He is for us, in all the depth of the love that led Him to give Himself for us.

"He loved me and gave Himself for me." It is impossible to find language more individual. It is more than the general truth that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." The soul that now believes can claim the love of Christ as its own.

Peter's turning aside from the truth of the gospel in this practical way might look like a small thing, but it had a very serious side, and Paul makes this clear in the last verse of the chapter. Paul had defined his own position, which agreed exactly with the truth of the gospel, and then said: "I do not frustrate the grace of God." The emphasis clearly falls on the "I" — "It is not I who am setting aside the grace of God." He implies that Peter, and those influenced by him, were the ones committing themselves to this sorry work. The grace of God had brought Jews and Gentiles together in this new and high privilege, and they were frustrating that in practice by separating them! What is more, they were in principle going back to law. If you go back to it at all, you go back to it for all. To go back to it for righteousness means that Christ has died "for no purpose."

If a person can gain righteousness by works, by a self-made character, or by keeping religious ceremonies, then Christ's death was unnecessary, and that sets aside the grace of God.

Righteousness can be shown in only two ways: by law or by the grace of God. By the first, man stands, if he can stand at all, on the footing of his own obedience. He is righteous as a doer of the will of God. By the second, man takes a new name in place of the one he was born with. He stands on the merit of a righteousness that has proved and glorified itself apart from him, and that righteousness freely makes itself his own. Because Another is righteous, he is justified by faith in Him.

Suppose someone else could have kept the law for the offender — though that was impossible. In that case no one would ever have paid the law's penalty for breaking it. People could break the law with no punishment, and no sacrifice would be needed. If such a substitute obedience had been possible, His life, not His death, would have met the need.

Now here Christ's death and righteousness by law are contrasted. We are told pardon comes by death, righteousness by law, with Christ fulfilling it. But the apostle declares that it does not come by law; and that if it did, Christ is dead in vain. Indeed, why should He die, if I was righteous without it?

Suppose a righteous man could knock at the door of heaven and claim to enter by right on the ground of his own works. Such a person would never know God; love would not have brought him there, and God is love. It would have been the wages of his own work; he would have deserved to enter. But it is not love when you pay a workman the wages he has earned. You may pay him politely, but it is always a debt — there can be no love in it. It is love that has saved me.

Law could never produce righteousness. Grace alone has done this by the cross. Suppose I dare to suggest some other cure for my unrighteousness than the cross of Christ. Suppose I dare to think I can gain or keep a righteous standing before God by law-keeping. Then I am saying in effect that it was useless for Christ to have died! Yet this is exactly what many professing Christians are guilty of, although they don't realise it. If it is not Christ alone that a person clings to for safety, how dangerous is the ground!