Well on Sunday mornings here at First Presbyterian Church we are working our way through the letter of Paul to the Galatians. And we’ve come today to Galatians chapter 2, verses 11 through 16. So do keep your Bibles in hand and would you turn there with me please. If you’re using a church Bible, you can find that on page 973.
Paul, you may remember, is engaged in a defense of his apostolic ministry and authority and to help in the case that he is building he has provided something of an autobiographical account for us of his conversion and call to the ministry and his engagement with the apostles in the city of Jerusalem. When he went down to Jerusalem from his base in Antioch, all the other apostles, he told us, were in lockstep with him on the message that he preached and the mission to the Gentiles that he pursued. But now we’re going to see, chapter 11 of verse 2 – sorry, chapter 2 of verse 11 – chapter 11…verse 11 of chapter 2! Whoa, boy! Now we’re going to see in verse 11 of chapter 2 the scene shifts. We’re back in Antioch, we’ve left Jerusalem, we’ve come back to Antioch, which has become really the main mission sending center for the ministry of Paul and Barnabas among the Gentiles of the Roman Empire. Verse 11 tells us that even though when Paul had visited him in Jerusalem, Cephas – that is, the apostle Peter – had fully supported and endorsed Paul’s gospel. Now that Cephas has reciprocated and made the journey up to Antioch to be with the believers in that city, everything seems to have changed and a confrontation now becomes necessary between the two apostles – the apostle Paul and the apostle Peter.
It’s such an important episode for us to be considering today because actually it shows us just how easily we can stray from the freedom of the Biblical gospel back into legalistic bondage. The Galatians were being tempted – this is why Paul is writing the letter – the Galatians were being tempted to embrace just this kind of legalism that Paul shows us erupted in Antioch. And so to help the Galatians and to help us to see how dangerous yielding to that temptation can be, Paul points to this sorry episode in the life of no less a leader than the mighty apostle Peter himself and no less a church than the vibrant, mission-sending powerhouse at Antioch. The point is, if it can happen to Peter, it can happen to you. And if it can happen in Antioch, it can happen here.
Now if you’d look at the passage with me, chapter 2, 11 through 16, let me show you the approach that we are going to take as we study it together. First, in verses 11 through 13, we are going to consider the symptoms of this spiritual disorder that has infected Peter’s life because we need to be able to diagnose the same contagion in our own hearts too, so we’ll look at the symptoms. Then, verse 14, we’re going to look at the underlying disease back of those symptoms. What is the root of this sudden change that has overtaken Peter? So the symptoms, then the disease, then finally verses 15 and 16, the remedy. If we did discover this awful infection of legalism in our own hearts, what is God’s treatment plan? The symptoms, the disease, and the remedy.
Before we get started, let’s pause and pray and seek the Lord to help us. Let us all pray.
O Lord our God, our hearts are so prone to self-righteousness, to relying upon our religion, on our own goodness for our acceptance with You. And help us then to see, from this portion of Your Word, how utterly bankrupt and futile that scheme, that system of religion really is. Draw us by Your Word back to Jesus Christ to rest all our hope and confidence for our acceptance before the court of heaven on Jesus’ blood and righteousness. For we ask it all in His name, amen.
Galatians chapter 2 at verse 11. This is the Word of God:
“But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy Word.
Years ago, the congregation I served in London began a work among the many thousands of young Afrikaans language speaking South Africans who had come to live in the city. Most of those we were serving identified with the Boer culture and with the Afrikaans language and they were really the first generation to grow up in South Africa after the fall of Apartheid. And as a result, many of them, these young white South Africans, Afrikaans speakers, were thrown into sort of a personal identity crisis. Theirs was the language and the culture of the oppressor minority that had now been overthrown. And very many of them were frankly fleeing South Africa to London not really knowing how to process all of that. And the Lord opened, in His marvelous kindness, a wonderful opportunity for us to develop an Afrikaans language Bible study and eventually we planted a church among them. And as a part of that work, we called a young seminarian from South Africa to be the assistant pastor. And as we were planning his ordination service, I was contacted by another pastor living in London who was also from South Africa. And he was asking if he could come as a representative of his South African denomination and participate with us in the ordination service for this new minister in our congregation. And so I met with this man and discovered that he belonged to a group that affirmed the same Reformed theology that we hold dear, but with one important difference. They had as a part of their constitution a commitment to the persistent segregation of the races. People of color were not welcome, were not allowed in their worship services, and were not allowed to join their congregation. And at that point, I had to look this young man in the eye and tell him that he could not participate in the worship service with us in any way for as long as he continued to exclude from the fellowship of the body of Christ those for whom Christ had shed His blood and welcomed in.
As I read over this part of the book of Galatians this last week, I was transported back to that conversation all those years ago because something very much like that is taking place in the church at Antioch. A division has erupted between Paul and Cephas based on unbiblical additions to the true Gospel. Verse 11, “When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.” Now that ought to be a surprise to us if we’ve been paying attention to the progression of Paul’s thoughts in the letter so far. He’s just told us in the verses immediately prior to this one how he and Peter stood arm in arm in common cause because they preached the same Gospel of free grace – Paul among the Gentiles and Peter to the Jews. And now suddenly that unity crumbles and the reason, Paul says, is because Peter stood condemned. That is to say, he was categorically and unambiguously wrong. This wasn’t an argument about style. Paul wasn’t overreacting to a minor difference of emphasis. It was much more than a clash of personalities. Cephas stood condemned for the practices he was then endorsing, and so Paul directly and publicly confronted him. This was a big deal. Not all controversy is evil, let’s remember, and not all confrontation should be avoided. Unity is not the highest ideal, especially when its preservation comes at the expense of the truth of God. And so Paul confronts Peter.
The Symptoms
But what has happened between them exactly in order for this confrontation to become so very necessary? Well that brings us in the first place to the symptoms of the spiritual infection that has overtaken the apostle Peter. What are the symptoms? Well first of all, there is division. Cephas used to eat with the Gentiles, verse 12. The tense that Paul uses there indicates that this had been Peter’s normal custom; his regular, ordinary way. But then certain men came from James. That is, they came up from Jerusalem and at that point he drew back and separated himself. Again, the tenses of the Greek verbs matter. They indicate a progression over time. You could translate it this way. “When certain men came from James, he began to draw back until eventually he began completely to separate himself from them.” A fundamental breach between Jew and Gentile that had been healed by the Gospel of God in His Son, Jesus Christ, has now been reopened once again. Peter, when he first came to Antioch, had not hesitated to enjoy table fellowship, likely sitting happily shoulder to shoulder with his brothers and sisters, his Gentile brothers and sisters at the Lord’s Table. But now all of a sudden that has changed.
And it didn’t just stay with Peter either. Error, let us realize, when it gets a foothold in one heart, rarely stays there. It is an infectious disease. It spreads. So verse 13, Peter’s influence led the other Jews in the congregation at Antioch to withdraw. And even Barnabas, Paul’s right hand man, even Barnabas himself was swept along by it. And what is the cause of this dreadful breach of fellowship along racial and ethnic lines in the church at Antioch? Well now look at verse 12 again. “When certain men came from James, Cephas was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.” So behind his separation from his Gentile brothers and sisters lay a second and deeper symptom of a spiritual disease. You see what it is? He “feared the circumcision party.” The fear of man is what began to drive him.
And what a powerful motivator, typically in a damaging and dangerous direction, the fear of other people’s opinion really can be. Haven’t you found that in your own life to be the case? The second century “Book of Jubilees” gives these instructions to Jewish people. “Separate yourself from the Gentiles and do not eat with them. Do not perform deeds like theirs and do not become associates of theirs because their deeds are defiled and all of their ways are contaminated and despicable and abominable.” That was the attitude of orthodox, observant Jews towards the Gentiles. And it seems much like the false teachers have now begun to insinuate themselves into the congregation in Galatia, these Jewish followers of Jesus who showed up in Antioch still bought into all of that. Paul calls them here “the circumcision party.” They argued that if you really want to follow Jesus, well then in addition to faith in Christ you also need to embrace the whole system of Mosaic Law and ritual and rabbinic custom and tradition. Not just the moral law, but the dietary and ritual obligations as well. Only then, they said, could you be confident of acceptance with God. That was the view of these visitors from James.
And Peter, it seems, was entirely intimidated by it. Perhaps he feared appearing less strict, less faithful, less committed as these new visitors from Jerusalem were. Perhaps he worried that he would lose face or lose position or lose influence as a leader in the Jerusalem church if he did not embrace their exclusionary practices. Whatever it was that was shaping Peter’s thinking, there was a division that erupted in the church and behind it stood the fear of the opinion of others.
And then did you notice how Paul sums up all of these symptoms of spiritual disease that have begun to spread from Peter throughout the Jewish population of the church in Antioch? Twice he uses the word in verse 13. Do you see it? He calls them “hypocrites.” All of this is hypocrisy. You may know the word that is translated here “hypocrite” came originally from the theater. “Hypokrites” was an actor who wore a mask as he assumed a persona that he is playing. And that is what Peter and the others were doing. The mask of legal obedience that Peter wore was not who he really was in Christ, but it grieves Paul to see him act this way.
Back in Acts chapter 10, you may remember, the Lord had shown Peter a vision of ritually unclean animals and told Peter to rise and eat. And when Peter demurred, he was told, “What God has made clean, do not call unclean.” And so Peter at that point realized that believing Gentiles, Gentiles who trusted in Christ, were no longer unclean outcasts to be shunned and avoided, but brothers and sisters and fellow heirs together with him. They were now clean in Christ. And so he began to fellowship with them. But all of a sudden, under the daunting influence of other people’s judgmentalism, the Gospel of grace that makes a Jew and Gentile one new man, has been obscured and hidden from Peter’s view. It is no longer properly operating in his heart and conscience and he falls back again into the old patterns of legalism. That is the very epitome of hypocrisy. Peter knew better. Division rooted in the fear of the opinion of others leading to terrible hypocrisy. Those are the symptoms.
The Disease
Now, we are ready for Paul’s diagnosis of the disease. Here’s the disease. What is happening in Peter’s life and in the lives of those he was influencing? Verse 14 tells us. Would you look at verse 14? “But when I saw that their conduct was” – here’s the phrase – “not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, being a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’” “I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the Gospel.” Now Paul in his confrontation with Peter might legitimately have corrected him on his missteps. He might have addressed each of the symptoms in turn, one at a time, but he doesn’t actually do that. He doesn’t say to him, “Peter, racial division is sinful, and here’s why,” nor does he say, “Fearing the opinion of others is so dangerous and destructive Peter, and here’s why.” You’ll notice he doesn’t directly call him out for his hypocrisy either. You see what he does instead? There’s so much wisdom here. He addresses the underlying issue back of all the symptoms that have begun to poison Peter’s life and the church at Antioch.
Look at what he says. Here’s what he says. “What is happening in your life, Peter, is that the truth of the Gospel has stopped operating as your governing principle.” That’s what’s really at issue here. That’s why Paul is willing to call him out so publicly like this. “This is a Gospel problem in your heart, Peter. The Gospel isn’t getting through like it once did.” That phrase, by the way, “conduct not in step; their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel,” uses a word in Greek that means “straight walking.” Peter was not walking straight in line with the truth. The metaphor, one commentator says, is of a confused wanderer, someone who veers from the path such as a staggering drunk who cannot walk a straight line. The point is, the Gospel is a safe, straight path, but Peter has become intoxicated with the pursuit of the good opinion of these legalists, and so drunk with their attentions, he staggers from a life lived along the Gospel line with disastrous consequences not only for himself but for the fellowship of the church.
And here’s what I want you to grasp about all of this. There is a principle here that we’ve got to see clearly that Peter’s story illustrates brilliantly. Did you notice how even though once the circumcision party showed up at Antioch and intimidated Peter, even though Peter then tried to make strict obedience to the law his big thing, did you notice how, as he focused on the outer ceremonies of the law, he actually ends up failing to keep the core and the spirit of the law in some pretty fundamental and dramatic ways? Did you notice that? He may well have managed to uphold Mosaic dietary restrictions but all it does for him in the end is shatter the unity of the body of Christ so that he now is failing to love his neighbor as himself. He began to view some of those for whom Christ died as dirty and unclean and less than. To be sure, he recommitted himself to the ceremonies of the Jewish law, but he did it, Paul says, because he was captured by the fear of men. He was not doing it out of the fear of the Lord.
So you see what’s happening? When we try to keep the law instead of trusting the Gospel, you only ever end up distorting the law and the Gospel. That’s why legalists are always so very frustrated, you know. They’re always sour and judgmental towards others, aren’t they? Haven’t you found that? They’re always finding fault. They’re never happy. Why? Because they’ve made law keeping their central focus, not the Gospel, with the result that, try as they might to keep the law, they will only ever end up actually distorting the law so that the very thing they long to do constantly alludes them. It’s like sand through their fingers. What a futile way to live. No wonder they’re so bitter and sour and angry.
The Remedy
Well what is the solution? Is there a better way? Look at verses 15 and 16. We’ve seen the symptoms and we diagnosed the disease, now here’s the remedy. Are you ready? Look at verses 15 and 16. “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” This is virtually a summary of the argument of the book of Galatians. And I love it here. You can imagine, this is Paul now summarizing his confrontation with Peter, what he said. And I love it because he says the same thing three times over – forwards and then backwards and then forwards again, just so we get the point. Do you see it? “A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
You get the point. You can’t – this is obvious, I hope, and yet we miss it and we stray from it. So hear me clearly – You can’t get right with God by doing stuff! You can’t get right with God by doing stuff, any stuff. “A person is not justified by works of the law.” That’s what the circumcision party actually thought, wasn’t it? They believed that all the ceremonies of the Mosaic law still applied, not understanding at all that the cross of Jesus Christ has rendered them now obsolete and so they distort the Gospel. And what’s more, they saw their ceremonial obedience as emblematic of a commitment to obeying the whole Mosaic law as the grounds and basis of their hope and confidence that God will love and accept them. And so they distort the law as well as the Gospel because “by the works of the law no one can be justified.” You can’t get right with God that way.
Do you get that? “Do better. Try harder” will not work. You can turn over a new leaf every Sunday if you like, but God will not count you righteous in His sight because you do. He will not open the gates of heaven to you because you are here today, because you pray, because you read your Bible, because you try hard. “By the works of the law no one will be justified.” You can’t keep the law perfectly so as to merit favor from God. You will never be good enough, obedient enough. It’s not possible. But Paul says when you simply trust in Jesus Christ, when by faith you rest on His perfect, flawless, complete obedience to the law of God, His righteousness and His atoning death, when you rest on His doing not your doing, then, only then, are you counted righteous in God’s sight. You are justified.
And what Paul wants Peter to remember and the Galatians to realize, and you and me, he wants us to grasp, is how that one simple truth changes everything. It changes everything. Do you see it? See how it changes everything? When you are accepted freely in the sight of God for nothing in you, for nothing you have done, for no cause rooted in your heart, your behavior or your background but only because Jesus obeyed and bled and died for you, when you see that you are completely embraced and beloved and accepted in Christ, all your sin notwithstanding, not because you cleaned yourself up first and made yourself attractive to God so that He might love you, but because no matter how hard you try to get clean, you simply can’t do it, but Jesus has washed you clean and made you acceptable to God – for free, as a gift. When you really start to get that, it will set you free from the need to seek your acceptance in the opinion of others. When you’re focused on your good works as the ground of your acceptance with God, you will always wonder if you measure up. You’ll always be tempted to evaluate yourself in light of the opinion of other people. You’ll become enslaved to the whims of the tribe and it will make you separate from some people and look down on those who you deem have not quite measured up in the way that you have or the way that you hope to. That’s exactly what happened to Peter, wasn’t it?
You see, when you know that you are beloved, beloved, despite your sin and not because of your obedience, when you know that you are forgiven and accepted only because of the work of Jesus in your place and on your behalf, when that sinks in, when you begin to walk straight in line with the truth of the Gospel at last, it sets you free. You no longer need the approval of others. You have the approval of the only one who really matters. You’re not looking for the affirmation of those you may think are your betters, nor are you looking down in contempt on the failures of those you deem lesser because now you know, you realize you and they are in the same boat. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” “There is no one righteous, not even one.” “All have sinned and are justified freely by His grace.”
The thing that Peter forgot, that Paul reminds them of, the thing we need to grasp is that law- keeping, a life of moral obedience comes not in order to make God love you, but in the wake of the knowledge that He loves you freely in Jesus Christ. Your doing can never leverage approval from God. He won’t accept you because you were good enough. He already accepts you, beloved in Christ, He already accepts you as you trust in Jesus. And when that sinks in, when it becomes the operating system for your whole life, the amazing thing is you actually begin to keep the law. You start to learn to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. You start to learn to love your neighbor as yourself. It really is amazing.
So let me ask you, “What kind of life are you living today, beloved?” Are you here to log a few hours in God’s good books? “By the works of the law no one will be justified.” Or are you here because despite all your sin, even though you deserve none of it, God has loved you and forgiven you and embraced you as His child for free in the Gospel. He has given His Son for you who has kept the law you never could keep and endured the penalty for all your lawbreaking you could never pay, so that now because of such love you find yourself loving Him and loving one another, not to earn His favor but to express your gratitude.
The symptoms, do you see them? Division. Seeking the approval of others. Hypocrisy. Peter was living for the acceptance of his peers instead of living from his acceptance with God. And so the disease. He was no longer walking in step with the truth of the Gospel. It had stopped reaching his heart. Has it stopped reaching yours? Has the Gospel stopped reaching your heart? And then the remedy. Paul reminds him, “We have believed in Jesus Christ in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.” You must come to see that you may be accepted completely, wholly and forever in Jesus Christ alone. Only this can set you free from the enslaving power of people-pleasing. And so brothers and sisters, look again to Christ. Or if you are here and you are not yet a Christian, this is your only hope – Look to Christ and be reconciled to God.
Let us pray.
Our Father, we adore You for the Gospel – for its freedom, for its clarity and its beauty. Forgive us for drifting from it, for looking to and boasting in our own deadly doing. Help us to lay it all down now and instead rest all our hope and confidence in the perfect doing, the “It is finished,” the work done of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.