Galatians 2:1-10 - Revealed By the Gospel
You may be familiar with the old hymn The Church’s One Foundation. It’s a wonderful tribute to Christ. The song speaks to His sacrifice for us, and to our union with Him and with each other in Him, and it speaks to the trials the church must endure.
Part of verse 5 says, “By schisms rent asunder / by heresies distressed.” Schisms are splits that occur in the church. Heresies are false teachings that pop up and strike at the heart of Christian doctrine. In every generation, the church endures attacks.
Of course, there are attacks from outside – from other religions and groups. But these lyrics speak of attacks that come from within. The church will continually face these and must ward them off while faithfully proclaiming Christ and enjoying fellowship with God and each other.
Nehemiah 4 in the OT comes to mind. As the Israelites rebuilt the ruined wall around Jerusalem, enemies tried to stop them. Nehemiah writes that those who worked, “each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other.” They weren’t focused only on fighting enemies or only on the work of building. They were actively doing both.
And the true church must take a lesson here. We can fail to do one or the other – or both. But Christ Himself will make us ready – and He does so with His gospel. The defends the gospel and proclaims the gospel with the gospel.
The message of who Jesus is and what He’s done reveals who are its enemies and its allies. For this reason, the gospel is central in the church. And this section in the book of Galatians confirms this.
Now, many scholars interpret these events as the same ones recorded in Acts 15: the Jerusalem Council, what we recognize as the first recorded General Assembly. The assembly was called because of the effect of the Judaizers: Jewish Christians who believed that Gentiles Christians needed to become Jewish – being circumcised and following the ceremonial law of Moses.
Fourteen years had passed since Paul’s time spent with Peter and James. This is important because it proves that Paul did not need their supervision. He was an apostle on the same level with Peter and the others. And now the Judaizer heresy had come to a head.
Notice verse 1, Paul says he went “with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.” And verse [2] “I went up because of a revelation.” Apparently Christ Himself urged Paul to go. Paul then says, he “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.”
“Those who seemed influential” were the other apostles – in particular, James, Peter, and John. The Judaizers were naming these three men and telling Gentile believers something like, “You know the apostles were all Jews, right? So you need to keep Jewish customs as well.” They were contrasting those men with Paul.
All the apostles and elders at that time were at this big meeting, but there was also a private meeting of Paul and Barnabas with James, Peter, and John. Barnabas was a Levite (formerly a Jew), but Titus was a Greek – a Gentile. And notice the point Paul makes here for the Galatians reading this letter. Verse [3], he says, “But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.” Titus was in the presence of the “influential” – James, Peter, and John – and they did not make him submit to Jewish laws and customs.
In both the private meeting and the public assembly, Titus was accepted wholehearted on the basis of his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But there were some legalistic Judaizers in the assembly, verse [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.” “You” refers to the Galatian churches. These apostles and elders gathered to defend the gospel for the sake of advancing it.
We must understand that the realities of the gospel are always relevant. It tells us what we need to know about God and about ourselves. By accepting Titus and being unwilling to submit to the legalistic Judaizers, these church leaders preserved the gospel of free grace for all the believers.
The true gospel smokes out those who are attempting to add to the work of Christ. The gospel exposes those who are deceptive enemies - and deceived enemies. Some stand in opposition to the gospel intentionally, some unintentionally.
I mentioned last week that you probably don’t have people trying to make you adhere to Jewish laws and customs. But legalism is still present. It comes naturally. Dr. R.C. Sproul produced a very helpful article which he titled, “3 Types of Legalism.” He says, “Some people seem to be preoccupied in the Christian life with obeying rules and regulations, and they conceive of Christianity as being a series of do’s and don’ts – cold and deadly set of moral principles. That’s one form of legalism, where one is concerned merely with the keeping of God’s law as an end in itself.” Notice that with that kind of legalism, the person of God is separated from His law. When that happens, the true gospel is no longer in view.
Well, then Sproul goes on to say, “The second form of legalism divorces the letter of the law from the spirit of the law. It obeys the letter but violates the spirit. There’s only a subtle distinction between this form of legalism and the one previously mentioned…This second kind of legalism obeys the externals while the heart is far removed from any desire to honor God, the intent of His law, or His Christ.”
Sproul gives the example of the Pharisees in Matthew 12. They confronted Jesus over healing on the Sabbath day, “concerned only with the letter of the law and avoiding anything that might look like work to them.” He states, “These teachers missed the spirit of the law, which was directed against ordinary labor that is not required to maintain life and not against efforts to heal the sick.”
We’re going to explore those two types of legalism further as we study Galatians. But it’s a third type of legalism that I want to look at today. Dr. Sproul writes, “The third type of legalism adds our own rules to God’s law and treats them as divine. It is the most common and deadly form of legalism. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees at this very point, saying, “You teach human traditions as if they were the word of God.” Dr. Sproul notes, “We have no right to heap up restrictions on people where He has no stated restriction.”
That is, essentially, what the Judaizers were doing to these Gentile believers. They were putting burdens on them that were not from God. Dr. Sproul gives the kind of example that can show up in our churches today. He says, “Each church has a right to set its own policies in certain areas. For example, the Bible says nothing about soft drinks in the church’s fellowship hall, but a church has every right to regulate such things. But when we use these human policies to bind the conscience in an ultimate way and make such policies determinative of one’s salvation, we venture dangerously into territory that is God’s alone.”
When someone refers to something that God has not restricted or commanded in His Word, and says or thinks something like, “Oh, if you do that, or if you don’t do this, well then, I don’t know if you’re really saved. You can’t have God’s favor,” that’s legalism. This goes on a great deal in churches. And it’s harmful.
Dr. Sproul goes on to say, “Many people think that the essence of Christianity is following the right rules, even rules that are extrabiblical. For example, the Bible doesn’t say that we can’t play cards or have a glass of wine with dinner. We can’t make these matters the external test of authentic Christianity. That would be a deadly violation of the gospel because it would substitute human tradition for the real fruits of the Spirit. We come perilously close to blasphemy by misrepresenting Christ in this way. Where God has given liberty, we should never enslave people with man-made rules. We must be careful to fight this form of legalism.”
The Gentiles Christians were free in Christ. They were free not to practice circumcision and follow Mosaic ceremonial law. The Judaizers sought to enslave them with rules that were not demands from the Lord.
Notice verse 4 again. Paul says these false brothers slipped in to “spy on their freedom.” Legalists cannot stand Christian liberty. They need everything done their way. But you can be flexible on matters of Christian liberty when you are truly unwilling to bend on the true gospel of free grace.
How do we fight these forms of legalism in our lives? We must know and be passionate about the actual gospel! The gospel exposes legalism! So we proclaim it and we explore it and rejoice in it every Lord’s Day! And we apply its truth in every life situation.
In what ways are you legalistic? What burdens do you put on yourself that are not from God? What burdens do you put on others that are not from God? Let the gospel expose these in your life. Let the gospel make you free.
Now, the gospel does much more than just expose its enemies. Beginning with verse 6, Paul turns the attention from the enemies to the allies. He expresses that James, Peter, and John “adding nothing” to his gospel. It may sound as if he was at odds with them, but he wasn’t. When he says, “what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality,” he’s referencing how the Judaizers used James, Peter, and John.
These men and the other apostles – while holding special office – were not better than any other Christian. They were not superior to Paul in apostleship. This is why rather than refuting Paul’s ministry, verse 9 says when they “perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me.” James, Peter, and John recognized that Paul was especially called to the Gentiles just as they – and Peter in particular – was especially called to the Jews. There was mutual recognition and respect in the gospel.
Now I do want to comment on Peter’s name. Cephas is Aramaic (or Jewish). It means “rock.” Peter is the Greek translation of his name. Jesus called Peter “Cephas” because his name sounded like their word for “rock,” the Greek “petras.” It seems that Paul switches from one to the other in a way that demonstrates the unity between Jews and Gentiles and the continuity between the groups. Later on, in Galatians 3, Paul writes, “There is neither Jew nor Greek…for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
James, Peter, and John agreed fully with Paul’s gospel, and clearly, Paul was encouraged by their acceptance of him. They were unified in the gospel by the gospel.
You see, the gospel confirms those who are called laborers. It reveals who are its allies. Like these apostles, we can identify our fellow laborers by the message they proclaim. Is it Christ alone for salvation? Is His gospel the means for our spiritual growth?
There are many churches today where the true gospel is not proclaimed. Rather, the message is geared toward social action and humanitarian efforts, or it’s geared toward political agendas or self-help methods. Many years ago, sociologist Christian Smith coined the term “moralistic therapeutic deism.”
Smith explained that many people in churches today hold these five beliefs: 1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. 2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. 3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about ones self. 4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem. 5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
I could say many, many things about those beliefs, but for the sake of time and for our subject this morning, I’ll say just one thing: that is not the gospel of Christ. And if you hold those beliefs, while you may be very well intentioned, you are not an ally of the gospel, and the gospel would not confirm you as a laborer called by God.
But shouldn’t we – as the church – care about those in need? Absolutely! Notice that James, Peter, and John, having affirmed Paul and the others, ask something of them. In verse [10], Paul says, “Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.” Serving the needy is important, but it is secondary. The preservation and proclamation of the true gospel is always primary.
As we go to the Lord’s table this morning, ask yourself, “Does the gospel of Christ – the message of God’s free grace only through Christ by faith – hold the primary place in my beliefs and my practices?” Ask, “Have I bought someone’s lie by adding things to His finished work? Have I put a burden on others, or do I put a burden on myself, which is not from Christ?”
There is nothing of us or from us on this table. There is only the glorious Lord Jesus Christ – revealed by the gospel.
Let’s bow in prayer.
Part of verse 5 says, “By schisms rent asunder / by heresies distressed.” Schisms are splits that occur in the church. Heresies are false teachings that pop up and strike at the heart of Christian doctrine. In every generation, the church endures attacks.
Of course, there are attacks from outside – from other religions and groups. But these lyrics speak of attacks that come from within. The church will continually face these and must ward them off while faithfully proclaiming Christ and enjoying fellowship with God and each other.
Nehemiah 4 in the OT comes to mind. As the Israelites rebuilt the ruined wall around Jerusalem, enemies tried to stop them. Nehemiah writes that those who worked, “each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other.” They weren’t focused only on fighting enemies or only on the work of building. They were actively doing both.
And the true church must take a lesson here. We can fail to do one or the other – or both. But Christ Himself will make us ready – and He does so with His gospel. The defends the gospel and proclaims the gospel with the gospel.
The message of who Jesus is and what He’s done reveals who are its enemies and its allies. For this reason, the gospel is central in the church. And this section in the book of Galatians confirms this.
Now, many scholars interpret these events as the same ones recorded in Acts 15: the Jerusalem Council, what we recognize as the first recorded General Assembly. The assembly was called because of the effect of the Judaizers: Jewish Christians who believed that Gentiles Christians needed to become Jewish – being circumcised and following the ceremonial law of Moses.
Fourteen years had passed since Paul’s time spent with Peter and James. This is important because it proves that Paul did not need their supervision. He was an apostle on the same level with Peter and the others. And now the Judaizer heresy had come to a head.
Notice verse 1, Paul says he went “with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.” And verse [2] “I went up because of a revelation.” Apparently Christ Himself urged Paul to go. Paul then says, he “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.”
“Those who seemed influential” were the other apostles – in particular, James, Peter, and John. The Judaizers were naming these three men and telling Gentile believers something like, “You know the apostles were all Jews, right? So you need to keep Jewish customs as well.” They were contrasting those men with Paul.
All the apostles and elders at that time were at this big meeting, but there was also a private meeting of Paul and Barnabas with James, Peter, and John. Barnabas was a Levite (formerly a Jew), but Titus was a Greek – a Gentile. And notice the point Paul makes here for the Galatians reading this letter. Verse [3], he says, “But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.” Titus was in the presence of the “influential” – James, Peter, and John – and they did not make him submit to Jewish laws and customs.
In both the private meeting and the public assembly, Titus was accepted wholehearted on the basis of his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But there were some legalistic Judaizers in the assembly, verse [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.” “You” refers to the Galatian churches. These apostles and elders gathered to defend the gospel for the sake of advancing it.
We must understand that the realities of the gospel are always relevant. It tells us what we need to know about God and about ourselves. By accepting Titus and being unwilling to submit to the legalistic Judaizers, these church leaders preserved the gospel of free grace for all the believers.
The true gospel smokes out those who are attempting to add to the work of Christ. The gospel exposes those who are deceptive enemies - and deceived enemies. Some stand in opposition to the gospel intentionally, some unintentionally.
I mentioned last week that you probably don’t have people trying to make you adhere to Jewish laws and customs. But legalism is still present. It comes naturally. Dr. R.C. Sproul produced a very helpful article which he titled, “3 Types of Legalism.” He says, “Some people seem to be preoccupied in the Christian life with obeying rules and regulations, and they conceive of Christianity as being a series of do’s and don’ts – cold and deadly set of moral principles. That’s one form of legalism, where one is concerned merely with the keeping of God’s law as an end in itself.” Notice that with that kind of legalism, the person of God is separated from His law. When that happens, the true gospel is no longer in view.
Well, then Sproul goes on to say, “The second form of legalism divorces the letter of the law from the spirit of the law. It obeys the letter but violates the spirit. There’s only a subtle distinction between this form of legalism and the one previously mentioned…This second kind of legalism obeys the externals while the heart is far removed from any desire to honor God, the intent of His law, or His Christ.”
Sproul gives the example of the Pharisees in Matthew 12. They confronted Jesus over healing on the Sabbath day, “concerned only with the letter of the law and avoiding anything that might look like work to them.” He states, “These teachers missed the spirit of the law, which was directed against ordinary labor that is not required to maintain life and not against efforts to heal the sick.”
We’re going to explore those two types of legalism further as we study Galatians. But it’s a third type of legalism that I want to look at today. Dr. Sproul writes, “The third type of legalism adds our own rules to God’s law and treats them as divine. It is the most common and deadly form of legalism. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees at this very point, saying, “You teach human traditions as if they were the word of God.” Dr. Sproul notes, “We have no right to heap up restrictions on people where He has no stated restriction.”
That is, essentially, what the Judaizers were doing to these Gentile believers. They were putting burdens on them that were not from God. Dr. Sproul gives the kind of example that can show up in our churches today. He says, “Each church has a right to set its own policies in certain areas. For example, the Bible says nothing about soft drinks in the church’s fellowship hall, but a church has every right to regulate such things. But when we use these human policies to bind the conscience in an ultimate way and make such policies determinative of one’s salvation, we venture dangerously into territory that is God’s alone.”
When someone refers to something that God has not restricted or commanded in His Word, and says or thinks something like, “Oh, if you do that, or if you don’t do this, well then, I don’t know if you’re really saved. You can’t have God’s favor,” that’s legalism. This goes on a great deal in churches. And it’s harmful.
Dr. Sproul goes on to say, “Many people think that the essence of Christianity is following the right rules, even rules that are extrabiblical. For example, the Bible doesn’t say that we can’t play cards or have a glass of wine with dinner. We can’t make these matters the external test of authentic Christianity. That would be a deadly violation of the gospel because it would substitute human tradition for the real fruits of the Spirit. We come perilously close to blasphemy by misrepresenting Christ in this way. Where God has given liberty, we should never enslave people with man-made rules. We must be careful to fight this form of legalism.”
The Gentiles Christians were free in Christ. They were free not to practice circumcision and follow Mosaic ceremonial law. The Judaizers sought to enslave them with rules that were not demands from the Lord.
Notice verse 4 again. Paul says these false brothers slipped in to “spy on their freedom.” Legalists cannot stand Christian liberty. They need everything done their way. But you can be flexible on matters of Christian liberty when you are truly unwilling to bend on the true gospel of free grace.
How do we fight these forms of legalism in our lives? We must know and be passionate about the actual gospel! The gospel exposes legalism! So we proclaim it and we explore it and rejoice in it every Lord’s Day! And we apply its truth in every life situation.
In what ways are you legalistic? What burdens do you put on yourself that are not from God? What burdens do you put on others that are not from God? Let the gospel expose these in your life. Let the gospel make you free.
Now, the gospel does much more than just expose its enemies. Beginning with verse 6, Paul turns the attention from the enemies to the allies. He expresses that James, Peter, and John “adding nothing” to his gospel. It may sound as if he was at odds with them, but he wasn’t. When he says, “what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality,” he’s referencing how the Judaizers used James, Peter, and John.
These men and the other apostles – while holding special office – were not better than any other Christian. They were not superior to Paul in apostleship. This is why rather than refuting Paul’s ministry, verse 9 says when they “perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me.” James, Peter, and John recognized that Paul was especially called to the Gentiles just as they – and Peter in particular – was especially called to the Jews. There was mutual recognition and respect in the gospel.
Now I do want to comment on Peter’s name. Cephas is Aramaic (or Jewish). It means “rock.” Peter is the Greek translation of his name. Jesus called Peter “Cephas” because his name sounded like their word for “rock,” the Greek “petras.” It seems that Paul switches from one to the other in a way that demonstrates the unity between Jews and Gentiles and the continuity between the groups. Later on, in Galatians 3, Paul writes, “There is neither Jew nor Greek…for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
James, Peter, and John agreed fully with Paul’s gospel, and clearly, Paul was encouraged by their acceptance of him. They were unified in the gospel by the gospel.
You see, the gospel confirms those who are called laborers. It reveals who are its allies. Like these apostles, we can identify our fellow laborers by the message they proclaim. Is it Christ alone for salvation? Is His gospel the means for our spiritual growth?
There are many churches today where the true gospel is not proclaimed. Rather, the message is geared toward social action and humanitarian efforts, or it’s geared toward political agendas or self-help methods. Many years ago, sociologist Christian Smith coined the term “moralistic therapeutic deism.”
Smith explained that many people in churches today hold these five beliefs: 1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. 2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. 3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about ones self. 4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem. 5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
I could say many, many things about those beliefs, but for the sake of time and for our subject this morning, I’ll say just one thing: that is not the gospel of Christ. And if you hold those beliefs, while you may be very well intentioned, you are not an ally of the gospel, and the gospel would not confirm you as a laborer called by God.
But shouldn’t we – as the church – care about those in need? Absolutely! Notice that James, Peter, and John, having affirmed Paul and the others, ask something of them. In verse [10], Paul says, “Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.” Serving the needy is important, but it is secondary. The preservation and proclamation of the true gospel is always primary.
As we go to the Lord’s table this morning, ask yourself, “Does the gospel of Christ – the message of God’s free grace only through Christ by faith – hold the primary place in my beliefs and my practices?” Ask, “Have I bought someone’s lie by adding things to His finished work? Have I put a burden on others, or do I put a burden on myself, which is not from Christ?”
There is nothing of us or from us on this table. There is only the glorious Lord Jesus Christ – revealed by the gospel.
Let’s bow in prayer.
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Genesis 3:9-15, 21 – The Adamic Covenant: God’s Grace ShownGenesis 6:11-14,17-18; 9:8-17 - The Noahic Covenant: God’s Grace ContinuedGenesis 15 - The Abraham Covenant: God’s Grace ConfirmedRomans 5:20 - The Mosaic Covenant: God’s Grace Magnified2 Samuel 7:12–17 - The Davidic Covenant: God’s Grace Forever
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