Galatians for beginners, The name of the series, this is lesson
number five in that series. Title of this lesson, Paul Confronts Peter. Paul
Confronts Peter. We're going to be looking at Galatians chapter 2, if you
want to follow along in your Bibles. Galatians chapter 2, that's where we'll
be. And as always, we'll be putting up the scriptures on the screen. So far in
this epistle, Paul the Apostle, who's the author of the Epistle, is
defending himself against accusations that somehow he has changed the gospel
in order to make it more palatable to Gentiles, by removing certain commands
concerning, specifically, circumcision. That's the accusation
he's facing. And that's what he's defending against. His accusers, the
Judaizers. Remember those people, the Judaizers? They were charging that they
and the true apostles, like Peter in Jerusalem, they were teaching the
original gospel, which included circumcision and certain law keeping.
In describing his past association with Peter and the
other apostles, Paul demonstrates that they have always been supportive and in
agreement with the gospel that he preaches, not the one that is promoted by
the Judaizers. And, of course, in this day and age you couldn't get away with this
kind of business here, because one phone call, right? One phone call. Hello, Peter,
is Paul - is that what he's doing? Let me text you, is this what - But in
those days news traveled slowly and so they could promote something like this.
I mean, they're in the province of Galatia, way far from Jerusalem.
And they seemed honest. They
seemed educated, these men. They were knowledgeable of
the Word and so on and so forth. So if they were discrediting Paul and saying
at the same time, a thousand miles from home, well Peter, back in
Jerusalem, he agrees with us. There was no way to fact-check that. And so they were
getting away with this. And then that word was spreading from one congregation
to another. Imagine for a moment, put yourself in the position of Paul
having to defend against this type of thing, right? He couldn't get on a plane
and fly out and visit three or four of those congregations during a
weekend. Solve the problem. Have called a video conference. Get all the
people involved. It's pretty slow going in those days. So he does something. He
writes a letter. And that's the letter that we're studying. In
chapter 2 of this letter, verse 11 to 21, Paul even goes further to recount a time
when even Peter himself was untrue to the gospel and Paul had to correct him
in defense of the pure message of salvation in Christ Jesus by faith.
The point being, he's saying, you people are saying Peter agrees with you
and this is how you are confirming your teaching. And I'm telling
you that Peter always agreed with my teaching every time I met with him and
the Apostles; as a matter of fact, even when Peter, the one that you people are
putting all your chips on, even when that Peter was not acting properly,
in accordance to the gospel, I, Paul, confronted him about this. So that's the
context of why he's telling the story about the time that he confronted
Peter. So let's look at verse 11. He says, chapter 2:11, he says, "But when
Cephas," right, we know that's Peter, "when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed
him to his face, because he stood condemned." Paul establishes the place
and the seriousness of the problem, because of his error in judgment on the
matter of the gospel, even Peter - I mean, Peter, stood condemned. Now, in an incident
which Paul is going to describe a little bit later on here, he said that he
opposed Peter publicly. Now, let me make just a little side commentary
here, the very fact that in the Bible, an inspired writer explains and tells a
story where Peter, himself, was in error concerning the gospel - that passage and
this story alone should disqualify all others who depend on this idea of
apostolic succession and the infallibility of the Pope. See what I'm
saying? There's no basis in the New Testament for the, first of all,
succession of one Bishop to another all the way down to Peter. And
even less for the argument that the Pope, when he speaks, as they say in ex
cathedra, meaning from the chair of Peter, there's no basis in the Bible to support
the idea that when the Pope speaks in this way, that he is infallible. I mean,
Peter, himself, made a mistake concerning the most important thing, which was the
gospel. All right, just a little aside there. Verse 12, it says, "For prior to the
coming of certain men from James, he" meaning Peter, "he used to eat with the
Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing
the party of the circumcision." That was the other term referring to these people.
The Judaizers who taught this and the people who agreed and promoted this idea;
that you had to become a Jew first, before you could become a Christian. So
Peter visited Antioch. The thing about Antioch, it was a congregation where you
had both Jewish and Gentile individuals in one
congregation. And this letter is being sent to these people, among others. While
there, Peter mingled and he ate with Gentiles, which Christians were free to
do, but unconverted Jews were not. Remember when Peter went to Cornelius's
home to preach the gospel to him? He even said, we're not
allowed to be in your home, but I had a vision. I had - God spoke to me
and sent me to you. Otherwise I wouldn't have entered your house, you're a Gentile.
Peter had contact with Gentiles before. He was the first one to bring the
gospel to the Gentiles. And so when he goes to Antioch he has no problem
mingling, sitting at the same table, eating with Gentiles. Now, Paul mentions
certain men from James. Probably means Jewish Christians from Jerusalem who
were associates of James, who also were going to visit Antioch after Peter had
arrived. So when Peter finds this out he's afraid that they might report to
the church in Jerusalem that he was associating with Gentiles in Antioch and
he was afraid that when Judaizers learned of this they would cause
problems for Peter when he returned. The last thing I need - I'm
now just imagining - last thing I need is to go back to Jerusalem and have this big
headache with these Judaizers, making accusations, and causing trouble. Peter
feels, well, maybe I should just be discreet, pull back while these
people are here. Peter's reaction was to withdraw from
the Gentiles, not to eat or mingle with them anymore, especially while these
people from Jerusalem were there. Let's keep going, verse 13, "The rest of
the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was
carried away by their hypocrisy." So his action prompted other Jewish Christians
to do the very same thing, and even Barnabas -
Now here's the really strange thing about Barnabas, I mean,
Barnabas was the one who helped Paul establish churches among the Gentiles
in Galatia. He's like the last person in the world who ought to
fall into this trap. Into this hypocrisy. This - what
Peter and the others was were doing was very dangerous, for a number of reasons.
Number one, it gave power to the Judaizers who were promoting this false
gospel. It was legitimizing their issue, their question.
Also, it was building up a wall between Jew and Gentile in the church. A division.
And this was a wall that Christ tore down, so that everyone could be one in
Christ. Neither Jew nor Greek, nor slave nor free, nor male nor female -
everybody, God, Jesus came to knock those walls down so that
we can all be united, equally valuable, equally saved in exactly the same way in
Christ Jesus. And then thirdly, a respected leader takes the first step
back into legalism, and what does he do? Well, he draws others back with him. So in
verse 14, Paul says, "But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the
truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, "If you, being a Jew,
live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the
Gentiles to live like Jews?" when he says, "live like Jews" he means keeping the law
and the rituals, the food laws, all that stuff. He's saying, you don't do this.
You don't do this anymore, and by your actions you're forcing these people to
carry a burden that you've just you've taken off of yourself.
Paul confronts Peter publicly about his hypocrisy. Peter was condemning
what he, himself, practiced because of fear of criticism. Peter was not bound by
law and traditions being promoted by the Judaizers, but by his
separation from the Gentiles, he was supporting the idea that the Gentiles
should. I don't have to do it, but you people have to do it. No. Paul reviews
the basis of the argument that he made to Peter and the rest of the church at
Antioch at that confrontation. In verse 15 and 16 he says, "We are Jews by nature
and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not
justified by the works of the Law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we
have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and
not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be
justified." Here he's making a parenthetical statement. He's explaining
why this is hypocrisy. He begins by explaining that even the Jews, who were
the chosen people of God, unlike the Gentiles, who were in total darkness, even
the Jews recognized that salvation was obtained through Christ and not through
law. So what was the ideological conflict between Paul and the Judaizers
concerning the law, what was it? Well, Paul believed and taught the true purpose of
the Law, meaning the commandments, the Ten Commandments, including the
ceremonial and the sacrificial laws, he was explaining that all of these laws
were there to reveal sin and how God dealt with sin. And his reference here is
something he wrote in Romans chapter 3, verse 20. He says, "Because by the works of
the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes
knowledge of sin." So the giving of the Law by God was not an end unto itself,
but rather a step in God's overall plan to save man. Here is where the Law fitted
in. God created man righteous. In other words, when Adam was created, he was good,
he was acceptable to God. Man then sinned and became unrighteous, which caused
ignorance of God, among other things, and physical death. God then planned to save
man from ignorance and death, but before this could happen the Lord had to bring
man to a certain point of understanding, because you see, because of his sin, man,
his mind was darkened. He didn't have the relationship with God. He didn't
understand who God was anymore. You even see it in the garden immediately after
the sin, they hid from God. They were afraid, they blamed each other, they
completely lost contact with who God was. So God has to reintroduce
Himself back to man. Mankind is sinful, becomes unrighteous, causes him to be
blinded as to who God really is. So God plans to save man from his ignorance
and his death. Again, before this could happen, he had to bring man to a certain
point of understanding. And what was that understanding? Well, first of all, He had
to reintroduce Himself to man. In other words, who God really is, because after
the fall man went into idolatry. He was worshipping rocks and trees and the Sun
and whatever. Secondly, he had to reveal to man why he was in the condition of
ignorance and death that he experienced. He had to show man what sin
was and how it had affected him. And then, of course, he had to reveal to man
who He was going to send and how He was going to save him. We're looking -
hindsight. We have all this information. Most of us here have been
taught this from an early age, but imagine you don't have this information
at all. You don't know who God is. You don't know why you're in the condition
you're in. You have no idea what hope you have. God has to do all these things
slowly. God begins this process of education by first revealing
Himself to just a few men: Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Just a few men. And then
He reveals himself through - to an entire nation, through Moses. See how
He's expanding the amount of people who begin to know Him. From the
patriarchs, to Moses, to the nation. Next, He began to reveal to man the reason and
the result of his condition. That's where the Law comes in. That's where the
commandments come in. That's where the sacrificial system comes in. That's where
the ceremonies come in. This is where the Law came in to reveal and to demonstrate
what sin was, what sin did, and how God was going to deal with it. How was God
going to deal with it? Well, through a sacrificial system that pointed
eventually to a sacrifice once for all. So once man had learned from the Law
that sin causes spiritual blindness and death, once man learned from the Law that
God deals with sin through the method of atonement, meaning a life exchanged for
another life - for centuries it was animal life. Don't you think the Jews kind of
understood, finally, how God was going to deal with sin. Well, apparently not
because they rejected the Savior, but some believed, some understood, right.
And then he was prepared, man was, prepared to
recognize two very important things, once he understood all of this. Number one, he
was ready to understand that he was a sinner and it was his own sins that
condemned him. And number two, the final sacrifice for sin was going to be the
perfect life of Jesus. Not a perfect animal sacrifice. The perfect life of His
son. So the righteousness that man had at creation in Adam, was recreated again in
Jesus. And just as all shared in Adam's fallen nature, because we were all
physical descendants of Adam, all could now share in the righteous nature of
Jesus Christ, through union with Him by faith. if I want to kind of summarize
that, I would do it this way. We were connected to Adam by flesh and therefore
we shared his sin. We are now connected to Jesus by faith and now we share His
perfection. So Paul taught that man was saved because he shared in the
righteousness of Christ, through faith. And the Law served to reveal our
unrighteousness and the way that Jesus would deal with it - death on the cross.
Atonement. That's what Paul was teaching. That's the
essence of the gospel. The Pharisees, when they use the term Law, they included all
of the man-made traditions that had grown up around the Law. Remember, I told
you last time, the hedge around the law, there was the Law and then there
are these six hundred and odd rules around the law, to help you not break the
Law. When they said the Law, they included all, everything. The law given by God
plus all the rules and regulations created by the scribes over the
centuries. Now in many instances they used their watered-down perverted view of the
Law to establish their own righteousness. This is very important, this point.
I want you to really kind of grasp this. The key point in Romans 10:3, let me just
show you that one, it says, "For not knowing about God's righteousness and
seeking to establish their own," "they" meaning the Jews, "they did not subject
themselves to the righteousness of God." How do you subject yourself to the
righteousness of God? Well, by being - having faith in Christ. You become
righteous through faith. So he's talking about - in Romans 10 - he's talking about,
why didn't the Jews make it? Why did these Gentiles, that didn't have the law,
didn't have the prophets, nothing, they got it. They understood. Why didn't the
Jews, who had the law, who had the prophets, who had the father's - the
Messiah was a Jew. They had everything going for them. Why did they miss the
boat? Well, in Romans 10:3 he explains, "For not knowing about God's righteousness
and seeking to establish their own." How did they establish their own
righteousness? They watered-down the Law. They didn't see the Law as
something to reveal sin, they saw it as something that would help them conquer
sin. They claimed that they already were righteous in God's eyes for two reasons.
One, they were the chosen people of God. Come on. And number two, they obeyed the
Law. The problem with this self-view was that in reality they were chosen to be
the people through whom Christ would come, in order to deal with sin, but they
were not simply chosen arbitrarily as saved people. They had to
believe too. And then the second false notion they had, was that they obeyed
their version of the law, but Jesus showed how shallow their concept of the
law really was. That's what the Sermon on the Mount is all about. For example,
adultery for the Jew at that time, adultery was "thou shalt not
commit adultery" right, there's the commandment. In their minds adultery was
sex with the legitimate wife of a fellow Jew. That was adultery. If you had sex
with a single woman, that wasn't adultery. If you had sex with a slave, that was not
adultery. That's what - or you divorced without cause, that wasn't adultery.
Some even went so far as to say it's adultery if I have sex with the
legitimate wife of another Jew in my tribe. Really? And so a man would say to a
Pharisee or one of these individuals would say, I keep the law, I keep the
commandment. I was getting tired of my wife, so I just, I divorced her. I
gave her the piece of paper. Moses said, give her the piece of paper, and I just
married myself another one. And I didn't like her, I got rid of her, and I
got myself a third one. I'm good, I gave the paper. I have sex with a slave, that's
okay, she's not the wife of a fellow Jew. So there was this self-righteousness
based on an obedience of a watered-down version of the law. So Jesus comes along,
don't ask why they hated him, and Jesus comes along and he says all you have
heard that it has been said, thou shalt not commit adultery, oh and they go yeah,
sure, the Law, absolutely; but I say to you, even if you look at a woman and lust
after her in your heart, you've already committed adultery. Whoa, that's a much
tougher law to obey for your whole life. Right? So every time you see Jesus say, you
have heard that - have heard that it was said, such and
such, He's challenging them. Okay, here's your Law, now here's how to really obey
that law. This is why they despised Him. He was blowing up their false
self-righteousness according to the law. And so the Pharisees and now the
Judaizers, who were Pharisees who had become Christians, they wanted to
introduce a system whereby a man could achieve righteousness by obeying certain
laws. And the main one, the kickoff law, the point - the tipping
point, if you wish, was the law about circumcision. If you could get one of
these people to receive circumcision, than it was nothing to get them to take
the food laws, no pork and the whole rest of it. So for these Judaizers
Christ was like Moses. He just gave a different set of laws. They saw the
Sermon on the Mount like laws. Paul maintained that in living a perfect life
and offering it on the cross, Jesus obeyed the entire law on our behalf.
That's how it works. Brothers and sisters, that's why they call it good news. Once
you realize the absolute demands of God's law and how woefully short we come
no matter how hard we try to obey it, then the gospel really is good news. Wait
a minute, Jesus came and He perfectly obeyed the law on our behalf, that's good
news. We become obedient to that law in the same way, not by keeping every
command, because we can't. We become obedient completely to the law by being
united to Jesus by faith. Yeah, no room for boasting there. No room for bragging
there. Nobody can brag. So both Paul and the
Judaizers, they had the same objective: to be perfect and thus saved. Their method
was obeying the commands one by one by one by one, until you obeyed all of them
perfectly. That was their method. Paul's method or God's method, was sharing
Jesus's perfection by faith. That was the Gospel's way. And trust me, when you
understand and accept that, it's a very humbling thing. Why do you think
Isaiah says, "Their righteousness are like filthy rags". Meaning, if we put
forth before God our goodness, our righteousness, our puny attempts to obey
the law, and claim some sort of righteousness, Isaiah is saying, that's
like, those are like dirty rags. So in verse 17 he says, "But if, while seeking to
be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a
minister of sin? May it never be!" And so in defending this way, Paul asks the
questions: do we sin by trying to be justified through faith, rather than
through law? Is that wrong? Because in the end, this is what the Judaizers were
saying. The Judaizers are saying, all you people are - you're obeying some
watered-down type of gospel, too easy. It's too easy. It's too easy. People
will abuse that. I've heard that even in the church. People say, that Gospel is
way too easy. That's cheap grace. It's not cheap grace, by its very nature grace is free.
So if this is so, he says, we make Christ to be the one who leads us into sin,
because He's the one who says to believe in Him. And Paul says, well, heaven forbid.
In other words, Jesus's way to be saved, through faith, we're not sinning if we
follow that way. It's the Judaizers who are sinning by taking us in the other
direction. Verse 18, how are we on time? Good. It says, "For if I rebuild what I
have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor." In other words, if he
reestablishes the system of salvation by works of the law that he removed when he
accepted Christ, two things automatically happen. Number one, he will be condemned
by the very laws that he is reestablishing. This system only condemns.
It cannot save. And number two, Christ will also condemn him for abandoning the
true way of salvation, which is by faith in Christ. I not only believe
intellectually as true the things that Jesus says, that He's the son of God and
so on and so forth. I also believe in the sense that I trust, I have confidence
that He saves me through union with Him by faith. I trust you, Lord. You've told me
that you have lived up to the law perfectly and you give to me freely that
type of righteousness, as if I have also lived up to the law. I trust you, that
this is true. That when I come before God in judgment, I shall not be judged
because I have Your perfection given freely to me through faith. Either way, if
I leave that system, I'll be a transgressor. Verse 19, "For through the
Law I die to the Law, so that I might live to
Christ." So Paul declares that when he understood the true purpose of the Law,
which was to reveal sin, and saw his true sinfulness and condemnation under the
Law, he stopped trying to use the Law as a means of saving himself. In other words,
he died to the Law. That's what that expression means. And so he says he did
this so he could be saved by Christ. So this is a, what's called parallelism.
It's a literary device, used mainly in the Psalms, but in other
places. An idea is stated in one line, and then in the next line
the same idea is stated, but in different words. And then other types of other
types of parallelism, you have one idea in this line and then you have the
opposite idea in the second line. So it was a literary device that
was used in that time, okay. He uses this literary device. So the
imagery of him dying to the Law and then living to God. He's talking about the
same thing, except he's using, he's comparing them. A wonderful parallel
to what he says in the next verse, where he repeats the very same idea, but now he
uses different imagery. This time his death is on the cross, and his life is
the resurrected one with Jesus. He says, "I've been crucified with Christ,"
well, there's his death to the Law, "and it is not no longer I who live, but Christ
lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the
Son of God," in other words, I'm able to live and breathe, not just physically, my
heart pumping the blood, I'm able to live before God and not feel worthless, and
sinful, and a failure. I am Alive in front of Him. Why? Because I know that
through faith He accepts me as perfect. "but Christ lives in me; in the life which I
now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
Himself up for me." What's he doing? Well, the gospel, he's just repeating the
gospel in another way. So the new Paul - righteous, perfect, saved has Christ's
presence in himself experienced in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Acts 2:38.
We received the indwelling of the Spirit at baptism. You die in baptism
and then you resurrect with Christ living in you. Everything now done with
his flesh is not done to earn righteousness through law-keeping, but
rather a response of trusting faith in a Savior who loved and died in his place
in order to give him perfection and thus saved him. So there's the parallelism. Died with
Christ, Christ now lives with me, within me. There's the other example of parallelism.
Previous acts done as works of Law, they were burdens. They were
discouraging, they produced false pride. Now, however, the very same things done as
a response of faith are acceptable to God. And joyful to do. And they produce
humility. Very same actions, very same things. I try to - I, a man, try to have a
sexually pure mind and heart, as every Christian man should, Right?
If I'm under the law, I'm making an attempt and I see that sometimes I win, and
sometimes I lose, and sometimes I win, and then three other times I lose, that's
pretty discouraging. I got to keep trying, I got to keep trying, because
the Law has a - thou shalt not commit adultery.
No impurities. I gotta keep trying, but it's so discouraging. If I'm in Christ, I
have the same responsibilities as a Christian man, to have a pure mind and
heart, except now I'm doing it as an act of faith. Sometimes I succeed and
sometimes I don't; but everything I do is a way to say to God, I believe. I keep
trying, why? Because I believe. I keep trying, why? Because I love you, Lord. I
failed five times out of seven, well, the two times I've succeeded, Lord,
here it is, because you're not going to judge me based on my perfection, you're
going to judge me based on my faith, but my faith continues
to push me forward in making an effort to live a righteous life. To tell the
truth, not to grumble at others who get on my nerves. Some of people in
this very room, you know who you are, Steve. So in verse 21 he says, "I do not
nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then
Christ died needlessly." Paul is not the one eliminating the grace of God, Peter
and the Judaizers, they're the ones that are eliminating the grace of God. Why?
They're trying to go back to the old system. If righteousness could be had
this way, then Christ died for nothing. In other words, If you could be righteous by
obeying the Law, then Jesus died for nothing. Why should he come? God did not
send Him to die for some sins, He came for all the sins of everyone. So His
death pays for all sin or no sin. It's one or the other. You either accept
perfection through union with Christ based on faith, or you pursue it through
perfect Law-keeping. Those are the only choices that you have. The only choices
that you have. It's one or the other, but it cannot be
both. The problem here and in all churches since, is that many people try
to mix these two systems and we end up with various forms of legalism, even to
this day. So Paul mentions nothing more of Peter here, or anywhere else as a
matter of fact. We assume that Peter received the correction, he adjusted his
position, and his later letters seemed to confirm this. Imagine, one apostle
rebuking another, and the other receiving the rebuke, changing his attitude. So
next time we're going to look righteousness not comes by faith, but
next time we're also going to look at other things that he talks about, that
also come with faith. Not just righteousness, other things, too, are based
on faith. All right, that's it for this particular lesson. Thank you very much.