Galatians 2:1-10

  • David Fairchild
  • May 28, 2006
  • Series: Galatians

INTRODUCTION

It is good to recap the purpose for this letter and the audience for which it was intended.  The apostle Paul had been a vehement enemy of the church of Christ.  He was a racist to the core.  He was proud of his nationality, proud of his religion, and proud of his position within his religion.  Paul meets Jesus on the road to Damascus and is knocked to the ground and found to be self-righteous and a persecutor not only of Christians, but a persecutor of Christ himself.  Paul is given grace and changed from the inside out.  He then begins to preach the very gospel he attempted to destroy and begins his new life as a church-planting apostle and missionary.  

Paul begins his missional travels shortly after his conversion and starts traveling city to city.  His normal activity would be to plant a church in a particular region, set up leaders for that church, and then help that church to grow in maturity through the letters he would write to teach them about the gospel of Christ and life in Him.  Galatians is one of these letters which was written by Paul to the four churches in the southern region of Galatia to address specific and particular doctrinal issues that were causing division in the churches. 

Primarily, this letter is a doctrinal corrective letter written to deal with race and social divisions in the churches.  More and more Gentiles had received Christ and it was causing racial and social problems to an overwhelmingly dominant early Jewish church.  Some of these Jews were insisting that the Gentile Christians, who in there eyes were still considered ceremonially unclean, must undergo circumcision and practice all of the traditional Mosaic ceremonial customs to be fully accepted by God.  

Paul’s great concern for these churches is brought out as he begins to demonstrate that all of their divisions and disunity are ultimately due to their confusion about the nature of the gospel.  Paul condemns those individuals who were attempting to blend their ceremonial activities with the free offer of grace found in the gospel as the security for their salvation, and then preaching this “different gospel,” and calls them accursed.  By teaching that we are accepted by the Father through Christ plus anything was an entirely different gospel, which was no gospel at all.  This cultural gospel was a perverted gospel and it was the cause for the infighting and racism within the church.   

Paul is writing this letter to professing Christians who have checked all the boxes to qualify as a Christian, yet missed the most important, which was that we only have peace with the Father by the finished work of Jesus and nothing else is allowed or accepted in addition.   

Paul begins to expound upon the solution of this problem by demonstrating that the racism and disunity can not be conquered by becoming better Christians, but by living out the truth and implications of the gospel in daily life.  The fact that the Galatians were being tempted and lured into accepting this “gospel-plus” program, which was causing the racial tension, was evidence that they really had not understood the implications of the gospel and had not worked out those implications in thought and action.   

For the Judaizers (those who were Jewish and Christian, and promoted Mosaic ceremonial law) circumcision was the first and most significant act for an individual since it demonstrated that though they were once “unclean,” they have now become “ceremonially clean.”  They would grow in being “ritually clean” by the adherence and practice of the Mosaic code, and this “ceremonial” and “ritual” cleansing would qualify them to enter into God’s presence to worship Him in the temple, which was the height and center of their religious activity.   

Their reliance upon their activities to gain them security before God was in diametric opposition to Paul’s gospel of free grace offered by God in Christ, who kept the entire law and fulfilled it in himself, and who’s righteousness alone brings us the peace and presence of God in the whole of our life.  These works based, grace-plus, evangelists were causing tremendous disharmony in the family of God because they were convincing in their arguments, righteous in their life, and were calling Paul’s authority and gospel into question.  This in turn caused those who were Gentile converts to be viewed as junior varsity since they only had Christ, and those who had Christ plus, and were Jewish in their religious practices, considered themselves varsity.  Tension, confusion, anger, bitterness, resentment, and judgmental fruit inspection was now common and would only grow if Paul did not cut it at the root with the glorious gospel of grace alone, received by faith alone.   

This book has been called the freedom fighters gospel or the Magna Carte (a document which acts as a guarantee of basic rights) of the New Testament because it forcefully proclaims freedom from such bondage of self-righteous, self-effort, and self-sufficiency.  However, the experience of freedom that the gospel brings is a precious and delicate freedom.  It is easily subject to destruction by legalistic tendencies which begin to enslave and bind us again to old patterns of acceptance by God through obedience to His word.   

Consider Martin Luther King, who in 1963 proclaimed with a thundering voice, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we’re free at last!”  These words which were an outburst of joy and a declaration of freedom came a full century after liberty was first proclaimed for African-Americans.  At last! after centuries of bondage and enslavement.  At last! after another long century of prejudice and injustice, Dr. King pronounced that he and his race were to see themselves as, “Free at last!” 

One thing we have learned with our experience with slavery in America is that proclaiming freedom and possessing it are two very different things.  Freedom is not easily gained, and once gained, it is easily lost.  Dr. King knew this and used an old negro-spiritual which was a song describing the meaning of being freed from sin through Jesus Christ, to announce his freedom.   

STUDY 

Verses 1-2- “Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.  2  I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.” 

Paul did not travel to Jerusalem because he was concerned or fearful that he had a wrong message or a wrong style that needed to be corrected.  This passage teaches us that he went to Jerusalem because of a “revelation” he received from God.  This demonstrates, yet again, that as an apostle with direct revelation from God, he was already authorized.  Paul has been arguing (in the last chapter) that he didn’t receive this gospel from or through man, but through Christ himself.   

Paul’s life had radically been altered and he (up to this point) had given his life for the last 14 years to the proclamation and furtherance of this gospel.  He didn’t receive or need training from anyone else, since he received that training from Christ himself in Damascus and Arabia.  Paul was under the gospel message, in submission to it, and in as much as he was faithful to the message, he didn’t want or need outside validation.   

Paul was confident that he was preaching the right gospel, yet he desired that nothing would hinder the advancement and spread of this gospel, so he came to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles so that they could put a stamp of approval upon his ministry and message for the advancement of it.  The false converts were attacking Paul by telling him that his message was not as full as the original apostle’s and therefore they were going to give the necessary ingredients which were left out in Paul’s message.  These ingredients were that you were saved both by faith in Jesus and obedience to the Mosaic law.     

Paul sensed that unless he disproved his detractors, his ministry may be in danger and he was fearful he would have run his race “in vain.”  He was eager to correct this problem so that it would not slow the advancement of the Kingdom and the furtherance of the gospel. 

The significance of taking Barnabas (a Jews) and Titus (a Gentile) can not be overstated.  Paul brought these to men who were both lovers of Christ to show how the gospel that he preached was unifying those who had once been separated.  For the Jew, the Gentile was an unclean pig.  For the Gentile, the Jew was a foolish, religious “right winger” who was hated because of his pride in his religion.   

Verses 3-5- “But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. 4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in--who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery-- 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.”  

Paul’s move to bring a Gentile convert who was not circumcised was a bold one.  He brought Titus with him, and if anything was going to enrage the Judaizers, it would be the bringing of a Gentile to Jerusalem and calling him a leader in the church of Christ.  He was one of Paul’s co-workers, and was like a son to Paul.  He eventually became very prominent and served as a pastor of the church in Crete.  Titus was not only a Greek, but he was uncircumcised.  Circumcision was the sacred mark of the Jewish identity, the symbol of salvation.  Since the days of Abraham, the removal of the foreskin had been the visible sign of belonging to God’s people as it demonstrated the removal of our fleshly nature in our hearts as God cut away our sin.  Circumcision was the determining factor to demonstrate whether or not you were inside or outside the covenant.  In the past, if a Gentile had decided to become a Jew, he was circumcised.  This is what the law required.  But with Christ and his gospel which Paul preached, he proclaimed the good news of the bloody cross and empty tomb.  He preached that Jesus had already met the requirements of the law, epitomized by circumcision.   

Paul powerfully preached that you did not need to be circumcised to be saved.  The good news is not salvation by faith plus circumcision, but salvation by faith in Christ and his perfect keeping and fulfillment of the law. 

Paul was not trying to cause strife by bringing Titus, but rather to establish the truth of the Gospel for the whole world, and all cultures and races in it.  Paul wanted to show that the truth of the Gospel meant that Jews and Gentiles are accepted by God on the same terms—through faith in Jesus Christ, and this means they need to be accepted by the church without any division or discrimination between them.   

It seems as if false brethren crashed the meeting and were trying to persuade the apostles to accept the same statements they made in Acts 15:1: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”  They had wormed their way in as spies from the enemy to attempt to bring this gospel into bondage.  Paul didn’t only see this as an issue of circumcision or uncircumcision, or of Gentile and Jewish customs.  For Paul, it was a matter of life-altering importance because it was about the truth of the gospel, of Christian freedom versus legalistic bondage.  The Christians had been set free from the law in that they were accepted by God entirely based upon God’s grace in the death of His only Son, Jesus, and this was received by faith.   

To add to this message of freedom, was to bring a man whose chains had been broken back into slavery.   

Paul stood against the pressure from those who would rob his and the entire history of the church’s freedom.  They did not yield submission even for a moment.  Why was it that Paul refused to see Titus circumcised, yet allowed for Timothy to be circumcised?  It was because of the audience of those who they ministered to.  Titus’ primary ministry was to Gentiles, and Timothy’s primary ministry was to Jews.  He did this not out of pressure, but so that the gospel message would have an easier way into these groups.   

For Timothy, the brothers for which Paul had him circumcised were weak brothers, and for Titus the Jews for which he would not be circumcised were false brothers. 

In our day, one of the false groups of brothers are those that insist that baptism is required for salvation.  That it is faith plus baptism which brings us salvation.  This is like that of the Judaizers who demanded circumcision.     

Verses 6-8- “And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)--those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. 7 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised 8 (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles),”  

In order to build the Kingdom, we must see that there are going to be different gifts and callings.  Paul and Peter are given different callings for their ministry—one to the Jews, the other to the Gentiles.    

There are many things we can disagree on, but the one thing that we must, and can unify over is the truth of the gospel of grace.   

This demonstrates that we can have relationships formed around and in cooperation with the gospel truth to see it more fully proclaimed.  “Giving the right hand” was a true sign of friendship and acceptance, cooperation and approval.    

This unity destroys the detractors of the gospel and shows that union in Christ is more powerful than pet doctrines and cultural preferences.     

Fellowship with each other is only possible if we have fellowship with Christ.   

Verses 9-10-  “and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10 Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.”  

This day, grace won a victory for the church and has affected the entire world and the spread of the gospel.    

This demonstrates that we can have relationships formed around and in cooperation with the gospel truth to see it more fully proclaimed.  “Giving the right hand” was a true sign of friendship and acceptance, cooperation and approval.    

Grace is the foundation for their unity.

Grace is also the motivation to care for the poor.  The Jewish believers were poor and there needed to be unity with the Gentiles or the gospel would not advance.  

It is significant that Paul ends with a word about the poor.  This concern shared with James, Cephas, and John was shared by Paul and should be shared by all believers and followers of Jesus Christ. 

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