But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, because he stood condemned.
Parallel Translations
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But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, because he stood condemned.
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And when Peter was come to Antioche I withstode him in the face for he was worthy to be blamed.
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And when Peter was come to Antiochia, I withstood him to his face: for he was to be condemned.
Cross-references (25)
Passages linked to Galatians 2:11 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Timothy 5:20 Those who sin, reprove in the sight of all, that the rest also may be in fear.
- Acts 15:1 Some men came down from Judea and taught the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised after the custom of Moses, you can’t be saved.”
- Galatians 2:14 But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do?
- 2 Corinthians 5:16 Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.
- Matthew 16:17-18 Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I also tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
- Matthew 16:23 But he turned, and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.”
- Acts 15:30-35 So, when they were sent off, they came to Antioch. Having gathered the multitude together, they delivered the letter. When they had read it, they rejoiced over the encouragement. Judas and Silas, also being prophets themselves, encouraged the brothers with many words and strengthened them. After they had spent some time there, they were sent back with greetings from the brothers to the apostles. But Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.
- 2 Corinthians 11:21-28 I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet in whatever way anyone is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the offspring of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, and in deaths often. Five times I received forty stripes minus one from the Jews. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep. I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily: anxiety for all the assemblies.
- 2 Corinthians 12:11 I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for I am in no way inferior to the very best apostles, though I am nothing.
- Galatians 2:5 to whom we gave no place in the way of subjection, not for an hour, that the truth of the Good News might continue with you.
- Galatians 2:7 but to the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the Good News for the uncircumcised, even as Peter with the Good News for the circumcised—
- Galatians 2:9 and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, those who were reputed to be pillars, gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision.
- James 3:2 For we all stumble in many things. Anyone who doesn’t stumble in word is a perfect person, able to bridle the whole body also.
- 1 John 1:8-10 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we haven’t sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
- Jude 1:3 Beloved, while I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I was constrained to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
- Exodus 32:21-22 Moses said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you have brought a great sin on them?” Aaron said, “Don’t let the anger of my lord grow hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil.
- Numbers 20:12 Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you didn’t believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”
- Jeremiah 1:17 “You therefore put your belt on your waist, arise, and say to them all that I command you. Don’t be dismayed at them, lest I dismay you before them.
- Jonah 1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid its fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh.
- Jonah 4:3-4 Therefore now, Yahweh, take, I beg you, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.” Yahweh said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
- Jonah 4:9 God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?” He said, “I am right to be angry, even to death.”
- Acts 11:19 They therefore who were scattered abroad by the oppression that arose about Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews only.
- Acts 15:37-39 Barnabas planned to take John, who was called Mark, with them also. But Paul didn’t think that it was a good idea to take with them someone who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia, and didn’t go with them to do the work. Then the contention grew so sharp that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus,
- Acts 23:1-5 Paul, looking steadfastly at the council, said, “Brothers, I have lived before God in all good conscience until today.” The high priest, Ananias, commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit to judge me according to the law, and command me to be struck contrary to the law?” Those who stood by said, “Do you malign God’s high priest?” Paul said, “I didn’t know, brothers, that he was high priest. For it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’ ”
- 2 Corinthians 11:5 For I reckon that I am not at all behind the very best apostles.
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Martin Luther 1535 · Public Domain VERSE 11. But when Peter was come to Antioch,…
VERSE 11. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.
Paul goes on in his refutation of the false apostles by saying that in Antioch he withstood Peter in the presence of the whole congregation. As he stated before, Paul had no small matter in hand, but the chief article of the Christian religion. When this article is endangered, we must not hesitate to resist Peter, or an angel from heaven. Paul paid no regard to the dignity and position of Peter, when he saw this article in danger. It is written: "He that loveth father or mother or his own life, more than me, is not worthy of me." (Mat 10:37.)
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For defending the truth in our day, we are called proud and obstinate hypocrites. We are not ashamed of these titles. The cause we are called to defend, is not Peter’s cause, or the cause of our parents, or that of the government, or that of the world, but the cause of God. In defense of that cause we must be firm and unyielding.
When he says, "to his face," Paul accuses the false apostles of slandering him behind his back. In his presence they dared not to open their mouths. He tells them, "I did not speak evil of Peter behind his back, but I withstood him frankly and openly."
Others may debate here whether an apostle might sin. I claim that we ought not to make Peter out as faultless. Prophets have erred. Nathan told David that he should go ahead and build the Temple of the Lord. But his prophecy was afterwards corrected by the Lord. The apostles erred in thinking of the Kingdom of Christ as a worldly state. Peter had heard the command of Christ, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." But if it had not been for the heavenly vision and the special command of Christ, Peter would never have gone to the home of Cornelius. Peter also erred in this matter of circumcision. If Paul had not publicly censured him, all the believing Gentiles would have been compelled to receive circumcision and accept the Jewish law. We are not to attribute perfection to any man.
Luke reports "that the contention between Paul and Barnabas was so sharp that they departed asunder one from the other." The cause of their disagreement could hardly have been small since it separated these two, who had been joined together for years in a holy partnership. Such incidents are recorded for our consolation. After all, it is a comfort to know that even saints might and do sin.
Samson, David, and many other excellent men, fell into grievous sins. Job and Jeremiah cursed the day of their birth. Elijah and Jonah became weary of life and prayed for death. Such offenses on the part of the saints, the Scriptures record for the comfort of those who are near despair. No person has ever sunk so low that he cannot rise again. On the other hand, no man’s standing is so secure that he may not fall. If Peter fell, I may fall. If he rose again, I may rise again. We have the same gifts that they had, the same Christ, the same baptism and the same Gospel, the same forgiveness of sins. They needed these saving ordinances just as much as we do.
Martin Luther — Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), English translation by Theodore Graebner (Zondervan, 1939) — public domain (U.S. copyright not renewed). Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 11. When Peter was come. Whoever will carefully examine…
11. When Peter was come. Whoever will carefully examine all the circumstances, will, I trust, agree with me in thinking, that this happened before the apostles had decided that the Gentiles should receive no annoyance about ceremonial observances. (Acts 15:28.) For Peter would have entertained no dread of offending James, or those sent by him, after that decision had been passed: but such was the dissimulation of Peter, that, in opposing it, Paul was driven to assert “the truth of the gospel.” At first he said, that the certainty of his gospel does not in any degree depend on Peter and the apostles, so as to stand or fall by their judgment. Secondly, he said, that it had been approved by all without any exception or contradiction, and particularly by those who were universally admitted to hold the highest place. Now, as I have said, he goes further, and asserts that he had blamed Peter for leaning to the other side; and he proceeds to explain the cause of the dispute. It was no ordinary proof of the strength of his doctrine, that he not only obtained their cordial approbation, but firmly maintained it in a debate with Peter, and came off victorious. What reason could there now be for hesitating to receive it as certain and undoubted truth?
At the same time, this is a reply to another calumny, that Paul was but an ordinary disciple, far below the rank of an apostle: for the reproof which he administered was an evidence that the parties were on an equal footing. The highest, I acknowledge, are sometimes properly reproved by the lowest, for this liberty on the part of inferiors towards their superiors is permitted by God; and so it does not follow, that he who reproves another must be his equal. But the nature of the reproof deserves notice. Paul did not simply reprove Peter, as a Christian might reprove a Christian, but he did it officially, as the phrase is; that is, in the exercise of the apostolic character which he sustained.
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This is another thunderbolt which strikes the Papacy of Rome. It exposes the impudent pretensions of the Roman Antichrist, who boasts that he is not bound to assign a reason, and sets at defiance the judgment of the whole Church. Without rashness, without undue boldness, but in the exercise of the power granted him by God, this single individual chastises Peter, in the presence of the whole Church; and Peter submissively bows to the chastisement. Nay, the whole debate on those two points was nothing less than a manifest overthrow of that tyrannical primacy, which the Romanists foolishly enough allege to be founded on divine right. If they wish to have God appearing on their side, a new Bible must be manufactured; if they do not wish to have him for an open enemy, those two chapters of the Holy Scriptures must be expunged.
Because he was worthy of blame. The Greek participle, κατεγνωσμένος, signifies Blamed, so that the words run, “because he was blamed;” but I have no doubt whatever, that the word was intended to express, “one who deserves just blame.” Chrysostom makes the meaning to be, that others had previously indulged in complaint and accusation; but this is really trifling. It was customary with the Greeks to give to their participles the signification of nouns, which, every person must see, is applicable to this passage. This will enable us to perceive the absurdity of the interpretation given by Jerome and Chrysostom, who represent the whole transaction as a feigned debate, which the apostles had previously arranged to take place in presence of the people. They are not even supported by the phrase, “I withstood him to the face, κατὰ πρόσωπον, which means that “to the face,” or “being present,” Peter was chastised and struck dumb. The observation of Chrysostom, that, for the sake of avoiding scandal, they would have talked in private if they had any difference, is frivolous. The less important must be disregarded in comparison of the most dangerous of all scandals, that the Church would be rent, that Christian liberty was in danger, that the doctrine of the grace of Christ was overthrown; and therefore this public offense must be publicly corrected.
The chief argument on which Jerome rests is excessively trifling. “Why should Paul,” says he, “condemn in another what he takes praise for in himself? for he boasts that ‘to the Jews he became as a Jew.’” (1 Corinthians 9:20.) I reply, that what Peter did is totally different. Paul accommodated himself to the Jews no farther than was consistent with the doctrine of liberty; and therefore he refused to circumcise Titus, that the truth of the gospel might remain unimpaired. But Peter Judaized in such a manner as to “compel the Gentiles” to suffer bondage, and at the same time to create a prejudice against Paul’s doctrine. He did not, therefore, observe the proper limit; for he was more desirous to please than to edify, and more solicitous to inquire what would gratify the Jews than what would be expedient for the whole body. Augustine is therefore right in asserting, that this was no previously arranged plan, but that Paul, out of Christian zeal, opposed the sinful and unseasonable dissimulation of Peter, because he saw that it would be injurious to the Church.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Before all men.
Before all men.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Of this motion of Peter’s to Antioch the Scripture…
Of this motion of Peter’s to Antioch the Scripture saying nothing, hath left interpreters at liberty to guess variously as to the time; solne judging it was before, some after, the council held at Jerusalem, of which we read, Act 15:1-41. Those seem to judge best, who think it was after; for it was at Antioch, while Barnabas was with Paul; now Paul and Barnabas came from Jernsalem to Antioch, to bring thither the decrees of that council; and at Antioch Barnabas parted from Paul; after which we never read of them as being together. While Paul and Barnabas were together at Antioch, Peter came thither; where, Paul saith, he was so far from taking instructions from him, that he
withstood him to the face. Not by any acts of violence, (though the word often expresseth such acts), but by words reproving and blaming him; for, (saith he) he deserved it,
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he was to be blamed. Though the word signifies, he was condemned, which makes some to interpret it, as if Peter had met with some reprehension for his fact before Paul blamed him, yet there is no ground for it; for though the Greek participle be in the preterperfect tense, yet it is a Hebraism, and put for a noun verbal, which in Latin is sometimes expressed by the future, according to which we translate it; see 1Co 1:18; 2Co 2:15; 2Pe 2:4 so our interpreters have truly translated it according to the sense of the text.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Observe here, St. Peter’s offense, and St. Paul’s rebuke.
Observe here, St. Peter’s offense, and St. Paul’s rebuke.
St. Peter’s offense, 1. was this, he declined from the doctrine taught by himself, concerning the abrogation of circumcision and the ceremonial law; he had formerly conversed freely with the Christian Gentiles without scruple, making no objection against them, because they were not circumcised: But at Antioch he withdrew himself from the Christian Gentiles, refusing to eat with them, because they were not circumcised; as if, for want of circumcision, they had been unclean, and altogether unfit to be conversed with. This was his fault; whereby it appears, that St. Peter himself was not infallible, whatever his pretended successors, the bishops of Rome, are supposed to be.
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Learn hence, how certainly and suddenly the holiest and best of men will run into sin and error, if a special assistance from the holy Spirit doth not uphold them, and preserve them.
Observe, 2. As St. Peter’s offense, so St. Paul’s rebuke; he withstood him to the face; that is, rebuked him publicly, because he was blame-worthy, and not secretly behind his back; such as sin openly, must be rebuked and reproved openly.
Here note, how little St. Paul dreamed of St. Peter’s supremacy; if so, he had been more modest than thus to reprove him to his face.
Learn hence, that as no bands of friendship must keep the ministers of God from reproving sin and vice; so when they find the fault to be notorious, they must reprove it wherever they find it, with much boldness and resolution.
St. Paul here, in reproving St. Peter withstood him: It is in the original a military word, signifying to stand against, either by force of arms, as among soldiers; or by dint of argument, as among disputants: It is a word of defiance, and signifies an opposition hand to hand, face to face, foot to foot, not yielding a hair’s breadth to the adversary. Yet withal, as St. Paul’s courage, so his candour appeared, in reproving St. Peter to his face, and not reproaching him, as some, behind his back.
And behold this great and chief apostle St. Peter, submits to his reprover, neither justifying his action, nor reflecting upon St. Paul; he replieth not again.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain I. From the account which Paul gives of what…
I. From the account which Paul gives of what passed between him and the other apostles at Jerusalem, the Galatians might easily discern both the falseness of what his enemies had insinuated against him and their own folly and weakness in departing from that gospel which he had preached to them. But to give the greater weight to what he had already said, and more fully to fortify them against the insinuations of the judaizing teachers, he acquaints them with another interview which he had with the apostle Peter at Antioch, and what passed between them there, _Gal 2:11-14. Antioch was one of the chief churches of the Gentile Christians, as Jerusalem was of those Christians who turned from Judaism to the faith of Christ. There is no colour of reason for the supposition that Peter was bishop of Antioch. If he had, surely Paul would not have withstood him in his own church, as we here find he did; but, on the contrary, it is here spoken of as an occasional visit which he made thither. In their other meeting, there had been good harmony and agreement. Peter and the other apostles had both acknowledged Paul's commission and approved his doctrine, and they parted very good friends. But in this Paul finds himself obliged to appose Peter, for he was to be blamed, a plain evidence that he was not inferior to him, and consequently of the weakness of the pope's pretence to supremacy and infallibility, as the successor of Peter. Here we may observe,
1. Peter's fault. When he came among the Gentile churches, he complied with them, and did eat with them, though they were not circumcised, agreeably to the instructions which were given in particular to him (Acts 10), when he was warned by the heavenly vision to call nothing common or unclean. But, when there came some Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, he grew more shy of the Gentiles, only to humour those of the circumcision and for fear of giving them offence, which doubtless was to the great grief and discouragement of the Gentile churches. Then he withdrew, and separated himself. His fault herein had a bad influence upon others, for the other Jews also dissembled with him; though before they might be better disposed, yet now, from his example, they took on them to scruple eating with the Gentiles, and pretended they could not in conscience do it, because they were not circumcised. And (would you think it?) Barnabas himself, one of the apostles of the Gentiles, and one who had been instrumental in planting and watering the churches of the Gentiles, was carried away with their dissimulation. Here note, (1.) The weakness and inconstancy of the best of men, when left to themselves, and how apt they are to falter in their duty to God, out of an undue regard to the pleasing of men. And, (2.) The great force of bad examples, especially the examples of great men and good men, such as are in reputation for wisdom and honour.
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2. The rebuke which Paul gave him for his fault. Notwithstanding Peter's character, yet, when he observes him thus behaving himself to the great prejudice both of the truth of the gospel and the peace of the church, he is not afraid to reprove him for it. Paul adhered resolutely to his principles, when others faltered in theirs; he was as good a Jew as any of them (for he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews), but he would magnify his office as the apostle of the Gentiles, and therefore would not see them discouraged and trampled upon. When he saw that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel - that they did not live up to that principle which the gospel taught, and which they had professed to own and embrace, namely, that by the death of Christ the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile was taken down, and the observance of the law of Moses was no longer in force - when he observed this, as Peter's offence was public, so he publicly reproved him for it: He said unto him before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? Herein one part of his conduct was a contradiction to the other; for if he, who was a Jew, could himself sometimes dispense with the use of the ceremonial law, and live after the manner of the Gentiles, this showed that he did not look upon the observance of it as still necessary, even for the Jews themselves; and therefore that he could not, consistently with his own practice, impose it upon the Gentile Christians. And yet Paul charges him with this, yea, represents him as compelling the Gentiles to live as did the Jews - not by open force and violence, but this was the tendency of what he did; for it was in effect to signify this, that the Gentiles must comply with the Jews, or else not be admitted into Christian communion.
II. Paul having thus established his character and office, and sufficiently shown that he was not inferior to any of the apostles, no, not to Peter himself, from the account of the reproof he gave him he takes occasion to speak of that great fundamental doctrine of the gospel - That justification is only by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law (though some think that all he says to the end of the chapter is what he said to Peter at Antioch), which doctrine condemned Peter for his symbolizing with the Jews. For, if it was the principle of his religion that the gospel is the instrument of our justification and not the law, then he did very ill in countenancing those who kept up the law, and were for mixing it with faith in the business of our justification. This was the doctrine which Paul had preached among the Galatians, to which he still adhered, and which it is his great business in this epistle to mention and confirm. Now concerning this Paul acquaints us,
1. With the practice of the Jewish Christians themselves: "We," says he, "who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles (even we who have been born and bred in the Jewish religion, and not among the impure Gentiles), knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we ourselves have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law. And, if we have thought it necessary to seek justification by the faith of Christ, why then should we hamper ourselves with the law? What did we believe in Christ for? Was it not that we might be justified by the faith of Christ? And, if so, is it not folly to go back to the law, and to expect to be justified either by the merit of moral works or the influence of any ceremonial sacrifices or purifications? And if it would be wrong in us who are Jews by nature to return to the law, and expect justification by it, would it not be much more so to require this of the Gentiles, who were never subject to it, since by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified?" To give the greater weight to this he adds (Gal 2:17), "But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ the minister of sin? If, while we seek justification by Christ alone, and teach others to do so, we ourselves are found giving countenance or indulgence to sin, or rather are accounted sinners of the Gentiles, and such as it is not fit to have communion with, unless we also observe the law of Moses, is Christ the minister of sin? Will it not follow that he is so, if he engage us to receive a doctrine that gives liberty to sin, or by which we are so far from being justified that we remain impure sinners, and unfit to be conversed with?" This, he intimates, would be the consequence, but he rejects it with abhorrence: "God forbid," says he, "that we should entertain such a thought of Christ, or of his doctrine, that thereby he should direct us into a way of justification that is defective and ineffectual, and leave those who embrace it still unjustified, or that would give the least encouragement to sin and sinners." This would be very dishonourable to Christ, and it would be very injurious to them also. "For," says he (Gal 2:18), "if I build again the things which I destroyed - if I (or any other), who have taught that the observance of the Mosaic law is not necessary to justification, should now, by word or practice, teach or intimate that it is necessary - I make myself a transgressor; I own myself to be still an impure sinner, and to remain under the guilt of sin, notwithstanding my faith in Christ; or I shall be liable to be charged with deceit and prevarication, and acting inconsistently with myself." Thus does the apostle argue for the great doctrine of justification by faith without the works of the law from the principles and practice of the Jewish Christians themselves, and from the consequences that would attend their departure from it, whence it appeared that Peter and the other Jews were much in the wrong in refusing to communicate with the Gentile Christians, and endeavouring to bring them under the bondage of the law.
2. He acquaints us what his own judgment and practice were. (1.) That he was dead to the law. Whatever account others might make of it, yet, for his part, he was dead to it. He knew that the moral law denounced a curse against all that continue not in all things written therein, to do them; and therefore he was dead to it, as to all hope of justification and salvation that way. And as for the ceremonial law, he also knew that it was now antiquated and superseded by the coming of Christ, and therefore, the substance having come, he had no longer any regard to the shadow. He was thus dead to the law, through the law itself; it discovered itself to be at an end. By considering the law itself, he saw that justification was not to be expected by the works of it (since none could perform a perfect obedience to it) and that there was now no further need of the sacrifices and purifications of it, since they were done away in Christ, and a period was put to them by his offering up himself a sacrifice for us; and therefore, the more he looked into it the more he saw that there was no occasion for keeping up that regard to it which the Jews pleaded for. But, though he was thus dead to the law, yet he did not look upon himself as with law. He had renounced all hopes of justification by the works of it, and was unwilling any longer to continue under the bondage of it; but he was far from thinking himself discharged from his duty to God; on the contrary, he was dead to the law, that he might live unto God. The doctrine of the gospel, which he had embraced, instead of weakening the bond of duty upon him, did but the more strengthen and confirm it; and therefore, though he was dead to the law, yet it was only in order to his living a new and better life to God (as Rom 7:4, Rom 7:6), such a life as would be more agreeable and acceptable to God than his observance of the Mosaic law could now be, that is, a life of faith in Christ, and, under the influence thereof, of holiness and righteousness towards God. Agreeably hereunto he acquaints us, (2.) That, as he was dead to the law, so he was alive unto God through Jesus Christ (Gal 2:20): I am crucified with Christ, etc. And here in his own person he gives us an excellent description of the mysterious life of a believer. [1.] He is crucified, and yet he lives; the old man is crucified (Rom 6:6), but the new man is living; he is dead to the world, and dead to the law, and yet alive to God and Christ; sin is mortified, and grace quickened. [2.] He lives, and yet not he. This is strange: I live, and yet not I; he lives in the exercise of grace; he has the comforts and the triumphs of grace; and yet that grace is not from himself, but from another. Believers see themselves living in a state of dependence. [3.] He is crucified with Christ, and yet Christ lives in him; this results from his mystical union with Christ, by means of which he is interested in the death of Christ, so as by virtue of that to die unto sin; and yet interested in the life of Christ, so as by virtue of that to live unto God. [4.] He lives in the flesh, and yet lives by faith; to outward appearance he lives as other people do, his natural life is supported as others are; yet he has a higher and nobler principle that supports and actuates him, that of faith in Christ, and especially as eyeing the wonders of his love in giving himself for him. Hence it is that, though he lives in the flesh, yet he does not live after the flesh. Note, Those who have true faith live by that faith; and the great thing which faith fastens upon is Christ's loving us and giving himself for us. The great evidence of Christ's loving us is his giving himself for us; and this is that which we are chiefly concerned to mix faith with, in order to our living to him.
Lastly, The apostle concludes this discourse with acquainting us that by the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ, without the works of the law (which he asserted, and others opposed), he avoided two great difficulties, which the contrary opinion was loaded with: - 1. That he did not frustrate the grace of God, which the doctrine of the justification by the works of the law did; for, as he argues (Rom 11:6), If it be of works, it is no more of grace. 2. That he did not frustrate the death of Christ; whereas, if righteousness come by the law, then it must follow that Christ has died in vain; for, if we look for salvation by the law of Moses, then we render the death of Christ needless: for to what purpose should he be appointed to die, if we might have been saved without it?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain But when Peter was come to Antioch,.... The Alexandrian…
But when Peter was come to Antioch,.... The Alexandrian copy, and others, and the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions, instead of "Peter", read "Cephas", who, by some ancient writers, is said to be not Peter the Apostle, named Cephas by Christ, but one of the seventy disciples. So Clemens (h) says, that Cephas, of whom Paul speaks, that when he came to Antioch he withstood him to his face, was one of the seventy disciples who had the same name with Peter the Apostle: and Jerom says (i) that there were some who were of opinion, that Cephas, of whom Paul writes that he withstood him to his face, was not the Apostle Peter, but one of the seventy disciples called by that name: but without any manner of foundation; for the series of the discourse, and the connection of the words, most clearly show, that that same Cephas, or Peter, one of the twelve disciples mentioned, Gal 2:9, with James and John, as pillars, is here meant. Our apostle first takes notice of a visit he made him, three years after his conversion, Gal 1:18, when his stay with him was but fifteen days, and, for what appears, there was then an entire harmony between them; fourteen years after he went up to Jerusalem again, and communicated his Gospel to Peter, and the rest, when they also were perfectly agreed; but now at Antioch there was a dissension between them, which is here related. However, the Papists greedily catch at this, to secure the infallibility of the bishops of Rome, who pretend to be the successors of Peter, lest, should the apostle appear blameworthy, and to be reproved and opposed, they could not, with any grace, assume a superior character to his: but that Peter the Apostle is here designed is so manifest, that some of their best writers are obliged to own it, and give up the other as a mere conceit. When Peter came to Antioch is not certain; some have thought it was before the council at Jerusalem concerning the necessity of circumcision to salvation, because it is thought that after the decree of that council Peter would never have behaved in such a manner as there related; though it should be observed, that that decree did not concern the Jews, and their freedom from the observance of the law, only the Gentiles; so that Peter and other Jews might, as it is certain they did, notwithstanding that, retain the rites and ceremonies of the law of Moses; and according to the series of things, and the order of the account, it seems to be after that council, when Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch, and with others continued there for some time, during which time Peter came thither; see Act 15:30 and the following contention happened,
I withstood him to the face: not in show, and outward appearance only, as some of the ancients have thought, as if this was an artifice of the apostle's, that the Jews, having an opportunity of hearing what might be said in favour of eating with the Gentiles, might be convinced of the propriety of it, and not be offended with it: but this is to make the apostle guilty of the evil he charges Peter with, namely, dissimulation; no, the opposition was real, and in all faithfulness and integrity; he did not go about as a tale bearer, whisperer, and backbiter, but reproved him to his face, freely spoke his mind to him, boldly resisted him, honestly endeavoured to convince him of his mistake, and to put a stop to his conduct; though he did not withstand him as an enemy, or use him with rudeness and ill manners; or as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, and false teachers resist the truth; but as a friend and an apostle, and in an amicable manner, and yet with all uprightness: his reason for it was,
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because he was to be blamed; some read it, "was blamed", or "condemned", either by others, by the Jews, for his going into Cornelius's house formerly; but what has this to do with the present case? or by those who lately came from James to Antioch, for his eating with the Gentiles there; yet this could be no reason for the apostle's withstanding him, but rather a reason why he should stand by him; or he was condemned by himself, self-condemned, acting contrary to the sentiments of his mind, and what he had declared in the council at Jerusalem; though it is best to render the word, to be blamed, which shows that the apostle did not oppose him for opposition sake, rashly, and without any foundation; there was a just reason for it, he had done that which was culpable, and for which he was blameworthy; and what that was is mentioned in the next verse.
(h) Apud Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 1. c. 12. (i) In loc.
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John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain But - The argument here comes to the height.…
But - The argument here comes to the height. Paul reproves Peter himself. So far was he from receiving his doctrine from man, or from being inferior to the chief of the apostles. When Peter - Afterwards, Came to Antioch - Then the chief of all the Gentile churches. I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed - For fear of man, ver. 12; for dissimulation, ver. 13; and for not walking uprightly. ver. 14.
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Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 11. When Peter was come to Antioch] There…
Verse 11. When Peter was come to Antioch] There has been a controversy whether πετρος, Peter, here should not be read κηφας, Kephas; and whether this Kephas was not a different person from Peter the apostle. This controversy has lasted more than 1500 years, and is not yet settled. Instead of πετρος, Peter, ABCH, several others of good note, with the Syriac, Erpenian, Coptic, Sahidic, AEthiopic, Armenian, later Syriac in the margin, Vulgate, and several of the Greek fathers, read κηφας. But whichsoever of these readings we adopt, the controversy is the same; for the great question is, whether this Peter or Kephas, no matter which name we adopt, be the same with Peter the apostle?
I shall not introduce the arguments pro and con, which may be all seen in Calmet's dissertation on the subject, but just mention the side where the strength of the evidence appears to lie.
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That Peter the apostle is meant, the most sober and correct writers of antiquity maintain; and though some of the Catholic writers have fixed the whole that is here reprehensible on one Kephas, one of the seventy disciples, yet the most learned of their writers and of their popes, believe that St. Peter is meant. Some apparently plausible arguments support the contrary opinion, but they are of no weight when compared with those on the opposite side.
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Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Gal 2:11. But, &c. — The argument here comes…
Gal 2:11. But, &c. — The argument here comes to the height: Paul reproves Peter himself; so far was he from receiving his doctrine from man, or from being inferior to the chief of the apostles; when Peter was come to Antioch — After Barnabas and I were returned thither; I withstood him to the face — Or opposed him personally in the presence of the church there, then the chief of all the Gentile churches; because he was to be blamed — For the fear of man, Gal 2:12; for dissimulation, Gal 2:13; and for not walking uprightly, Gal 2:14. To show what kind of interpreters of Scripture some of the most learned fathers were, Dr. Macknight quotes Jerome here as translating the phrase, κατα προσωτον, which we render to the face, secundum faciem, in appearance; supposing Paul’s meaning to be, “that he and Peter were not serious in this dispute; but, by a holy kind of dissimulation, endeavoured on the one hand, to give satisfaction to the Gentiles, and on the other not to offend the Jews. By such interpretations as these, the fathers pretended to justify the deceits which they used for persuading the heathen to embrace the gospel!” From the instance of Peter’s imprudence and sin, here recorded, the most advanced, whether in knowledge or holiness, may learn to take heed lest they fall. For before certain persons — Who were zealous for the observation of the ceremonies of the law; came from James — Who was then at Jerusalem; he did eat with the converted Gentiles — In Antioch, on all occasions, and conversed freely with them; but when they were come he withdrew — From that freedom of converse; and separated himself — From them, as if he had thought them unclean: and this he did, not from any change in his sentiments, but purely as fearing them of the circumcision — Namely, the converted Jews, whom he was unwilling to displease, because he thought their censures of much greater importance than they really were. The Jews, it must be observed, reckoned it unlawful to eat with the proselytes of the gate; that is, such proselytes to their religion as had not submitted to the rite of circumcision, nor engaged to observe the whole ceremonial law, (see Act 10:28; Act 11:3,) some meats permitted to them being unclean to the Jews; and the other believing Jews — Who were at Antioch, and had before used the like freedom; dissembled with him — In thus scrupulously avoiding all free converse with their Gentile brethren; insomuch that Barnabas also — Who with me had preached salvation to the Gentiles without the works of the law, Act 13:39; was carried away — Namely, by the force of authority and example in opposition to judgment and conviction, and even against his will, as the word συναπηχθη, here used, appears to imply; with their dissimulation — Or hypocrisy.
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Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain But when Peter was come to Antioch - On…
But when Peter was come to Antioch - On the situation of Antioch, see the note at Act 11:19. The design for which Paul introduces this statement here is evident. It is to show that he regarded himself as on a level with the chief apostles, and that he did not acknowledge his inferiority to any of them. Peter was the oldest, and probably the most honored of the apostles. Yet Paul says that he did not hesitate to resist him in a case where Peter was manifestly wrong, and thus showed that he was an apostle of the same standing as the others. Besides, what he said to Peter on that occasion was exactly pertinent to the strain of the argument which he was pursuing with the Galatians, and he therefore introduces it Gal 2:14-21 to show that he had held the same doctrine all along, and that he had defended it in the presence of Peter, and in a case where Peter did not reply to it. The time of this journey of Peter to Antioch cannot be ascertained; nor the occasion on which it occurred. I think it is evident that it was after this visit of Paul to Jerusalem, and the occasion may have been to inspect the state of the church at Antioch, and to compose any differences of opinion which may have existed there. But everything in regard to this is mere conjecture; and it is of little importance to know when it occurred.
I withstood him to the face - I openly opposed him, and reproved him. Paul thus showed that he was equal with Peter in his apostolical authority and dignity. The instance before us is one of faithful public reproof; and every circumstance in it is worthy of special attention, as it furnishes a most important illustration of the manner in which such reproof should be conducted. The first thing to be noted is, that it was done openly, and with candor. It was reproof addressed to the offender himself. Paul did not go to others and whisper his suspicions; he did not seek to undermine the influence and authority of another by slander; he did not calumniate him and then justify himself on the ground that what he had said was no more than true: he went to him at once, and he frankly stated his views and reproved him in a case where he was manifestly wrong. This too was a case so public and well known that Paul made his remarks before the church Gal 2:14 because the church was interested in it, and because the conduct of Peter led the church into error.
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Because he was to be blamed - The word used here may either mean because he had incurred blame, or because he deserved blame. The essential idea is, that he had done wrong, and that he was by his conduct doing injury to the cause of religion.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain But when Cephas, &c.[1] In most Greek copies, we…
But when Cephas, &c.[1] In most Greek copies, we read Petrus, both here and ver. 13. Nor are there any sufficient, nor even probable grounds to judge, that Cephas here mentioned was different from Peter, the prince of the apostles, as one or two later authors would make us believe. Among those who fancied Cephas different from Peter, not one can be named in the first ages [centuries], except Clemens of Alexandria, whose works were rejected as apochryphal by Pope Gelasius. The next author is Dorotheus of Tyre, in his Catalogue of the seventy-two disciples, in the fourth or fifth age [century], and after him the like, or same catalogue, in the seventh age [century], in the Chronicle, called of Alexandria, neither of which are of any authority with the learned, so many evident faults and falsehoods being found in both. St. Jerome indeed on this place says, there were some (though he does not think fit to name them) who were of that opinion; but at the same time St. Jerome ridicules and rejects it as groundless. Now as to authors that make Cephas the same with St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, we have what may be called the unexceptionable and unanimous consent of the ancient fathers and doctors of the Catholic Church, as of Tertullian, who calls this management of St. Peter, a fault of conversation, not of preaching or doctrine. Of St. Cyprian, of Origen, of Alexander, of Theodoret, Pope Gelasius, Pelagius the second, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas. In later ages, of Bellarmine, Baronius, Binius, Spondan, of Salmeron, Estius, Gagneius, Tirinus, Menochius, Alex natalis, and a great many more: so that Cornelius a Lapide on this place says, that the Church neither knows, nor celebrates any other Cephas but St. Peter. Tertullian and most interpreters take notice, that St. Peter’s fault was only a lesser or venial sin in his conduct and conversation. Did not St. Paul on several occasions do the like, as what is here laid to St. Peter’s charge? that is, practise the Jewish ceremonies: did not he circumcise Timothy after this, an. 52 [in the year A.D. 52]? did he not shave his head in Cenchrea, an. 54? did he not by the advice of St. James (an. 58.) purify himself with the Jews in the temple, not to offend them? St. Jerome, and also St. John Chrysostom,[2] give another exposition of this passage. They looked upon all this to have been done by a contrivance and a collusion betwixt these two apostles, who had agreed beforehand that St. Peter should let himself be reprehended by St. Paul, (for this they take to be signified by the Greek text) and not that St. Peter was reprehensible;[3] so that the Jews seeing St. Peter publicly blamed, and not justifying himself, might for the future eat with the Gentiles. But St. Augustine vigorously opposed this exposition of St. Jerome, as less consistent with a Christian and apostolical sincerity, and with the text in this chapter, where it is called a dissimulation, and that Cephas or Peter walked not uprightly to the truth of the gospel. After a long dispute betwixt these two doctors, St. Jerome seems to have retracted his opinion, and the opinion of St. Augustine is commonly followed, that St. Peter was guilty of a venial fault of imprudence. In the mean time, no Catholic denies but that the head of the Church may be guilty even of great sins. What we have to admire, is the humility of St. Peter on this occasion, as St. Cyprian observes,[4] who took the reprehension so mildly, without alleging the primacy, which our Lord had given him. Baronius held that St. Peter did not sin at all, which may be true, if we look upon his intention only, which was to give no offence to the Jewish converts; but if we examine the fact, he can scarce be excused from a venial indiscretion. (Witham) --- I withstood, &c. The fault that is here noted in the conduct of St. Peter, was only a certain imprudence, in withdrawing himself from the table of the Gentiles, for fear of giving offence to the Jewish converts: but this in such circumstances, when his so doing might be of ill consequence to the Gentiles, who might be induced thereby to think themselves obliged to conform to the Jewish way of living, to the prejudice of their Christian liberty. Neither was St. Paul’s reprehending him any argument against his supremacy; for is such cases an inferior may, and sometimes ought, with respect, to admonish his superior. (Challoner)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
That Peter and Cephas were the same, see Tertullian, lib. de præscrip. chap. 23, p. 210. Ed. Rig.; Origen in Joan. Ed. Græce et Latine, p. 381.; St. Cyprian, Epist. 71. ad Quintum, p. 120.; St. Jerome on this Ep. to the Galatians, as also St. John Chrysostom; St. Augustine. See his epistles on this passage to St. Jerome.; St. Gregory, lib. 2. in Ezech. tom. 1, p. 1368.; Gelasius apud Labb. T. 4. Conc. p. 1217.; Pelagius, the 2d apud Labb. t. 5. p. 622.; St. Cyril of Alexandria, hom. ix. cont. Julianum, t. 6, p. 325.; Theodoret in 2. ad Gal. iv. 3. p. 268.; St. Anselm in 2 ad Gal. p. 236.; St. Thomas Aquinas, lib. 2. q. 103. a. 4. ad 2dum. --- St. Jerome’s words: Sunt qui Cepham non putent Apostolum Petrum, sed alium de 70 Discipulis....quibus primum respondendum, alterius nescio cujus Cephæ nescire nos nomen, nisi ejus, qui et in Evangelio, et in aliis Pauli Epistolis, et in hac quoque ipsa, modo Cephas, modo Petrus scribitur....deinde totum argumentum Epistolæ....huic intelligentiæ repugnare, &c.
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
St. John Chrysostom by a contrivance, Greek: eikonomon. p. 730, &c.
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Greek: Kategnosmenos may signfiy reprehensus, as well as reprehensibilis; and he says it is to be referred to others, and not to St. Paul: Greek: all upo ton allon.
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
St. Cyprian, Ep. ad Quintum, p. 120. Petrus....non arroganter assumpsit, ut diceret se primatum tenere, &c.
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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 3. On one occasion (in Antioch) he therefore asserted,…
3. On one occasion (in Antioch) he therefore asserted, and, with the independence of an Apostle, dared assert, even in opposition to a Peter, the principles of his Gentile Christian preaching
(Gal_2:11-21.)
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11But when Peter was come [Cephas19 came] to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed [was condemned]20. 12For before that [omit that] certain [certain persons] came from James, he did eat [was eating together]21 with the Gentiles: but when they were come [Game]22 he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were [omit which were]23 of the circumcision. 13And the other Jews24 dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also [ὥστε καί, so that even Barnabas] was carried away with [by] their dissimulation. 14But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter [Cephas] before them [omit them] all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews,25 why compellest thou [how26 is it that thou art 15compelling] the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We who are [we are]27 Jews by 16nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, Knowing [yet28 knowing] that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but [ἐὰν μή, except or but only] by the faith of Jesus Christ,29 even we [we too] have [omit have]30 believed in Jesus Christ [Christ Jesus],31 that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for32 by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. 17But if, while we seek to be justified by [in] Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid [or Far from it]. 18For if I build again the things 19[very things]33 which I destroyed, I make [prove]34 myself a transgressor. For I 20through the law am dead [died] to the law, that I might live unto God. I am [or have been] crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; [omit;] yet not I, [it is, however, no longer I that live]35 but Christ liveth in me: and [yea] the life which I now live in the flesh I live by [in] the faith of the Son of God,36 who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead [died] in vain [without cause]37.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Gal_2:11. I withstood him to the face, etc.—“To the face”=not behind his back, in his absence. [It does not mean “publicly‚” that is asserted below (Gal_2:4). Some of the fathers‚ “to salve the authority of Peter” introduced the gloss κατὰ σχῆμα, “in appearance,” because he had been condemned by others. This view is opposed nobly by Augustine. See Alford and Wordsworth, in loco.—R.]
Because he was or had been condemned: the reason why Paul opposed him. It was not therefore any attack on the part of Peter himself, that occasioned Paul’s taking a stand against him. Ἀνέστην, therefore not=I withstood him, but=I took a stand against him. [Yet Peter’s conduct was an attack on gospel liberty; and Paul “opposed” sufficiently to “withstand” him.—R.]—The reason was, the indignant feeling of the Christians of Antioch, the unfavorable judgment passed upon him by them. Moreover, the scandal which he had given, was notorious, and Paul was obliged to do what he did. But he certainly did not do it out of personal irritation or from arrogance or malice; his own words prevent such a charge. For himself he did it unwillingly, would have avoided rebuking Peter “before them all.” But a definite reason, viz., regard for the brethren, the Gentile Christian church, impelled him to it. And in this there was also a command, so that even regard for Peter on the other hand, was no ground for holding back. [It must be remarked that the Greek only states indefinitely that Peter “was condemned,” by whom is a matter to be inferred. Various answers are given: by God, by his own previous conduct, by Paul himself (Alford), by the church at Antioch. The last is most probably meant, else the rebuke would not have been public. It is not necessary to suppose that only the scandal at Antioch drove Paul to this course, for the conduct of Peter was in itself reprehensible. “Had been condemned” must be preferred, if it be referred to a definite condemnation on the part of the Gentile Christians at Antioch.—R.]
Gal_2:12. For before certain persons came from James, he was eating together with the Gentiles, i. e., with the Gentile Christians. He designates them according to their nationality, because it is on this that the matter turns. Peter therefore neglected the limitations of the Levitical law of meats. This is the simple sense of this remark. “A Jew could not without Levitical defilement eat with Gentiles” (even if these adhered to the decrees of the apostolic council). “Peter, however, had through Divine revelation (Acts 10.) been taught the untenableness of this isolation within the sphere of Christianity.” This Jewish law of meats he disregarded, that is he lived ἐθνικῶς καὶ οὐκ Ἰουδαϊκῶς, at all events here in Antioch.—“Before certain persona came from James.” “From James” is not to be connected with “certain persons” as if=“certain adherents of James” (for “James would then be marked out as the head of a party, something which it would be neither necessary nor wise to do here”), but with “came‚” either generally=“from James‚” that is, from his circle of helpers, or=“sent by James.” But at all events they were such as held like sentiments with James, i.e., Jewish Christians, who themselves still adhered strictly to the Mosaic law, lived Ἰουδαϊκῶς καὶ οὐκ ἐθνικῶς, and who because, they felt obliged thereto as born Jews, regarded this Ἰουδαϊκῶς ζῇν as necessary for all born Jews, and accordingly for all Jewish Christians, but by no means demanded any such thing as the ἰουδαΐζειν of the Gentile Christians in Antioch, as Wieseler, perverting the state of facts maintains. They stood, therefore, upon the platform of James. “Certain persons” is not therefore= such as without ground, appealed to the authority of James; neither were they of the “false brethren” (Gal_2:4), who occupied a very different position from James. What views they had respecting the Gentile Christians, is not stated, for these were not at all in question; it is therefore natural to assume, that their views were those of James, and that the latter, when he sent these people, still thought as he did not long before, at the council (Gal_2:9; Acts 15.). [Schaff:—“It would seem from this passage that, soon after the council, James sent, some esteemed brethren of his congregation to Antioch not for the purpose of imposing the yoke of ceremonialism upon Gentile Christians—for this would have been inconsistent with his speech—but for the purpose of reminding the Jewish Christians of their duty and recommending them to continue the observance of the divinely appointed and time-honored customs of their fathers, which were by no means overthrown by the compromise measure adopted at the council. It is unnecessary therefore to charge him with inconsistency. All we can say is that he stopped half-way and never ventured so far as Paul, or even as Peter, who broke through the ceremonial restrictions of their native religion. Confining his labors to Jerusalem and the Jews, James regarded it as his mission to adhere as closely as possible to the old dispensation, in the hope of bringing over the nation as a whole to the Christian faith.”38—R.] But with Peter, as a Jewish Christian and an Apostle to the Jewish Christians, they found fault, undoubtedly on account of his eating with the Gentiles, that is, with his neglect of the Mosaic law of meats, his ἐθνικῶς ζῆν. Yet it is by no means expressly said that they reproached him with it, for “fearing them of the circumcision,” may merely mean, that he feared possible reproaches, such as those, Act_11:3. But as he then justified himself in this, and the justification was accepted (Act_11:18), there is the more reason to doubt whether the Jewish Christians, who came from James, really made reproaches against Peter, or even whether they would have done it, and whether it was not an empty fear on Peter’s part, which was blamed the more on this account, as a causeless denying of the convictions which he then successfully vindicated, a retreat out of weakness, from the position he had then joyfully assumed and justified, supported as he was by the experience through which God had led him. Peter must of course have feared possible reproaches to this effect: that although his conduct at that time respecting Cornelius had afterwards been approved, it would be a different thing for him now, in the presence of Jewish Christians, to live ἐθνικῶς, and moreover that, in the absence of so definite an occasion as then, he would now be regarded as one also standing outside [i.e., with the Gentile Christians.—R.], his authority with the Jewish Christians might be diminished, etc. But even if such reproaches were really made to him, these persons nevertheless are not to be regarded as agreeing with the “false brethren” and standing upon an entirely different platform from James himself, for neither Act_11:18, nor Acts 15. is to be regarded as unhistorical. Out of fear, therefore, he withdrew and separated himself.—The imperfects are adumbrative, cause the events to go on, as it were, before the eyes of the reader.—Meyer.—He ate no more with the Gentile Christians, and as appears to be intimated, discontinued this without giving any explanation: he again attached himself to the Jewish Christians, that is, he behaved himself all at once as if the Jewish law of meats were still sacred in his view, inasmuch as he began again to observe it. He did not therefore give up his freer convictions, his practice alone lost its freedom, and stood therefore in contradiction with his convictions. In the act itself, there was nothing different from that indulgent regard to the prejudices of those still weak, which Paul himself so often urges as a duty. But the motive of Peter’s conduct in this case was not anxiety to avoid a possible scandal to the faith—this was not to be feared here—but the fear of men, fear of reproaches, and most likely also of losing consequence and authority. [It must be noted that such a withdrawal was a withdrawal from the very frequent agapae and the frequent Lord’s Supper. Though the decree of the Apostolic council did not command or forbid the common participation of Jewish and Gentile Christians in these services, yet Peter had thus communed with the Gentile Christians; he ceased to do so, and of course made great scandal. While not violating the letter of the decree, he yet treated these brethren as unclean.—R.]
Gal_2:13. Paul therefore fastens on the conduct of Peter (and of the other Jewish Christians who did likewise) the sharp censure of the term ὑπόκρισις, dissimulation, and he is the more severe, because along with the consideration for the Jewish Christians, begotten of fear, there was a non consideration for the Gentile Christians; and thus they were both scandalized and perplexed, since by the change of conduct in Peter they were tempted to the thought that the Mosaic law must after all be binding. It is of course entirely incorrect to find the “dissimulation” in the former association with the Gentile Christians, as if this had been a momentary unfaithfulness towards actual Judaistic convictions.
[Even Barnabas.—“My co-laborer in the work of heathen missions and fellow-champion of the liberty of the Gentile brethren.” Schaff.—Lightfoot: “It is not impossible that this incident, by producing a temporary feeling of distrust, may have prepared the way for the dissension between Paul and Barnabas, which shortly afterwards led to their separation (Act_15:39). From this time forward they never again appear associated together. Yet whenever St. Paul mentions Barnabas, his words imply sympathy and respect. This feeling underlies the language of his complaint here, ‘even Barnabas.’ ” Comp. 1Co_9:6, and also the mention of Mark, Col_4:10.—R.]
[The conduct of Peter must be judged by the facts here stated, not by a desire to advocate or deny the primacy claimed for him. The occurrence is indeed characteristic of that Peter whom the Gospels describe; “first to confess Christ, first to deny Him; first to recognize and defend the rights of the Gentiles, first to disown them practically. His strength and weakness, boldness and timidity are the two opposite manifestations of the same warm, impulsive and impressible temper” (Schaff). The fault was one of practice, not of doctrine. The receiving of the rebuke is a sign of Peter’s genuine piety. Whether he went out again and wept bitterly we know not. But there was no “sharp contention,” and Peter’s love for Paul remained. On the early discussions respecting this occurrence see Lightfoot, p. 127, sq., showing how much the church is indebted to Augustine for a correct view of it. Comp. Doctrinal Notes.—R.]
Gal_2:14. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly, etc.—We are to supply from Gal_2:11 : “And at the same time heard the Gentile Christians expressing themselves in condemnation of it.” [The necessity of supplying this makes it the more doubtful, whether the reference there is to the “condemnation” on the part of the Gentile Christians.—R.] Πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου hardly =“according to,” which would be κατά, but “in the direction of,” = in order to preserve uprightly and further the truth of the gospel.
The sense, therefore, is the same as in Gal_2:5. This agrees with the context, for Paul, in the conduct of Peter and the other Jewish Christians, beheld an infringement of the “truth of the gospel,” especially of the principle of Christian freedom founded in the gospel, on account of its effect on the Gentile Christians: “How is it that thou art compelling the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” (Meyer).—[The force of πρός is open to discussion, especially as the word ὀρθοποδεῖν is not only ἄπαξ λεγόμενον, but very rare. Lightfoot says it denotes here “not the goal to be attained, but the line of direction to be observed. See Winer, p. 424.” And Ellicott in reply to Meyer, who claims that κατά would have been used to express the idea of rule or measure, observes that the instances he quotes are all after περιπατεῖν. If the line of direction be the meaning, the E. V. is correct, and the implication is that Peter did not deviate from the “truth of the gospel,” but from the line of conduct which the truth of the gospel marked out, hence the verb retains a semi-local meaning, “walk straight.”—R.]
Before all, “very probably = in an assembly of the Church, although not convened immediately for this purpose” (Meyer)—before Jewish and Gentile Christians.—If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles: means the accustomed practice of Peter, from which he only then receded.—How is it that thou art compelling the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?—Paul shows him the set-contradictoriness of his behavior, by a kind of ironical address. “Thou thyself a Jew, livest as a Gentile—and how comes it, then, that thou coustrainest Gentiles to live Jewishly? Is not that an utter contradiction?” It is true Peter does not constrain the Gentiles directly; it is a turn which sharpens the censure; in reality, it was only an indirect constraining through the authority of the example of Peter. The opinion is, therefore, quite unfounded, which supposes that the messengers of James had preached the principle of the necessity of the observance of the law—even for Gentile Christians—and that Peter had at least tacitly supported this principle. Thereby they would have directly oppugned the view of James himself (Acts 15.), and Peter would have oppugned his own. His “dissimulation” at this time by no means authorizes the assumption that he had changed his view as to the indispensableness or dispensableness of the law itself.—But at all events the Gentile Christians in Antioch looked upon Peter as one who, previously not observing the Jewish law, all at once began to observe it. That it was mere “dissimulation,” and not an actual change of view respecting the law, they did not at first know; and, therefore, they might easily, even if no one attempted directly to impose the law upon them, feel constrained to regard it as something necessary, and also to guide themselves in practice according to it—at least, in this one point respecting meats. There was at all events the danger that such a moral compulsion might be exercised; and when once a single point was regarded as necessary, matters might go farther.—Against Wieseler’s explanation: “You so act that the Gentiles also must live as Jews, if they wish any longer to eat with you” (which is connected with his erroneous view respecting the journey of the Apostle narrated Gal_2:1 sq.), let it be here remarked only: Had Peter, by his conduct, only imposed on the Gentile Christians of Antioch the necessity of again observing the decrees of the apostolic council, in order to be able to eat with the Jewish Christians, and had Paul himself so regarded it, Peter would certainly not have received this public rebuke from Paul. Peter’s conduct, his yielding from fear, would indeed have been censurable, yet the consequences of this for others could only have given occasion for a public rebuke, provided they endangered the life of faith; but on Wieseler’s supposition this could not have resulted.—’Ἰουδαΐζειν is, without doubt, different from ’Ἰουδαϊκῶς ζῇν, and is not merely another expression for this, but it is with design that Ἰουδ. ζῇν is not repeated. With Peter, at that time, a relapse into Ἰουδ. ζῇν took place—at least in practice, and through it a misleading of the Gentile Christians into ἰουδαΐζειν was to be feared. Ἰουδαϊκῶς ζῇν was in the Jewish Christian something in itself quite irreprehensible, was only a maintenance of national usage; in the Gentile Christian a Ἰουδ. ζῇν became a ἰουδαΐζειν, that is, a Judaizing, being a Judaizer. [Hence, when Peter, who had been living ἐθνικῶς, occupying the position of the Gentile Christians, began again to live Ἰουδαϊκῶς his action was constructively ἰουδαϊζειν, and a moral compulsion put upon his late associates, the Gentile Christians, to do the same.—R.] The distinction is difficult to render in a translation; it is something like, “to live Jewishly,”—“to be Jewish.”
Gal_2:15-21. That this is a continuation of the address to Peter, is self-evident to every unprejudiced reader, and the assumption that an address to the Galatians suddenly comes in here is so utterly at variance with the context that it is unnecessary to refute it. To mention no other reasons against it, let any one read the historical narrative, extending from as far back as Gal_1:13, up to this point, and imagine now, all at once, without any transition, an address to the Galatians, beginning, “We are, by nature, ‘Jews.’ ” This view, it is true, has found again decided advocates in Wieseler, Von Hofmann. True, on our view also, the exposition is somewhat difficult, but it commends itself too distinctly to allow us to hesitate on account of the difficulties of the interpretation. And has not this difficulty, in part, its ground in this, that Paul only cites words, spoken on another occasion, and perhaps somewhat condensed also.—At all events the words are not to be regarded as merely addressed to Peter personally. Paul passes over into a more general exposition, for the instruction of the Gentile and Jewish Christians that were then present. “He makes out of the transaction, which then arose respecting the eating or not eating with the Gentiles, a locum communem (an article of doctrine), which extends much further than the transaction itself. He speaks of the works of the law generally.”—Roos. Paul cites with such detail his words then uttered for this very reason, that the substance of what he then said corresponds so well with the purpose of his letter, suits the case of the Galatians so precisely. Of course it cannot be affirmed that Paul cites the words that he then used, with literal exactness; his expressions may have been modified to a nearer correspondence with the particular purpose for which he here adduces them, although there is nowhere in the expressions themselves any necessity for such an opinion.
Gal_2:15. We are by nature Jews, etc.
Gal_2:15-17 give the ground of the censure in Gal_2:14 : we, as Jews, have the law, which, of itself, exalts us above the Gentiles, who, as “without law,” are to be regarded as “sinners;” yet we have surrendered the preëminence which we had, and emancipated ourselves from the law in the knowledge that a man is not justified by it, but by faith in Christ,—how then can one of us wish to bring the Gentiles under the law, over whom it was never in force?—would be the very obvious conclusion, which Paul, at all events, compels the hearer to draw, but he himself makes the more general, but more pointed one: How then can any one of us press the observance of the law again, as though otherwise we fell into the category of Gentiles of sinners? One who does this makes Christ thereby a minister of sin—that is, he declares, by this reëstablishment of the law, that faith in Christ itself, as it involves the giving up of the law, brings men into the category of sinners (Gal_2:17).—Not sinners of the Gentiles.—Spoken from the national and theocratic point of view, on which Paul expressly places himself by the emphasizing of their Jewish descent. From that point of view, the Gentiles, as ἄνομοι, in contrast with the Jews, who are ἔννομοι, are, in themselves, ἀμαρτωλοί κατʼ ἐξοχήν, although it is, of course, certain that Paul, in another sense, enforces the truth that there is also an ἐν νόμῳἁμαρτ., Rom_2:12; and that, in a deeper sense, they also, as Jews (with the law), were ἁμαρτωλοί, is an essential thought of the following context, inasmuch as they found justification only through faith in Christ.
Gal_2:16. Yet knowing that.—It is simplest to take εἰδότες δέ, “knowing that,” etc., as the protasis, so that the apodosis begins with καὶ ἡμεῖς, “we also,” and to supply ἐσμέν in Gal_2:15. The objection of Meyer, that the statement of how Paul and Peter had come to the faith, would not be historically accurate, inasmuch as the conversion of neither had come to pass in the discursive way implied in εἰδότες … ἑπιστ., is whimsical. The foundation of their faith in Christ was the knowledge, or at least the feeling, that in this faith alone “justification” was found. Only in the measure in which they acquired this conviction, did their faith in Christ become a full, ripe faith.—A man is not justified, etc.—As Paul here is merely citing words spoken on another occasion, the doctrine of the justification of man not by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ appears here only as a doctrinal principle of the general Pauline theology. It is uttered in a very definite manner, is almost dogmatically formulated, yet strictly speaking it is not demonstrated, but presupposed as familiar. (Chap. 3. contains not so much an elucidation of the nature of justification as a demonstration that it results from “faith,” not from “the law,” instructive as this demonstration doubtless is for the apprehension of its nature.) Hence the philological investigation of the word δικαιοῦν belongs rather to the exposition of the Epistle to the Romans. On the doctrinal conception of justification, see Doctrinal Notes below.
Looking at the present context alone, we should be disposed to refer the expression, works of the law to merely ceremonial requirements of the law; but by thus doing we should miss entirely the Apostle’s meaning. The meaning of the phrase “not justified by the works of the law” is not to be gathered from the immediate context merely; it is, as intimated above, a proposition, elsewhere set forth in detail, and only cited here with the presupposition that it is familiar.—The idea ἔργα νόμου is to be taken in the universality implied in the expression. It denotes simply works prescribed by the law, whether of a more ritual character, or, in the stricter sense, moral injunctions. For a more particular consideration, see Doctrinal Notes below.
[The E. V. renders ἐὰν μή rather weakly, “but,” since the meaning is “except,” “but only,” sola fide (Luther, Meyer). The justification is not at all by works of the law; which is also the meaning of the formal, final clause of the verse.—Διὰ πίστεως, per fidem. Faith is the means by which justification is received. Hooker: “The only hand which putteth on Christ to justification.” The Apostle also uses ἐκ with πίστεως; that preposition may imply origin, but as it is used with πίστεως in this connection, that idea is forbidden; perhaps the reason of the change was merely to make the correspondence, ἐξ ἔργων—ἐκ πίστεως. It is here used in each case with ἔργων, where the thought of origin may be implied.—We believed in Christ Jesus.—Not “became believers in” (Lightfoot), but “have put our faith in.” The preposition (εἰς) retaining its proper force, and marking not the mere direction of the belief, but the ideas of union and incorporation with (Ellicott).—There seems to be some ground for the change from “Jesus Christ” to “Christ Jesus” here; it is more elevated than the usual form (Meyer), brings the Messiahship into prominence, as “we also” refers to Paul and Peter, who were Jews (Alford). Still this must not be insisted on.—The genitives Χριστοῦ and νόμου throughout are objective genitives (Meyer, Ellicott, Alford).—R.]
For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.—[Schaff: “Literally, ‘shall all flesh not be justified,’ ‘find no justification.’ For the negation attaches to the verb, and not to the noun.” This justifies the force of ἐὰν μή above. No justification at all from works, even in connection with faith.—R.] This is founded on Psalms 143. In the parallel passage, Rom_3:20, ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ, “in his sight,” is further added. Wieseler: “The words ἐξ ἔργων νόμου Paul has added entirely in the sense of the original passage; for when the Psalmist said, that before God no flesh shall be justified, he of course had in mind the works prescribed by the O. T. law. Since then this law prescribes not only outward works, but also holy dispositions, we must understand the latter also as included both by the Psalmist and Paul among the works of the law.”—“Shall be justified.”—“It remains undetermined whether the Apostle writes δικαιωθήσεται [future] in view of a final issue in the case of the individual or of mankind, but a final judgment is indicated by the future both here and in the original passage. Only thus, too, is there a progress of thought; otherwise the discourse would be intolerably indefinite. The entrance upon the way of faith (ἐπιστεύδαμεν) is explained from the knowledge that in the present it is the only means of becoming righteous, and the exclusion of the way of legal doing (καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων) has its ground in the unprofitableness of it, for appearing before God hereafter as righteous.” Von Hofmann.
Gal_2:17. But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ.—“In Christ” not=through communion with Christ, ἐν Χρ. εἷναι, although of course faith brings us into inward union with Christ, but it “denotes Christ as the ground of our justification, as the causa meritoria in which it rests” (Wieseler). [The phrase ἐν Χριστῷ is a formula of such deep significance in Paul’s Epistles, that it is perhaps better always to find in it the idea of union, fellowship with Christ. Why not understand it thus: justified because in Christ by faith? See Ellicott, and compare Meyer in loco.—R.]
We ourselves also.—On our side also, so that we too came into the class of “sinners of the Gentiles.” If we came into this class in and through the effort to be justified in Christ, Christ would thus be a minister of sin, would make sinners and not “righteous,” and would therefore render a service to sin. On this interpretation of the protasis, the apodosis cannot be an interrogation (against Meyer); for from this apodosis it is now justly concluded that Christ would be the minister of sin.—God forbid negatives therefore the protasis on account of the consequence resulting therefrom—a consequence in fact utterly inadmissible. It is true, everywhere else in Paul’s writings, μὴ γένοιτο negatives a question. If it be thought on this account necessary to assume a question here, the protasis must be taken differently, somewhat, thus: “But if we, while we were seeking to be justified in Christ, were ourselves found sinners—because we would thereby declare, that the law has not availed us for justification, but that we were notwithstanding the law sinners, still needing justification—is Christ therefore a minister of sin?” Only we should then expect, as in Rom_3:3; Rom_3:5, μὴ Χριστὸς ἁμ. διάκονος; as Von Hofmann remarks. He therefore supplies εὑρέθημεν in the protasis, making it a complete sentence, and translates: “But if as those, who seek to be justified in Christ, sc., we are found, then are we also found sinners.” But this explanation is evidently forced. It must also be noted that, while Paul elsewhere only uses μὴ γένοιτο after an interrogation, he as constantly introduces that interrogation with οὖν. As a deviation from his usual practice must be admitted in any case, the further deviation, that μὴ χέν. is not preceded by an interrogation may well be conceded. But in any case the explanation is difficult. [Light foot fairly discusses the various explanations. 1. As an attack on the premises through a monstrous conclusion (as above). 2. An illogical conclusion deduced from premises in themselves correct. This view, which makes an interrogation in the last clause, is preferred by him, and by most English commentators. “ ‘Seeing that in order to be justified in Christ it was necessary to abandon our old ground of legal righteousness and to become sinners (i.e., to put ourselves in the position of the heathen) may it not be argued that Christ is thus made a minister of sin?’ This interpretation best develops the subtle irony of ἁμαρτωλοί: ‘We Jews look down upon the Gentiles as sinners; yet we have no help for it but to become sinners like them.’ It agrees with the indicative εὑρέθημεν and with Paul’s use of μὴ χένοιτο.” It paves the way for the words which follow: “I, through the law, am dead to the law.” Ἆρα, is to be preferred to ἄρα in this case. The former hesitates, the latter concludes.—R.]
Μὴ γένοιτο,39 in no way whatever is Christ a “minister of sin,” for it is not the seeking justification in Him, that makes me a sinner, but I am found a sinner in an entirely opposite case. [Lightfoot: “Nay verily, for, so far from Christ being a minister of sin, there is no sin at all in abandoning the law; it is only converted into a sin by returning to the law again.”—R.]
Gal_2:18. For if I build again the very things I destroyed.—In this opposite case, I represent myself as a sinner, but the blame does not rest on Christ. “Build up again,” etc. Thus Paul describes the conduct of Peter, “who previously, and even in Antioch had at first declared the Mosaic law not binding, as Christians had therefore, as it were, torn it down as a now useless building; but afterwards through his Judaizing conduct (even though it did not arise from conviction), represented it again as binding, and hence, as it were, built up the demolished edifice anew.”—“The first person veils what had taken place in concreto, under the milder form of a general statement” (Meyer).—Wieseler, according to his view of the whole section, gives the sense thus: “But if we also, who seek to be justified in Christ, are convicted as sinners, that is, should sin; Christ is not therefore a promoter of sin. For then I am myself to blame for the transgression, since what I have destroyed (namely, the dominion of sin!) this I build up again.” According to this, Paul is here laying stress upon the indissoluble connection between justification and sanctification. Certainly a striking example of dogmatizing exegesis.!—I prove myself a transgressor:—i.e., of the law. In what way? we must ask, for it might be the “destroying” itself in which the sin consisted, not the “building again.” The latter certainly; in Gal_2:19 Paul tells us why.
Gal_2:19-21. [Bengel: “Summa ac medulla Christianismi.”—R.]
Gal_2:19. For I through the law died to the law.—“ ‘I’ for my own part, letting my own experience speak, to say nothing of the experience of others.” Meyer. “For” introduces a proof, found in “through the law.” “Whoever has been freed from the law through the law itself, in order to stand in a higher relation, acts in opposition to the law, proves himself a transgressor if not withstanding this he returns again into the legal relation.” Meyer. Νόμος is of course in both cases the Mosaic law, since otherwise the passage would have no demonstrative force; not the law of Christ in the first case as Rom_8:2. [The distinction made by Light-foot in his notes on this passage, must be regarded. The law is here spoken of, not as to its economical purpose (as Wordsworth who limits the meaning here to the law as a covenant), but rather in its moral effects.—R.] “I through the law died to the law” that is, the law itself caused me to die to it. But what now is the meaning of 1. “I died to the law”? That thereby a becoming free from the law is affirmed is clear. But in the first place this “dying to the law” is not (with many expositors) to be construed as an activity bearing upon the law=it has come to this, that I have acquitted myself of dependence on the law, etc. The Apostle means to affirm something as having happened to him, not something as having been done by him, although of course this event has had a basis in his ethical nature. In the next place, however, the conception of dying, which is involved in the expression, is not to be at once transmuted into that of becoming free; or else justice is not done to the Apostle’s turn of thought, which here, as the sequel shows, revolves about the ideas of life and death. Compare the analogous expressions: ἀποθανε͂ιν ἁμα-ρτίᾳ, νεκρ. ἁμαρτίᾳ, Rom_6:2; Rom_6:10-11, where also the Apostle, as the connection in each passage shows, means an event coming to pass through dying, Gal_2:10 in the physical, Gal_2:2; Gal_2:11, in the ethical sense. Still more closely analogous is Rom_7:1 sq. In Gal_2:4 of that passage we have the analogous expression—only there it is passive, while here it is expressed by the neuter verb θανατωθῆναι τῷ νόμῳ and in Gal_2:1 he gives us the key to the figure in the sentence; “the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth.” The becoming free from the law is therefore, of course, the result of the dying to the law, but not immediately this itself. “Died to the law” is=I have died with this effect, that the law has lost me, who had hitherto belonged to it, that is, that its dominion over me, its claims upon me ceased, so that it could no longer urge its requirements upon me, as heretofore. While “died” of itself already intimates the legitimacy of this acquittal from the law, the complete demonstration of this is contained in the fact that this dying “to the law” has come to pass “through the law” not by a power residing outside of it has this death to the law been effected, not in any antinomistic way, not in conflict with the law, so that this would have any ground of complaint. But now the question Isaiah 2. how has he “through the law” died to the law? how has the “law” itself brought about in him a state of death as regards the law, and therewith a release from its dominion? Thus much, that the law leads to death, Paul plainly declares, e g. Rom_7:5; Rom_7:10-11; Rom_7:13. The middle term there is, that it is the νόμος itself which excites sin into ἀναζῇν. This thought is of obvious application hero, The explanation would then be; by the fact that the “law” brought me death, its dominion over me reached, it is true, its culmination, but thereby also was broken and done away. For with him who has died, the dominion of the law ceases—according to the principle cited above. And deducing the reason from the passage itself, we might thus state it; for the law can no more come forward with the claims that I should keep it, in order to justification, when its effect is rather death. The objection that the Apostle could not well affirm this “dying” of himself, as something actual since by his conversion he had been preserved from this effect of the law, will not hold; for Paul, Rom_7:10 affirms this very thing himself. This explanation is, however, at variance with the fact that according to Gal_3:24, the νὁμος is, indeed παιδαγωγὸς εἰς Χριστόν, but of itself, without Christ, does not yet lead to man’s becoming free from it. Now it is true, that this passage reads as if Paul here refers the dying to the law directly to the law itself, but he then proceeds to give the elucidation of this, by giving the immediate cause of the dying, namely, “I have been crucified with Christ.” This statement therefore explains the former one. In the same way the dying unto sin, mentioned Romans 6 is by means of the “dying with Christ,” and in Romans 7 the death of Christ is made the cause of the becoming dead to the law. Thus much then is already clear, that the “law” in both cases is of course the same (Mosaic) law, but in each case it comes into view in a different relation; in νόμῳ in its requirements, in διὰ νόμου in its effect. This explains in a simple way the paradoxical expression, according to which the law appears as making free from itself. But since it is still the same law, Paul is entitled to say, that he who will nevertheless again live unto the law although “through the law he died unto the law” exhibits himself as a “transgressor” sc., of the law.
Let us now consider the first statement of the purpose of this dying namely: that I might live unto God, with the dying to the law the living to the law, has, as the very terms imply, come lo an end. As long as this existed, no living unto God was possible, but with the dying to the law every hinderance to this living unto God is removed. “Live unto God:” just as Rom_8:11. As the dying to the law may not be treated as immediately convertible into a being released from the law, obliterating the conception of dying; so on the other hand the realism of the Pauline expressions requires the like in the case of the antithetical expression: “live to God.” Paul wishes first to oppose to the being dead a being alive, therefore this means: that I might be living as regards God=with this effect, that God should have me, after the law has lost me. As from the being dead there resulted the dissolution of a connection—with the law—which had hitherto existed, so from the life there results the formation of a new connection, namely, with God. (Why precisely this results, appears first from what follows, for from the dying “to the law through the law” of itself, there would certainly not as yet result any new life at all, and especially a life for God.) Hence by “living unto God” as well as by “dying to the law” Paul wishes to express, chiefly, an event, not an activity, something which should be accomplished in him, not something which should be done by him in consequence of the dying to the law. Comp. the way in which Paul, Rom_6:11 sets forth the “living unto God” of Christians as something that actually comes to pass in their case, not as something which is as yet their task. According to this it would be about=εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι ὑμᾶς ἑτέρῳ, Rom_7:4; to belong to God, which involves both a being under God’s authority and a communion with God. So far it rather affirms the possession of a good, the attainment of a position, the gaining of a profit, than the proposal of a work. The next verse especially leads us to refer it to the full filial status in relation to God, as it appertains primarily to Christ. This filial status would then be opposed to the condition under the law. Comp. Gal_3:23 sq. The fact that Paul here contrasts “God” and “law,” “living unto God” and “living to the law” would then be explained by the essential difference existing between the full filial position of God’s children and the state of bondage under the law. And the antithesis would be essentially the same which Paul sets forth, Rom_6:14, as an antithesis between being “under the law” and “under grace.” Life, however, is not merely a state, but essentially an activity also, actualizing itself and having permanence only as such. Hence “living to God” indicates, though not primarily, yet as immediately resulting, an activity and course of conduct with reference to God, and the more so indeed for the very reason, that by this “living to God” especially a good is gained; on which account also Paul, e.g., Rom_6:12-13, affirms as an obligation contained therein, the obligation “to yield one’s self to God.” Since he there derives this obligation from the “being alive unto God,” we should doubtless assume it here also, as a secondary idea implied in “that I might live unto God.” In the first place the expression ἵνα—statement of design—points to something, which even if it is on the one hand already given, yet on the other is also still to be looked for. And in the second place the connection points to this ethical interpretation, for Paul means to repel the allegation that by faith in Christ, by abandoning the position of the law, one be comes a sinner: and he cannot do this more emphatically than by describing the release from the law as the operation of the law itself, and as having for its purpose the living unto God. “Living unto God” then passes over into the meaning: to dedicate one’s life to God, the dative thus acquiring of course a yet fuller meaning, denoting not merely possession, but devotion, surrender to. The antithesis between “living unto God” and “living unto the law” is also to be explained as Romans 6. For the law leads “to sin” (and to death). The living to the law then in truth sunders from God. The “dying to the law” thus acquires the sense of dying unto sin (Romans 6.), though of course it is not to be identified with it.
[Ellicott thus sums up the results; while his views do not differ materially from those given above, the statement is so succinct that the substance of it may well be inserted here: 1. Law in each case has the same meaning. 2. The Mosaic law is meant. 3. The law is regarded under the same aspect as in Rom_8:7; Rom_8:13, a passage in strictest analogy with the present. 4. It was not διὰ νόμον or κατὰ νόμον but διὰνόμου, through the instrumentality of the law, that the sinful principle worked within and brought death upon all. 5. “Died” is not merely “legi valedixi,” but expresses generally what is afterwards more specifically expressed by “I have been crucified with.” 6. The dative “to the law” is not merely “with reference to,” but a species of dative “commodi:” “I died not only as concerns the law, but as the law required.” He paraphrases thus “I through the law, owing to sin, was brought under its curse; but having undergone this, with, and in the person of Christ, I died to the law in the fullest and deepest sense—being both free from its claims and having satisfied its curse.” So Lightfoot: “The law is the strength of sin. At the same time it provides no remedy for the sinner. On the contrary it condemns him hopelessly, for no one can fulfil the requirements of the law. The law then exercises a double power over those subject to it; it makes them sinners and punishes them for being so. What can they do to escape? They have no choice but to throw off the bondage of the law, for the law itself has driven them to this. They find the deliverance, which they seek, in Christ. Thus then they pass through three stages 1. Prior to the law—sinful, but ignorant of sin; 2. under the law—sinful, and conscious of sin, yearning after better things; 3. free from the law—free and justified in Christ. The second stage (‘through the law’) is a necessary preparation for the third (‘died to the law’).” So Meyer and many others, following Chrysostom in the main.—R.]
Gal_2:20. I have been crucified with Christ.—Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι. “I have come into fellowship with Christ’s death on the cross, through faith, so that what happened to Christ has also happened to me.” The Apostle declares thereby in what way the dying to the law through the law has been effected. Christ died “through the law,” for in the crucifixion the curse of the law was fulfilled upon Him. Whoever therefore is “crucified with Christ,” has also died “through the law”=the curse of the law is fulfilled on him too. But Christ, dying through the law, died also to the law, i.e., His life of subjection to the law came to an end (comp. Gal_4:4) even according to the principle, Rom_7:1, and the more so in His case, because it brought the curse undeservedly upon Him, and therefore forfeited its claim. As now the one “crucified with Christ” has died “through the law,” he has at the same time thereby also died “to the law”=he has, for the law, become a dead man, such an one as is no longer subject to the law, is free from it and its claims. The law over against him has no right of possession, having lost it. Comp. Rom_7:2 : “dead to the law through the body of Christ.” An equivalent sense is contained in Gal_3:25 : “faith having come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” For “crucified with Christ” rests essentially upon “faith.” As “I have been crucified with Christ” was the proof of the precious declaration (Gal_2:19), go Gal_2:20 first makes clear, why in consequence of the “dying to the law through the law,” he has attained to a “living unto God.” For as it is especially true of Christ that through the law, He died to the law, so it is also especially true of Him, that this came to pass that He might live unto God. Comp. Rom_6:10. For His death on the cross was for Him the departure from that life in which He also had been subject to the law (Gal_4:4), and through His resurrection it led in His case to the entrance into a life of another kind, into a life, in which He without any medium stood in immediate relation to God, in a pure filial relation, something which is most simply expressed by “living unto God.” Whoever now believes in Christ, participates, as in Christ’s death, so in Christ‘s new life; as he is crucified with Christ, so he lives with Christ (Rom_6:8). But Paul does not stop with this thought; he is not satisfied with a “crucified Christ” that he might live with Christ—It is, however, no longer I that live.—In his case the being “crucified with” has indeed led to a life; but what now lives in him is no more his Ego; this his Ego did live, when he was still under the law, without knowledge of Christ; it is therefore an Ego essentially linked with the law, disappearing with the legal life, so that he after the revolution which has come to pass within him through faith in Christ and the release from the law, must regard it as altogether vanished out of existence. This whole Ego has died with Christ.—But Christ liveth in me.—Another life is it, on the contrary (δέ adversative), that is now in him, the life of another personality; and this personality is Christ, viz., as one who has Himself passed through death to life. And as such He is living unto God. Therefore although living with Christ has as its result, living unto God, this must needs become far more complete by a living of Christ Himself in the man.
Yea the life which now I live in the flesh.—But while Paul has declared of himself, that Christ Himself lives in him, Christ as the risen and glorified One, he, on the other hand, knows well that even yet there appertains to him as before, a life “in the flesh,” i.e., a life of terrestrial corporeality, and so far, therefore, a yet imperfect life, which of itself stands in conflict with the life of Christ in him (δέ in ὁ δέ adversative). [It is perhaps better to regard δέ as introducing an explanatory and partially concessive clause (Ellicott). “So far as I now live in the flesh; it is still a life in faith.” Lightfoot. To avoid the repetition of “but”—the word “yea” will convey the force of the connection—“Even though I do live a life in the flesh, Christ so lives in me, that yea this very life I live by the faith,” etc.—R.] “Flesh” here docs not of course affirm an ethical defect, for he affirms this life at this very moment of himself, but only so to speak, a physical life; the opposite idea is not: in the Spirit, but: in vision, in heaven. Paul does not, however, on this account, recall what he said before, but reconciles the life “in the flesh” with the life of christ in him by I live in the faith.—“Now” is in opposition to the past time before the “dying to the law.” Now, after he has died to thelaw, he lives, it is true, even yet “in the flesh,” but he lives “in the faith.” “In the faith” is of course opposed, first of all in a restricted way, to “in the flesh,” on which account also the two phrases are conjoined; but in fact it constitutes the antithesis to the previous “living to the law.” [Not “by faith,” but “in faith,” “the atmosphere as it were which he breathed in this his new spiritual life” (Lightfoot).—R.] Of the Son of God,—Christ, we may believe, is designedly distinguished by this exalted predicate, in order to characterize faith as something great, in that it lays hold on the Son of God Himself. As if to say: what matters it that I still live in the flesh? Even in the flesh I possess through faith the Son of God! At the same time also the preposterousness of the thought, that one can become a sinner, “seeking to be justified in Christ,” [or that “Christ is a minister of sin.”—R.] is intimated. Who loved me and gave himself for me.—“It is indeed natural that I should believe on Him, since He,” etc.—and on the other hand this is a more definite statement of what faith believes.
Gal_2:21 is a simple conclusion from what immediately precedes. Men cannot now say, that I frustrate the grace of God, for this manifested itself in the atoning death of the Son of God. But precisely in this do I believe, yea, my whole life is a life in faith thereon. Exactly the reverse: if righteousness come through the law, then Christ died without cause, needlessly, and if I through the law sought justification, I should then declare the death of Christ to have taken place in vain, and should thus reject the grace of God: but now this latter is precisely what I did not do, and therefore not the former; I cannot be reproached with this. It is to be supposed, that some accused Paul, on account of his independence of the law in his course of conduct, of a contempt of the grace of God, not recognizing, in their confusion of thought, the truth that just this self-elevation of Christ was the chief manifestation of this grace, that therefore every disparagement of that self-devotion to death, by emphasizing the law, implied a contemning of this grace. This δωρεάν is, in conclusion, a sharply trenchant word. [Meyer: “This death took place unnecessarily, if what it should effect, could be attained through the law. Erasmus is excellent: est autem ratiocinatio ab impossibili.”—R.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
1. “Controversy of Paul with Peter” is a frequent, but incorrect title of this section. It should rather be entitled: Peter’s weak yielding and Paul’s open rebuke of it. For there is not the slightest mention made of a controversy between the two, and especially none of any opposing reply provoked by Paul.
As regards the fault of Peter, the question, in what it consisted, has been answered in the main above. To express it generally, it was a practical denying of the freer, genuinely evangelical conviction, to which he had attained, and that too from an unworthy motive, namely the fear of man, a fear of the censure of legally-minded Christians (and thus at all events an ὑπόκρισς). This of itself gives an important hint as to how we are to show regard for “the weak,” and when we may, out of consideration for them, renounce some particulars of Christian freedom. It is right only when it proceeds not from the fear of men or their censure or in any other way from self-interest, but from indulgent care that scandal be not given, and conscience be not perplexed.—Peter’s conduct, however, was particularly indefensible on account of the special circumstances under which it took place; at a time when it was of moment to secure the principal of Christian liberty, “the truth of the gospel,” which through Peter’s behavior was put in jeopardy: for the Gentile Christians, who were witnesses of it, were thereby induced to suppose that the observing of the Mosaic law was something necessary for a Christian, were shaken in their previous Christian conviction. A further important hint as to this regard for the weak! it may be duty, it may also be forbidden, when the fundamental principle of evangelical freedom would thereby be rendered doubtful to any one (or when, on the other hand, it might be perverted so as to establish the legal position, and to support an attack upon evangelical liberty).
The nature of the fault determines also our judgment respecting it. It was a fault: and on this account Paul’s correction of it, and that in the Way in which it took place, i. e., publicly, before all, was warranted, nay, necessary: necessary, not so much on account of the fear of man betrayed in it, as on account of the perplexity of conscience among the Gentile Christians, which was to be apprehended. This was the reason why Paul took occasion to set forth with such distinctness the evangelical doctrine of justification by faith. That a Peter should be set right by Paul, ill accords with the Romish view of the primacy of Peter. The transaction in Antioch will therefore also be urged with propriety against the assumption of such a primacy. The narrative is also instructive for the just apprehension of the general personal characters of the Apostles, and constitutes a corrective against exaggerated notions of these, as though a shortcoming, and unwarranted step, or even a sin, were never possible in their case.—But on the other side, more must not be made of Peter’s fault than it really was. It must not be regarded as anything else than a sin of weakness. If even Peter’s denial of his Master, rightly judged, can only be regarded as such, much more, and with entire certainty must this case in Antioch be so regarded, and this case, although in some measures analogous to his denial, is much less scandalous as indeed, considering that meanwhile he had been endued with the Holy Ghost, might be expected. That he strove with the Spirit, is not even to be imagined, nam quo rectore apostoli utebantur, spiritus sanctus neque sublata illos omni virium humanarum efficientia neque ita modcratus est, ut labe quavis eximerentur vel castigationi fraternæ locus non esset (Elwert, p. 16), as little as that sins of weakness generally are impossible in those who have received the Holy Ghost. Moreover, as this lapse of Peter was a lapse in practical conduct, and not in teaching, it cannot be pretended that it overturns faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures. The apostolic dignity of Peter and of his teaching, Paul does not in the least assail, and does not speak of them as impaired; as indeed it is precisely in his teaching on this particular point that Peter here comes into view as occupying the right position, failing of faithfulness to it in his practical behavior only. But in any case, the uncertainty of the senior Apostles respecting the obligation of the law, the existence of which is plainly enough attested by the Acts, does not warrant us in drawing a conclusion as to the truth of apostolic teaching generally. There was in this matter a learning, a growth and advancement to clear knowledge of the evangelical truth: and just in this point the corrective is given and the genuine truth of the gospel shown to us by means of Paul, in whose calling we are not to see a chance, but the significant dispensation of the Head of the Church, who knew her needs. We need not therefore isolate one from the other, but as and because both are given together, they should also be taken together, and out of both together we should gain the full light of evangelical knowledge of the truth.—Least warranted of all is the misuse of this passage to maintain the existence of a standing difference and permanent ill-feeling between Paul and Peter. Their agreement of view appears in a way hardly to be expected in Peter, inasmuch as he too set forth the principle of evangelical freedom (from the law) by his eating in common with the Gentile Christians; and if in consequence of Peter’s weakness there arose a difference, nothing whatever points to anything permanent, to any deep division, but what took place in a single case was rebuked by Paul, and the unjustifiableness of this conduct openly demonstrated. The publicity of the rebuke, moreover, is by no means to be regarded merely as making it keener, but as showing no less the brotherly way in which the matter was handled, inasmuch as a reproach addressed to Peter in private would have been far more apt to make the impression of a personal strife, and had there been a deeply seated difference, it were inconceivable that Peter would have suffered himself to be thus publicly rebuked.—As it is important rightly to understand Peter’s fault, on the other hand Paul’s correction of it must not be misinterpreted; it was not an exaltation of himself, but flowed only from zeal for the “truth of the gospel,” for the confirmation of Christian consciences; and the decision with which Paul stood forth in behalf of this without fear of man, is instructive. Although, indeed, not every one is competent to such a procedure, but ordinarily only one who has a public standing, like Paul, yet the principle expressed in his procedure is important, namely, that in matters of faith, no human authorities, however high they stand, can give law, but that their acts remain always subject to the test, according to the norm of “the truth of the gospel.”—As the facts here testify against a primacy of Peter, so the
ground and warrant of the act of rebuke witness most strongly against the idea of the Papacy in general, and against everything that borders on it under the protection of the principle of authority.
[Schaff, Apost. Church, p. 258, gives the following resumé: “This event is full of instruction. We cannot, indeed, justly infer from it anything unfavorable to the inspiration and doctrine of Peter; for his fault was rather a practical denial of his real and true conviction. But it shows that the Apostles, even after the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, are not to be looked upon as perfect saints in such sense as to be liable to no sinful weakness whatever. We here discern still the workings of the old sanguine, impulsive nature of Peter, who could, one hour, with enthusiastic devotion, swear fidelity to his Master; and the next, deny him thrice. Paul, too, on his part, may have been too excited and sharp against the senior Apostle, without making due allowance for the delicacy of his position, and his regard for the scrupulosity of the Jewish converts; which certainly go far to excuse, though not to justify Peter. Then again from the conduct of Paul we learn not only the right and duty of combatting the errors even of the most distinguished servants of Christ, but also the equality of the Apostles, in opposition to an undue exaltation of Peter above his colleagues.” On the bearing of this passage against the Papal claim to infallibility, see Wordsworth, who makes the error of Peter to have been “imposing unjustifiable terms of communion.”—R.]
2. The Pauline doctrine of Justification.—We have in this section, in a short dogmatic form, the Pauline doctrine of Justification in the sentence: οὑ δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων ν́μουυ, ἐὰν μὴ διὰ πίστεως ̓Ιησοῦ Χρ., “a man is not justified by the works of the law, but [only] by the faith of Jesus Christ.”
a) The idea of “works of the law” is first to be determined. It does not, for instance, signify merely the observance of ritual prescriptions, and the reason why “a man is not justified by the works of the law,” is not that such ceremonial works are not sufficient. For then Paul would simply have directed attention from these works to others (better, or more difficult ones), and not, as he does, have diverted attention from works, altogether to something totally different, namely, “faith.” No, as the law itself contains not merely ritual prescriptions, but also precepts peculiarly ethical, undoubtedly the entirely general expression “works of the law,” also denotes works of either kind. More accurately—Paul does not divide the law, but takes the law as an integral whole, as a divine institute, which, with all its precepts, the ritual as well as the specially ethical, morally obliges man, and, as an expression of the Divine will, requires and expects obedience from him. (Therefore, even if only ritual observances were meant, yet in reality the ground of non-justification could not be found simply in the externality of these precepts; in them also God has expressed His will; their observance also is to be regarded as a moral service.) “Works of the law,” therefore, are generally all works that are done (and are) in conformity with the requisitions of the Divine law.—Yet this is only a preliminary and entirely general definition. For then the question immediately arises: But why then no justification by them? or (since the idea of “being justified” itself still awaits elucidation), why does Paul then point entirely away from them to something entirely different? for thus much at least is implied in it. The common answer is: If man only performed such “works of the law,” all would be well, he would then be justified thereby: but this he does not, and cannot do; therefore of course in this way there is no justification possible. But this answer of itself cannot satisfy; it reminds us too strongly of a lucus a non lucendo; the “works of the law” would then, strictly speaking, have their name from the fact that they are not performed, from their non-existence. On the other hand a man certainly can (even of himself) do “works of the law,” can fulfil moral demands of the law (nay, he can do that much easier than have faith). But what he thereby accomplishes, is only ἔργα, “works” (on which account Paul in the Romans instead of ἔργα νόμου uses also the abridged expression ἕργα), i.e., 1. They are only single, isolated acts of obedience, here an ἔργον, there an ἔργον, and therefore even if the particular act corresponds to the particular requirement, yet this never completely satisfies the idea of the law, as an integral whole, and all trust in these, therefore, as if one could by these isolated “works” really fulfil the will of God, is perverted trust. The whole law=God’s will, demands fulfilment. This presents the unsatisfactoriness of the works of the law more particularly as extensive. But 2. it presents it also intensively: the works, even because they are works, are only external acts of obedience. But the law demands fulfilment by the whole man. “Works of the law” can never satisfy it; and confidence in them, therefore, as if one could endure God’s judgment on the ground of these, is always unfounded. The fulfilment of the law requires first and last a temper of mind answerable thereto. In the law God requires obedience to His will: to fulfil it, therefore, man must himself be filled with the spirit of this obedience, and that not a merely external, seeming obedience, but a genuine one, whose source is in love to God. But now the fulfilment, both of the former requirement and of this letter, is shipwrecked on the sinfulness of man, in consequence of which he cannot of himself rise above that want of unity and this externality of his moral acts, in consequence of which he accomplishes only “works of the law,” and for that very reason does not attain to δικαίωσις. First of all then there would be held up before the man the duty of perfectly fulfilling the law extensively and intensively, in contrast with the mere “works of the law.” But this would really accomplish nothing, because the defect is grounded in the sinfulness of man. There is therefore either no δικαίωσις, or it must come in an entirely different way, and this way is “the faith of Jesus Christ.”
These “works of the law” Paul nowhere calls “good works:” he uses the term “good works” only in the full sense of the word, to denote works which are really good, as being works of faith; which is just what the “works of law” are not, else δικαίωσις would come from them, and Faith would be superfluous.—Far less than by these even is the name of “good works” deserved by those “works” which have come up within the Christian period and been imposed as conditions of salvation. These have been only a new form of the “works of the law,” and therefore Luther, as is well known, found in the Pauline declarations respecting these his most effective weapons against the Romish “works of the law” and the false confidence reposed in them. On the other hand, it is true, he urges most distinctly and forcibly that, as being mere human ordinances, the ecclesiastical “works of the law” do not even stand on an equality with the “works of the law” of the Jews, which at least were commanded by God, and that therefore it is so much the more perverse to trust in them. This is the Roman Catholic form of the “works of the law.” But they are perpetually undergoing new transformations, and coming up again with the old pretensions (less and less justified as these continually are), agreeably to the natural leaning of man to a righteousness of works. Especially does he find it easy (to say nothing of observances essentially and from the beginning serving this perverse end) to turn even well intended usages and institutions, in themselves salutary, into a “law,” and then to set his trust upon the observance of these. Nay, even the exercises which are meant to further the life of faith as opposed to the legal life, are themselves too often turned again into “works of the law.”
b) Signification of δικαίωσις. Passing now to δικαίωσις, the term of chief import, we ask what is the signification of this?
This question is most easily answered, if we start from Paul’s denial: “not by the works of the law.” The Jew believes that he ἐξ ἕργ. ν. δικαιοῦται. What does this mean, what is expected by the man who believes this? Evidently this belief does not imply his making to himself the ethical statement: if I do the “works of the law,” I shall be—made righteous (justus reddor), that is, by God. For certainly he who does the works of the law, does not expect a subsequent justum reddi by God; his doing the works of the law in itself constitutes him and proves him (according to the supposition) a justus. He is not therefore expecting, as necessary to this, that God shall first translate him into the moral conditions of a justus. No: the thought “justified by the works of the law” conveyed to the Jew the idea of a judgment of God pronounced upon him, as being one who accomplished the “works of the law:” and nothing can therefore be better established than the forensic, declaratory signification of δικαιοῦν: taken, in the first instance, in its most general sense. As to the precise nature of the judgment, it was primarily, simply the sentence: Thou art a δίκαιος [righteous, just man.—R.]. This was what the man needed to render complete his living “after the law,” and thus δικαίως, what he needed to make his claim before the law perfect: namely, the Divine judgment that he was thereby δίκαιος; even had he wished to derive from it nothing else than the certainty that he was δίκαιος. With this he would then have had the lofty, ennobling, and blessed consciousness of God’s taking pleasure in him, of God’s gracious dispositions towards him. But the judgment of God, we know, is never, so to speak, a mere judgment in words, but is also a judgment in deeds, that is, the favor of God to any one shows itself in actual blessing. To this, to the obtaining of the blessing of God, and averting of His curse, the expectation of him, who occupied himself with the works of the law, was directed, agreeably to the Divine promises. This blessing was, as is known, primarily a temporal one, temporal good fortune and prosperity, the dwelling in the promised land.
If we apply this to the position which the gospel, denying δικαίωσις ἐξ ἔργ. ν. assumes: “a man is justified by the faith of Christ,” the sense naturally is: the judgment is uttered respecting him who believes on Jesus Christ, that he is δικαιος. (How this is brought about, so that the sentence: Thou art δίκαιος, is itself δίκαιος, righteous, by reason of the sacrificial death of Christ, is in this passage only intimated, Gal_2:19-21, and is elsewhere more explicitly established by Paul.) The main point is first the fact [das “dass”] of this judgment, namely that the Divine complacency and satisfaction is attested thereby: but then, as intimated above all, the whole weight falls upon the manifestation of this in act, upon the effect of this judgment, and hence, upon the certainty of Divine Blessing (instead of curse). This blessing then, it is understood, comprehends a sum of manifestations, partly internal, and enjoyed even in the earthly life, but in part such as are only realized in eternity, and make up the fruition of the heavenly “inheritance.” This elucidation makes it clear that δίκαίωσις is not to be taken as immediately identical with the forgiveness of sins; for the theory of a δικαιοῦσθαι ἐξ ἕργ. ν. implies the expectation of a δικαίωσις not connected with forgiveness of sins; since the claim is here to a justification founded on a doing of the works of the law, and not on a transgression of the law. In this justifying “by the faith of Christ” then, which becomes necessary for the very reason that, on account of our sinfulness being justified, is not possible “by the works of the law”—the forgiveness of sin, of the transgression of the law, is no doubt an integral, nay, more, the fundamental element of the δικαίωσις, it is in the full sense an Act of Pardon.—The elements into which the δικαίωσις resolves itself, or, if the phrase is preferred, the consequences which grow out of the δικαίωσις, are then found in detail (partially at least), in chap. 3, (and also in chap. 4), where the reference to the “Blessing,” in opposition to the “curse” (agreeably to our exposition), as well as to the “inheritance,” is instructive. And if at the beginning of chap. 3 the receiving of the Holy Ghost is described as an effect of “faith” (as opposed to the works of the law), it is unwarrantable to urge this against the forensic, declaratory sense of justification, as if it signified an internal transformation, a translation from the flesh into the Spirit, etc. For the immediate reference here is to the receiving of the Spirit as a Divine blessing, the communication of a gracious benefit, as a sign and evidence of the Divine good will, an evidence of pardon. This gift of the Spirit, it is indisputably true, creates a new life, and it is given to this end, but this view is second in order.—Nay, this new life itself is also to be regarded as a Divine grace. Δικαιοῦν therefore is an effective act only in the above named sense, that God’s approving judgment is shown also in act, or that God’s judgment consists in real blessings. It is not an effective act in the sense that δικαιοῦν of itself signifies an infusio justitiæ of any sort, new life, or the like.—Unquestionably the “faith of Jesus Christ” leads not merely to δικαίωσις, but also to a new “living with Christ,” which is grounded upon a “dying with Christ” (of which there is a brief mention of this section Gal_2:19-20). But this is not comprehended in δικαίωσις as Paul uses it; for this idea he has the entirely different turn of thought and expression quoted above. Therefore no one should confound what Paul expressly keeps apart (e.g., as he plainly does in the relation of Romans 6 to the preceding chapters). Δικαιωθῆναι is not identical with the origination of a new life. In this passage especially (Gal_2:19 sq.) Paul’s allusion to the new life that had arisen in him through faith in Jesus Christ, serves, strictly speaking, only as a reason why he no longer seeks δικαίωσις through the “works of the law,” but through faith in Christ. Through the crucifixion with Christ the man of the law has been slain in him, and a new man has arisen who lives in “faith in Christ.” The new man therefore is he who knows his δικαίωσις to be grounded on faith in Christ. It is a sign of the new man, it belongs to his nature to live “in the faith of Jesus Christ,” and to seek and find in that, instead of in the law, his δικαίωσις. But it does not follow from this that the δικαιωθῆναι means the same as to become a new man.
But, allowing that δικαίωσις is not to be identified with the origination of a new life, does not the latter precede the δικαίωσις, and is it not, not unfrequently, the material ground of it? This brings us
c) To the idea of “faith,” and its relation to justification. “The faith of Jesus Christ” leads to justification, and this alone does not the works of the law, is what Paul declares with such distinctness. But in what way? Has Faith this effect inasmuch as, according to what has been touched upon above, the believer appropriates to himself the death and the life of Christ = the old man is slain and a new one planted in him, so that God, with reference to this, even though the new life is only in its beginning, yet recognizing in the beginning the guarantee of the rest, acquits him of sin, and bestows upon him blessing and grace, that is justifies him in the forensic sense, and then implants in him still further such life, with the effective method of the justification? This must be denied decidedly: for this simple reason, that otherwise the ground of justification, in the mind of God, would consist in something else than that which the faith of the believer apprehends as its ground, and so his faith would really be an illusion. For 1. “The believer believes on Christ,” is equivalent to saying that he recognizes in Christ, and particularly in Christ’s sacrificial death, the ground of his justification. 2. The believer, through his faith in Christ, undoubtedly comes to a new life, but this life is and abides, as our passage itself shows, essentially and above all a life in faith, and in faith on Christ’s death (Gal_2:20); in the conviction of being justified before God by this death, from which then follows a life according to God’s will in the special ethical sense, and transformation of the whole direction of the will. The real ground of justification, therefore, cannot consist in the believer’s new life itself, but in that in which he himself, renouncing the works of the law, seeks and continually finds it, namely, in Christ’s atoning death. Else were he entangled in a delusion. And faith justifies simply because it is, as it were, our unreserved assent to the reconciliation already effected in Christ. It needs only that, for through the atoning death of Christ, provided any one will not deny its value, the grace of God is already won for us all; therefore, there remains nothing on our part but to say Yes to it (manus apprehendens). Without this, that grace cannot become our own; through it, it does become our own, since an earning of it, or a making ourselves worthy of it, is no longer needful; but, on the contrary, every such thought derogates somewhat from the merit of Christ. Nothing further then is needed than just this “believing;” we need not fancy this too little when taken in its simple sense = “to trust,” “to place confidence in,” and we need not suppose we must first make its idea as it were more complete by taking in its effects, in order to be able to acknowledge faith as the condition40 of justification. Were faith to be made more than the condition of justification, were it to be made its ground, we might intensify its idea as much as we would, it would still be too little. But now, as on the one hand, Faith utters its Amen to the reconciliation accomplished in Christ, and thus makes the man partaker of it,—that is, justifies him, so does it also lay hold of this death itself, which has wrought for it so great a benefit = the man who has heretofore lived, dies with Christ and through Christ, but there comes instead (not out of faith, but out of Christ, yet not without faith), a new man, who lives to God, but ever henceforth seeks the ground of God’s favor in nothing else than in Christ. This trust comes more and more completely into exercise with the new life that springs up, instead of being now superfluous. (This is the double hand of faith.)
By what is said above, the idea of faith is not in any way unduly weakened. Even though man can do nothing more than apprehendere what is in God and Christ, yet this very apprehendere is the greatest and especially the hardest thing that (sinful) man can do. For it implies nothing less than a giving of all honor to God, and not to one’s self, a willingness to renounce one’s own reason, one’s own merits, one’s own will. Hence, even this man cannot have of himself, but God must bring him thereto. And he does it by the pedagogy of the “law” “unto Christ.” On this, see the next chapter, although it is already intimated in Gal_2:19 of this.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Gal_2:11-13.—Starke:—The Apostles also had their faults, and sometimes committed great errors of conduct (1Jn_1:8). What? Are ministers then, whose authority is so much less than that of the Apostles, to be expected not to err and sin? Therefore, follow them no further than they follow Christ.—Even though a thing be done with good intention, yet, so far as it is wrong in itself, or as any scandal arises thereby, it cannot be excused or defended by its good intention. When of two evils one must be chosen, it is better to let a scandal arise than to do anything that may prejudice evangelical truth.—Even children of God and great saints are capable of being very easily and suddenly surprised and overcome by the fear of man, when they do not sufficiently watch over themselves.—Hedinger:—When faults, scandals in doctrine and life are prevalent, it is not for us to be silent, to strike sail and run before the wind, but to stand fast in our place.—Quesnel:—The higher one stands, the more measured and guarded his conduct should be.
[Calvin:—How cautiously we ought to guard against giving way to the opinions of men, lest we turn aside from the right path! If this happened to Peter, how much more easily to us.—Luther:—Such examples are written for our consolation. If Peter fell, I may likewise fall. If he rose again, I may also rise again. This comfort they take away, who say, the saints do not sin.—This is a wonderful matter! God preserved the church, being yet young, and the gospel, by one person. Paul alone standeth to the truth, for he had lost Barnabas, his companion, and Peter was against him. So sometimes one man is able to do more in a council than the whole council besides.—R.]
[Burkitt:—Such as sin openly, must be reproved openly.—No bands of friendship must keep the ministers of God from reproving sin. A notorious fault must be reproved with much boldness and resolution. If such as are eminent in the church fall, they fall not alone; many do fall with them.—What a constraining power there is in the example of eminent persons. He is said to compel, in Scripture, not only who doth violently force, but who, being of authority, doth provoke by his example.—The errors of those that do rule, become rulers of error. Men sin through a kind of authority, through the sins of those who are in authority.—R.]
[How many rejoice at Paul’s defence of the liberty of the gospel against Peter’s weakness, who themselves will not receive rebuke as Peter did—nay, are very popes at heart. For there are popes in pews as well as in pulpits, besides the pope who openly claims to be such; Christian liberty suffers from them all.—The fear of man, of popular opinion often becomes to us as authoritative as decrees and Papal bulls to others.—Peter will not commune with Gentile Christians longer; so he might act if he would, as Peter, but as an Apostle, he thus made terms of communion against the truth of the gospel. He was condemned; do we never seek to bind the conscience not only “in meats and drinks,” but as respects communion with other Christians?—When such conduct ceases to be a private choice, and becomes public scandal, it should be rebuked by one set for the defence of the truth of the gospel.—The yet remaining power of narrow national and social and religious prejudices in those who profess Christ as “all and in all.” How strong in Peter; once so strong in Paul, but now crucified with Christ.—R.]
Gal_2:14. Spener:—The whole life of Christians has, besides God’s glory, the end and aim that the truth of the gospel and pure doctrine may be established; those sins, therefore, are great above others, whereby any may be misled as to the truth of the gospel.—Starke:—So soon as it is taught by words or deeds that anything more is necessary to salvation than the grace of God and faith, so soon is the truth of the gospel wounded.—In the matter of scandals, one who either maliciously or heedlessly causes them, has justly reckoned against him and imputed by God, what thereafter arises out of them, and thus the sin may become more grievous through its consequences.—Rieger:—O God! if I ever err, give me a frankspoken Paul to warn me and make me on the spot or afterwards as mild in yielding, as Peter !—Heubner:—Things that trouble peace may arise even among children and messengers of God. In Act_13:13; Act_15:31, similar things are mentioned. Behold the imperfection of the earthly life! only above is harmony forever undisturbed. The kingdom of Christ, nevertheless, advances even through weak instruments.
Public rebuke: 1. admissible, yes, necessary, when anything has been done that perplexes consciences; 2. how shall it be conducted? Undoubtedly by free exposition of its evil consequences, but then chiefly by renewed and more thorough assertion of the truth of the Gospel: not with personal reproaches; and above all, in brotherly love; 3. difficult; therefore examine thyself well, whether thou be called or at all events fitted therefor, that thou destroy not more good than thou restorest; and if thou perceivest thyself not skilled, leave it: for after all it is not thou that rebukest and God knows well enough how to choose His own instruments. In all cases do it not without earnest looking up to God, that in the discharge of it He will keep thee as from the fear of man, so none the less from vanity, haughtiness and a loveless temper.
Gal_2:15. Starke:—The preëminence which we who are born of Christian ancestry have above others, must not be misused to the prejudice of divine grace: we must be none the less certain that the grace of Christ alone, not our descent from Christian parents, can save us.
Gal_2:16. Luther:—Understand we this article rightly and purely? Then have we the true heavenly sun. But if we lose it, we have nothing else than a hellish darkness.—A troubled, wretched conscience should keep no thought or remembrance of the law, nor should oppose to the anger and judgment of God anything else than the sweet comforting word of Christ, which is a word of grace, of forgiveness of sins, of everlasting life and blessedness. But to do this is especially hard. For the fearfulness of the conscience keeps us from well apprehending Christ, and temps us often to let Him go, and to fall back upon the thought of law and sin.—As a Jew, through the works which he does after God’s law, cannot be justified, how then should a monk be justified, by his order, a priest by his authority, a philosopher by his skill and wisdom, a sophistical theologian by his sophistry? Wise, pious, and righteous as men may become on earth through their reason and God’s law, yet they are by all their works, merits, masses, and by the best of all their righteousness and acts of worship, not righteous before God.—Rieger:—What thou art by nature and canst boast concerning thy good bringing up, thy refined education, thy works of the law, distinguish thee doubtless above many others. Thou art not bidden to throw that entirely away. What of quiet days, and advantage to thy health, and the like this secures to thee, enjoy. But into the secret chamber of judgment, where God and the conscience have to do with one another concerning the forgiveness of sins, this is not to intrude. Through no work of the law shall we ever bring it to pass that God will justify us, forgive our sins, bestow on us access to His grace, and the hope of future glory; that we learn alone from God’s word and promise in Christ.
Gal_2:17. Rieger:—If I would suffer this thing again to become uncertain to me, namely, that I, leaving all works behind, should be justified through Christ alone; if I would be mistrustful about that, as if I had brought myself into sin by such a disparagement of works; if I fell back again upon works, as chanced to Peter, I should make Christ a minister of sin.—Luther:—Every one who teaches that faith in Christ doth not justify, unless a man also keep the law, such a one makes Christ a minister of sin, i.e. he makes out of him a law-teacher, who teaches just that, and nothing else that Moses teaches. So can Christ then be no Saviour and grace-giver, but would be only a cruel tyrant, who required of us merely impossible things, not one of which any man can fulfil. [For the other view of this passage see Exeg. Notes.—Burkitt:—The Apostle rejects the inference of the adversaries of the doctrine of justification by faith with the greatest abhorrence and detestation. It is no new prejudice, though a very unjust one, against this doctrine of justification by faith alone, that it opens a door to licentiousness and makes Christ the minister of sin.—R.]
Gal_2:18. Starke:—Teachers should take good care, that what they tear down with one hand, that they may not build up again with the other.
Gal_2:19. Rieger.—I have not run away from the law like an escaped rogue. It has cost a death, I have made trial of the law before, and learnt well, how far the law carries us, and what is impossible to it. But now, as in the case of a marriage dissolved by death, I am lawfully divorced from the law. I have no desire to knit this bond again.—Luther:—St. Paul could have said nothing of mightier force against the righteousness that is supposed to come through the law, than just what he here saith: I have died to the law, I have nothing at all more to do with it, it concerns me nothing, nor can it justify me.—These words are most full of comfort, and let them come in mind to any one in time of temptations and afflictions, and be in his heart rightly and thoroughly understood. Such a one would without doubt be well able to stand against all danger and dread of death, against all manner of terrors of conscience and of sin, though they fell as vehemently upon him as ever they could.—Happy he who, when his conscience falls into distress and temptation, that is, when sin assails and the law accuses him, then can say: What matters that to me; for I have died to thee. But if thou wilt ever dispute with me concerning sins, go, bury thyself with the flesh and its members, my servants pass then in review, plague and crucify them as thou wilt; but me, the conscience, it is for thee to leave, in peace as queen. For thou hast no concern with me since I have died to thee and live now to Christ.—It is a strange, curious, and unheard of speech, that to live to the law is as much as to die to God, and to die to the law as much as to live to God. These two sentences are completely and entirely athwart the reason, therefore also no sophist as law teacher can understand them. But do thou give diligence that thou learn well to understand them, namely thus, that who now will live to the law, that is, practise himself in its works, and keep the same, in order that he may thereby be justified, such a one is a sinner and abides a sinner, and therefore condemned to everlasting death and damnation. For the law can make him neither righteous nor blessed, but if it begins to accuse him in right earnest, it only kills him. Therefore to live to the law is, in truth, nothing else than to die to God, and to die to the law is nothing else than to live to God; now to live to God, this is to become righteous through grace and faith on Christ, without any works or law.—Starke:—The end of our freedom from the law is not, that we may live to ourselves, but that we may live to God and Christ.
Gal_2:20. In Starke:—Christ on His cross was to be regarded as the surety and head of the whole human race; therefore, in His person the whole human race was also crucified. Especially have believers part in the death of Christ, because faith brings with it a perfect union and fellowship between Christ and the faithful.—Berlenb. Bible:—Faith binds us to the cross of Christ, and there nothing of the old man will remain and be spared. Faith and the cross are to one another very near. Therefore, worldly wisdom turns its back on faith. Many with their faith will even separate the cross from itself; they make of faith a cross before the cross, and say of the other, away, away with it!—This is the method of stepping over from the law to the gospel, only through the death of the old Adam, and his peculiar life. It makes a huge corpse. “I live.”—No more after my own willing and working, but in another spirit. We must lose ourselves. A man lives then most blessedly, when he lives not to himself. There must be in the heart another I. The old I must lose itself. But what says the self-love and selfishness that would gladly keep its life, and seek in everything what pleases it, that will not hate its own soul, affections, desires, dispositions, and sensual cravings Its word is: That am I! that is from me! that is in me! therefore, that is mine! that befits me! that pleases me! that is so with me! It demands, therefore, from God and man rest, life, love, honor, obedience, trust, help, assistance, comfort, and enjoyment. O what a heavy stone of stumbling is self-love in Christ’s way!—[Bunyan:—They only have benefit by Christ to eternal life, who die by His example, as well as live by His blood; for in His death was both merit and example; and they are like to miss in the first, that are not concerned in the second.—R.]
Luther:—The very life that I live is Christ Himself, and therefore Christ and I are in this matter altogether one thing. None the less, it is true, there remains outwardly cleaving to me the old man that is under the law, but so far as concerns this matter, namely, that I be justified before God, Christ and I cannot but be bound in the closest wise together, so that He lives in me and I again in Him.—Christ and my conscience should become one body, so that I should keep nothing else before my eyes than Jesus Christ. But if I turn my countenance away from Christ, and look alone upon myself, it is at once all over with me. For then straightway flashes into my mind: Christ is above in heaven, and thou here below on earth, how wilt thou now find the way up to Him? Then the reason quickly answers: I will lead a holy life, and do what the law bids me, and so enter into life. But when I thus look upon myself, and consider only what I am, or what I ought to be, and what I am bound to do, I lose Christ forthwith out of my sight, who yet alone is my righteousness and life; but when I have lost Him, there is no longer either help or counsel, but at the last desperation and eternal damnation must needs follow.—Berlenb. Bible:—Christ is life not for Himself alone, but a benefit that willingly and freely communicates itself. Where now it finds a man who hates and forsakes his own life, and lives no longer in his own self-love, in him Christ lives.—Rieger:—If a man should hear of the fellowship of the cross of Christ alone, a man might form to himself too joyless an image of my religion; but it is also a fellowship with His life. And my life in the flesh, my tarrying upon this battlefield of sin and grace, is given me for a proof how the Son of God once made a journey through the world, and remained constant to His Heavenly Father.
[John Brown:—Paul here declares his experience. The law has no more to do with me, and I have no more to do with it in the matter of justification.—Christ died and in Him I died; Christ revived and in Him I revived. The law has killed me, and by doing so, it has set me free from itself. The life I now have, is not the life of a man under the law, but the life of a man delivered from the law.—Christ’s relations to God are my relations. His views are my views; His feelings my feelings. He is the soul of my soul, the life of my life. My state, my sentiments, my conduct are all Christian.—“It is but right that I should be entirely devoted to Him who devoted Himself entirely for me.”—R.]
Luther:—It is very true that I still live in the flesh, but be it now what life it may, that is still in me, I count it yet for no life at all; for it is, if one will view it aright, indeed no life, but rather a mask, under which another lives, namely Christ, who is truly my life, that thou canst not see, but hearest it alone. I live, to be sure, in the flesh; but I live not from the flesh or after the flesh, but in faith, from faith, and according to faith.—“Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” With these words Paul describes in most comforting wise Christ’s office and priesthood. This now is His office, that He should reconcile us with God, give Himself up for our sins, &c. Therefore, thou must not make of Him a new law-giver that does away the old law and establishes a new in its place. Christ is no Moses, no taskmaster and lawgiver, but a grace-giver and compassionate Saviour. He is nothing else than a purely measureless and overflowing compassion, that suffers itself to be bestowed upon us, and also bestows itself. Setting forth Christ after such a way, thou rightly depictest Him. But if thou suffer Him to be portrayed to thee in other guise, thou mayest, in the time of temptation, be easily and quickly overthrown.—These words of Paul are an excellent example of a genuine and assured faith.—Accustom thyself to this, that thou apprehend this brief word, “me,” with certain faith, and doubtest not thereof, that thou also art in the number of those who are named with this little word “me.” For, as we cannot deny that we are one and all sinners, so can we also not deny that Christ died for our sins, that He might justify us through His death. For surely He has not died for this, that He should justify those that were righteous before, but that He should help poor sinners. Because then I feel and confess that I am a sinner, why should I not, on the other hand, also say that I am righteous because of Christ’s righteousness, especially because I hear that He has loved ME and given Himself for ME. St. Paul believed it steadfastly and assuredly, and, therefore, also does he speak of it so freely and confidently. But may He who hath loved us and given Himself for us, bestow on us grace, that we may be able, if only in part, to do the like and speak thus concerning ourselves.—[Lightfoot:—Paul appropriates to himself, as Chrysostom observes, the love which belongs equally to the whole world. For Christ is, indeed, the personal friend of each man individually; and is as much to him as if He had died for him alone.—R.]
Gal_2:21. Starke:—The rejection of the grace of God, may take place: 1. by a denial of the perfect satisfaction of Christ; 2. by setting along side of it our own merits, worthiness and righteousness, as Popery does in doctrine, and many even in our churches do in fact; 3. by abusing this grace to favor presumption, and to supersede sanctification; 4. when even sincere souls, in the feeling of their unworthiness, are much too timorous to appropriate grace to themselves, and think they must first have arrived at this or that degree of holiness, before grace can avail them any thing; 5. when tempted ones from a lack of feeling conclude that they have fallen out of grace again.
Luther:—The righteousness that comes from the law is nothing else than mere contempt and rejection of God’s grace, whereby the death of Christ becomes unworthy and unavailing. Who is, indeed, so eloquent that he can sufficiently portray and bring to light, what it is to reject the grace of God? or to make out that Christ has died in vain? It is hard to have to talk of any useless dying; but to say that Christ has died in vain, that is too much, that is quite too villanous a word, for it is nothing less than to say that Christ is wholly unprofitable, is nothing worth.—If any one will make out Christ’s death an unprofitable thing, he must also make His resurrection, His glorious triumph over sin, death, etc., His kingdom, heaven, earth, God Himself, God’s majesty and glory, and in brief all things together contemptible and useless.—These great, mighty, and terrible thunderclaps, which St. Paul in his writings brings down from heaven against our own righteousness, that comes from the law, ought, by good right, to terrify us from it.—When the world hears such a charge, it will not at all believe that it is true; for it does not allow that a man’s heart could be so wicked that he should reject the grace of God, and count Christ’s death a despicable thing, and yet for all that, this sin is of all in the world the most common. Whoever will be righteous outside of faith in Christ, such a one casts away God’s grace, and despises the death of Christ, though in words he speak as highly and honorably thereof, as ever he knows how to speak.
Gal_2:19-21. To live to God, our end; 1. What is thereby required? 2. Condition of accomplishing it; the way thereto is dying—to the law: this again is possible only through being crucified with Christ.—To be crucified with Christ: 1. something difficult, requires nothing less than that we place ourselves under God’s sentence of condemnation; 2. indispensably necessary: else there can be no life to God.—To die with Christ—to live to God; this is the pregnant definition of true Christianity.—I live, yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me: a bold expression; but so must it be in the case of a Christian; one’s own Ego must vanish, and in place of it Christ must rule in us.—Christ lives in me: 1. can we say so, when even yet there is much sin in us? 2. When can we say so? when at least it is He, in whom alone we seek our righteousness? The Christian’s life a double life: a. Proof: 1. the joyful attestation: Christ lives in me; 2. he must humbly acknowledge and in manifold ways experience; I yet live in the flesh. b. What is to be done, that he, so long as he lives and whatever his life in the flesh, may not live to the flesh, but to Him who, etc.—Living in faith on the Son of God, who loved us, and gave Himself for us: 1. the blessed prerogative, 2. the sacred duty of the Christian.—In Lisco:—The life in the faith of the Son of God: 1. what it presupposes in us. Gal_2:19 : the death of the old natural life—the being crucified with Christ; 2. wherein it essentially consists? Gal_2:20 : in entire self-surrender to the Son of God, in being filled and permeated with His love, which to the true Christian is the one moving spring of all his actions; 3. what value has it? Gal_2:21, it serves to the glory of the grace of God, and the praise of the death of Christ.
To say Christ has also loved me, and given Himself for me, is the height of faith’s achievements, simple as it appears.—Reject not the grace of God! an admonition as earnest as needful.—To reject God’s grace the greatest of all sins. When is this done? (see above.)—Christ died in vain? 1. that cannot be; such a deed of love must have a high end; 2. and yet for how many has He died in vain!—Christ would have died in vain! the severest condemnation possible of every kind of righteousness of works.—To seek righteousness from works; as foolish (for Christ cannot have died in vain), as simple (it rejects that which was God’s own most glorious work of Love). [“Then Christ died without cause.” Did such a person die. Then while we may account for His life by other theories, there is no sufficient reason for His death, save that which Paul preached: Full pardon, entire salvation, to every one who by faith lays hold of Christ as dying for him. Any other view is inconsistent with God’s wisdom, frustrates God’s grace as well.—Self-salvation must ever deny a sufficient purpose in that death.—R.]
Footnotes:
[19]Gal_2:11.—Here also the preponderance of authority is in favor of Κηφᾶς. [As also in Gal_2:14. The simple past “came” is the best rendering of the aorist ἦλθεν.—R.]
[20]Gal_2:11.—[Κατεγνωσμένος ἦν; “was condemned.” The E. V., follows the Vulgate: reprehensibilis. which is incorrect. Some adopting a slightly different exegesis, render “had been condemned,” but this is not so literal. See Exeg. Notes. Schmoller renders ἀνέστην: entgegentrat, “opposed,” but “withstood” does not seem too strong.—R.]
[21]Gal_2:12.—[The imperfect συνήσθιεν: expresses the idea of “habitual eating in company with.” So too the other verbs, ὐπέστελλεν and ἀφώριζεν; “he began to withdraw himself.” etc.; but to express this fully would require a periphrasis in English. “Himself” is the object of both these verbs.—R.]
[22]Gal_2:12.—Ἦλθεν instead of ἦλθον, probably an old mistake, from Gal_2:11, is found in א. B. [The latter reading is adopted by modern editors on good MSS. authority.—R.]
[23]Gal_2:12.—[“Which were” should be italicised if retained.—R]
[24]Gal_2:13.—א. adds πάντες. [No other authority; א3 disapproves.—R.]
[25]Gal_2:14.—“Καὶ οὐκ Ἰουδαϊκῶς is wanting in Clar., Germ. [two very ancient Latin versions.—R.], Ambrosiaster. Sedulius. Agapetes: but the authorities are much too weak to permit us, with Semler and Schott, to take the words as a gloss.” Meyer. [There is some doubt respecting the proper order; א. A. B. C. F. G., Lachmann. Meyer, Ellicott, Alford (in later ed.), Lightfoot read: καὶ οὐκ Ἰουδαϊκῶς ζῇς, while D. E. K. L., most cursives, Rec., Tischendorf, Scholz, Wordsworth have ζῇς κ. οὐχ Ἰουδ. The former seems best sustained. The want of two adverbs equivalent to ἐθνικῶς and Ἰουδαϊκῶς makes it impossible to render literally in English, but the E. V. gives the correct
[26]Gal_2:14.—Πῶς, not τί. is the correct reading. So Lachmann, א. [A. B. C. D. F., most cursives, Meyer and the majority of modern editors. Rec. (followed by E. V.) and Tischendorf have τί.—R.]
[27]Gal_2:15.—[The insertion of “who are” in the E. V. has made this passage very obscure. “We” might be taken as the subject of “believed” (Gal_2:16), and all between as explanatory, but if “are” be supplied, the meaning is sufficiently clear. Ellicott adds “truly.”—R.]
[28]Gal_2:16.—“Δέ is wanting in Elz., but against the weight of authority. The omission was occasioned by taking εἰδότες as a definition of what precedes [i.e., “sinners of the Gentiles”—R.], with which construction δέ would not agree. The omission was furthered by supposing a new sentence to begin with εἰδότες.” Meyer. [Retaining δέ, the pointing of the E. V. is correct: “We are Jews,” etc., “yet (δέ slightly adversative) knowing,” etc.—R.]
[29]Gal_2:16.—[Tischendorf omits Χριστοῦ, but apparently on insufficient authority. The omission probably arose from an attempt to avoid the frequent repetition of Χριστός, which occurs three times in this verse. Some read Χρ. Ἰησοῦ.—R.]
[30]Gal_2:16.—[Ἐπιστεύσαμεν, “believed,” better than “have believed.”—R.]
[31]Gal_2:16.—[Here the order Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν is better supported.—R.]
[32]Gal_2:16.—[Rec., C. E. K. L., Ellicott, Wordsworth read διότι, which was probably imported from Rom_3:20; ὅτι is supported by א. A. B. F. G., Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford, Lightfoot.—The order of Rec., οὐ δικ. ἐξ ἔργ. is not well sustained.—R.]
[33]Gal_2:18.—[Literally: “if what things I destroyed, these I build again.”—R.]
[34]Gal_2:18.—[Συνιστάνω is adopted by modern editors on uncial authority; συνίστημι of Rec. is probably a grammatical gloss.—R.]
[35]Gal_2:20.—[The pointing of the E. V. alters the meaning, and weakens the force of this passage, by making two clauses where there is really but one. As, however, δέ occurs three times in quick succession, and with a variation in its force, elegance demands this translation: “It is, however (δέ), no longer I that live, but (δέ) Christ liveth in me, yea, (δέ resumptive) the life,” etc.—R.]
[36]Gal_2:20.—Lachmann has τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριοστοῦ, following B. D. F. G. “It is highly probable that this reading originated in the transcriber’s passing immediately over from the first to the second τοῦ, so that only τοῦ θεοῦ was written; as what followed was incongruous, και Χριστοῦ was inserted. Meyer.
[37]Gal_2:21.—[Δωρεάν may be more properly rendered: “Without cause.” Tittmann, sine justa causa, not frustra, sine effectu. So Meyer, Ellicott, Lightfoot.—R.]
[38][When we consider this position of James, and look at the Epistle which bears his name, we are led, not to doubt its inspiration and place in the canon, but rather to believe that it must be inspired, else it would have differed more from the writings of Paul, and that its place in the canon is a proof of the wisdom of God, who made His Word complete, by making it many-sided, and yet never contradictory.—R.]
[39][Wordsworth: “On this formula, derived from the LXX. it is to be observed that the Septuagint render—(1) אָמֵן (Amen) by γένοιτο. See the remarkable instance in Deu_27:15-18, etc.; and (2) they render חָלִילָה, i.e., absit, literally profanum sit, by μὴ ένοιτο (Gen_44:7; Gen_44:17; Jos_22:29). Μὴ γένοιτο is s mething much more than a direct negation, such as ‘No verily.’ It is a vehement expression of indignant aversion, reprobating and abominating such a notion as that by which it is looked. And therefore the English, God forbid! properly understood, i.e., God forbid that any one should so speak, is a fit rendering of it. It is used fourteen times by St. Paul (ten times in the Epistle to the Romans, thrice to the Galatians, and once in 1 Corinthians), and is generally employed by him to rebut an objection supposed by him to be made by an opponent, as here.”—R.]
[40][There need be no mistake about the meaning of “condition” here: conditio sine qua non.—R.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Peter--"Cephas" in the oldest manuscripts Paul's withstanding Peter is…
Peter--"Cephas" in the oldest manuscripts Paul's withstanding Peter is the strongest proof that the former gives of the independence of his apostleship in relation to the other apostles, and upsets the Romish doctrine of Peter's supremacy. The apostles were not always inspired; but were so always in writing the Scriptures. If then the inspired men who wrote them were not invariably at other times infallible, much less were the uninspired men who kept them. The Christian fathers may be trusted generally as witnesses to facts, but not implicitly followed in matters of opinion.
come to Antioch--then the citadel of the Gentile Church: where first the Gospel was preached to idolatrous Gentiles, and where the name "Christians" was first given (Act 11:20, Act 11:26), and where Peter is said to have been subsequently bishop. The question at Antioch was not whether the Gentiles were admissible to the Christian covenant without becoming circumcised--that was the question settled at the Jerusalem council just before--but whether the Gentile Christians were to be admitted to social intercourse with the Jewish Christians without conforming to the Jewish institution. The Judaizers, soon after the council had passed the resolutions recognizing the equal rights of the Gentile Christians, repaired to Antioch, the scene of the gathering in of the Gentiles (Act 11:20-26), to witness, what to Jews would look so extraordinary, the receiving of men to communion of the Church without circumcision. Regarding the proceeding with prejudice, they explained away the force of the Jerusalem decision; and probably also desired to watch whether the Jewish Christians among the Gentiles violated the law, which that decision did not verbally sanction them in doing, though giving the Gentiles latitude (Act 15:19).
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to be blamed--rather, "(self)-condemned"; his act at one time condemning his contrary acting at another time.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 4. Paul’s apostolic rebuke of the apostle Peter, Gal_2:11-21.
4. Paul’s apostolic rebuke of the apostle Peter, Gal_2:11-21.
This is the closing step of Paul’s proof of the reality and independence of his apostleship. The proof rises in climax. First, he lived for years apart from the apostles; next, he met and was acknowledged by them; last, he encountered the chief apostle and successfully rebuked him—rebuked him upon the very point in debate among the Galatians—circumcision.
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Not only was this climax truly conclusive for the Galatians, but it is very decisive against the infallibility of Peter, as well as of the popes claiming succession from Peter. It raises, also, an important question as to the personal inspiration of the apostles. On this last question we may say that we do not consider the authority of the New Testament books, as a rule of faith, to depend solely on the exemption of the writers from error. Their authority, both for facts and doctrine, is sustained by the testimony of the Apostolic Church, which, in the age of miracle, martyrdom, and discerning of spirits, recognised these books as the highest and truest records of Christian history and doctrine, all under the guidance of the divine Head of the Church. This very rebuke of Peter by Paul, and the grounds of that rebuke, were thus sanctioned by the spontaneous spirit of the Church under guidance and inspiration of the Spirit of Christ; that same guidance by which the New Testament canon was, for the most part, silently and spontaneously formed by the mind of the Church.
With regard to the primacy of Peter, nothing but the necessity of their case could induce any parties to deny that in this whole passage, Gal_2:6-21, it is the feeling of Paul, and his purpose, to show that in all respects he was the official apostolic equal of Peter. Such is the feeling, as our notes show, pervading the clauses of Gal_2:6-9. Nor will Paul let the matter rest until he has proved his point by showing himself before the Church as a public rebuker of the senior apostle on this most momentous question of both faith and practice. Neither the supremacy nor the infallibility of the bishop of Rome can stand before these powerful paragraphs. It is no wonder that Luther held this epistle to be the great charter of the Church’s freedom from the despotism of the tiara.
11. When Peter was come to Antioch—After the Jerusalem Council, and before Paul and Barnabas left on their separate journeys. Act_15:39-40. Antioch was, as we have amply shown, (Act_11:19-30, where see notes,) a new Christian centre, after Jerusalem; the metropolis of Gentile Christianity, the stronghold of the anti-circumcisionists against the powerful influence of the mother city. It was all important in order to suppress the Gentile repudiation of circumcision in the Church that Antioch should succumb. The Church was built up to its present flourishing condition largely by the joint ministries of Barnabas and Paul, and it was their province to maintain the independence of Antiochian Christian Gentilism. When Peter, the senior apostle, arrived at Antioch, therefore, fresh from the Jerusalem Council, it was a great gain for Gentilism that he disregarded Jewish limitations, and did eat with the Gentiles. This separation at the table, produced by the Jewish laws of diet, was not only a symbol of division but of caste. It rendered a common love-feast and a common communion impossible. It made a horizontal separation by which the Jewish class was to be a higher grade in the Church. This, too, even where the Gentile class was permitted to remain uncircumcised. It made degradation the price of uncircumcision.
To be blamed—Literally, he was condemned; that is, by his own deed.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 11. Peter] In the Greek, ‘Cephas’, the Apostle Peter.…
11. Peter] In the Greek, ‘Cephas’, the Apostle Peter. The difficulty of accepting this narrative in its obvious sense, led some in early times to suggest that not the Apostle, but one of the seventy disciples of the same name, is here referred to.
withstood him to the face] Jerome’s well-known solution of the difficulty—a solution which approved itself to Chrysostom—that the reproof was only apparent, was refuted by Augustine and ultimately abandoned by Jerome. It supposes a preconcerted plan for convincing, not Peter, but the Jewish converts, that the obligation of the ceremonial law had ceased, and leans for support on a mistranslation, ‘in appearance’, for ‘to the face’. The exact expression is found in the LXX. Deu_7:24; Deu_9:2; Jdg_2:14. At Jerusalem St Paul’s authority had been confirmed by the acquiescence of the Church; here it must be asserted in opposition to the temporising conduct of St Peter.
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was to be blamed] Better, as R.V. stood condemned, convicted of dissimulation by the very facts of the case.
11–21. We learn from Act_15:22, foll. that when the Council broke up, certain members of the Apostolic company were sent to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, to convey to the Churches of Syria and Cilicia the determination of the Church in Jerusalem on the question which had been submitted to them, as to the necessity of circumcision in the case of Gentile converts. After the deputation had returned to Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas “tarried in Antioch”. It was during their stay that the visit of St Peter took place, as to which St Luke is silent.
Various attempts were made in early times to explain away an incident, which seemed to throw discredit on Peter or Paul or on both of them. To some it appeared incredible that Peter, the Apostle of the circumcision, should have been permitted to fall into grievous doctrinal error; to others, that St Paul should have treated him with such severity; to a third class, that such a dispute should have arisen in the infancy of the Church between its two principal teachers, both being inspired men. But we may note,
1st, that the error of St Peter did not consist in preaching false doctrine, but in a want of straightforwardness of conduct, by which the ‘truth of the Gospel’ was liable to be perverted.
2nd, that moral perfection is not to be looked for, even in an Apostle.
3rd, that St Peter’s conduct, as here described, is quite consistent with that pourtrayed by the Evangelists. ‘Boldness and timidity, first boldness, then timidity, were the characteristics of his nature.
“It is remarkable, and may be considered as a proof of the truth of the history, that this conduct, however unintelligible, is in keeping with Peter’s character. We recognise in it the lineaments of him who confessed Christ first, and first denied Him; who began by refusing that Christ should wash his feet, and then said, ‘not my feet only, but my hands and my head’; who cut off the ear of the servant of the highpriest, when they came to take Jesus, and then forsook Him and fled”. Jowett.
4th, that St Paul’s rebuke, though unsparing, is free from any rudeness of expression or personal animosity.
5th, that the record of this painful interview, while placing St Paul’s Apostolic authority in the strongest light, and therefore germane to his purpose in the opening chapters of this Epistle, is a precious heritage of the Church—an everlasting monument of the grace of God. For an admirable summary of the instructive lessons which it contains, see Dr Schaff’s Commentary, p. 29. Appendix II. p. 84. That the two great Apostles were at heart agreed, taught and influenced by the same Spirit, and zealous for the same truth, is shewn by the touching allusion made subsequently by Peter (2Pe_3:15-16) to the Epistles (including this to the Galatians) of ‘our beloved brother Paul’—an allusion the more striking because the letter in which it occurs is probably addressed to Galatian converts among others.
The following is the summary referred to on ch. Gal_2:11-21
“We take the record in its natural, historical sense, and derive from it the following instructive lessons:—
1. The right and duty of protest against ecclesiastical authority, even the highest, when Christian truth and principle are endangered. The protest should be manly, yet respectful. Paul was no doubt severe, but yet he recognised Peter expressly as a ‘pillar’ of the Church and a brother in Christ (Gal_1:18; Gal_2:9). There was no personal bitterness and rudeness, as we find, alas, in the controversial writings of St Jerome (against Rufinus), St Bernard (against Abelard), Luther (against Erasmus and Zwingli), Bossuet (against Fénélon), and other great divines.
2. The duty to subordinate expediency to principle, the favour of man to the truth of God. Paul himself recommended and practised charity to the weak; but here a fundamental right, the freedom in Christ, was at stake, which Peter compromised by his conduct, after he himself had manfully stood up for the true principle at the Council of Jerusalem, and for the liberal practice at Antioch before the arrival of the Judaizers.
3. The moral imperfection of the Apostles. They remained even after the Pentecostal illumination frail human beings, carrying the heavenly treasure in earthen vessels, and stood in daily need of forgiveness (2Co_4:7; Php_3:12; Jas_3:2; 1Jn_1:8; 1Jn_2:2). The weakness of Peter is here recorded, as his greater sin of denying his Lord is recorded in the Gospels, both for the warning and for the comfort of believers. If the chief of the Apostles was led astray, how much more should ordinary Christians be on their guard against temptation! But if Peter found remission, we may confidently expect the same on the same condition of hearty repentance. ‘The dissension—if dissension it could be called—between the two great Apostles will shock those only who, in defiance of all Scripture, persist in regarding the Apostles as specimens of supernatural perfection.’ (Farrar, Life and Work of St Paul, i. 444.)
4. The collision does not justify any unfavourable conclusion against the inspiration of the Apostles and the infallibility of their teaching. For Paul charges his colleague with hypocrisy or dissimulation, that is, with acting against his own better conviction. We have here a fault of conduct, a temporary inconsistency, not a permanent error of doctrine. A man may know and teach the truth, and yet go astray occasionally in practice. Peter had the right view of the relation of the gospel to the Gentiles ever since the conversion of Cornelius; he openly defended it at the Apostolic Council (Act_15:7; comp. Gal_2:1-9), and never renounced it in theory; on the contrary, his own Epistles agree fully with those of Paul, and are in part addressed to the same Galatians with a view to confirm them in their Pauline faith; but he suffered himself to be influenced by some scrupulous and contracted Jewish Christians from Jerusalem. By trying to please one party he offended the other, and endangered for a moment the sound doctrine itself.
5. The inconsistency here rebuked quite agrees with Peter’s character as it appears in the Gospels. The same impulsiveness and inconsistency of temper, the same mixture of boldness and timidity, made him the first to confess, and the first to deny Christ, the strongest and the weakest among the Twelve. He refused that Christ should wash his feet, and then by a sudden change he wished not his feet only, but his hands and head to be washed; he cut off the ear of Malchus, and in a few minutes afterwards he forsook his Master and fled; he solemnly promised to be faithful to Him, though all should forsake Him, and yet in the same night he denied Him thrice.
6. It should be remembered, however, on the other hand, first, that the question concerning the significance of the Mosaic law, and especially of the propriety of eating meat offered to idols, was a very difficult one, and continued to be agitated in the Apostolic Church (cf. 1 Corinthians 8-10; Romans 14). The decree of the Council at Jerusalem (Act_15:20; Act_15:29), after all, stated simply the duties of the Gentile converts, strictly prohibiting them the use of meat offered to idols, but it said nothing on the duties of the Jewish Christians to the former, thus leaving some room for a milder and stricter view on the subject. We should also remember that the temptation on the occasion referred to was very great, since even Barnabas, the Gentile missionary, was overcome by it.
7. Much as we may deplore and censure the weakness of Peter and admire the boldness and consistency of Paul, the humility and meekness with which Peter, the oldest and most eminent of the twelve Apostles, seems to have borne the public rebuke of a younger colleague, are deserving of high praise. How touching is his subsequent allusion in 2Pe_3:15-16, which is addressed to the Galatians among others, to the very Epistles of his ‘beloved brother Paul,’ in one of which his own conduct is so sharply condemned. This required a rare degree of Divine grace, which did its full work in him through much suffering and humiliation, as the humble, meek, gentle, and graceful spirit of his Epistles abundantly prove.
8. The conduct of Paul supplies a conclusive argument in favour of the equality of the Apostles and against the papal view of the supremacy of Peter. No pope would or could allow any Catholic bishop or archbishop to call him to an account and to talk to him in that style of manly independence. The conduct of Peter is also fatal to the claim of papal infallibility, as far as morals or discipline is concerned; for Peter acted here officially with all the power of his Apostolic example, and however correct in doctrine, he erred very seriously in practice, and endangered the great principle of Christian freedom, as the popes have done ever since. No wonder that the story was offensive to some of the Fathers and Roman commentators and gave rise to most unnatural explanations.
We may add that the account of the Council in Jerusalem in Acts 15 likewise contradicts the Vatican system, which would have required a reference of the great controversy on circumcision to the Apostle Peter rather than to a council under the presidency of James.
9. The Apostolic Church is typical, and foreshadows the whole course of the history of Christendom. Peter, Paul and John represent as many ages and phases of the Church. Peter is the rock of Catholicism, Paul the rock of evangelical Protestantism. Their temporary collision at Antioch anticipates the world-historical antagonism of Romanism and Protestantism, which continues to this day. It is an antagonism between legal bondage and evangelical freedom, between Judaizing conservatism and Christian progress. Let us hope also for a future reconciliation in the ideal Church of harmony and peace which is symbolized by John, the bosom friend of Christ, the seer of the heavenly Jerusalem.
Paul and Peter, as far as we know from the New Testament, never met again after this scene in Antioch. But ecclesiastical tradition reports that they were tried and condemned together in Rome, and executed on the some day (the 29th of June), Peter, the Galilæan disciple, on the hill of the Janiculum, where he was crucified; Paul, the Roman citizen, on the Ostian road at the Tre Fontane, where he was beheaded. Their martyr blood thus mingled is still a fountain of life to the Church of God.”—Abridged from Dr Schaff’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (11) When Peter . . .—The true reading here…
(11) When Peter . . .—The true reading here is undoubtedly Cephas. The visit alluded to probably took place soon after the return of Paul and Barnabas, in the interval described in Act_15:35, shortly before the separation of these two Apostles and the departure of St. Paul on his second missionary journey.
Because he was to be blamed.—The Greek here is simply, because he was condemned. The act carried with it its own condemnation.
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The blame thus imputed to St. Peter was a subject of much controversy in antiquity. It was made a ground of accusation against both Apostles. The Ebionites—as represented in the well known heretical work, the Clementine Homilies—charged St. Paul with hostility to the faith, asserting that by calling Peter “condemned” he was really accusing “God who revealed Christ in him.” On the other hand, Marcion, the Gnostic, saw in the incident a proof of the antagonism between Judaism and Christianity (as he understood it), represented by their several champions. The heathen critic Porphyry attacked both Apostles alike, the one for error, the other for forwardness in rebuking that error, and points to the whole scene as one of ecclesiastical wrangling.
The unfortunate result of these criticisms was that they led to attempts, on the part of the orthodox writers, to explain away the simple meaning of the narrative. Clement of Alexandria maintained that the Cephas here mentioned was not the Apostle St. Peter, but an inferior person, one of the seventy disciples. A more popular theory was that which was started by Origen, elaborated by Chrysostom, and defended with great vehemence by Jerome in a controversy with Augustine. This theory was that the two Apostles had arranged the scene beforehand between themselves, and acted it out for the edification of the Judaisers. St. Paul was to represent the view sanctioned by the Church, and St. Peter was to give an eminent example of submission. This view, though it held its ground for two centuries, was finally put down by the straightforwardness and good sense of St. Augustine.
The true explanation of the incident is to be found in the character of St. Peter—at once generously impulsive and timidly sensitive to the opinion of others. An inconsistency very similar to this appears in his ardent confession, followed by the betrayal of his Master (Mar_14:29; Mar_14:66 et seq.). It had been seen at an earlier date in his attempt to walk upon the water (Mat_14:28-33); and is, indeed, one of the features in his character most conspicuous in the Gospels. A little more attention to this would have saved many doctrinaire objections to the narrative of the Acts, where the inconsistency, which is really one of character, is treated as if it stood in the way of the objective truth of the events.
(11-14) The next phase in this question was at Antioch. On his coming thither Peter was guilty of a great inconsistency. He began by eating freely with the Gentile converts, but the arrival of a party of the stricter Jews from Jerusalem was enough to make him alter his practice. He gradually withdrew and held aloof, and a number of others, including even Barnabas, followed his example. This conduct of his I openly reproved, asking him why it was that at one moment he himself did not hesitate to adopt the custom of the Gentiles, while at another he insisted upon their conforming to those of the Jews.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain In the narrative which the apostle next proceeds to…
In the narrative which the apostle next proceeds to give, several points, we may suppose, were definitely meant by him to be intimated to his readers. Thus to those Gentile Galatians who were wavering in their attachment to himself and to the gospel which he had preached to them, he shows his claim to their firm affectionate adherence, on the ground of the steadfastness with which, as before at Jerusalem so now afresh in Antioch, he had successfully asserted their rights and their equal standing with Jewish believers, when these were assailed by "certain come from James." In contrast with his own unflinching championship of their cause, were here seen vacillation and inconsistency on the part of "Cephas;" were, then, any justified in exalting those "pillars, James and Cephas," as certain were disposed to do, for the sake of disparaging him? This experience at Antioch should lead them to regard with suspicion Jewish or Philo-Judaic brethren, who were setting themselves to tamper with the truth of the gospel. Crooked conduct was sure to accompany such darkening of the truth, as on that occasion was most palpably evinced in the case of even Barnabas, and was in open encounter before the whole Church exposed and rebuked. And, especially, there was the grand principle that the Law of Moses was for the Christian believer annihilated through the crucifixion of Christ; which principle he had then held aloft in the view of the Church, and here takes occasion to enlarge upon, because it was so directly relevant and helpful in respect to the trouble now springing up in Galatia. But when Peter was come to Antioch (ote de hlqe Khfav Receptus, Petrov eijv jAntioceian); but when Cephas came to Antioch. The reading Khfav for Petrov is generally accepted. The time at which this incident took place is in a measure determined, on the one side, by its being to all appearance after the visit to Jerusalem which has been previously spoken of, and, on the other, by the reference to Barnabas in ver. 13; that is, we are naturally led to assign it to that time of Paul"s, and Barnabas"s united labours at Antioch which is briefly indicated in Act_15:35. It can hardly have occurred subsequently to the rupture betweenthem which St. Luke immediately after describes. The manner in which St. Peter"s coming to Antioch is introduced seems to betoken that his coming thither was not felt to have been at all an extraordinary circumstance. It is open to us, and indeed obvious, to conjecture that the visit was made in the course of one of those journeyings of St. Peter "throughout all parts," of which another, taking place fourteen years or more previously, is mentioned in Act_9:33. As the "apostle of the circumcision," he was, we may reasonably suppose, in the habit of traversing, in company often with his wife, (1Co_9:5) the whole of those districts of Palestine which were largely inhabited by Jews, and extending as far as Antioch itself, in the exercise of apostolic supervision over the Jewish converts. Quite supposably, this was not his first visit to this city. The lengthened continuance of his stay, which may be inferred from ver. 12, is thus explained. It may be assumed that it was this exercise of apostolic superintendence that gave rise to the tradition, which gained early acceptance in the Church (Eusebius, "Hist. Ec:," 3:36), that Peter was the first Bishop of Antioch. His presence there now, while St. Paul was also there, found, probably, its analogy, twelve or fourteen years later, in the simultaneous presence of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome; St.. Peter being there also, we may suppose, in the discharge of his office as apostle of the circumcision. I withstood him to the face (kataswpon aujtw ajntesthn). I seized an opportunity at a meeting of the brethren (ver. 14) of publicly confronting him as an adversary. It seems almost suggested that their spheres of work at Antioch, which was a very large city, were so far not identical that they were not commonly to be seen together. The verb ajntesthn, set myself to oppose him," expressing deter mined oppugnancy (2Ti_3:8; Jam_4:7 1Pe_5:9) strikes us the more, as coming so soon after the "gave us the right hands of fellowship of ver. 7. His adopting of this mode of recalling his straying brother instead of dealing with him in a more private manner, is indicated with an evidently intended pointedness. His course of proceeding was both justified and required by the public nature of St. Peter"s offence, and by the necessity of promptly exposing and beating back the aggressions which Israelitish bigotry was always so ready to make upon the perfectly equal footing possessed by all believers, by virtue simply of their relation to Christ.
Because he was to be blamed (oti kategnwsmenov hn); because he stood condemned. The perfect passive verb is commonly felt to point, not so much to the censures of bystanders, as to the glaring wrongness of his conduct viewed in itself. (comp. Joh_3:18; Rom_14:23) The rendering to be blamed, correct so far as it reaches, is inadequate in expressing the sense which St. Paul had of the gravity of St. Peter"s offence. It is interesting to note the clear reference to this verse made in the second century by the Ebionite author of the "Clementine Homilies," who (Bishop Lightfoot observes, "Galatians," p. 61), writing in a spirit of bitter hostility to St. Paul, who is covertly attacked in the person of Simon Magus, represents St. Peter as addressing Simon thus: "Thou hast confronted and withstood me (ejnantiov ajnqesthkav moi). If thou hadst not been an adversary, thou wouldest not have calumniated and reviled my preaching If thou callest me condemned (kategnwsmenon), thou accusest God who revealed Christ to me" ("Hom.," 17:19). Not only is this a testimony to the authenticity of.. the Epistle; it betokens also the sore feeling which this narrative of St. Paul"s and the manner of its diction left behind in the minds of a certain section of Jewish Christians.
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Vers. 11-14.
The apostle"s rebuke of Peter at Antioch.
There is no record of this scene elsewhere in Scripture. It is a further proof of the apostle"s independence as well as of his devotion to Christian liberty.
I CONSIDER THE CONDUCT OF PETER.
1. The seethe of this interview between Peter and Paul Antioch. It was a city on the Orontes, in Syria, the seat of the Macedonian empire in Asia, chiefly inhabited by Greeks, liberalized in thought by considerable culture. It was the second capital of Christianity, Jerusalem being the first, and held a prominent place as the centre of Gentile Christian life. What occurred here would have wide results.
1. The time. It occurred probably during the sojourn of Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, after the council of Jerusalem had settled the whole question of the relation between Jewish and Gentile Christians. (Act_15:30-40) Peter"s conduct was, therefore, all the more singular and indefensible, because it was so necessary to secure Christian liberty on the basis of the decrees. We cannot forget that, long before, the vision from heaven showed him the worthlessness of Jewish traditions. (Act_10:27)
2. The circumstances. "Before that certain came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them of the circumcision." Those who came from James were not false brethren, nor even necessarily Judaic zealots, but certain persons whom he sent to Antioch, not to impose a yoke of ceremonies on the Gentiles, but to reassure Jewish Christians as to their right to observe the divinely appointed usages of their fathers, which the decrees of the Jerusalem council had done nothing to overthrow. The conduct of James was perfectly legitimate. Yet it is probable they pleaded that there was no warrant in the decision of the council for the freer intercourse with Gentile Christians which Peter had been practising. The Jewish Christians were still to "keep the customs," and not to mix freely with the Gentiles. (Act_15:19) When these persons came to Antioch, they found Peter eating with Gentiles as he had done before, (Ac 10) disregarding the isolation established by Levitical laws. They found him, in fact, living as a Gentile, not as a Jew. Peter at once, through the influence of fear probably the fear of losing his influence with the Jewish Christians began to withdraw himself from the Gentiles, discontinuing his eating with them, without giving one word of explanation, and attaching himself to the Jewish Christians, as if the old distinctions of meats were still in force and still sacred in his eyes. It is not said that the "certain from James" reproached him with his laxity. It may have been, after all, an empty fear on his part. Yet it was a most extraordinary act of tergiversation on the part of one of the "pillars" of the Church.
3. Its effects upon both Jews and Gentiles at Antioch. It involved the Jewish Christians in the hyprocrisy of Peter himself. "And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him even those very persons who rejoiced at the decision of the council. (Act_15:31) The Jewish converts might be tempted to believe that the Mosaic Law was still in force. "Even Barnabas was also carried away with their dissimulation." "Even Barnabas my fellow-labourer in missionary work," a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith," who once fought by my side the battle of Gentile liberty, (Ac 15) who had hazarded his life by my side (Act_15:16) carried away" by the force of such a formidable example in opposition to his own judgment and conviction. This incident probably led to the separation of Barnabas from Paul, (Act_15:39) for they never after appear together, though the affectionate relationship between the friends was never broken. But the effect upon the Gentile Christians at Antioch must have been something almost inconceivable. They would no more meet with their Jewish brethren at the Lord"s Table. They were treated as unclean. Peter"s conduct virtually condemned their liberty, and was an indirect attempt to bring them under the yoke of Jewish usages. "Why," says Paul, "compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?" The compulsion was exercised by the authority of his example; for the Gentile Christians could not know of his dissimulation, but would rather think he had changed his opinion upon the subject of the relation of the Gentiles to the gospel.
4. The true character of Peter"s action. It was hypocrisy; for he acted against his better convictions, as if it were really wrong to eat with Gentiles. He concealed his real convictions. No voice had been louder at the council in protesting against the imposition of a yoke which "neither we nor our fathers were able to bear." He certainly did not "walk uprightly.
5. Its true explanation. This is to be found in Peter"s character, which was one of unusual strength and of unusual weakness. He was that apostle who was the first to recognize and the first to draw back from great principles. lie was the first to confess Christ and the first to deny him; the first to own Gentile liberty, the first to disown it. "The fear of man is often as authoritative as papal bulls and decrees.
II THE REBUKE OF PAUL. "I withstood him to the face, because he was condemned." There was no controversy between the two apostles; there was no difference of opinion; it was only a case of indecision in acting up to one"s unchanged convictions. Peter was self-condemned, for his conduct bore the broad mark of inconsistency.
1. The rebuke was public. Such as sin openly should be rebuked openly. It is a necessary and difficult and much-neglected duty, and ought always to be discharged in a loving temper, without vanity or haughtiness. Here it was administered before the assembled Church at Antioch, Jews and Gentiles; otherwise it would have failed to influence the Jewish converts. Its publicity was necessary, as it was essential in the circumstances to establish fixed principles for all coming time.
2. The rebuke was fully justified.
(1) Peter was condemned by his own act.
(2) The rebuke would prevent the Zealots from being hardened and confirmed in their error. The Judaists would be allowed to receive no encouragement from Peter"s tergiversation.
(3) The Galatians would receive a new lesson as to the relation of the gospel to the Law. They would be made to see what it was "to walk uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.
1. It was meekly and piously received. There is no record of Peter"s answer. But there was no sharp contention between the apostles. It is pleasing to think that the rebuke did not sunder the friendship of the two good men. Years after Peter speaks of his rebuker as" our beloved brother Paul also". (2Pe_3:15)
2. The rebuke proves at least that Paul was on an equality with Peter. If the rebuke had been administered by Peter to Paul, how we should have heard of Peter"s primacy! Yet nothing said by Paul affects in the least the apostolic authority and dignity of Peter. It was not a case of error in doctrine, but of inconsistency in conduct. "Ministers may err and sin; follow them no further than they follow Christ.
Vers. 11-18.
The apostolic strife at Antioch.
Passing from the Jerusalem conference, Paul next mentions the strife which Peter and he had at Antioch. Peter had come down to see the work of God among the Gentiles. In his large-heartedness he had not only approved of it and rejoiced in it, but, laying aside all his Jewish prejudices, he had taken his seat at the table of the Gentiles, and had eaten whatever was placed before him. But certain "false brethren" having come round, and having urged the imperative necessity of ceremony, he yielded to his fears, withdrew from Gentile society, and lived in quarantine with the Judaizers. It would appear also that Barnabas was entrapped into similar vacillation; so that there was nothing for it but for Paul to stand up like a man and denounce Peter for his weakness. In doing so he was contending for the truth of the gospel. Let us look into the subject a little more closely.
I CONSIDER PETER"S LIFE OF LIBERTY. (Ver. 12.) It was only right, and what we should expect, for Peter to throw aside his Jewish narrowness, the punctiliousness about meats and drinks, and to go in for brotherhood with the Gentiles at their feasts. Here we have the noble and big-hearted apostle acting upon his own better impulses. It is such liberty the gospel fosters. It is the foe of that narrowness which so often keeps men from uniting. It is the foe of that little-mindedness which keeps so many in estrangement. We cannot be broader in our sympathies or freer in our life than the gospel makes us. It can be easily shown that the so-called liberties beyond its sphere are real bondages.
II CONSIDER PETER"S RETURN TO BONDAGE. (Vers. 12, 13.) When the Judaizers came down from Jerusalem, they were so positive about the necessity of the Jewish ceremonies and scrupulosities, as to put pressure upon the apostle; so that, taking counsel of his fears, he deliberately withdrew from Gentile society and shut himself up with the Jews. This was a sore fall. And so astute were these brethren in their dissimulation that Barnabas was also led away. It is well to see clearly how bondage sets in immediately on our abandoning principle and acting on the pressure of our fears. Men fancy that, when called upon to act on principle, they are forfeiting their liberty; but the truth is all the other way. The free are those who act upon the dictates of truth; the slaves are those who have surrendered principle because of pressure.
III CONSIDER PAUL"S NOBLE REPRIMAND OF PETER. (Ver. 14.) It must have been a trial for Paul to take his stand against his senior both in years and in the apostolate. He must have appreciated the delicacy of his position in standing up against the conduct of the apostle of the circumcision. But he felt constrained to rebuke his brother as by his vacillating conduct traitorous to truth. And in no way can we testify so powerfully to truth as when we take the field, however reluctantly, against those we respect, and who are deservedly popular, but who have somehow erred in judgment upon some point of importance. It requires courage and firmness; but it always has its reward in the extension of truth and of God"s kingdom.
IV PAUL SHOWS THAT THE QUESTION OF JUSTIFICATION WAS REALLY INVOLVED IN PETER"S CONDUCT. (Vers. 15-17.) Peter had very properly, though a Jew, lived after the manner of Gentiles, and so manifested his Christian liberty. Why, asks Paul, does he now turn round and require Gentiles to live like Jews? Is it to be thus insinuated that ceremonies save men"s souls? Is not this the vilest bondage? Is not the gospel, on the contrary, the embodiment of the truth that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? If Jewish ceremonies are still necessary to justification, then the work of Jesus Christ, in which we are asked to trust, cannot be complete. Such ceremonialism is thus seen to be in conflict with the gospel of justification by faith alone. To tell men that ceremonies must save them is to turn them away from Christ as the object of trust to rites and ceremonies as the object. Am I to believe in the power of baptism and of the sacraments as administered by certain persons in order to salvation? or am I to trust my Saviour? The two methods of salvation are totally distinct, and it is fatal to confound them. The meaning of all such ceremonialism is to put souls upon a false track, so far as salvation is concerned. It is to translate man"s justification from the true foundation in Christ"s work to the rotten foundation of self-righteousness. Against this we must ever wage persistent war.
V PAUL CONSEQUENTLY INSISTS ON THE SINFULNESS OF THE LEGAL SPIRIT. (Ver. 18.) For what we destroy in accepting the gospel is all trust in ceremonies as grounds of salvation. The works of the Law are seen to be no ground of trust for justification and salvation. If, then, after having destroyed the self-righteous and legal spirit, and fled for refuge to Jesus as our Hope, we turn round like Peter to rebuild the edifice of self-righteousness and legalism, we are simply making ourselves transgressors. We are forfeiting our liberty and piling up fresh sin. Hence it is of the utmost moment that we should clearly and constantly recognize the sinfulness of the legal spirit. It robs Jesus of his rightful position as Saviour of mankind. It casts away the gospel and goes back for salvation to the Law, which can only condemn us; it makes the sacrifice of Jesus vain and only increases sin. Against all legalism, consequently, we must wage incessant war. Nothing is so derogatory to Jesus or destructive of men"s souls. It is another gospel, but an utterly fallacious one. Unless Jesus has the whole credit of salvation, he will not be our Saviour. He must be all or nothing. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. R.M.E.
Vers. 11-21.
Withstanding of Peter at Antioch.
when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face." From the public conference at Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas went down to Antioch, where, it is said, they tarried. They separated after this stay. The visit of Peter to Antioch must be referred to this period, seeing Barnabas is mentioned as still with Paul. There was more than resistance made to Peter; there was the going up to him, meeting him face to face, and charging him with inconsistency. So significant was this, that three such Fathers as Origen, Chrysostom, and Jerome were only able to get over it by unwarrantably supposing it to be simulated. It was Paul himself who quoted the words, "Thou shalt not speak evil of a ruler of thy people." He could not have borne himself thus to Peter if he had owed obedience to him as his ecclesiastical superior. But, having an independent sphere, and being specially entrusted with the liberty of the Gentile Christians, he had a right to speak freely. Nor was there impropriety in his bringing this incident forward here, although it reflected on Peter, seeing that it was necessary to put his independence beyond question, which had been called in question in the Galatian Churches.
I HOW THE OCCASION DEMANDED HIS WITHSTANDING OF PETER. "Because he stood condemned." He was condemned by his own conduct. Its inconsistency was so marked.
1. Before the coming of certain from James, he mixed freely with the Gentile Christians. "For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles." It is difficult to say whether, or how far, James is involved by the introduction of his name here. There is no reason to suppose that he sent these men (especially as Peter was already on the spot) to raise the question of intercommunion in the Church at Antioch. He had been remarkably explicit on the question of circumcision at the public conference in Jerusalem. We can understand his not being thoroughly liberated from Jewish narrowness. And those men who used his name or came from under his influence may have been of a more timid type than he. The question related to eating with the Gentiles. This was forbidden under the old order of things, on the ground of its being a barrier against heathenism. But when Jews and Gentiles were both within the one Church, circumstances were changed. There was no need for the barrier being continued. But it was difficult for those who had been accustomed to the barrier to regard it as done away. The difficulty had been got over at Antioch, but it still existed to comers from Jerusalem. Peter had been broadened in his ideas, and when he came to Antioch he had no difficulty in entering into the free communion which had been established there. He lived as though he had been one of the Gentiles. He made no difference at private meals or at the public agapae. To see a leader like Peter following such a course promised well for the interests of liberty.
2. On the coming of certain from James, he gave way to fear. "But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision." He drew back until he occupied a separate position. The influence by which he was swayed from the course which he had been following was fear. His fear was occasioned by the coming of certain from James. The objects of his fear were they of the circumcision, i.e. Jewish Christians, especially at Jerusalem, with whom these comers from James would communicate. He was afraid of what they of the circumcision would say. We need not be surprised at his being suddenly swayed from a noble course. It was of a piece with his nobly daring to walk on the water toward Christ, and then, when he looked on the troubled water, crying out in fear, "Lord, save me; I perish." It was of a piece with his drawing his sword in defence of his Master, and then, when questioned by the servants in the hall of the high priest, denying him three times, the third time with an oath. So he had made a noble vindication of his conduct on a former occasion, when taken to task for going in to the uncircumcised and eating with them. He was still acting under the same noble impulse when at first in Antioch he freely associated with the Gentile Christians. But when he saw certain from James, from no unbrotherly feeling toward Paul or toward the Gentile Christians, but, simply afraid of how it would affect him with them of the circumcision, he drew back and back until he placed a decided distance between him and the Gentile Christians.
3. His dissimulation was followed. "And the rest of the Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation." Peter"s conduct is characterized as dissimulation. That was the head and front of his offending. And a very serious offence it was. It was not that he was narrow-minded like the comers from James, but that he concealed his liberal sentiments. It was not that he had changed his mind, but that he acted as though he had changed his mind. This was serious, not only in itself, but in its consequences. For Peter held high position as an apostle. His influence would have carried the rest of the Jews forward in their free intercourse with the Gentiles. But when he dissembled, he carried the rest of the Jews with him in his dissimulation. Numbers carry influence as well as position. Even Barnabas got into the stream. He was a man of position. He had been under the influence of Paul, and with Paul had championed Gentile liberty at Jerusalem. But when the rest of the Jews dissembled with Peter, the consequence was (expressed, if not by "insomuch," by "carried") that he was carried away as by a stream. Paul was equal to the occasion. "But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel." The influence from James was not decided enough. Peter dissembled, the rest of the Jews followed, even Barnabas was carried off his feet, only Paul walked, as the expression here is, with straight feet, the stream did not carry him away; for which the Church to all time is his debtor. He saw that they were not straight-footed, that they were being carried away and aside from the path of gospel liberty. He saw what was at stake, that it was really, as before, the enslavement of the Gentiles; and therefore, unawed by the reputation of Peter, unawed by the influence of numbers, unshaken by the desertion of Barnabas, he to the face withstood Peter.
II THE WORDS WITH WHICH HE WITHSTOOD PETER. "I said unto Cephas before them all." It was not silent, dogged withstanding; it was rational withstanding. Paul had his reason, which he stated, not only promptly, but publicly. Peter"s offence had been public, especially in its consequences. It was not a case, therefore, for consulting the feelings of the offender. There was public procedure to be counteracted. They all, as well as Peter, needed to be brought back to the truth of the gospel. And therefore what he said, he said, not behind Peter"s back, nor to him in private, but to his face before them all.
1. Peter was not acting fairly with the Gentiles. "If thou, being a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, how compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?" Paul proceeds upon Peter"s practice. He had been living up to that time in Antioch after Gentile fashion, i.e. in disregard of the law of meats, and not after Jewish fashion, i.e. showing regard to the law of meats. There was no consistency, therefore, in compelling the Gentiles to Judaize. That is the word which is in the Greek (distinct from the former mode of expression), and which ought to have been in the translation as guiding to the meaning. The force put upon the Gentiles was not the force of Peter"s example, but the force or logic of Peter"s position. It was not that Gentiles needed to be circumcised in order to have communion with Christ, which had been disclaimed at the public conference; but it was that they needed to be circumcised in order to have communion with Jewish Christians. In that respect it was putting the Gentiles to the necessity of Judaizing.
2. Jews as well as Gentiles needed to believe on Christ in order to be justified. "We being Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, save through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed on Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law: because by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified." Three times is the word "justified" used here, three times are the works of the Law disclaimed as the ground of justification, and three times are we said to be justified by faith in Christ. Paul proceeds on the fact that they (and he includes himself) were Jews. The Gentiles were sinners (actually); hence the need for a barrier being raised against Gentilism. The Jews were privileged. There was much in the distinction, apart from the self-righteousness that might be put into it, and which Paul here meets with a touch of irony. But there was nothing in it for justification. To be justified is to be regarded as having met the requirements of Law. They, Jews, saw two things with regard to justification. They saw that a man is not justified by the works of the Law. The requirements of the Law are briefly that we love the Lord our God with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and that we love our neighbors as ourselves. This love should be exhibited in our works. But, as they fall far short of such a standard, they are not the source out of which we can be justified. They saw also that a man is justified through faith in Jesus Christ. They saw where justification was not to be found; they, beyond that, saw where it was to be found. Not seeing it in themselves, in their own works, they saw it in Christ. He has met all the requirements of Law. His work can carry a law, usable sentence. And we are justified by means of faith in him; not because of the nature or degree of our faith, but simply because of our faith bringing us into a relationship to Christ as our Surety, in which we are regarded as having met all the requirements of Law. Seeing these two things with regard to justification, they, Jews, acted upon them. They believed on Christ Jesus not otherwise than the Gentiles. They sought to be justified, not on the ground of their own works, but on the ground of Christ"s work. They saw that works could not be the ground from their own Scriptures, in which they read, "By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.
3. Paul repudiates an inference from Jews needing to take up the positionof sinners along with Gentiles, in order to be justified in Christ. "But if, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid." He is proceeding upon the former statement. They, Jews, were not justified by the works of the Law, that was equivalent to their being found sinners. This name, jarring to the ear, had formerly been applied to the Gentiles. Were they, then, to be classed as sinners with the Gentiles in order to be justified in Christ? Was that not (some might say) making Christ a minister of sin? Such an inference with all his heart he repudiates. God forbid. It is no more making Christ a minister of sin than one who comes with the means of escape to a man who is unconsciously perishing is the minister of danger to him. The first ministry that man needs is the ministry of conviction. We must be roused out of our self-pleasing dreams to see that we are sinners. And Christ is doing us a loving service when, even in his offer of salvation, he convicts us of sins.
1. He is rather proved the transgressor who builds up after pulling down. "For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor." The connection is that, instead of Christ being the minister of sin, he himself would be proved the transgressor. While not using Peter"s name, he puts Peter"s case. Peter had pulled down, in becoming a Christian believer; he had abandoned Law-righteousness. Now he was building up again, in giving the Law a place for justification. If he, Paul, did that, he would be proved a transgressor. He would certainly be a transgressor between the time of his pulling it down and the time of his building it up again.
2. His own experience carried him beyond the Law. "For I through the Law died unto the Law, that I might live unto God." The Law was the instrument by which there was effected his death to the Law. It showed him to be a sinner, but that led to his seeing how the curse was removed, how all the claims of Law were for ever met; so that he became a dead man to the Law, placed for ever beyond its power. He was a dead man to the Law, that he might be a living man to God in his having his covenant standing secured, but also in his having his being vitalized by God and drawn towards God.
3. He presents in himself a threefold contrast.
(1) Crucified, and yet he lives. "I have been crucified with Christi yet I live." The contrast has already been presented; here (if we adopt the punctuation, to which there is no decisive objection) it is made to stand out. How he became a dead man to the Law was by sharing death with Christ as his representative, even the particular form of death, viz. crucifixion. The contrast was startling (to the disciples and to the murderers) when Christ presented himself alive after his crucifixion. "I am he that liveth, and was dead." This representation repeats the contrast in us. Nay, our crucifixion is carried down so that not in successive moments but in the same moment we share with Christ in his crucifixion and in his resurrection.
(2) Himself, and yet not himself. "And yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me." The crucifixion has not been the annihilation of self; for it can still be said, "I live." It is he who, as a living man, stretches himself, who before was crucified. All the elements in the new life are ours as subsisting in us. But there has been the crucifixion of the old self. There is a rapidity in the thoughtNo longer I It is no longer self that is the central principle of our life. That is a false, God-opposing self that has been, and is being, taken forth and crucified before our eyes. Away with self in the place that does not rightfully belong to it. A change has been made from wrong to right. It is Christ we have placed at the centre of our life; from which centre he rules the whole life, fills us with his own light, and strength, and peace, and joy, so that it is truly Christ living in us.
(3) A life in the flesh, and yet a life of faith. "And that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me." "We exist here in a double connection first, with the transitory on one side; and, secondly, with the untransitory on the other. The sponge gets its food and life from the fluid, ever-moving waters of the sea; but it must be also fastened to some rock that does not move, and gives firm anchorage to it in the waters. The bird has wings connecting it with the air, and feet on which it takes the ground for rest or settles in firm hold on its perch for the sleep of the night. Trees get their feeding largely from the air, and the light in which their foliage so receptively spreads itself and their limbs so gracefully play; but they must have their roots also taking firm hold of the ground, by these to be localized and kept erect and steady in the storms. By such feeble analogies we conceive the double state of man, connected on one side with infinite mutabilities in things, and on the other with immutable ideas and truths and God." The great object with which our faith brings us into communion in the unseen world is here said to be the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. And what we have to do in our life in the flesh is to draw our life from redeeming love. What we have to do amid our experience of sin is to appropriate redemption. And this we have to do, not once, but habitually.
4. What his care was. "I do not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness is through the Law, then Christ died for nought." His care was to magnify the grace of God in the death of Christ. He would not allow the Law to be sufficient for righteousness, because that would be to make void the grace of God in a way which was never to be thought of, viz. making the death of Christ superfluous. All make void the grace of God who live as though Christ had never died. Let us magnify the grace of God by regarding the death of Christ as all-sufficient for righteousness taking it as our righteousness. R.F.
A bold rebuke.
There can be no doubt that this rebuke offered by one apostle to another was real and earnest, and not, as St. Jerome tried to maintain, a dramatic pretence. We have here, then, the startling spectacle of the two leading apostles in conflict. Yet it is plainly implied that they were not opposed in their general work. It was not their teaching nor their normal practice, but one particular act of weakness that occasioned the trouble.
I APOSTLES ARE FALLIBLE. Plainly St. Peter was to blame. If St. Paul"s view of the gospel were correct as we must all now hold St. Peter was wrong in ceasing to eat with Gentiles. But even if the view of the Jerusalem Church were correct, he was not the less to blame in first following the more liberal course, and then abandoning it out of deference to the party of James. He was clearly inconsistent, and it is evident that his inconsistency was not due to change of conviction, but only to culpable weakness.
1. If an apostle fail, who else will presume to be safe?
2. The "fear of man that bringeth a snare" is a fruitful source of temptationto many of the best men, especially in regard to sins against charity. We seem to be ashamed of our charity more than of any other grace, and yet it is the noblest and the most essentially Christian.
3. Distinguish between apostolic teaching and apostolic conduct. Neither inhis preaching nor in his writing did St. Peter defend the course he pursued at Antioch. Inspiration for teaching does not imply faultlessness in action.
II IT IS RIGHT TO REBUKE DANGEROUS FAULTS. St. Peter was the senior apostle, and it might seem presumptuous to oppose him. He was the foremost apostle, and opposition might endanger the peace of the Church. Many would let deference to years and rank and fear of painful discord prevent them from acting as St. Paul acted. But right is above all personal considerations. There are interests of the Church that may be ruined by a slavish fear of disturbing peace. The peace thus secured is a false peace. There are times when controversy in the Church is a duty of paramount importance. It may be the only security against fatal error. Yet, though then the least of evils, it is still an evil, and should not be undertaken without grave reason.
1. In the present instance the question was of vital importance. It cut at theroot of the unity and brotherhood of the Church. If Christians could not eat together at the "agape," the simple but all-significant meal of the Christian family, the Church would be broken up. This was no light matter to be overlooked. It demanded even the contention of apostle with apostle. Let us see that the importance of the cause is sufficient to justify the painful consequences of a controversy before opening it up.
2. The question was of public interest. The fault of St. Peter was no secret,nor did it only concern himself. His powerful example affected others, till even St. Barnabas was led away. No private friendship can be pleaded in excuse for letting a public evil go unchecked. In such cases brother must oppose brother, though his heart bleeds at the necessity.
III REBUKE SHOULD BE OPEN AND DIRECTLY OFFERED TO THE OFFENDER. St. Paul "withstood him to the face." It needed no little courage for the new and often-suspected apostle thus to challenge the first man in the Church. Few have such courage, and many only betake themselves to backbiting. If we have anything against a man, the right thing is to tell it him to his face. This is the only honourable course. It is due to him in fairness. It prevents misunderstanding, and often saves a long and widespread quarrel. Such a course escapes presumption if it is taken with an honest conviction that the conduct opposed is wrong, with a sincere desire to save others from the consequences of it, with all humility in regard to one"s self as equally fallible and with great kindness and charity for the offender. Yet we are not all called to this work. It requires a Paul to rebuke a Peter wisely and well. W.F.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain I withstood him to the face.
Gal_2:11-12
I withstood him to the face.
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Paul and Peter
I. Character is growth. The most zealous is not always the most steadfast. Fires slumber within which circumstances may fan into a terrible flame. We bring our evil tendencies with us into the Kingdom of God to be gradually curbed, restrained, overcome by higher and Divine tendencies. Let every man keep sentinel over himself; let him beware of old sins; let him guard his soul by prayer against attacks on his weak points; let him cast aside every weight if he would run the true race, whose goal is perfection.
II. Fear of man deteriorates the character. How many barter their birthright for the worlds empty applause! A little courage would save them a world of shame; a decisive step or a bold word would put to silence their adversaries; but they dare not make a stand, and so their independence is lost and their character lowered.
III. Observe the influence of character on others. Peter did not sin alone. The other Jews dissembled, and even Barnabas was led away. So it is always. Evil companionships and examples corrupt good characters.
IV. Bear in mind the supreme necessity of honesty. The truth must at all hazards be defended, faithfully, courteously, lovingly.
V. Pauls appeal was successful. Truth always prevails in the end. A little firmness at the right time, and in the right way, may save a brothers soul.
VI. This was no mere personal dispute, but involved vital issues. The antagenism was between law on the one hand and grace on the other. (S. Pearson, M. A.)
Paul rebukes Peter
One of the most remarkable events in sacred history. Tradition tells us St. Paul was a man of small stature, bearing the marked features of the Jew, yet not without some of the finer lines indicative of Greek thought. His head bald, his beard long and thin; a bright gray eye, overhung by somewhat contracted eyebrows; whilst a cheerful and winning expression of countenance invited the approach and inspired the confidence of strangers. St. Peter is represented as a man of larger form and stronger build, with dark eye, pale and sallow complexion, and short hair curled black and thick round his temples. At the meeting here mentioned Judaism and Christianity were brought face to face. In Gal_2:14-16 we have the case of Gospel versus Law.
I. The conduct of St. Peter on this occasion may be regarded as--
1. An example of temptation arising from the fear of man. Peter was by nature timid; prompt to act, yet apt to vacillate; afraid of opposition.
2. An instance of an apostles departure from the straight path of gospel truth, and of the ease with which such departure may take place. No divergence from Gods truth, however slight, is unimportant. We never know what (to all appearance) the slightest error may result in. Our only safety lies in holding fast the whole truth.
3. Not inconsistent with his integrity as a Christian, or with his inspiration as a writer. His writings were under the direction of the Holy Spirit. He nobly redeemed this error by a faithful and consistent after-life.
II. The conduct of St. Paul was--
1. An example of moral courage in administering reproof. No easy thing, at any time, to rebuke a friend. It is painful to oppose one whom we love, or whose good opinion we value.
2. A noble vindication of gospel truth. (Emilius Bayley, B. D.)
Peters inconsistent conduct
The conduct of Peter is not easy to understand. Already, at the council or concordat of the apostles, he had agreed to impose no burdens on the Gentile Christians; and, at a much earlier period in the history of the apostles, he had not only been charged with going in unto men uncircumcised and eating with them, but had taught others that they were to call nothing common or unclean. And now, not of his own free will, but under the influence of certain who came from Jerusalem, from a fear of the very same charge, Thou wentest in unto men uncircumcised and eatest with them, he held back, and seemed to view his Christian brethren with the feelings with which he would have regarded men who sat at meat in an idols temple. It is remarkable, and may be considered as a proof of the truth of the history, that this conduct, however unintelligible, is in keeping with Peters character. We recognize in it the lineaments of him who confessed Christ first, and first denied Him; who began by refusing that Christ should wash his feet, and then said, Not my feet only, but my hands and my head; who cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest when they came to take Jesus, and then forsook Him and fled. Boldness and timidity--first boldness, then timidity--were the characteristics of his nature. It was natural for such a one, though no longer strictly a Jew himself, to desire that others should conform to the prejudices of Jews; such conduct agreed with the bent of his own mind, though he formally disowned it. There is, we may observe, in many men a sort of tenderness to what they once were themselves; as there is another class of men who learn a lesson, but only to apply it under given circumstances. Something of this kind there may have been in St. Peter; a narrowness of perception, or secret sympathy with the Judaizing converts, which prevented his seeing the wider truth which presented itself to St. Paul. At any rate, his was a disposition on which ancient habits and feelings were ever liable to return; whose heart could scarcely avoid lingering around the weak and beggarly elements of the law; on whom in age the lessons of youth were too prone to come back, carrying him whither he would not. The charge which St. Paul brings against him was, inconsistency with himself; he was half a Gentile, and wanted to make the Gentiles altogether Jews. (B. Jowett, M. A.)
Force of example
What a constraining power there is in the example of eminent persons. He is said to compel, in Scripture, not only who doth violently force, but who, being of authority, doth provoke by his example. (Burkitt.)
The errors of those that do rule become rulers of error. Men sin through a kind of authority, through the sins of those who are in authority. (Burkitt.)
Open reproof for open sin
Such as sin openly must be reproved openly. No bands of friendship must keep the ministers of God from reproving sin. A notorious fault must be reproved with much boldness and resolution. If such as are eminent in the Church fall, they fall not alone; many fall with them.
Protestant popery
How many rejoice at Pauls defence of the liberty of the gospel against Peters weakness, who themselves will not receive rebuke as Peter did--nay, are very popes at heart. For there are popes in pews as well as in pulpits, besides the pope who openly claims to be such; Christian liberty suffers from them all. (M. B. Riddle, D. D.)
False doctrine
It is a good and a pleasant thing for brethren to dwell together in unity. But in a world like this such enjoyment cannot be universal or permanent. No Christian vigilance can prevent differences of opinion. They existed even among the apostles, and even upon fundamental truths. We may learn from this fact a twofold lesson.
1. When differences affect only the circumstantials of religion, however interesting, and in their place important, those matters which are in themselves of human origin and rest on human authority may be, the differences respecting them are calculated to teach us a lesson of charity (Rom_14:5-6).
2. When they extend to the fundamental portions of revealed truth, they are equally calculated to teach us a lesson of fidelity (Gal_1:8). The matter to which the text refers, considered in itself, might have been enumerated among those questions which teach charity; but, considered in its bearing upon the gospel, considered in the aspect which it gave to the gospel among the Gentiles, it compromised the freeness of the gospel, and marred the simplicity of Gods message in Christ. And therefore St. Paul withstood the error of St. Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed. Barnabas was carried away also with the dissimulation. St. Paul was left alone. It was a critical moment for the primitive Church. Who can estimate the amount of the disaster that would have followed had St. Paul fallen as St. Peter fell? Who can estimate the damage which would have been sustained had the gospel, from the very outset, been presented in a corrupt form? How could we now have traced its purity had St. Paul sunk with St. Peter? As far as man can judge, the world would then never have had the gospel in its simplicity with the clear authority of Scriptural truth. But, through the mercy and grace of God, St. Paul stood fast. (H. McNeile, D. D.)
Good men are not perfect men
A gentleman of the Perfectionist school of thought called to see an old Christian of his neighbourhood, and began enlarging upon that interesting topic. Can you point to a single perfect man or woman in the Bible? inquired the aged saint. Yes, readily answered the other; turn to Luk_1:6, you will there read of two--Elizabeth and Zacharias walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. Then you consider yourself a believer like Zacharias? Certainly I do, said the visitor. Ah, replied the old man, I thought you might be; and we read a few verses further on that he was struck dumb for his unbelief. (Nye.)
Robert Halls temper
It is said that in the earlier part of Robert Halls ministry, he was impetuous and sometimes overbearing in argument; but if he lost his temper he was deeply humbled, and would often acknowledge himself to blame. On one of these occasions, when a discussion had become warm, and he had evinced unusual agitation, he suddenly closed the debate, quitted his seat, and, retiring to a remote part of the room, was overheard to ejaculate, with deep feeling, Lamb of God, Lamb of God, calm my perturbed spirit!
The fear of man illustrated
Burgomeister Guericke constructed a gigantic barometer with a tube thirty feet in height, part of which projected above the roof of his house at Magdeburg. The index was the figure of a man, who, in fair weather, was seen standing full size above the roof; but, when a storm was brewing, he cautiously withdrew for security and shelter. Antitype of religionists and politicians I When the sun shines brightly, and the breezes scarcely breathe across the landscape, how erect and bold they look! But let the clouds gather, and the thunders mutter, and what a drawing-in of diminished heads! O rare, satirical Burgomeister! you must have had an aldermans experience. (Dr. W. F. Warren.)
Brotherly reproof
I. What is reproof.
1. An act of charity and mercy, not of pride and vain-glory (2Th_3:15; Jam_3:17.
2. Using fit discourse, not chastisement, and, in general, from Gods Word (Col_3:16-17.
3. Having as its end not our brothers shame, but his reclamation from sin to duty (Gal_6:1).
II. The kind of reproof it is our duty to give.
1. Authoritative. By way of office (2Ti_4:2).
2. In the way of general duty, which lieth on all men (1Th_5:14).
III. The manner in which to discharge this duty.
1. Faithfully (Tit_1:13).
2. With lenity and Christian meekness (Gal_6:1).
3. Prudently. Well weighing all the circumstances of person, time, place, occasion, provocation, that all things may be proportioned to the design (Pro_25:12-17).
IV. The arguments which enforce this duty.
1. The law of nature, which teaches us to love our neighbour.
2. The law of God (Pro_25:8-10; Mat_18:15; 1Th_3:15; 1Th_5:14; Jud_1:22-23).
3. Giving reproof is commended (Pro_24:25; Jam_5:19-20), and taking reproof (Pro_13:18; Pro_15:31-32; Ecc_7:5).
4. The maintenance of society and the improvements of human relations depend upon it.
V. When and to what this duty binds.
1. Not unless the fault is certainly known; not, therefore, on mere suspicion (1Co_13:5), uncertain hearsay (Isa_11:3), flying reports, or slander.
2. Not if our brother has repented.
3. Not if a good result is unlikely, and a bad result probable (Mat_7:6).
In conclusion:
1. If we are to reprove others, let us take care that we are blameless (Mat_6:3-5; Rom_3:21).
2. If others are bound to reprove, we are bound to take reproof. (T. Manton.)
The end of St. Peters error
Though St. Pauls narrative stops short of the last scene in this drama, it would not be rash to conclude that it ended as that other had ended, that the revulsion of feeling was as sudden and complete, and that again he went out and wept bitterly, having denied his Lord in the person of these Gentile converts. (Bishop Lightfoot.)
Differences among the apostles
Nothing can be more false and delusive than to imagine that the first teachers were men whose harmony of opinion and action was complete, who had neither debate, difference, or quarrel. They were not unconscious mouthpieces of a supernatural inspiration, automata of some uncontrollable enthusiasm, unanimous machines, but men of like passions with ourselves, men with characters, impulses, affections, fears, dislikes--men human in the mistakes they made and in the truths they embraced and enunciated. It is sheer superstition to treat them as more than men, as other than men, however highly we may esteem them and their work. If we make them unreal and transcendental personages we do them a great injustice, and ourselves a certain mischief, because all free inquiry into their motives and feelings is suspected as a challenge of their authority, and every other form of commentary becomes mere verbiage around a foregone conclusion. They ace not stars fixed round the great central Light, and differing only in glory and goodness from Him who is the centre of their system; but they have what light they possess from reflection, and feel themselves immeasurably distant from the Power which illumines them. (Paul of Tarsus.)
The dissension a witness to the truth of the Bible
The Bible is of great worth for its natural, fresh, and honest expressions of human thought and feeling. The faith, hope, love, reverence, wonder; the doubts, sorrows, fears, temptations, and sins of the writers are recorded for our instruction, as well as the Divine doctrine they teach. In this spiritual portrait gallery we behold the work of truthful artists. No vanity, no pride, no desire to deceive, prevented them from pourtraying themselves just as they appeared. We value the Scriptures because their truths make us wise unto salvation; but we value them also as a record of what the good and wise thought and felt during their life-struggle on this earth. The Bible is not only a revelation of God, but also a revelation of man--the most Divine and the most human book ever written. (Thomas Jones.)
Blemishes in Christians
There are MSS. which are called palimpsests--MSS, written over again. The original inscription, which was fair and full of Divine wisdom, has been defaced, and in its place may now be seen letters and words and sentences in contrast to what was contained before. And so the character of men--these great men, men born of the Spirit--over their better natures you may see scratched in ugly scrawls, obvious imperfections and failures. But, thank God, Divine grace, through discipline of various kinds, rubs out the evil and brings back the good, and causes the soul at last to reveal again most distinctly what had been only dimmed and not destroyed, even as there has been discovered a method by which the palimpsests can be made to exhibit once more what seemed for ever spoiled. (J. Stoughton, D. D.)
Truth-telling: an act of friendship
There cannot more worthy improvement of friendship than in a fervent opposition to the sins of those whom we love. (Bishop Hall.)
The truth-tellers reward
Years after this encounter Peter took his revenge. Having to write to the strangers scattered through Galatia, who through a celebrated Epistle knew of his humiliation, what does he do? Vindicate himself? State the other side? No; he calls his reprover a brother beloved, and testifies that in all his Epistles he wrote according to the wisdom given him of God.
The weakness and dissimulation of Peter
The act of which he was guilty was dissimulation; it was not what he believed to be right, but an expediency adopted in a moment of weakness. It is described--
I. As a violation of his convictions. He had commenced upon equal terms with Gentile believers, and he bad done this according to the express will of God revealed to him (Act_10:28). These convictions had been further deepened by what had taken place in Jerusalem during Pauls visit to that city.
II. This dissimulation was prompted by a very unworthy motive. Peter feared them which were of the circumcision. Many have made shipwreck of faith upon this same rock. How often have men been ashamed to confess Christ, or to acknowledge their connection with His people for fear of man.
III. This dissimulation was an evil example, soon copied by others--And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. Peters sin was followed by the sin of others. One of the greatest mysteries of our life is that so much of our happiness or misery appears to depend upon others. As it sometimes happens on the snow slopes of the Alps, that one mans slip will involve the overthrow and destruction of all his fellow-travellers, so is it with us in the moral and spiritual life. Peter drags Barnabas and the rest of the Jews with him; and in our day men too often exercise the same fatal spell on those within the region of their influence. Lessons:
1. Honesty of belief, purpose, and work should be one of the chief laws of Christian life. This should apply to every kind of secular business, and to religion.
This above all; to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day.
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
2. God can preserve the truth by the few as well as by the many. Whatever may be the character of human conduct, God does not allow his purpose to fail. At Antioch Paul alone was faithful (of the Jewish believers), but the truth triumphed notwithstanding. (Richard Nicholls.)
A fearless spirit in rebuking evil strikes us with admiration
When Frederick the First, the half-mad king of Prussia, was so enraged against his son that he announced his intention of condemning him to death, even though the Emperor remonstrated, in his fury exclaiming--Then I will hold my own court on him at Konigsberg, which is outside of the Empire, where no one can control me! But a fearless courtier spoke out--Only God, your majesty, will be over you there to call you to task for shedding your sons blood! (Dr. Hardman.)
The two contentions
Now, before we go farther, we may learn the following lessons from this personal contention between Paul and Peter: In the first place, before we withstand a brother, let us be quite sure that he is to be blamed, and that the occasion warrants our protest. Paul would not have cared to interfere, with Peter in any trivial matter; nor would he have felt constrained to move in the ease but for the handle which would be made of his peculiar vacillation just at that time. No one had a fuller comprehension of what Christian liberty involved than had Paul; and no one was more jealous of its infringement. If, therefore, he had not seen that the fundamental principle of the gospel was at stake, he would not have said a word. The thing which Peter had done was in itself indifferent; but by doing it just then, at the appearance of the Judaizers, he had compromised that truth which was dearer to Paul than friendship, or even than life, and therefore he could not be silent. Now, let us learn from this example to withstand a brother only when we are thus constrained to do so by our allegiance to the truth of the gospel. If in any respect we cannot approve his conduct, while yet it may be explained in perfect harmony with his loyalty to Christ, let us give him the benefit of the explanation, and be silent. But if his procedure is such as seriously to compromise the purity of the Church or the truth of the gospel, then let us withstand him. Nothing is more contemptible than to be always putting ourselves on the opposition benches; objecting to everything that is proposed by some particular brother, and going to a church meeting with the motive of the Scotchman for appearing in the debating society--jist to contradic a wee. But on the other hand, nothing ought to be dearer to a Christian than the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which is committed to his trust. Again, we may learn not to be deterred from opposing wrong by the position of him who has committed it. Peter was an apostle. He was, in fact, one of the greatest pillars of the early Church; but Paul was not prevented by any such considerations as these from protesting against his injudicious and unseemly vacillation. On the contrary, the very prominence of Peter made it all the more important that his inconsistency should be promptly and publicly dealt with. Had he been an ordinary member of the Church, moving only in private circles, Paul might have been disposed to pass his conduct by with a mild remonstrance. It was not, therefore, because he loved Peter less, but because he loved the truth more, that he uttered this glowing and uncompromising admonition. But the same principles hold still; error or evil is dangerous in any man, but it is far more so in a leader of the people or a minister of the gospel than in others. Great eminence may command our respect, but the truth is before all things else; and nothing whatever should be allowed by us to excuse treason to that. Once more we may learn from Pauls conduct here that when we withstand a brother, it should be to his face. He did not go hither and thither among the elders, speaking against Peter and complaining of his course, while at the same time he kept unbroken silence concerning it to Peter himself. Let us say nothing in his absence that we would not utter in his presence; and if we have not the courage to speak to him, let us at least have the grace to be silent about him. From the conduct of Peter here, however, we may learn the no less valuable lesson that when we are thus withstood we should take it meekly, and, if we are in the wrong, should frankly own our error, and retrace our steps as rapidly as possible. We cannot doubt, therefore, that he accepted Pauls rebuke in the spirit of meekness. Now in all this there was a magnanimity which is worthy of all praise. So far as appears, he did not become excited, and exclaim against Paul for presuming to think that he could be wrong, but he did a more difficult and a more manly thing: he acknowledged his fault. Now here was a great triumph of grace. It may seem a paradox to say it; but there are few things which test a mans real Christianity more than reproof for that which is actually blameworthy. It is comparatively easy to guard against giving offence; but it is exceeding hard to keep from taking offence in such circumstances, and to say with the Psalmist, Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head. We all assent to Solomons proverb, Open rebuke is better than secret love. We cry out against the modern dogma of papal infallibility, but we have all too much belief in that of our own infallibility; for our tempers are roused, and our hearts are estranged by any exposure of our error or inconsistency. How many personal alienations and ecclesiastical schisms might have been prevented, if there had been on the one side the honest frankness of Paul, and on the other the manly meekness of Peter, as these come out in this transaction! If I had my choice, I would rather see a controversy spring up in a Church about some great central doctrine than about some question of paltry detail of arrangement or of pitiful personality; for there would be less likelihood in the one case than in the other of an angry and acrimonious debate. Little sticks kindle great fires. The flame that would die out before it could set fire to a log will easily ignite a chip, and that may have strength enough to kindle a faggot that will at length set the log in a blaze. Take care, therefore, especially in little things, lest temper should explode, and make a painful separation between you and your friend. Admirably has the poet said:
Alas! how light a cause may move
Dissension between those that love.
(W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Grace not suddenly destructive of the old nature
The grace of God, which raises mens hearts by degrees into conformity with the Divine image, does not suddenly destroy the old nature. St. Peter is still the same impulsive man who could now confess the Christ, and now, when troubles came, deny Him; who could follow Him bravely into danger, yet be overcome by the gossiping remark of a girl that met him by chance. We must not try this ease by the standard of Anglo-Saxon consistency. We sometimes perhaps run the risk of purchasing too dearly the favourite virtue, at the price of zeal and ardour. We are not naturally indulgent towards that impulsive nature which the great apostle, more Jewish in this than the Jews, derived from his race. Anxious to please, and to be in sympathy with those about him, he rejoiced at first in the Gentile freedom, until those came about him who were full of prejudice for their venerable law, its severe conditions of communion, its austere separation. Let us neither praise nor blame--let us only say grace has not yet wrought her perfect work in this apostles heart. Nor has the other great apostle yet learned all that the school of grace can teach him. Face to face, before the whole Church, he rebukes and humbles a brother whom Christ had honoured, who had laboured much, and turned many from darkness to light. He quotes it as a proof of his independence amongst the apostles, not without complacency. All this is consistent with this bold and resolute nature, which marched straight to its objects, and refused to swerve either out of respect of persons or out of fear. His steadfast resolution, that Christ should be all in all, came from above; his manner of compassing it bears clear marks of his old nature. That blessed change under the power of grace can be perhaps more fully studied in St. Pauls career than anywhere else in the Church history. The strong, loving, fierce, harsh nature--you see the faults transformed to virtues, the angles rounded off, the strong will made obedient to the bit and bridle of love; and yet it is the same man still. You recognize the old features of the portrait, but it is transfigured by preternatural light. Again we will not praise or blame; we will rather recognize the power of the mighty Spirit of God which could use for His purposes the timid impulse of one man and the impatient zeal of another, for building up the house of God; and at the same time could take in hand the timid and the impatient natures alike, and give courage to the one and softening to the other, thus building at one time the great house of God and carving delicately each living stone of which the house is compacted. It is very common for us to look up out of our welter of troubles, our sects, and schisms, and disputations, and to see far back in the first ages nothing but peace; a united Church, offering its harmonious, universal praise; a well-drilled army, marching in obedience to a single will, a code of faith which always, everywhere, all the faithful heard, and, without questioning, believed. But, as the student draws near, the object grows more distinct, the mists disperse, the shadows separate and fall into their places; and the rose-flush of the dawn ceases to conceal the true colours of that primaeval region. Then we come to see something very different from our preconceptions, and learn--what is indeed gladness to learn--that upon the whole, in the old time as in the new, the Holy Spirit sent of the Lord has wrought in the Church in the same manner. He was a Spirit of light and life and comfort to the souls of men; but then, as now, the men were enlightened, not transformed. And the glory of Gods great work lay in this--not that the powers, wishes, and passions of the actors were petrified into a lifeless uniformity, and the superseding life from heaven took their place; but rather that, using as His instruments men so weak and perverse, He built with them the Church of God. To me, I do confess, it is a comfort to know that the Church in the first age grew by the same principles as it grows by in the nineteenth; that the very divisions amongst us have their counterparts in the age of the apostles, and that our disputes, like them, may be but permitted struggles and aberrations of us who are acting out Gods great commands, and that all the while He is making perfect the circle of His purpose and accomplishing His kingdom. The Church has grown, as all things seem to grow, by the life within her striving to perfect itself amidst opposing forces. So grows the acorn, pushing its weak shoot through hard ground, and its strength and dignity are not less that once the swinish jaws narrowly missed devouring the heart, and the swinish foot did actually trample it into the clay. So grew the liberties of the English people: are they less dear to us because they have been threatened, and at times, eclipsed in the past? So grow the mind and spirit of a man, passing through trials and efforts, even through falls, to the ripeness of a resolute, tolerant, patient, helpful age. So grew the Church of Christ; and her life is not less real, less secure, if she has passed sometimes through fears and fightings, and the deep waters of the proud have seemed to go even over her life. At one time Athanasius has had to stand against a world; at another, a Hildebrand imperils the Church by making it the supreme kingdom amongst the earthly kingdoms. Worldly motives are said to have tainted the Reformation of religion in this country: and it is true. So much the greater is our reason for blessing God: that the sweet honeycomb has come from the lions carcase; that amidst the strife and selfishness of kings, and the ignorance of peoples, the truth passed safely. So even now the Church is growing, and God dwelling in her gives the increase. We seem in deadly peril. There is unbelief on one side, and on the other that deadening system which would hand over the conscience to the priest, and the priest to a mediaeval theology, hostile to knowledge and incapable of change. The waves of the sea are mighty and rage horribly, but yet the Lord that dwelleth on high is mightier. Yet there is one more lesson which the study of the past might bring us. By the vehemence of past disputes--nay, by the bitter hatred that they have brought in, one might think that men had lost faith in the power of the Holy Ghost to keep safe the ark of God upon the stormy waters. To withstand to the face has been the common remedy for emergencies. It may be permitted us reverently to doubt whether the pulse of Divine life in the Church has been hastened by one beat by the violence of the zealous, who have thought well to be angry for the cause of God. Through strife, but not by strife, the Church has passed upon her way. Struggle and conflict, and even partial failure, should not convince us that God has left us: they are the heritage of the Church from the beginning. (Archbishop Thomson.)
Pauls rebuke of Peter was
I. Just--because he was guilty of dissimulation--misled others--acted in opposition to the spirit and doctrine of Christ (verses 11-14).
II. Fearless.
without respect of Peters age and position--without fear of others; the offence was public, therefore the rebuke was administered before all (verse 14); otherwise our Lords rule is imperative (Mat_18:15-17).
III. Pointed--thou, a transgressor of thine own law--enlightened and accepted in Christ (verses 14, 15).
IV. Faithful--Paul indicates the greatness of the offence as a violation of Christian uprightness (verse 14)--of fidelity to Christ, inasmuch as it was a practical denial of Him and made Him the minister of sin (verses 17, 18)--of Christian doctrine (verses 19, 20)--of Gods grace (verse 21). (J. Lyth.)
Peter at Antioch
I. His fault--dissimulation--reprehensible in any, much more in the apostle Peter (Act_10:28).
II. The occasion of it--fear of man--which ensnares even the best.
III. The effect of it--it misled others--even Barnabas.
IV. Its gravity--it was dishonest--unchristian.
V. Its reproof--dictated by love to Christ--manly and open. (J. Lyth.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Chapter 9
Chapter 9
PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH.
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Gal_2:11-18
THE conference at Jerusalem issued in the formal recognition by the Primitive Church of Gentile Christianity, and of Pauls plenary Apostleship. And it brought Paul into brotherly relations with the three great leaders of Jewish Christianity. But this fellowship was not to continue undisturbed. The same cause was still at work which had compelled the Apostle to go up to Jerusalem, taking Titus with him. The leaven of Pharisaic legalism remained in the Church. Indeed, as time went on and the national fanaticism grew more violent, this spirit of intolerance became increasingly bitter and active. The address of James to Paul on the occasion of his last visit to the Holy City, shows that the Church of Jerusalem was at this time in a state of the most sensitive jealousy in regard to the Law, and that the legalistic prejudices always existing in it had gained a strength with which it was difficult to cope. {Act_21:17-25}
But for the present the Judaising faction had received a check. It does not appear that the party ever again insisted on circumcision as a thing essential to salvation for the Gentiles. The utterances of Peter and James at the Council, and the circular addressed there from to the Gentile Churches, rendered this impossible. The Legalists made a change of front; and adopted a subtler and seemingly more moderate policy. They now preached circumcision as the prerogative of the Jew within the Church, and as a counsel of, perfection for the Gentile believer in Christ. {Gal_3:3} To quote the rescript of Acts 15 against this altered form of the circumcisionist doctrine, would have been wide of the mark.
It is against this newer type of Judaistic teaching that our Epistle is directed. Circumcision, its advocates argued, was a Divine ordinance that must have its benefit. {Rom_2:25-29 - Rom_3:1} God has given to Israel an indefeasible pre-eminence in His kingdom. {Rom_1:16; Rom_2:9-10; Rom_9:4-5; Rom_11:1-2} Law-keeping children of Abraham enter the new Covenant on a higher footing than "sinners of the Gentiles": they are still the elect race, the holy nation. If the Gentiles wish to share with them, they must add to their faith circumcision, they must complete their imperfect righteousness by legal sanctity. So they might hope to enter on the full heritage of the sons of Abraham; they would be brought into communion with the first Apostles and the Brother of the Lord; they would be admitted to the inner circle of the kingdom of God. The new Legalists sought, in fact, to superimpose Jewish on Gentile Christianity. They no longer refused all share in Christ to the uncircumcised; they offered them a larger share. So we construe the teaching which Paul had to combat in the second stage of his conflict with Judaism, to which his four major Epistles belong. And the signal for this renewed struggle was given by the collision with Peter at Antioch.
This encounter did not, we think, take place on the return of Paul and Barnabas from the Council. The compact of Jerusalem secured to the Church a few years of rest from the Judaistic agitation. The Thessalonian Epistles, written in 52 or 53 A.D., go to show, not only that the Churches of Macedonia were free from the legalist contention, but that it did not at this period occupy the Apostles mind. Judas Barsabbas and Silas-not Peter-accompanied the Gentile missionaries in returning to Antioch; and Luke gives, in Acts 15, a tolerably full account of the circumstances which transpired there in the interval before the second missionary tour, without the slightest hint of any visit made at this time by the Apostle Peter. We can scarcely believe that the circumcision party had already recovered, and increased its influence, to the degree that it must have done when "even Barnabas was carried away"; still less that Peter on the very morrow of the settlement at Jerusalem and of his fraternal communion there with Paul would show himself so far estranged.
When, therefore, did "Cephas come down to Antioch?" The Galatians evidently knew. The Judaisers had given their account of the matter, to Pauls disadvantage. Perhaps he had referred to it himself on his last visit to Galatia, when we know he spoke explicitly and strongly against the Circumcisionists. {Gal_1:9} Just before his arrival in Galatia on this occasion he had "spent some time" at Antioch, {Act_18:22-23} in the interval between the second and third missionary journeys. Luke simply mentions the fact, without giving any details. This is the likeliest opportunity for the meeting of the two Apostles in the Gentile capital. M. Sabatier, in the following sentences, appears to us to put the course of events in its true light:-"Evidently the Apostle had quitted Jerusalem and undertaken his second missionary journey full of satisfaction at the victory he had gained, and free from anxiety for the future. The decisive moment of the crisis therefore necessarily falls between the Thessalonian and Galatian Epistles. What had happened in the meantime? The violent discussion with Peter at Antioch, {Gal_2:2-21} and all that this account reveals to us, - the arrival of the emissaries from James in the pagan-Christian circle, the counter-mission organised by the Judaisers to rectify the work of Paul. A new situation suddenly presents itself to the eyes of the Apostle on his return from his second missionary journey. He is compelled to throw himself into the struggle, and in doing so to formulate in all its rigour his principle of the abolishment of the Law."
The "troublers" in this instance were "certain from James." Like the "false brethren" who appeared at Antioch three years before they came from the mother Church, over which James presided. The Judaising teachers at Corinth had their "commendatory letters," {2Co_3:1} derived assuredly from the same quarter. In all likelihood, their confederates in Galatia brought similar credentials. We have already seen that the authority of the Primitive Church was the chief weapon used by Pauls adversaries. These letters of commendation were part of the machinery of the anti-Pauline agitation. How the Judaisers obtained these credentials, and in what precise relation they stood to James, we can only conjecture. Had the Apostle held James responsible for their action, he would not have spared him any more than he has done Peter. James held a quasi-pastoral relation to Christian Jews of the Dispersion. And as he addressed his Epistle to them, so he would be likely on occasion to send delegates to visit them. Perhaps the Circumcisionists found opportunity to pass themselves off in this character; or they may have abused a commission really given them, by interfering with Gentile communities. That the Judaistic emissaries in some way or other adopted false colours, is plainly intimated in 2Co_11:13. James, living always at Jerusalem, being moreover a man of simple character, could have little suspected the crafty plot which was carried forward under his name.
These agents addressed themselves in the first instance to the Jews, as their commission from Jerusalem probably entitled them to do. They plead for the maintenance of the sacred customs. They insist that the Mosaic rites carry with them an indelible sanctity; that their observance constitutes a Church within the Church. If this separation is once established, and the Jewish believers in Christ can be induced to hold themselves aloof and to maintain the "advantage of circumcision," the rest will be easy. The way will then be open to "compel the Gentiles to Judaise." For unless they do this, they must be content to remain on a lower level, in a comparatively menial position, resembling that of uncircumcised proselytes in the Synagogue. The circular of the Jerusalem Council may have been interpreted by the Judaists in this sense, as though it laid down the terms, not of full communion between Jew and Gentile believers, but only of a permissive, secondary recognition. At Antioch the new campaign of the Legalists was opened, and apparently with signal success. In Galatia and Corinth we see it in full progress.
The withdrawal of Peter and the other Jews at Antioch from the table of the Gentiles virtually "compelled" the latter "to Judaise." Not that the Jewish Apostle had this intention in his mind. He was made the tool of designing men. By "separating himself" he virtually said to every uncircumcised brother, "Stand by thyself, I am holier than thou." Legal conformity on the part of the Gentiles was made the condition of their communion with Jewish Christians-a demand simply fatal to Christianity. It re-established the principle of salvation by works in a more individious form. To supplement the righteousness of faith by that of law meant to supplant it. To admit that the Israelite by virtue of his legal observances stood in a higher position than "sinners of the Gentiles," was to stultify the doctrine of the cross, to make Christs death a gratuitous sacrifice. Peters error, pushed to its logical consequences, involved the overthrow of the Gospel. This the Gentile Apostle saw at a glance. The situation was one of imminent danger. Paul needed all his wisdom, and all his courage and promptitude to meet it.
It had been Peters previous rule, since the vision of Joppa, to lay aside Jewish scruples of diet and to live in free intercourse with Gentile brethren. He "was wont to eat with the Gentiles. Though a born Jew, he lived in Gentile fashion"-words unmistakably describing Peters general habit in such circumstances. This Gentile conformity of Peter was a fact of no small moment for the Galatian readers. It contravenes the assertion of a radical divergence between Petrine and Pauline Christianity, whether made by Ebionites or Baurians.
The Jewish Apostles present conduct was an act of "dissimulation." He was belying his known convictions, publicly expressed and acted on for years. Pauls challenge assumes that his fellow-Apostle is acting insincerely. And this assumption is explained by the account furnished in the Acts of the Apostles respecting Peters earlier relations with Gentile Christianity. {Act_10:1-48 - Act_11:1-18; Act_15:6-11} The strength of Pauls case lay in the conscience of Peter himself. The conflict at Antioch, so often appealed to in proof of the rooted opposition between the two Apostles, in reality gives evidence to the contrary effect. Here the maxim strictly applies, Ex-ceptio probat regulam.
Peters lapse is quite intelligible. No man who figures in the New Testament is better known to us. Honest, impulsive, ready of speech, full of contagious enthusiasm, brave as a lion, firm as a rock against open enemies, he possessed in a high degree the qualities which mark out a leader of men. He was of the stuff of which Christ makes his missionary heroes. But there was a strain of weakness in Peters nature. He was pliable. He was too much at the mercy of surroundings. His denial of Jesus set this native fault in a light terribly vivid and humiliating. It was an act of "dissimulation." In his soul there was a fervent love to Christ. His zeal had brought him to the place of danger. But for the moment he was alone. Public opinion was all against him. A panic fear seized his brave heart. He forgot himself; he denied the Master whom he loved more than life. His courage had failed; never his faith. "Turned back again" from his coward flight, Peter had indeed "strengthened his brethren". {Luk_22:31-32} He proved a tower of strength to the infant Church, worthy of his cognomen of the Rock. For more than twenty years he had stood unshaken. No name was so honoured in the Church as Peters. For Paul to be compared to him was the highest possible distinction.
And yet, after all this lapse of time, and in the midst of so glorious a career, the old, miserable weakness betrays him once more. How admonitory is the lesson! The sore long since healed over, the infirmity of nature out of which we seemed to have been completely trained, may yet break out again, to our shame and undoing. Had Peter for a moment forgotten the sorrowful warning of Gethsemane? Be it ours to "watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation."
We have reason to believe that, if Peter rashly erred, he freely acknowledged his error, and honoured his reprover. Both the Epistles that bear his name, in different ways, testify to the high value which their author set upon the teaching of "our beloved brother Paul." Tradition places the two men at Rome side by side in their last days; as though even in their death these glorious Apostles should not be divided, despite the attempts of faction and mistrust to separate them.
Few incidents exhibit more Strongly than this the grievous consequences that may ensue from a seemingly trivial moral error. It looked a little thing that Peter should prefer to take his meals away from Gentile company. And yet, as Paul tells him, his withdrawal was a virtual rejection of the Gospel, and imperilled the most vital interests of Christianity. By this act the Jewish Apostle gave a handle to the adversaries of the Church which they have used for generations and for ages afterwards. The dispute which it occasioned could never be forgotten. In the second century it still drew down on Paul the bitter reproaches of the Judaising faction. And in our own day the rationalistic critics have been able to turn it to marvellous account. It supplies the corner-stone of their "scientific reconstruction" of Biblical theology. The entire theory of Baur is evolved out of Peters blunder. Let it be granted that Peter in yielding to the "certain from James" followed his genuine convictions and the tradition of Jewish Christianity, and we see at once how deep a gulf lay between Paul and the Primitive Church. All that Paul argues in the subsequent discussion only tends, in this case, to make the breach more visible. This false step of Peter is the thing that chiefly lends a colour to the theory in question, with all the far-reaching consequences touching the origin and import of Christianity, which it involves. So long "the evil that men do lives after them"!
Pauls rebuke of his brother Apostle extends to the conclusion of the chapter. Some interpreters cut it short at the end of Gal_2:14; others at Gal_2:16; others again at Gal_2:18. But the address is consecutive and germane to the occasion throughout. Paul does not, to be sure, give a verbatim report, but the substance of what he said, and in a form suited to his readers. The narrative is an admirable prelude to the argument of chap. 3. It forms the transition from the historical to the polemical part of the Epistle, from the Apostles personal to his doctrinal apology. The condensed form of the speech makes its interpretation difficult and much contested. We shall in the remainder of this chapter trace the general course of Pauls reproof, proposing in the following chapter to deal more fully with its doctrinal contents.
1. In the first place, Paul taxes the Jewish Apostle with insincerity and unfaithfulness toward the gospel. "I saw," he says, "that they were not holding a straight course, according to the truth of the gospel."
It is a moral, not a doctrinal aberration, that Paul lays at the door of Cephas and Barnabas. They did not hold a different creed from himself; they were disloyal to the common creed. They swerved from the path of rectitude in which they had walked hitherto. They had regard no longer to "the truth of the gospel "- the supreme consideration of the servant of Christ-but to the favour of men, to the public opinion of Jerusalem. "What will be said of us there?" they whispered to each other, "if these messengers Of James report that we are discarding the sacred customs, and making no difference between Jew and Gentile? We shall alienate our Judean brethren. We shall bring a scandal on the Christian cause in the eyes of Judaism."
This withdrawal of the Jews from the common fellowship at Antioch was a public matter. It was an injury to the whole Gentile-Christian community. If the reproof was to be salutary, it must be equally public and explicit. The offence was notorious. Every one deplored it, except those who shared it, or profited by it. Cephas "stood condemned." And yet his influence and the reverence felt toward him were so great that no one dared to put this condemnation into words. His sanction was of itself enough to give to this sudden recrudescence of Jewish bigotry the force of authoritative usage. "The truth of the gospel" was again in jeopardy. Once more Pauls intervention foiled the attempts of the Judaisers and saved Gentile liberties. And this time he stood quite alone. Even the faithful Barnabas deserted him. But what mattered that, if Christ and truth were on his side? "Amicus Cephas, amicus Barnabas; seal magis amicus Veritas." Solitary amid the circle of opposing or dissembling Jews, Paul "withstood" the chief of the Apostles of Jesus "to the face." He rebuked him "before them all."
2. Peters conduct is reproved by Paul in the light of their common knowledge of salvation in Christ.
Paul is not content with pointing out the inconsistency of his brother Apostle. He must probe the matter to the bottom. He will bring Peters delinquency to the touchstone of the Gospel, in its fundamental principles. So he passes in Gal_2:15 from the outward to the inward, from the circumstances of Peters conduct to the inner world of spiritual consciousness, in which his offence finds its deeper condemnation. "You and I," he goes on to say, "not Gentile sinners, but men of Jewish birth-yet for all that, knowing that there is no justification for man in works of law, only through faith in Christ-we too put our faith in Christ, in order to be justified by faith in Him, not by works of law; for as Scripture taught us, in that way no flesh will be justified."
Paul makes no doubt that the Jewish Apostles experience of salvation corresponded with his own. Doubtless, in their previous intercourse, and especially when he first "made acquaintance with Cephas" {Gal_1:18} in Jerusalem, the hearts of the two men had been opened to each other; and they had found that, although brought to the knowledge of the truth in different ways, yet in the essence of the matter-in respect of the personal conviction of sin, in the yielding up of self-righteousness and native pride, in the abandonment of every prop and trust but Jesus Christ-their history had run the same course, and face answered to face. Yes, Paul knew that he had an ally in the heart of his friend. He was not fighting as one that beateth the air, not making a rhetorical flourish, or a parade of some favourite doctrine of his own; he appealed from Peter dissembling to Peter faithful and consistent. Peters dissimulation was a return to the Judaic ground of legal righteousness. By refusing to eat with uncircumcised men, he affirmed implicitly that, though believers in Christ, they were still to him "common and unclean" that the Mosaic rites imparted a higher sanctity than the righteousness of faith. Now the principles of evangelical and legal righteousness, of salvation by faith and by law-works, are diametrically opposed. It is logically impossible to maintain both. Peter had long ago accepted the former doctrine. He had sought salvation, just like any Gentile sinner, on the common ground of human guilt, and with a faith that renounced every consideration of Jewish privilege and legal performance. By what right can any Hebrew believer in Christ, after this, set himself above his Gentile brother, or presume to be by virtue of his circumcision and ritual law-keeping a holier man? Such we take to be the import of Pauls challenge in Gal_2:15-16.
3. Paul is met at this point by the stock objection to the doctrine of salvation by faith-an objection brought forward in the dispute at Antioch not, we should imagine, by Peter himself, but by the Judaistic advocates. To renounce legal righteousness was in effect, they urged, to promote sin - nay, to make Christ Himself a minister of sin (Gal_2:17).
Paul retorts the charge on those who make it. They promote sin, he declares, who set up legal righteousness again (Gal_2:18). The objection is stated and met in the form of question and answer, as in Rom_3:5. We have in this sharp thrust and parry an example of the sort of fence which Paul must often have carried on in his discussions with Jewish opponents on these questions.
We must not overlook the close verbal connection of these verses with the two last. The phrase "seeking to be justified in Christ" carries us back to the time when the two Apostles, self-condemned sinners, severally sought and found a new ground of righteousness in Him. Now when Peter and Paul did this, they were "themselves also found to be sinners,"-an experience how abasing to their Jewish pride! They made the great discovery that stripped them of legal merit, and brought them down in their own esteem to the level of common sinners. Peters confession may stand for both, when he said, abashed by the glory of Christ, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Now this style of penitence, this profound self-abasement in the presence of Jesus Christ, revolted the Jewish moralist. To Pharisaic sentiment it was contemptible. If justification by faith requires this, if it brings the Jew to so abject a posture and makes no difference between lawless and law-keeping, between pious children of Abraham and heathen outcasts-if this be the doctrine of Christ, all moral distinctions are confounded, and Christ is "a minister of sin!" This teaching robs the Jew of the righteousness he before possessed; it takes from him the benefit and honour that God bestowed upon his race! So, we doubt not, many a Jew was heard angrily exclaiming against the Pauline doctrine, both at Antioch and elsewhere. This conclusion was, in the view of the Legalist, a reductio ad absurdum of Paulinism.
The Apostle repels this inference with the indignant mhnoito, Far be it! His reply is indicated by the very form in which he puts the question: "If we were found sinners" (Christ did not make us such). "The complaint was this," as Calvin finely says: "Has Christ therefore come to take away from us the righteousness of the Law, to make us polluted who were holy? Nay, Paul says; -he repels the blasphemy with detestation. For Christ did not introduce sin, but revealed it. He did not rob them of righteousness, but of the false show thereof." The reproach of the Judaisers was in reality the same that is urged against evangelical doctrine still-that it is immoral, placing the virtuous and vicious in the common category of "sinners."
Gal_2:18 throws back the charge of promoting sin upon the Legalist. It is the counterpart, not of Gal_2:19, but rather of Gal_2:17. The "transgressor" is the sinner in a heightened and more specific sense, one who breaks known and admitted law. This word bears, in Pauls vocabulary, a precise and strongly marked signification which is not satisfied by the common interpretation. It is not that Peter, in setting up the Law which he had in principle overthrown, puts himself in the wrong; nor that Peter in reestablishing the Law, contradicts the purpose of the Law itself (Chrysostom, Lightfoot, Beet). This is to anticipate the next verse. In Pauls view and according to the experience common to Peter with himself, law and transgression are concomitant, every man "under law" is ipso facto a transgressor. He who sets up the first, constitutes himself the second. And this is what Peter is now doing; although Paul courteously veils the fact by putting it hypothetically, in the first person. After dissolving, so far as in him lay, the validity of legal righteousness and breaking down the edifice of justification by works, Peter is now building it up again, and thereby constructing a prison-house for himself. Returning to legal allegiance, he returns to legal condemnation; {Comp. Gal_3:10-12; Gal_3:19; Rom_3:20; Rom_4:15} with his own hands he puts on his neck the burden of the Laws curse, which through faith in Christ he had cast off. By this act of timid conformity he seeks to commend himself to Jewish opinion; but it only serves, in the light of the Gospel, to "prove him a transgressor," to "commend" him in that unhappy character. This is Pauls retort to the imputation of the Judaist. It carries the war into the enemies camp. "No," says Paul, "Christ is no patron of sin, in bidding men renounce legal righteousness. But those promote sin-in themselves first of all-who after knowing His righteousness, turn back again to legalism."
4. The conviction of Peter is now complete. From the sad bondage to which the Jewish Apostle, by his compliance with the Judaisers, was preparing to submit himself, the Apostle turns to his own joyous sense of deliverance (Gal_2:19-21). Those who resort to legalism, he has said, ensure their own condemnation. It is, on the other hand, by an entire surrender to Christ, by realising the import of His death, that we learn to "live unto God." So Paul had proved it. At this moment he is conscious of a union with the crucified and living Saviour, which lifts him above the curse of the law, above the power of sin. To revert to the Judaistic state, to dream, any more of earning righteousness by legal conformity, is a thing for him inconceivable. It would be to make void the cross of Christ!
And it was the Law itself that first impelled Paul along this path. "Through law" he "died to law." The Law drove him from itself to seek salvation in Jesus Christ. Its accusations allowed him no shelter, left him no secure spot on which to build the edifice of his self-righteousness. It said to him unceasingly, Thou art a transgressor. {Rom_7:7-25 - Rom_8:1} He who seeks justification by its means contradicts the Law, while he frustrates the grace of God.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 11–14. But when Peter came to Antioch. It is…
11–14. But when Peter came to Antioch. It is not certainly known when this event occurred, but probably not far from a.d. 51. Paul narrates it to show that Peter had no superiority over him, as the Judaizers claimed, and as the Romanists still assert. Peter did a wrong thing, and Paul rebuked him for it.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Gal_2:11. When Peter was come to Antioch I withstood…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Gal_2:11. When Peter was come to Antioch I withstood him to the face.—The strongest proof of the independence of his apostleship in relation to the other apostles, and an unanswerable argument against the Romish dogma of the supremacy of St. Peter.
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Gal_2:13. The other Jews dissembled likewise with him.—The question was not whether Gentiles were admissible to the Christian covenant without becoming circumcised, ‘but whether the Gentile Christians were to be admitted to social intercourse with the Jewish Christians without conforming to the Jewish institution. It was not a question of liberty and of bearing with others’ infirmities, but one affecting the essence of the gospel, whether the Gentiles are to be virtually compelled to live as do the Jews in order to be justified.
Gal_2:14. Walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.—Which teaches that justification by legal works and observances is inconsistent with redemption by Christ. Paul alone here maintained the truth against Judaism, as afterwards against heathenism (2Ti_4:16-17).
Gal_2:17. Is therefore Christ the minister of sin?—Thus to be justified by Christ it was necessary to sink to the level of Gentiles—to become sinners, in fact. But are we not thus making Christ a minister of sin? Away with the profane thought! No; the guilt is not in abandoning the law, but in seeking it again when abandoned. Thus, and thus alone, we convict ourselves of transgression (Lightfoot).
Gal_2:19. I through the law am dead to the law.—By believing union to Christ in His death we, being considered dead with Him, are severed from the law’s past power over us.
Gal_2:21. If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.—Died needlessly, without just cause. Christ’s having died shows that the law has no power to justify us, for if the law can justify or make us righteous, the death of Christ is superfluous.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gal_2:11-21
A Fearless Defence of Fundamental Truth—
I. Does not hesitate to impeach a distinguished Church dignitary of inconsistency.—“But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed,” etc. (Gal_2:11-14). Peter had been accustomed to mingle with the Gentile converts on the ground of perfect social equality. Influenced by the fierce bigots of legalism, who insinuated that the circumcised occupied a superior status to the uncircumcised, he withdrew from the social circle of the Gentiles and confined himself to that of his Jewish brethren. The pliability of his impulsive nature led him into this as into other mistakes. To create a social distinction between Jew and Gentile was to undermine the gospel. Paul saw at a glance the threatened peril, and it needed all his tact and courage to confront it. Though it meant a public impeachment of the sincerity and consistency of one of the most venerated apostles, the champion of the Gentiles did not hesitate. Alone, even Barnabas having for the time being deserted him, he stood up boldly for the truth of the gospel.
II. Is the opportunity for an authoritative restatement of the truth imperilled (Gal_2:15-18).—In these verses the apostle again sets forth the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith, without the works of the law. The Judaisers contended that to renounce legal righteousness was in effect to promote sin—to make Christ the minister of sin (Gal_2:17). Paul retorts the charge on those who made it, and showed that they promote sin who set up legal righteousness again (Gal_2:18). The reproach of the Judaisers was in reality the same that is urged against evangelical doctrine still—that it is immoral, placing the virtuous and vicious in the common category of sinners (Findlay). “The complaint was this,” says Calvin,—“Has Christ therefore come to take away from us the righteousness of the law, to make us polluted who were holy? Nay, Paul says—he repels the blasphemy with detestation. For Christ did not introduce sin, but revealed it. He did not rob them of righteousness, but of the false show thereof.”
III. Is made more impressive by showing the effect of the truth on personal experience (Gal_2:19-21).—In these words the apostle indicates that his own deliverance from the law was effected by being dead to the law—being crucified with Christ; and that his own spiritual life was originated and sustained by a living faith in a loving and self-sacrificing Christ. “Legalism is fatal to the spiritual life in man. Whilst it clouds the divine character, it dwarfs and petrifies the human. What becomes of the sublime mystery of the life hid with Christ in God, if its existence is made contingent on circumcision and ritual performance? To men who put meat and drink on a level with righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, or in their intercourse with fellow-Christians set points of ceremony above justice, mercy, and faith, the very idea of a spiritual kingdom of God is wanting. The religion of Jesus and of Paul regenerates the heart, and from that centre regulates and hallows the whole ongoing of life. Legalism guards the mouth, the hands, the senses, and imagines that through these it can drill the man into the divine order. The latter theory makes religion a mechanical system; the former conceives it as an inward, brganic life.”
Lessons.—
1. The leaven of error is not easily suppressed.
2. True religion has never lacked a race of brave defenders.
3. Experimental religion is the best guarantee of its permanence.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Gal_2:11-13. Christian Consistency—
I. May be spoilt by yielding to an unworthy fear (Gal_2:12).
II. Should be strictly maintained for the sake of others (Gal_2:13).
III. Should be defended with intrepid courage (Gal_2:11).
Gal_2:11. An Astute Defender of the Faith.
I. Here we have an example of true virtue, in St. Paul resisting evil to the utmost of His power. In like manner must every one of us resist evil, first in himself and then in them that appertain to him.
II. An example of boldness and liberty in reproving sin.—
1. This liberty in reproving is not the fruit of a bold and rash disposition, but is the fruit of God’s Spirit, and is so to be acknowledged.
2. This liberty is to be ordered by a sound mind whereby we are able to give a good account of our reproofs, both for the matter and manner of them.
3. Our admonitions must be seasoned and tempered with love.
III. An example of an ingenuous and honest mind.—When Paul sees Peter he reproves him to the face. Contrary to this is the common practice in backbiting, whispering, and tale-bearing, whereby it comes to pass that when a man is in fault every man knows it save he who is in fault. We see that excellent men, even the chief apostles, are subject to err and be deceived.—Perkins.
Gal_2:12-13. The Power of Example.—
1. So weak and inconstant are the best of men that, being left to themselves, the least blast of temptation will make them break off the course of doing well in the very midst, and, without respect either to conscience or credit, openly desert it.
2. To separate from a true Church and break off communion with its members cannot be attempted without sin, not though we eschew the offence and stumbling of many.
3. Of so great force is the bad example of men, eminent, gracious, and learned, that not only the weak and infirm, but even those who are strong and richly endowed with both grace and parts, will sometimes be corrupted by it. It is usual for us unawares to esteem such as more than men, and being once so far engaged in our esteem of them we do not so narrowly examine their actions as we do those of other men.
4. An inundation of evil examples, though held forth by private Christians, is so impetuous and of such force to carry others along with it, that even the very best of men can hardly stand against it.—Fergusson.
An Erring Apostle.
I. Peter’s sin was simulation.—Among the Gentiles at Antioch he used Christian liberty in eating things forbidden by the ceremonial law; yet after the coming of certain Jews from Jerusalem, he separates himself from the Gentiles, and plays the Jew among the Jews. This act of Peter was not a sin in itself, but the circumstances made it a sin
1. He not only abstained from meats forbidden by the ceremonial law, but withdrew himself from the Gentiles and kept company apart with the Jews.
2. He abstained not among the Jews at Jerusalem, but at Antioch among the Gentiles, where a little before he had openly done the contrary, using his Christian liberty.
3. He used this abstinence when certain Jews came from Jerusalem to search out the liberty of the Gentiles.
4. While Peter seeks to avoid the small offence of some Jews, he incurs a greater offence of all the Gentiles.
5. This act of Peter tended to the overthrowing of Paul’s ministry and the suppressing of the truth of the gospel.
II. The cause of Peter’s sin was fear of offending the Jews.—It was a sin because he feared man more than God. It was a sin, not of malice, but infirmity. A sin of infirmity is when there is a purpose in the heart not to sin, and yet for all this the sin is committed, by reason the will is over-carried by temptation, or by violence of affection as by fear, anger, lust.
III. The effect of Peter’s sin.—He drew the Jews and Barnabas to the like dissimulation. Here we see the contagion of an evil example.
1. Ministers of the word must join with good doctrine the example of a good life.
2. Practice in the ministry is a part of the teaching.
3. All superiors are warned to go before their inferiors by good example.
4. The consent of many together is not a note of truth. Peter, Barnabas, and the Jews, all together are deceived; Paul alone has the truth. Ponormitane said, “A layman bringing Scripture is to be preferred before a whole council.” Paphnutius alone had the truth, and the whole council of Nice inclined to error.—Perkins.
Gal_2:14-16. Justification by Faith, not by Works.—
1. Though private sins, which have not broken forth to a public scandal, are to be rebuked in private, public sins are to receive public rebukes, that public scandal may be removed, and others scared from taking encouragement to do the like (Gal_2:14).
2. Though the binding power of the ceremonial law was abrogated at Christ’s death, and the practice in some things left as a thing lawful and in itself indifferent, yet the observance, even for that time, was dispensed with more for the Jews’ sake, and was more tolerable in them who were born and educated under that yoke, than in the Gentiles, to whom that law was never given, and so were to observe it, or any part of it, only in case of scandalising the weak Jews by their neglecting of it (Gal_2:14).
3. Though every man by nature is a child of wrath and enemy to God, yet those born within the visible Church have a right to Church privileges and to enjoy the external means of grace and salvation (Gal_2:15).
4. The doctrine of justification by faith and not by works was early opposed, and no doctrine so much opposed, because no truth is more necessary to be kept pure, as if it be kept pure several other truths are kept pure also, and if it fall other truths fall with it (Gal_2:16).—Fergusson.
Gal_2:16. Justification by Faith.
I. Man is justified by the mere mercy of God.—And there is excluded by justification all merit of congruity, all meritorious works of preparation wrought by us, all co-operation of man’s will with God’s grace in the effecting of our justification.
II. Man is justified by the mere merit of Christ.—That is, by the meritorious obedience which He wrought in Himself, and not by anything wrought by Him in us.
III. A sinner is justified by mere faith.—That is, nothing within us concurs as a cause of our justification but faith, and nothing apprehends Christ’s obedience for our justification but faith. This will more easily appear if we compare faith, hope, and love. Faith is like a hand that opens itself to receive a gift, and so is neither love nor hope. Love is also a hand, but yet a hand that gives out, communicates, and distributes. For as faith receives Christ into our hearts, so love opens the heart and pours out praise and thanks to God and all manner of goodness to men. Hope is no hand, but an eye that wistfully looks and waits for the good things faith believes. Therefore it is the only property of faith to clasp and lay hold of Christ and His benefits.
IV. The practice of them that are justified is to believe.—To put their trust in Christ.
1. Faith and practice must reign in the heart and have all at command. We must not go by sense, feeling, reason, but shut our eyes and let faith keep our hearts close to the promise of God. Faith must overrule and command nature and the strongest affections thereof.
2. When we know not what to do by reason of the greatness of our distress, we must fix our hearts on Christ with separation, as he that climbs up a ladder or some steep place the higher he goes the faster he holds.—Perkins.
Gal_2:17-18. False Methods of Salvation—
I. To seek justification in any other way than through Christ.—“If, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are found sinners” (Gal_2:17).
II. Reflect unjustly on the character of the only Saviour.—“Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid” (Gal_2:17).
III. Aggravate our sin by restoring in practice what we have abandoned in theory.—“For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor” (Gal_2:18).
Gal_2:19. The Christian Dead to the Law.
I. The state in which the apostle describes himself to be.—“I am dead to the law.” Not the moral law of God. Every rational creature in the universe is under its dominion, the believer as well as others. He must escape from existence before he can escape from the law of God. The apostle means he is dead to it as a covenant between God and himself. There still stands the law before him in all its primitive authority, purity, and majesty; he honours it and strives to obey it, and often rejoices in the thought that the time will come when he shall have his soul in a state of perfect conformity to it, but this is all. Its life-giving, death-bringing powers are utterly at an end, and he knows they are at an end. He is dead to all hope from the law, dead to all expectation of heaven or of salvation from it. He builds no more hope on his obedience to it than as though the law had ceased to exist, and no more fear has he of condemnation from it. The believer, dead to the legal covenant, rests from it. The connection between him and it is over, and with it are over the feelings within him, the painful, perturbing, apprehensive, slavish feelings arising out of it.
II. The means whereby the apostle has been brought into the state he describes.—“I through the law am dead to the law.” Suppose a man anxious to pass from one country to another, from a dangerous and wretched country to a safe and happy one. Directly in his road stands a mountain which he cannot pass over, and which he at first imagines he can without much difficulty climb. He tries, but scarcely has he begun to breast it when a precipice stops him. He descends and tries again in another direction. There another precipice or some other obstacle arrests his course; and still ever as he begins his ascent he is baffled, and the little way he contrives to mount serves only to show him more and more of the prodigious height of the mountain, and its stern, rugged, impassable character. At last, wearied and worn, heart-sick with labour and disappointment, and thoroughly convinced that no efforts of his can carry him over, he lies down at the mountain’s foot in utter despair, longing still to be on the other side, but making not another movement to get there. Now ask him as he lies exhausted on the ground what has occasioned his torpor and despair; he will say that mountain itself: its situation between him and the land of his desires, and its inaccessible heights and magnitude. So stands the law of God between the Christian and the land he longs for. The impossibility of making our way to God by means of the law arises from the extent of its requirements, and the unbending, inexorable character of its denunciations. We can do nothing but die to it, sink down before this broad, high, terrific mountain in utter despair. While through the law the believer dies to all hope from the law, through the cross of Christ he also dies to all apprehension from it.
III. The design of this deadness to the law in the Christian’s soul.—“That I might live unto God.” This living unto God dethrones self, discovers to the man the base, degrading idol to which he has been bowing down, makes him ashamed of the worship he has paid it, and places on the throne of his heart his Saviour and his God. His renunciation of his self-righteousness has gradually brought on other renunciations of self. The law driving him to Christ has been the means of driving him out of self altogether. It has brought him into the sphere of the gospel and among those soul-stirring principles, feelings, and aspirations connected with the gospel. There is no greater mistake than to imagine that the gospel has destroyed the law or loosened in any degree its hold on men. The gospel rests on the law. But for the law and its unbending, unchangeable, eternal character the gospel had not existed, for it would not have been needed. Dead to the law and alive unto God are two things that go together; the one springs out of the other. The more completely we die to the law as a covenant, the more fully, freely, and happily shall we live unto God.—C. Bradley.
Dead to the Law by the Law.
I. The person justified is dead to the law.—Here the law is compared to a hard and cruel master, and we to slaves or bondmen, who so long as they are alive are under the dominion and at the command of their masters; yet when they are dead they are free from that bondage, and their masters have no more to do with them. To be dead to the law is to be free from the dominion of the law.
1. In respect of the accusing and damnatory sentence of the law.
2. In respect of the power of the law.
3. In respect of the rigour of the law, exacting most perfect obedience for our justification.
4. In respect of the obligation of the conscience to the observance of ceremonies.
II. The justified person is dead to the law by the law.—By the law of Moses I am dead to the law of Moses The law accuses, terrifies, and condemns us, and therefore occasions us to flee unto Christ who is the cause that we die unto the law. As the needle goes before and draws in the thread which sews the cloth, so the law goes before and makes a way that grace may follow after and take place in the heart.
III. The end of our death to the law is that we may live to God.—We live to God wisely in respect of ourselves, godly in respect to God, justly in respect to men. That we may live godly we must:
1. Bring ourselves into the presence of the invisible God, and set all we do in His sight and presence.
2. We must take knowledge of the will of God in all things.
3. In all we do and suffer we must depend on God for success and deliverance.
4. In all things we must give thanks and praise to God.—Perkins.
Gal_2:20. The Believer crucified with Christ, and Christ living in the Believer.
I. The believer is conformed to the death of Christ.—
1. The nature of this crucifixion. It is figurative, not literal; yet real, and not chimerical. It not only signifies suffering and dying to sin, but also to effect this by the efficacy of Christ’s cross.
2. The objects to which the Christian is crucified, and the principles which thereby expire:
(1) The law considered as a means of justification.
(2) The world—its applause, treasures, gratification.
(3) Self.
3. The sufferings which accompany this crucifixion. Severe conviction and mortification. The complete surrender of heart is attended with many pangs. The continuance of the struggle is grievous.
II. The believer participates in the life of Christ.—
1. The principle of the life—Christ living in the soul.
2. The evidences of this life—holy tempers, spiritual conversation, benevolent actions.
3. The instrument by which this life is introduced and maintained in the soul—faith.
Lessons.—
1. This subject furnishes a test to try the reality of our religion and the measure of our attainments.
2. Exposes the delusion of Pharisees, hypocrites, and antinomians.
3. Exhibits the dignity, felicity, and exalted hopes of the real believer.—Delta.
The Religious Life of the Apostle—
I. Was characterised from the beginning by promptitude of action.
II. Was marked by a constant solicitude for his own personal salvation.
III. Was eminent for its spirit of devotion.
IV. Was one of high fellowship with the divine.
V. Had its foundation and power in a living faith in Christ.
Truths to live on.—Some one has said, “Give me a great truth that I may live on it.” And the preacher may well say, “Give me a great truth that I may preach it.” There are many great truths in this verse. And yet how simply are they put! The first great truth taught in this verse is the oneness between Christ and those who believe in Him. What St. Paul means is this, that having died with Christ on the cross, he has in Christ paid the penalty of sin, is therefore free from its guilt, and it is no longer his old self that lives and rules, but Christ lives in him. And is not this the Christ I want? Not only a Christ to copy, not a Christ outside me, but a Christ living and reigning within. The believer lives by faith, and faith lives on the promises, for faith is a loving trust. The presence or absence of faith rules the whole destiny of every man. The man who believes will live one way. The unbeliever will live in another way. If you have this simple trust in Christ, you may appropriate the last clause of the verse, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me.” When did that love begin? Never. When will that love end? Never.
“Every human tie may perish,
Friend to friend ungrateful prove,
Mothers cease their own to cherish,
Heaven and earth at last remove;
But no changes
Can attend the Saviour’s love.”
For those Christ loves He will undertake altogether. He gives them His peace, His joy, His smile, His arm, His hand, His home. For He gave Himself. There are all treasures in Him. Strength for every need, wisdom for every question, comfort for every sorrow, healing for every wound, provision for every day. “For me,” so insignificant, unworthy, so bad; for me, whose iniquities have darkened the blue heavens; for me, a slave of sin.
“Why was I made to hear Thy voice
And enter while there’s room,
While thousands made a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?
’Twas the same love that spread the feast,
That gently forced me in,
Else I had still refused to taste,
And perished in my sin.”
—F. Harper, M.A.
The Love of the Son of God to Men.
I. The existence of this amazing affection.—Let not the strangeness of the love stagger us into doubt or disbelief, but let us receive and rest in the revealed fact. Viewed from the side of the divine, it is affection from a superior towards those vastly inferior. Viewed from the side of the human beings beloved, it is an affection altogether undeserved. The contrast between His dignity and our demerit is the background on which His love stands out conspicuously.
II. The proof of affection He gave.—Not left to assertion or speculation, but proved by a public act. What He did expresses what He felt. He showed it openly by self denial and self-surrender. He gave not His substance or possessions, not another being, but to procure our salvation and express His love He delivered up His own person.
III. The personality or individuality of the affection.—He died for all and for each. His love to each human being might be inferred from that to the whole race, but it is affirmed directly. Each singly had a distinct place in His loving death. Each was a unit before Him, and had a personal interest in His affection.—W. Smiley, B.A.
The Life of Faith.
I. The life which the apostle lived in the flesh.—
1. His whole life was a life of religious decision. He made his choice and never faltered in it. He saw what he had to do, and he began to do it at once. He allowed no parley with the enemy. Nor was this resolution fleeting; it continued through life.
2. His life was marked by a solemn regard and care for his own personal salvation.—There are two sources of religious danger of which we are not always sufficiently aware—zeal for doctrinal truth, and active employment in promoting the spread of truth. How possible it is that, through the treachery of our hearts, even these may be allowed insensibly to sap the very foundations of that solemn fear, as to our own selves, which ought to influence us! Remember that truth is not the substance of salvation, but its instrument. Water others, but neglect not your own vineyard.
3. His life was truly a life of devotion.—His was a life of prayer. Philosophy asks for a reason for the efficacy of prayer, and, waiting for an answer, never prays at all. Religion hears that God will be inquired of by us, thankfully bends the knee, touches the golden sceptre, and bears away the blessing. We always want; we must always pray. And wish we for a model of high aspiration in prayer? Let the apostle elevate and expand our languid desires.
4. His life was one of heavenly-mindedness.—He lived indeed in the flesh, but his life was in heaven. Heavenly-mindedness is the result of three things—an assurance of present acceptance with God, habitual intercourse with Him through His Son, and the extinction of the worldly spirit. Our fears and aversions result from principles directly opposite.
5. His life was one of cheerful submission to providential appointments.—His was no life of envied ease. In every city bonds and afflictions awaited him. These dispensations operated on a tender and delicate mind, for in him were united great energy and great tenderness. Yet this man, hunted like a beast of prey, always preserves and exhibits a contented cheerfulness. There was no sorrow for himself, none allowed to others for him. The principle itself reason could not furnish; but when furnished it is seen to be most reasonable.
6. His life was one of laborious usefulness.—He lived not to himself, but to Christ Jesus his Lord, in the promotion of His will in the moral benefit and eternal salvation of men. This was the life he lived in the flesh, even to spread the light and influence of the gospel to all.
II. The principle and source of his life.—
1. It is Christian faith. Its object, the Son of God. It receives His words as true, and regards Him as an atoning sacrifice. “He gave Himself for me.”
2. In its nature it is confiding and appropriating.—How does faith connect itself with the results stated?
(1) It regenerates as well as justifies.
(2) It produces vital union with Christ.
(3) It is habitual in its exercise.
(4) It is realising. It gives a spiritual apprehension of invisible and eternal realities.—R. Watson.
Self-abolished and Replaced.—Caroline Herschel, the sister of the great astronomer, was through all her life the most attached servant of her brother. She called herself “a mere tool, which my brother had the trouble of sharpening.” She learned the details of observing with such success that she independently discovered eight comets. Her devotion was most complete. Wherever her brother was concerned she abolished self and replaced her nature with his. Having no taste for astronomy, her work at first was distasteful to her; but she conquered this, and lived to help his work and fame.
Gal_2:21. The Perils of False Teaching.
I. It seeks to base personal righteousness on an effete legalism.—“If righteousness come by the law.”
II. It defeats the gracious purposes of God.—“I do not frustrate the grace of God.”
III. It renders the sacrifice of Christ nugatory.—“Then Christ is dead in vain.”
Frustrating Divine Grace.—
1. The joining of works with faith in the matter of justification is a total excluding of God’s free grace and favour from any hand in the work. Grace admits of no partner. If grace does not all, it does nothing; if anything be added, that addition makes grace to be no grace.
2. That the apostle doth exclude in this dispute from having any influence in justification the works, not only of the ceremonial but also of the moral law, appears from this—that he opposes the merit of Christ’s death to all merit of our own, whether by obedience to the one law or the other.
3. If there had been any other way possible by which the salvation of sinners could have been brought about but by the death of Christ, then Christ would not have died. To suppose Christ died in vain or without cause is an absurdity. If justification could have been attained by works or any other means, then His death had been in vain, and it were an absurd thing to suppose He would have died in that case.—Fergusson.
Justification by Works makes Void the Grace of God.
I. Grace must stand wholly and entirely in itself.—God’s grace cannot stand with man’s merit. Grace is no grace unless it be freely given every way. Grace and works of grace in the causing of justification can no more stand together than fire and water.
II. The apostle answers the objection that if a sinner is justified only by faith in Christ then we abolish the grace of God.—He shows that if we be justified by our own fulfilment of the law then Christ died in vain to fulfil the law for us.
III. We have here a notable ground of true religion.—That the death of Christ is made void if anything be joined with it in the work of our justification as a means to satisfy God’s justice and to merit the favour of God. Therefore the doctrine of justification by works is a manifest error.—Perkins.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain But when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him…
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face, because he stood condemned. [There is no means of determining when this scene took place, but it was probably very soon after the council at Jerusalem. It forms the climax in Paul's argument, showing that he was not only the equal of Peter, but, at times, even his superior. It upsets the Romish doctrine of Peter's supremacy, and also shows that in his conduct he was not infallible; for in this instance he was not so much condemned by his fellow-apostle as he was, to use Paul's phrase, self-condemned--his conduct at one time reproving and convicting him for his conduct at another. Luther regards Paul as here drawing a contrast between his own conduct in withstanding Peter to his face, and these gospel perverters who were slandering him behind his back.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Paul’s Reproof of Peter, and the Lessons Drawn There…
Paul’s Reproof of Peter, and the Lessons Drawn There from.
Peter’s strange behavior at Antioch:
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v. 11. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.
v. 12. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
v. 13. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.
v. 14. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, if thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?
Paul here relates this incident (for such it was, being without influence on the work of the Church), not in order to impair the reputation and authority of Peter, but to bring out the fact that his own position was independent, and that he was the equal of Peter. It was the principle of the matter with which Paul was concerned and which he brings out in his narrative. It seems that, sometime after the meeting in Jerusalem, Peter came to Antioch for a visit, the object of which is not indicated. And it was at this time that Paul found it necessary to take a stand against him, since his conduct had been found reprehensible, blameworthy. The Christians at Antioch had reasons to pass an unfavorable judgment upon Peter, and Paul felt obliged to take their part for the sake of the evangelical truth. For when Peter had first comedown from Jerusalem, he had observed the compact as made in Jerusalem, Act 15:1-41; he had freely associated with the Gentile Christians, just as he had done before, Act 10:11. But when certain people came from James, persons that belonged to the stricter class of Jewish Christians, who still observed all the outward customs of the Jewish religion, Peter withdrew from association with the Gentiles, in order to give the impression that he was avoiding the Levitical defilement which attended eating with Gentiles. But aside from the fact that Peter had himself defended his associating with Gentiles under similar conditions, Act 11:1-30, the articles of agreement which had been drawn up in Jerusalem were binding upon him as well as upon the Gentile Christians; they were the conditions of intercourse between the Jewish and Gentile Christians, and therefore Peter’s withdrawal from the common meal violated the spirit of that solemn treaty. Peter’s offense thus, in separating himself from the Gentiles, was an act of dissimulation, of hypocrisy, because he lacked the moral courage to face the stricter Jews.
Peter was a person of importance and influence, and his tentative and irresolute efforts gradually to withdraw from intercourse with the Gentile Christians had its effects upon others: And with him acted as hypocrites also the other Jews, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. This conduct was characteristic of that Peter whom the gospels describe: "First to confess Christ, first to deny Him; first to recognize and defend the rights of the Gentiles, first to disown them practically; his strength and weakness, boldness and timidity are the two opposite manifestations of the same warm, impulsive, and impressible temper. " Evil results followed at once; for the Jewish Christians of Antioch, who had previously associated with their brethren from among the Gentiles without a thought of evil, now affected religious scruples which they did not feel, their insincerity being a true form of hypocrisy. But what capped the climax was that even Barnabas permitted himself to be carried away by this reactionary behavior. Naturally, the Gentile Christians were both offended and perplexed, since by the change of conduct in Peter and the other Jews they were driven to the thought that, after all, the Mosaic Law must be binding, even in matters pertaining to outward ceremonies.
The situation was such as to cause the most serious apprehension on the part of Paul and to call for immediate drastic measures: But when I saw that they did not walk squarely according to the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter before all, If you, being a Jew, lire like a Gentile and not like a Jew, why are you compelling the Gentiles to live as Jews? The behavior of Peter was a public offense and scandal and may have been particularly noticeable at the common meals associated with the celebration of the Holy Communion. Paul, therefore, with the Eighth Commandment in mind, did his duty without flinching: he spoke to Peter face to face, in the presence of those against whom he was sinning. Paul was concerned about the truth of the Gospel; for the conduct of Peter and the rest was casting reflections upon those whom God had pronounced clean in Christ. Not to confess outright, to walk circuitous paths, to evade straightforward honesty with the specious plea of charity, all these are things which do not harmonize with the Christian love which the Gospel presupposes in a life of sanctification. Paul’s rebuke, therefore, was short and to the point. Peter was a Jew, and thus it would have been natural for him to live as a Jew, to observe the customs and forms which had been laid upon the Jews of old. But now he had deliberately left this accustomed practice and lived after the manner of the Gentiles, had associated with them on terms of absolute equality, which was perfectly right and proper for him to do, since he knew that no contamination would result. Now, however, that he had withdrawn in such an ostentatious manner from this association, he was really exerting a severe pressure on Gentile converts to adopt the Jewish mode of life, for they could not but conclude that, after all, the Jewish manner of living must be holier and better. Paul’s point was well taken, as Peter’s silence also admitted. "The hypocrisy of Peter, I say, Paul did not suffer. For he approves Peter’s having lived after the heathen manner and again after the Jewish manner, but he condemns him for withdrawing and separating himself, when the Jews came, from the foods of the Gentiles. By this withdrawal he induced both Gentiles and Jews to believe that the heathen manner was not permitted while the Jewish was necessary, although he knew that both were free and permitted. " Note: Whenever the freedom and the truth of the Gospel are endangered by any acts of moral timidity and cowardice, the one approved course is to rectify the mistake at once and thus save the honor of Jesus.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 I opposed him to his face
I opposed him to his face
The words "to his face" are a metonym for "where he could see and hear me." AT: "I confronted him in person" or "I challenged his actions in person" (See: Metonymy)
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Before
in relation to time
he stopped
"he stopped eating with them"
He was afraid of those who were demanding circumcision
The reason Cephas was afraid can be stated explicitly. AT: "He was afraid that these men who required circumcision would judge that he was doing something wrong" or "He was afraid that these men who required circumcision would blame him for doing something wrong" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
those who were demanding circumcision
Jews who had become Christians, but who demanded that those who believe in Christ live according to Jewish customs
kept away from
"stayed away from" or "avoided"
translationWords
Peter
Antioch
James (brother of Jesus)
Gentile
circumcise
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 2:11-21 In Antioch, Peter and others compromised the Good…
2:11-21 In Antioch, Peter and others compromised the Good News in contradiction of their own principles (this incident is not recorded in Acts). Paul’s rebuke of Peter showed that Paul’s apostleship was independent of Jerusalem and faithful to the Good News of Christ.
2:11 when Peter came to Antioch: This occasion, not recorded in Acts, probably occurred following the return of Paul and Barnabas from their first missionary journey (Acts 14:26-28). Paul probably wrote this letter soon afterward. • what he did was very wrong (or he stood condemned): Peter’s actions were inconsistent with what he knew to be true—that God accepts Gentiles by faith, not by keeping the law (see Acts 10–11). • Paul had to oppose Peter to his face. Paul wanted to keep the Good News from being corrupted (Gal 2:21), which required showing publicly that Peter’s own public action was wrong (cp. 1 Tim 5:20).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.