(for he that wrought in Peter for [the] apostleship of the circumcision wrought also in me towards the Gentiles,)
The verse sits inside a parenthesis in Paul's account of his meeting with the leaders at Jerusalem. It settles the question the Galatian troublemakers had raised: did Paul's gospel come from God? His answer points not to human approval but to the one Worker behind both his mission and Peter's.
One writer explains "worked" with a second word: energized. God gave the drive as well as the commission.
"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.
"The circumcision" means the Jewish people, marked out by that sign; the Gentiles are everyone else. God sent the two men to different audiences. The verse traces both results back to one source.
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.
Paul does not argue that Jerusalem licensed him. He argues that God did through him what God had already done through Peter. The leaders only agreed with what they saw.
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.
Those at Jerusalem did not hand Paul a mandate; they recognised one.
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.
Two apostles with separate audiences could have become two parties. This verse explains why they did not.
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.
The same power reached men at opposite ends of the social scale: the untrained and the highly educated.
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.
The verse gives Peter one field of work. That limit matters, because of what many have since claimed for him.
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.
Yet the two fields were never sealed off from each other.
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.
- One Worker. The same God energized Peter toward the Jews and Paul toward the Gentiles — one power operating in two men.
- One Gift. Apostleship came from God's gift, not from any human permission. The leaders at Jerusalem recognised Paul's calling; they did not grant it.
- One Unity. The same One worked in both men. So their agreement was not a truce between rivals but a divine unity they submitted to.
- Two Spheres. Peter's field was the circumcision, Paul's the nations. They were equal in rank, different in scope, and never sealed off from each other.
- No Credentials Needed. The unschooled apostle and Gamaliel's pupil were carried by the same power. Background neither qualifies nor disqualifies a servant.
and recognising the grace given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were conspicuous as being pillars, gave to me and Barnabas [the] right hands of fellowship, that *we* [should go] to the nations, and *they* to the circumcision;
Paul has just laid his gospel before the leading men at Jerusalem. This verse records their answer: a handshake. So what did that handshake do? Did Jerusalem give Paul his licence to preach, or only recognise what God had already done?
Paul's word for these three men is a building word, and Scripture uses it in more than one way.
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.
Which James is named first here? Not the apostle John's brother, who died early. One writer identifies him as the Lord's brother, the James who speaks up in Acts and wrote the letter carrying his name:
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.
Others hold that he was the apostle James son of Alphaeus, and read the plain name here as marking him off from the Lord's brother:
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.
Where did Paul's authority to preach come from?
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.
The gift was the Lord's to give, and that decided what the three could do with it:
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.
How did they decide who should go where? They looked at where God was already working.
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.
The division was of hearers, not of message — and it left neither man above the other:
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.
The three could have hedged their welcome. They did not.
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.
The handshake settled the fields of work as well as the friendship.
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).
Why does Paul tell this story at all? He is answering a charge made against him.
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.
- Grace seen. What the three pillars perceived in Paul was grace given by God — the whole handshake rests on that sight.
- Grace owned. They only recognised him; they never authorised him. His commission came directly from Christ, and they dared add nothing to it.
- Grace divided. Each went where God had already worked through him: Paul to the nations, Peter to the circumcision. One gospel, two audiences, equal apostles.
- Grace without envy. No limiting, no qualifying, no jealousy — unity shown in real diversity of service.
- Grace vindicated. The claim that Paul stood apart from the older apostles collapses; the pillars shook his hand.