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The Letter to the Galatians

Martin Taylor

{31Oct2021 Harlington BC}

Good morning and welcome to Harlington Baptist Church.

Last week, we looked at Galatians 2:1-14. We looked at a timeline from about 20BC through to 80AD to try to catch a glimpse of where all this action was taking place. Even taking into account all the caveats about dates, we were able to place the Galatians 1:14-2:21/Acts 9:1-15:25 action as being a period of about 14 to 18 years, and occurring somewhere between 33 and 55AD. The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) took place somewhere between about AD49-54. The natural expectation is that that Peter visited Antioch a little after that. Say somewhere between AD49 and AD55. Usual date caveats apply.

So let us now turn to chapter 2. Actually, we are going to repeat verses 11-14. They were important for the timeline activity last week. This week, they are important to capture the full picture of Paul getting in Peter’s face.

If you are using the TNIV, NIV, NKJV or NASB, you will note that the speech starting in v14 continues to v21. Other versions stop the speech mainly after 14, one or two after 16.

Deciding what is speech in Greek text is not easy. The early documents used only capital letters, had little punctuation to separate phrases and sentences or paragraphs. Speech sections have to be interpreted. Here, it makes a difference where you end the speech – and I have taken it as spanning 14-21.

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Galatians 2:11-13

After ‘Jerusalem Council’
Peter visits Antioch
Separation/Unity? Ethnicity? Food law?
Salvation by Works!

So repeating from last week

Gal 2:11 When Peter came to Antioch, he did something that was not right. I stood against him, because he was wrong.

Gal 2:12 This is what happened: When Peter first came to Antioch, he ate and associated with the non-Jewish people. But when some Jewish men came from James, Peter separated himself from the non-Jews. He stopped eating with them, because he was afraid of the Jews who believe that all non-Jewish people must be circumcised.

Gal 2:13 So Peter was a hypocrite. The other Jewish believers joined with him, so they were hypocrites too. Even Barnabas was influenced by what these Jewish believers did.

Is the problem here simply that Peter was drawing back from fellowship with non-Jews? Was the issue to do with lack of unity? Was it to do with ethnicity? Jews versus non-Jews? Was it just related to food laws in the Torah? It related a little to each of these – and it may be possible to draw from this material a sound biblical approach to each of the subjects. However, important though these were, and are, something else was at stake.

This situation re-opened the wound that had been inflicted months previously over the same issue in the same place – just that Peter wasn’t around for the first one.

Paul could reasonably have expected Peter to have remembered the Jerusalem Council. To have remembered the permission given by Apostles and Elders for non-Jewish people to be Christians without conditions. But no! Peter was afraid. Afraid of men. Peter had a history of being impulsive – acting / speaking before thinking.

And everyone else follows him like lemmings.

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Galatians 2:14-15

The truth of the Good News

Salvation by faith in Jesus

Following the Law ≠ being perfect
Need to be ‘declared righteous’

Now we have the transition from the text of last week (v14) to the start of the text for this week (v15).

Gal 2:14 They were not following the truth of the Good News. When I saw this, I spoke to Peter in front of everyone. I said, "Peter, you are a Jew, but you don't live like one. You live like someone who is not a Jew. So why are you trying to force those who are not Jewish to live like Jews?"

Gal 2:15 We are Jews by birth. We were not born "sinners," as we call those who are not Jews.

They were not following the truth of the Good News. When we get to verse 16, we will get on to Justification by faith. That is the Truth of the Good News.

But Peter has missed that. He has been so worried about ‘these folk from James’ that he missed the ‘due diligence’. He hasn’t thought through the implications of what he is doing. How often do we say something, or do something, without first thinking through the implications? Have we got into trouble as a result? Have we totally missed the point – to the extent of putting our Christianity in doubt?

This situation has got so far out of hand that drastic action is needed. Paul has to get in Peter’s face, in public. To tear him off a strip so that Peter is forced to think it through from first principles. Paul leads him through the logic step by step.

Even though most of the Galatian church, and a lot of the church at Antioch would have been non-Jews, here Paul explains things as a conversation between two traditional Jews. People who had grown up with the Torah. From birth, they would have heard scripture spoken to them.

Then, it is almost as if Paul puts his arm around Peter. That would have been a bit tricky because tradition has Peter as a big man and Paul as a short stop. {demonstrate a small Paul trying to put an arm around the shoulder of a large Peter}

Peter, you have been living like a gentile for all the time you have been here – even though you are a Jew. Why are you now trying to force your Christian brothers here into becoming Jews?

Peter, you and I are both Jews. We weren’t born ‘missing the mark’ like the Gentiles. As Jews, we both know that following the Torah does not make someone perfect. Even we Jews have to be ‘declared righteous’ by God.

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Galatians 2:16-17

Law ≠ right with God
Trust Jesus = right with God
Jew + Law ≠ right with God
Jew +Trust Jesus = right with God

Gal 2:16 But we know that no one is made right with God by following the law. It is trusting in Jesus Christ that makes a person right with God. So we have put our faith in Christ Jesus, because we wanted to be made right with God. And we are right with him because we trusted in Christ—not because we followed the law. I can say this because no one can be made right with God by following the law.

Gal 2:17 We Jews came to Christ to be made right with God, so it is clear that we were sinners too. Does this mean that Christ makes us sinners? Of course not.

So, Peter, it is not the law that makes us right with God. As Jews, what makes us right with God? Trusting in Jesus! Faith in Jesus, the Messiah, alone does that. We, as Jews, wanted to be made right with God – so you and I have put or faith in Christ Jesus. I am going to repeat myself for emphasis. We are right with Jesus, not because we followed the Law – but because we trusted in Christ. As Jews, you and I both know that no one can be made right with God by following the Law.

Once again, we Jews came to Christ in order to be made right with God.

Now, if we needed to be made right with God, then it is obvious that we were sinners. As an aside guys, that means that obviously, we were just the same as gentile sinners. Now, let me pose you a question. If we now recognise that we are sinners – just like the gentiles – and we reached that conclusion, that state, because of Jesus, does that mean that Jesus turned us into sinners? Because previously we thought we were Jews and only Gentiles were sinners. What do you think folks? What about you Peter? £50,000 question. Want to phone a friend? Ask the audience? Let me give you a clue. The answer is ‘No’. The answer is ‘Don’t be silly’. When we, as Jews, have come to Jesus and put our faith in Him, we start to realise that, despite everything we have been taught since childhood, actually we have always been sinners. We have always fallen short. Turns out that we aren’t better than everyone else after all.

Adding in a little background information at this point. Paul likes Hab 2:4b The righteous will live by his faith [in the true God] AMP. He quotes it in Gal 3:11 and Rom 1:17. There are echoes of it in verse 16 – multiple echoes as Paul repeats by (or out of) faith versus works of law.

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Galatians 2:18

But, going back to ‘works of the law’
would be sin!

Now Peter, says Paul (and I have to admit that this bit is a freehand translation, because all the actual printed translations are difficult to understand to the point of not quite making sense.

Let’s recap the scene again. Paul, in front of the whole church at Antioch, trying to explain the truth of ‘justification by faith in Jesus alone’ in words of one syllable, to Peter – who actually knew what was right, but had been pushed into acting wrongly…

Now Peter, says Paul {I wish he wasn’t quite so tall} Now, that we understand that we Jews are also sinners just like the gentiles, and we also need to be justified by faith in Jesus, what happens … this is the critical question Peter … what happens if we go back to our old ways, go back to trying to get salvation through ‘being good’? What happens if we try to re-establish life built on food laws, and correct clothing, and separating ourselves from so-called ‘sinners’?

It wouldn’t do us any good – that much is for certain. It would just prove us to be sinners once again – because, for the umpteenth time, trying to do good will always fail. The only way to become right with God is through faith in Jesus.

Gal 2:18 But I would be wrong to begin teaching again those things that I gave up. Easy-to-Read Version

Gal 2:18 If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan. THE MESSAGE

Gal 2:18 For if I [or any others who have taught that the observance of the Law of Moses is not essential to being justified by God should now by word or practice teach or intimate that it is essential to] build up again what I tore down, I prove myself a transgressor. AMP

Gal 2:18 Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down. New Living Translation

Gal 2:18 But if I attempt to build again the whole structure of justification by the Law then I do, in earnest, make myself a sinner. PHILLIPS

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Galatians 2:19-20

Law brings death
Jesus brings life
Through the Law, I died
Through Jesus (only), I live

Gal 2:19 It was the law itself that caused me to end my life under the law. I died to the law so that I could live for God. I have been nailed to the cross with Christ.

Gal 2:20 So I am not the one living now—it is Christ living in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God. He is the one who loved me and gave himself to save me.

Here, it is as if Paul had tried to switch tack. Tried to explain things to Peter (and subsequently to the Galatians) in a different way. It introduces a strand of argument that he amplifies later on in the letter.

Let me enlarge upon it for you to give you an idea of what Paul is trying to describe at this point in the letter – though the action being described is still the scene at Antioch with Paul dressing down Peter.

Look Peter, says Paul. The Law is impossible to keep. So what effect does it have? It exhausts you because you can never be good enough. It squeezes the life out of you. It kills. And I (Paul) succumbed to that. I died to the law … in order that I could live for God.

It is as though I was crucified with Jesus. There is nothing of my own life left – it is dead.

But you say – your body is here stood next to you. Correct – but it is only here, it is only alive and functioning because of what Christ has done in me.

Peter, you and I are only alive here and now because of our faith, our trust, in Jesus our saviour. Jesus loved us so much that He died on the cross for us!

It could be put slightly differently with Paul saying “I tried to keep the law. I was so zealous for the law that I persecuted the Church. But the Law failed to show me that what I was doing was wrong. The law actually led me into sin. It was only when I met Jesus that the moral bankruptcy of the law was revealed. {based on Bruce, F.F. p142}

Jesus provided the relief by giving him a new life.

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Galatians 2:21

Did Christ die in vain?
If circumcision, etc is essential

Then yes

If salvation can be achieved by ‘works’

Then yes

But I am not going to support that!

Gal 2:21 I am not the one destroying the meaning of God's grace. If following the law is how people are made right with God, then Christ did not have to die.

“Oh Peter” says Paul, “what you have been doing here in Antioch is deadly serious, because it makes a mockery of Jesu’s death on the cross. When you cease fellowship with non-Jewish Christians, when you refuse to eat with them, when you support (or don’t speak against) calls for gentile Christians to be circumcised, then you are saying that salvation can be achieved through human effort. You are saying that all you have to do is ‘try to be good’ and you will get to heaven. You are promoting salvation by ‘works’. And at the same time you are saying that Christ died in vain. That His pain and suffering on the cross was for no purpose.

You don’t believe that Peter. I don’t believe it, and I am not going to support it. Sort yourself out Peter.

Such was the message that Paul gave to Peter in Antioch. Such was the challenge to the church at Antioch. Such was the message to the Galatians.

Such is the challenge to you here today. Do you understand that Jesus died for you? Do you understand that you cannot make your way through life on your own? Jesus is the one who makes the difference between life and death, between living and dying. It is time to repent and be baptised. To die to the way you used to be and to take on new life through faith in Jesus the Messiah alone.

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