Chapter 4
In the 1952 movie High Noon, Gary Cooper plays a man forced to make a decision. Does he stay in town and fight the lawless men who are out to kill him — men who will arrive on the noon train — or does he flee to safety with his new bride to another town? The film pivots on a character who stands for his principles while abandoned, unsupported, and even criticised by his own community and by those closest to him.
In this section of Galatians, Paul records the High Noon of the very tenets of Christianity — the moment when the whole faith pivoted on conduct at a single meal, and Paul was left alone, abandoned, and unsupported. Yet thanks to his courage and wisdom, God used him to save His message.
For the critical anecdote of this section we are back in Antioch. When Paul tells the story in the letter he goes back and forth in time, recounting it as though the Galatians already know the event. For our purposes I will retell it in linear order.
So, to begin with, the Apostle Peter himself made the big trip from Jerusalem to join the Christians in Antioch, 760 kilometres away. It must have been a big deal — the head of the church coming to this cosmopolitan, largely Gentile crossroads of the world. How long he stayed we don't know, and it isn't really important. The big question, as far as this argument goes, is this: would Peter keep the Jewish law and separate himself from non-Jews, even though they were one in Christ? Would he follow the Jewish law? Would he expect others to do the same?
He did not. He embraced his new brothers and sisters in Christ exactly as they were.
When Cephas came to Antioch, however, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. (Galatians 2:11–12a)
The gospel was reigning supreme in Antioch.
But testing times were not far away. News had spread, and it had reached Jerusalem — messages that things were happening in Antioch that some would not find joyous. Indeed, some would find them troubling. Jews eating with Gentiles. The circumcised mixing with the uncircumcised. The law not being kept. Some might be forgiven for thinking that matters were getting out of control in the distant city.
But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself, for fear of those in the circumcision group. (Galatians 2:12b)
Certain men came from James — that is, from Jerusalem. They too took the long trip to Antioch, following Peter. These men seem to have belonged to the "circumcision group" (those who insisted that non-Jews who became Christians must follow the Jewish law), and they must have been important people: learned, articulate, and influential. The sort of people, perhaps, that others rely on to sort out a mess — the kind you turn to when you want soundness in people and respectability in thought and action. In short, they were a standard group of sensible traditionalists.
So when the meal was served, I would wager that time stood still. The Apostle Peter was the man to watch for a lead on what one should do. After all, he was the rock on which Jesus would build His church. He had been given the keys. He had been there right from the beginning. His conduct would teach them all, for what a person did displayed what he thought. Would he eat with non-Jews, or would he draw back and start living like a Jew again? The pressure must have been intense — the whole weight of Jewish tradition bearing down on one retired fisherman, and this time there were no helpful visions for Peter like the one recorded in Acts 10.
Peter began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of the circumcision group.
Perhaps Peter wanted to prevent ugly scenes between brothers and sisters. Perhaps he thought avoiding conflict was all for the best. Perhaps he reckoned respectability from Jerusalem was paramount. We don't know. What we do know is that the Rock cracked. He was afraid of this group. It seems he was simply intimidated and overcome. Peter began to withdraw from non-Jews; he no longer ate with Gentiles and began to separate himself from them.
What leaders do in a faith community is critical. When the leadership goes off the rails, so does much of the congregation. Like dominoes, they began to fall one by one. Antioch was no exception.
The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. (Galatians 2:13)
Even Barnabas — Paul's faithful companion, one of the unsung heroes of Acts! This was a triumph for the judgemental heavies. "No offence," they may have said with a patronising smile, "but non-Jews who refuse to embrace Jewish customs must be kept at bay. It's God's natural order, don't you know." They knew themselves to be right.
But were they?
The Apostle to the non-Jews was watching. If he didn't know these particular men from James, he knew their type. He'd been one of them. So it is clear he wasn't intimidated in the slightest. Instead, he was outraged. Just as people may say they're not racists yet ask people of a different race to keep separate, so it was with this "drawing back" and refusing to eat with non-Jews. Paul saw the hypocrisy and was appalled. If anyone present understood both sides, it was this Apostle. He knew the law, but he also knew the gospel, and he was gobsmacked by what he witnessed.
Yet he stood alone. It just shows how much influence and sway the circumcision group had. High noon had struck. It was time to stand up.
I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. (Galatians 2:11b)
Interestingly, Paul records no confrontation with the circumcision group; he goes straight to Peter and has it out with him there and then. Here was something massively wrong, in every sense of the word.
When I saw that they were not walking in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, "If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?" (Galatians 2:14)
Good question.
It's one that could equally be put to all who claim to follow Christ yet do not act in line with the truth of the gospel. Peter was saying one thing and doing another. He was telling non-Jews that in Christ God welcomed them — but not at his table, unless they followed Jewish customs.
Paul goes on to expose the illogicality of Peter's action. To do so he returns to his core message, noting along the way that Jews are better informed than Gentiles on this matter.
We who are Jews by birth and not Gentile "sinners" know that a man is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. (Galatians 2:15–16a)
So here it is. What justifies a person before God? Doing good stuff? Variations of this basic question have been asked down through the ages: how do I get right before God? The natural gravitation, for most people across the centuries, is to "doing stuff" — be that following the Jewish law, observing other religious rituals, keeping one's own personal code, climbing a mountain, sponsoring a child, saving the planet, or just being the best person you can be, sincerely trying to be good.
If I may jump into the modern era: some people, reading this letter and its reference to the Jewish law, think Paul is referring only to that — the Jewish law — and conclude it has minimal relevance to them. Its archaic principles, they say, don't apply to the moral code each person carries inside.
But when Paul talks about "works of the law," he is talking about what God requires of us in order to live rightly before Him. This is something many people intuitively think they know, and it applies to all peoples down through the ages. Everyone thinks they have some idea, however vague, of what God requires of them.
After crossing the Red Sea, the Children of Israel's understanding of what God required of them was pretty much what the ancient Egyptian gods required of the Egyptians — which, in short, was religious ceremony: temples, altars and idols, sacrifices and revelry. By the time Israel had left the Red Sea behind and reached Mount Sinai, they were fed up with the lack of religious progress (despite the incredible miracles they had experienced along the way). First, there was the matter of idols. There weren't any. From their point of view, it was clear they needed some good old-fashioned idols to focus their attention in worship. Second, there wasn't much fun to be had in the desert. Sure, they had celebrated when they crossed the Red Sea, but that was a long time ago. The people needed perking up. Faith in an unseen God was hard work. They wanted a festival, some revelry, some fun — like what they'd had in Egypt.
So there they are, in the desert wilderness at the foot of Mount Sinai, and Moses goes up the mountain to meet with God. There is great initial expectation among the people that at last some religious action is going to happen. They wait for Moses to come down. They wait and wait, but Moses takes a long time — too long for the Children of Israel. So they approach Moses' brother Aaron.
"Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!" (Exodus 32:1)
Aaron got it. He understood that the Children of Israel thought God required them to have idols and festivals. So he makes an idol in the shape of a golden calf and announces to the people:
"Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD." (Exodus 32:5)
As far as HR goes, Aaron is spot on. The people are thrilled. They might have been saying, "At last we're doing something God wants us to do." One can imagine Aaron's reasoning: Well, everyone knows I made the idol. It's just a focal point to worship the true God. That can't be bad, can it? And the people will riot if we don't do something. The whole world does this kind of stuff to please their gods.
Indeed, the whole world does.
So Moses comes down from the mountain just as — of course — the party is in full swing. He is carrying the law, a written code of what God requires of the Children of Israel. Idols are not on the list. In fact, contrary to what everyone was thinking, idols are explicitly forbidden (Deuteronomy 4:15).
This shocks everyone. It is a whole paradigm shift.
What? God forbids idols?
Yes — as strange as it may have seemed back then. But that was just the beginning. The whole document Moses brought down was revolutionary for its time. God required a just society. God required people to live uprightly, whether slave or at the top of the social ladder (Leviticus 19:15). God required that the vulnerable be considered, and that something be left over for the poor (Leviticus 19:10). God required that women live in a safe environment (Deuteronomy 22:25). Foreigners were to be treated as one of their own (Leviticus 19:33). Animals were not to be treated cruelly (Leviticus 6:2), and wildlife was given a chance (Deuteronomy 22:6). And everyone — even the lowest of the low — had one day off a week, and a share in the feasts (Deuteronomy 12:12–14). The list could go on.
The law was revolutionary because it was God speaking to His people, telling them how to live. And some of those things — idols, for one — are the opposite of what some people thought God would want.
Two thousand years later we go to another mount, this time in Galilee, where Jesus is teaching the people. He takes what Moses brought down and gives His own spin on it. We know it as the Sermon on the Mount. In this spectacular sermon, Jesus expands on what God expects of us and how we are to live.
Contrary to what people were expecting, it was even more extreme than Moses. It was another paradigm shift. It blew people away. They wanted to know how far they could go in any given area before God said it was wrong. Jesus ignored all that, and in clear, punchy words that have echoed ever since gave a simple message:
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)
That's what God expects of us.
Perfection.
So when Paul uses the term "works of the law," he is talking about what God requires of us to be in right relationship with Him. That includes the modern person trying their best by their own sense of right and wrong — a subset of the "works of the law," which is itself a subset of Jesus' view of what God requires of us, which is to be perfect.
Perfection is a big ask. Why it has to be this way will be discussed later; suffice to say that when one measures up against perfection, it becomes clearer why no one is made right by trying to follow works of the law.
And to many people this is obvious.
Human beings are NOT perfect. We're only human, right? We have flaws and defects. So some have argued that Jesus' injunctions in the Sermon on the Mount are ideals to aspire to, not a "law" as such. We are not expected to keep them, because we can't. Instead, we are to hold them up as a gold standard to reach for. We are like little children who, though slipping up repeatedly, are simply learning as we find our way into the Kingdom of God. Surely God will accept all these flawed human beings who are just trying to aspire to these lofty injunctions?
No, says Paul, and so do all the other New Testament writers. Not at all.
Not being perfect is an issue. It is a much larger issue than many of us moderns realise. The problem is a deep, dark river that runs through the underground chasms of the whole Bible.
For most of the biblical writers, the central concern is not perfection. The repeated issue is being made right with God. How can I find a standing before the Almighty? It is the search for what Paul calls "being justified."
What does "justified" actually mean?
As he dictated his letter, Paul clearly thought that all people need to be justified, himself included — and judging by the way he spoke to Peter, the two of them were on the same page about this. Everyone on the planet needs to be justified before God: Paul, Peter, you, and me.
This concept did not need explaining to those of the Jewish faith. Throughout Jewish history there had been heroes of faith — great ones who spoke immortal words and did mighty deeds. But each of these heroes, from Abraham onwards, was a deeply flawed individual. Most of them, at some point in their lives, disobeyed God in the most spectacular and jaw-dropping way, breaking relationship with their God. Yet it didn't have to be a huge misdeed.
Nothing particularly bad is recorded about the prophet Isaiah, who wrote some of the most awe-inspiring words in the Bible. Yet when he had a vision of God in His glory, he didn't leap up dancing with praise — contrary to what some modern folk imagine they would do if God appeared to them. When it happened to Isaiah, he wailed in dismay, crying out that he was about to die.
Then I said: "Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts." (Isaiah 6:5)
Even Isaiah did not have a right relationship with God. He had nothing to stand on before the Almighty. He was a crumpled lump of humanity crying out, "I am ruined."
After his monstrous misdeeds, King David pleaded with God to make things right again, begging Him to restore a right spirit within him. In his plea he cries out that surely he was sinful at birth — sinful from the moment his mother conceived him.
Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5)
David was admitting that he did not have a right relationship with God. He was not "justified."
The Apostle Peter was similarly exposed. Soon after first meeting Jesus, the new rabbi in town asked him to go fishing. The request came just after Peter had fished all night and caught nothing — and had cleaned the nets. Here was the carpenter-preacher asking the professional fisherman to have another go. Peter agreed, reluctantly.
"Master," Simon replied, "we have worked hard all night without catching anything. But because You say so, I will let down the nets." (Luke 5:5)
The nets were lowered. Peter may have sighed. He may have looked at Jesus wearily. Did Jesus know what He was asking? It was all wrong — wrong place, wrong time of day, and another hour of cleaning afterwards. Why was he, the professional fisherman, listening to an amateur? When the time came to pull the nets up, he may have thought playtime was over: let's get home, let's get to bed. So they hauled them up.
More problems.
The nets were heavy. Perhaps they thought the nets had snagged on something submerged, they were so full of weight. Straining as they pulled, they wondered what was going on. Then the boat began to tip, the sea began to boil, and the nets began to rip. There were cries to the others to come and help.
What did Peter do? Run his hand through his hair, marvelling at beginner's luck? Thank Jesus for the huge catch and the extra income that would pay off the extension on his house? Wonder at God's timing, that a shoal of fish could pass under the boat at just the right moment? Sing praises that he had witnessed a miracle?
He did none of these things. Instead he was gripped with fear, fell on his knees, and asked Jesus to go away.
"Go away from me, Lord," he said, "for I am a sinful man." (Luke 5:8)
Peter matches Isaiah and David, and every other person who comes close to the living God. It is like a giant fault line running through the whole Bible. It is not only that these people feel inadequate. It is not only that they feel feeble. It is not only that they feel powerless. They feel all of these things, but they are nothing compared to an overwhelming sense of stain. They feel a terrible, crushing sense of being unclean — of guilt. They feel that guilt because they ARE guilty. They want the exposure to stop. They want it to go away.
What these living, breathing people in the Bible craved was justification — to be made right before God; to be righteous. Not that they would be on equal terms with God, but that they would no longer carry the stain, no longer carry the guilt, and would somehow be able to approach God.
It is often said that "justified" is a legal term, absolving people of guilt. While it is helpful to point this out, it can make the whole concept rather clinical. Being justified before God means that one's guilt is no longer held against them — which is a life-changing thing — and that one is in right relationship with God.
So, to return to Paul and his letter to the Galatians: the thought of trying to justify yourself by following the law is crazy. The thought of trying harder to follow the law is equally nuts. "By works of the law no one will be justified." How can doing more stuff, when you're already guilty, make you righteous before God? It's like a man who has murdered someone saying, a few days later, "Well, I did that when I was bad, but now I'm following the law, so I think that pretty much covers it."
What is to be done? For many it seems hopeless. God's law looks like the only option, so they return to it with the idea of just "trying your best."
However, there is another option. God has made a way forward, by faith in Jesus Christ.
So we, too, have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:16b)
It is impossible to do it any other way. A person is justified not by doing stuff, but by faith in Christ.
So, back to the anecdote of Paul standing up to Peter. The question is: why is Peter trying to "do stuff" again?
The answer may lie in the next section. Peter may have buckled under pressure from the men from Jerusalem because they accused him of promoting sin. The argument runs like this:
Eating with people shows that you are in good relationship with them. God's people follow God's law. So if God's people eat with those who do not follow God's law, they are displaying good relationships with people who break God's law — "sinners." And if you eat with sinners who do not follow the Jewish law, you are promoting sin.
"Peter — you are promoting sin."
But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners, does that make Christ a minister of sin? Certainly not! (Galatians 2:17)
One can almost feel the Apostle Paul stamping his foot. Christ has set aside the Jewish law as the path to justification. Why go back to it?
If I rebuild what I have already torn down, I prove myself to be a lawbreaker. (Galatians 2:18)
If I go back — rebuild — to the law that has been torn down, then yes, indeed, I would be a lawbreaker.
In our modern minds we tend to assume that anything torn down must by nature be bad. But Paul is not suggesting for a moment that the law is bad. The concept of law is glorious. Indeed, as he will go on to argue, it is essential to God's message. It is necessary, but ultimately self-limiting — like a map once the destination has been reached, or scaffolding once the building is complete.
So, since the law is to be relegated to the back seat, many folk want to bypass it altogether and get on to the good stuff. They want to talk about grace, forgiveness, and living a loving life. "We live under grace, not under law, so why do we need to think about being under judgement?" is a comment that has been said to me.
Paul disagrees.
For through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God. (Galatians 2:19)
To accept God's message, one has to bow before the demands of the law. That is what Paul means by "through the law": accepting what God requires of us and accepting its judgement. For most people that means realising we are travelling down the wrong track — realising that the reason we are not perfect is not merely that we are human, but that we are lawbreakers. We are guilty. We are in the wrong, and God is in the right. It is sometimes a painful and humbling path to greater things, but it is the path that must be trodden. It cannot be avoided. The law is essential. People must go through the law and bow the knee to it. When it is bypassed, the result is a tremendous misunderstanding of grace. People become less like the pious centurion who said to Jesus, "I'm not worthy…", and more like the fickle Galilean crowd looking for a thrill. We must all go through the law to die to the law.
So what about this dying to the law? Paul expands on it.
The law passes judgement, and it has passed the same judgement on every human being since the fall of Adam: the wages of sin is death. By its very nature, the law cannot extend mercy — for if it did, it would no longer be the law. Every human being comes under this judgement, no matter what sort of hero or heroine they have been. The law is a hopeless, literal dead end.
Hence the madness of what Peter is doing by going back to it.
But —
— what if someone has already received their punishment? The wages of sin is death — but what if they had been executed for their sin? Does the law still apply to them once they have passed through death? Surely, once they have suffered their due punishment, they cannot be required to suffer it again. Double jeopardy applies. Once someone has received their punishment, the ledger is cleared. When someone is dead, they go beyond the law's reach. They are "law-free." They have had the verdict and the punishment, and so cannot be tried for it again. This is exactly the astonishing news of God's message. Paul claims to have died already.
I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. (Galatians 2:20a)
Just for those who take everything literally: Paul is speaking spiritually. He was not physically crucified with Jesus on the same cross. But he is claiming to be linked into the crucifixion of Christ in such a way that he died on the cross with Christ, and now Christ lives in him. As such, the law has no hold on him. He now lives beyond the law — but only because, in a sense, he has died, so the law cannot touch him. He has died to the law, and Christ now lives in him.
This dying is more than something on a purely spiritual level. It works itself out practically in everyday life, as Paul will go on to mention later in this letter. In a sense, the person dies to themselves and is then raised in Christ. This is what the symbolism of baptism is all about. When people are baptised, they "die" as they are submerged, and are raised up out of "death" as a new person — a new creation, like being born again.
So how does this spiritual event occur? What is the mechanism?
The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God… (Galatians 2:20b)
The mechanism is faith. Paul lives by faith in the Son of God — a topic he will return to.
"Oh, great," I can hear a sarcastic cry from a dispirited corner. In this modern world such a mechanism is seen as a cop-out. "Faith? With that kind of reasoning one could believe anything. I could have faith in dragons and the tooth fairy."
Our family went along with the tooth fairy to the extent that we left a few coins by our daughters' bedside table when they lost a tooth. One evening, one of our daughters pulled out a tooth that had been hanging by a thread. She lifted it free in triumph and was told she could go to bed and the tooth fairy would come and leave money. She dutifully went to bed. I donned small pink wings over my jacket, picked up her play-wand, and tiptoed into her room with the money. She wasn't asleep, but she was pretending very hard to be — after all, cold hard cash was involved. She couldn't resist a quick glance at her six-foot-two father in small pink wings and a wand, trying to be as quiet as possible. Then she shut her eyes. She shut them tight, but the bed began to shake as she struggled not to laugh. Eventually I left the room, and it exploded in muffled, toothless laughter.
My daughter did not have the slightest faith in the tooth fairy, but she had great faith in her parents to organise something. She acted on it: she went to bed and waited.
That's faith. Acting on what you believe. That's all it is. There is no magic or hocus-pocus. People do it every minute of every day. They have faith that the sun will come up, and so they plan accordingly. They have faith in modern medicine and submit to medical advice, sometimes even to life-threatening operations. They have faith in the legal system, such as it is. People have faith in the internet and take all sorts of actions on the strength of the information they receive. People have faith in the news broadcast on television and become anxious and bite their fingernails — for if they thought it wasn't trustworthy, they wouldn't worry nearly as much. They wouldn't have faith in it.
Paul trusted in Christ's death for him. He acted on that.
Faith is the mechanism God has chosen to bring men, women, and children to Himself.
There is no other way.
Down through the ages, right to the present day, this has really annoyed some people. Why does it have to be by faith? They don't always state it like that, but they wish it were — or think it should be — some other mechanism. Specifically, something they could do.
Take intelligence, for instance. Many think that those who lock themselves away in study and great learning, who can argue through the weighty moral conundrums of life while quoting the learned minds who have gone before them, would be the ones to be saved — or that it would be the scientists, those unlocking the secrets of the universe. Many think these are the ones who should be teaching us about God: whether He exists, and whether we need His salvation. Do you come to God Almighty through study and thinking?
That would mean the smart and the privileged would be closer to being saved, while those not so blessed would struggle.
Or take great deeds. Some people think those of action, who do great things for the world and the environment, should be first in line for salvation: the thoughtful generals, the activists, the committed, the politicians determined to fight for justice — those who have become household names for great deeds. Surely they are closer to what makes the earth move. They have to be first in line when God stoops to save.
Unfortunately, those who lack the confidence or aptitude for action are not in the running.
Or, to take another example, attractiveness, beauty, and riches. Those on trend. Those who know how to look good and speak well. The influencers on social media. Those who know how to make you feel comfortable, who throw a superb dinner party and play the wonderful, attractive host. It takes effort to get there, and the effort is much appreciated by many. Surely those who are so good at this are at least a little bit good at entertaining God the Father.
All of these things require an action from the individual to earn their way — whether it be study, deeds, or shopping for an exotic ingredient.
Faith means that anyone may enter the Kingdom of Heaven: the smart, the strong, and the fashion-conscious, but also the blind, the lame, the unlearned, the disabled, the aged, the young, and the socially awkward.
Faith is the only way because it can be no other way. It is the great, humbling equaliser.
Those who rail against the mechanism of faith can fail to see the engine behind it all — what is driving this whole message.
…who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20c)
"The Son of God, who loved me," says Paul, "and gave Himself up for me." It is through love that Jesus did this. He willingly and lovingly went to the cross for Paul — and not just for Paul but for the Galatians, and not just for the Galatians but for us, for you. By faith, we can be grafted into the punishment Jesus did not deserve. We can be crucified with Christ and live beyond the law.
So, back to what the other Apostle, Peter, is doing. He is no longer trusting that Christ lives in him. He goes back to trusting the Jewish law, and he demonstrated that trust by excluding himself from non-Jews at the dinner table. Paul calls this setting aside the grace of God.
I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. (Galatians 2:21)
Remember, Paul is relating a conversation with Peter, a man who loved the Lord Jesus. So that last comment — Christ died for nothing — would have carried enormous weight with the ex-fisherman.
This setting aside of the grace of God is exactly what the Galatians are doing: trusting in the Jewish law. It is what people down the ages keep doing: trusting in stuff they're doing. It is what Christians still do, whether that be church attendance, abstinence from alcohol, voting for the right causes, working hard, running a Bible study, staying married, or saving the environment. These may be very good things, but they are not things that bring justification before God. They may be good things to act on, but foolish things to trust for salvation.
But worse than that: by trusting in those things, people actually set aside God's grace to them. They are pushing away God's provision and embracing a ridiculous — but long-standing — notion that they must follow rules to gain acceptance. In the High Noon of grace, we need to stand firm.
Imagine if Paul hadn't spoken up in Antioch. Imagine what would have happened to this fledgling movement. It would probably have been merged into Judaism and eventually absorbed as a Jewish sect.
But Jesus said of His teaching that one cannot sew a new patch onto an old coat, nor pour new wine into old wineskins. New wine needs new wineskins. His message was not a sect. It was transformation, and it was universal — for Jews and Gentiles alike. We can thank God that He used His servant Paul to intervene.
What happened straight after this stand-off? We have no further information in this letter to the Galatians, but it is implied that Peter backed down. Paul was right. Of course he was right. From our vantage point, looking back over two thousand years of Christian heritage, it is easier for us to see. We can see the followers of Jesus as a faith distinct from Judaism. We can see the madness of a separation based on rituals. It just wasn't so easy and straightforward back then.
In our modern world, many Christians, and especially Christian teachers, identify with Paul as the hero who stood firm against enormous pressure. This is as it should be. Paul is encouraging the Galatians to do the same, for God used this man to preserve His message.
But there is another hero to this story.
I suspect most of us, if we are honest, align more with Peter. Most of us are continually tempted either to add to Paul's message or to take things away — to alter it through our words or our actions, sometimes simply because we are afraid of certain groups.
And when someone challenges us, telling us that we're not living out the gospel (as Paul challenged Peter), we can be outraged.
Indeed, such stand-offs can split a faith into factions. Paul publicly disagreeing with Peter! That's big news. Permanent divisions can be made. These sorts of things are hard not to take personally, and even harder to forget. Peter could easily have taken it to heart and formed his own splinter group. After all, he had the numbers! We do know there were attempts to establish factions, at least in the Corinthian church, where some groups claimed to follow only Peter, and others only Paul, among others.
But the Apostles themselves would have none of it. What is extraordinary, and often not mentioned, is the unity the Apostles maintained despite sharp disagreements like this one.
Peter should not have withdrawn from the dinner table. He should have rested on his experience in Acts 10, where God teaches him, through a vision (repeated twice), that His message is for all peoples. He should have pondered all the implications and had the courage to follow them. Yet which Christian hasn't experienced the anxiety of working out the right thing to do in a particular situation — and failed, when they should have known better?
Luke doesn't record the "High Noon" incident in Acts. It seems the Gospel writer simply had too much material to fit everything into his second volume. But piecing together the jigsaw of history, in Acts 15 we find Peter back in Jerusalem for the Council of Jerusalem. The "sensible traditionalists" who caused the stir in Antioch are there too. These concerned individuals stood up at the council and declared, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses." (Acts 15:5)
Sound familiar?
There was a lot of debate. ("After much discussion" is the phrase Luke uses.) Eventually Peter stands up and gives what I believe to be the speech of his life:
"Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that the Gentiles would hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, showed His approval by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as He did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for He cleansed their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you test God by placing on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe it is through the grace of the Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." (Acts 15:7–11)
I am moved by the Apostle Peter. It seems he accepted public correction from Paul, took responsibility, and learned to stand up for God's message.
And what's more, although Paul came to faith by a very different route, there was never a rift between them — only deep appreciation. Peter mentions the Apostle Paul in one of his own letters with an unforgettable throwaway line: "just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you."
"Beloved brother Paul" — this is not ironic. It is said with all the love and appreciation Peter the Rock could muster, and it rings true. Peter is the other hero of this story. Those who understand that they have been crucified with Christ, and now live by faith in the Son of God, have no time for vain splits or the self-absorbed desire to nurse perceived humiliations and grievances. In the end Peter listened to his dear brother. He did not set aside the grace of God. When challenged, he acted in line with the gospel. Here is another marvellous role model for us. Peter did exactly what he would later instruct in his own letter: "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have a genuine love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from a pure heart." Sometimes it takes great humility to keep the faith.
So, back to Galatians.
Why does Paul relate this anecdote?
It's a double whammy. It illustrates two things. First, it shows that his message is so paramount, so unchanging, that it can be used to correct Apostles — even Peter. Peter does not have the right to change it, even by his actions (especially by his actions, one might argue).
Second, it exemplifies exactly the error the Galatians have fallen into. If they take up Jewish customs, then Christ died for nothing. You cannot add to the message; you cannot subtract from it. Do so, and it becomes a different gospel — which is no gospel at all.
Which brings us to the apogee of the letter: Paul's astonishment.