Galatians

after fourteen years. There is debate as to whether this visit took place an additional 14 years after the three years mentioned in 1:18 or whether the 14 years starts from Paul’s conversion and includes those three. The latter seems slightly more probable, placing this visit c. A.D. 47. It probably corresponds to Acts 11:29–30 rather than to the Jerusalem council visit in Acts 15. (See note on Acts 11:27–30.) taking Titus along. Titus was a Gentile, so some have seen this as Paul issuing a challenge to the Jerusalem leaders. This interpretation is unnecessary, but Titus was certainly a “test case,” as Gal. 2:3 shows.

Those who seemed influential probably includes James, Peter, and John (see v. 9). in vain. Paul is not seriously imagining that he has actually been preaching a false gospel, but he would regard his work as in vain if it were to result in a divided church—a Gentile half and a Jewish half.

There is agreement: Titus—and so by implication all Gentiles—does not need to be circumcised. Or at least Paul, James, Peter, and John agree on this. There is, however, a group of false brothers who continue to disagree. Paul regards the imposition of circumcision on Gentile Christians as a slavery producing betrayal of the freedom Christ has given. (On circumcision, see Acts 15:1–35; Rom. 2:25–29; 4:9–16; Gal. 5:2–12; 6:12–15.) The presence of these “false brothers” within the church in Jerusalem shows that churches will sometimes have unbelievers in their midst who seek to harm the church.

Paul’s response to the false brothers was of huge importance, because if he had yielded, Gentiles such as the Galatians would not have been brought the true gospel.

influential. See note on v. 2.

As an apostle, Paul was in no way inferior to Peter. It was merely a division of labor, with Paul assigned to evangelize the uncircumcised (Gentiles) while Peter was sent to the circumcised (Jews). What Paul wants to establish for the Galatians, however, is that his own apostleship is just as genuine as Peter’s, and therefore the Galatians should not view themselves as inferior to any other group of believers.

If the church is God’s temple (e.g., Eph. 2:21), some had apparently made Peter, James, and John the pillars. Significantly, these “pillars” had given the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and Paul, signifying that they approved the message of the gospel as preached by Paul as well as his ministry to the Gentiles. Thus they validated Paul’s apostleship by putting him on an equal footing with these other apostles in Jerusalem. This is significant, because it shows that neither Paul nor the Jerusalem apostles had to change their gospel message, but they were fully in agreement, and this “right hand of fellowship” gave clear expression to that agreement.

Verses 7–9 mark out the division of labor between Peter (to the Jews) and Paul (to the Gentiles). But there was one area of overlap: Paul was to organize collections for the poor, probably referring mainly to poor Christians in Jerusalem, who were Jewish. It is recorded elsewhere that Paul did, in fact, undertake a major relief effort on their behalf (see Rom. 15:25–26; 1 Cor. 16:1–3; 2 Corinthians 8–9). Paul’s concern for the poor as evidenced here is in accord with the broader principle demonstrated throughout Scripture that genuine preaching of the gospel in every age must be accompanied by the meeting of physical needs as well, just as Jesus healed the sick and cast out demons along with his preaching ministry.

Galatians gives a realistic recounting of one apostle rebuking another for inconsistent behavior in light of “the truth of the gospel” (v. 14). Later, Peter would write respectfully and affectionately of Paul (2Pt 3:14-16).

Paul’s Opposition to Peter, to Preserve the Truth of the Gospel. Paul had said that he was not a people-pleaser (1:10), and his confrontation with Peter as reported here bears that out. It is unclear when Paul’s speech to Peter stops and his direct address to the Galatians begins again, but 2:15–16 (“We ourselves are Jews by birth”) was surely addressed to Peter.

The setting of Paul’s confrontation with Peter was Antioch, Paul’s missionary base for a number of years. Peter had been participating in meals where Jewish and Gentile Christians ate together, but then he drew back and separated himself, eating only with Jewish Christians. Interpreters differ in their explanations of this situation in this passage. One view is that the men who came from James (probably sent from the Jerusalem church by the apostle James) encouraged Jewish Christians to eat separately and follow kosher dietary laws. Peter decided to go along with this, perhaps not realizing that his example would make the Gentile Christians feel like second-class citizens in the church unless they followed Jewish ceremonial laws (such as dietary laws [vv. 12–14], circumcision [v. 3; 5:2–12; 6:12–15], and holidays and festivals [4:10]). Paul saw that Peter’s behavior threatened the gospel of justification by faith alone because it implied that all Christians had to “live like Jews” (2:14) in order to be justified before God.

Eating with the Gentiles would mean not eating according to Jewish dietary restrictions. The circumcision party advocated following the ceremonies of the Mosaic covenant law at least regarding circumcision, food, and special days (see note on vv. 11–12).

Not only was Peter guilty of hypocrisy; as an influential leader, he also led astray the rest of the Jewish Christians, even Barnabas.

force the Gentiles to live like Jews. Peter was guilty of hypocrisy (v. 13) because, though he had been happily living like a Gentile (i.e., not observing food laws), he was now requiring Gentile Christians to observe Jewish table regulations if they wanted to eat with him. Such a requirement, however, would undermine the gospel itself by making justification depend on “works of the law” rather than “faith in Jesus Christ” (see v. 16). before them all. Because Peter’s sin was a public sin that was setting a bad example for the church, Paul confronted him publicly (compare the different procedure that Jesus commands regarding a private sin against an individual person, which hopefully can be corrected privately; cf. Matt. 18:15–20; James 5:19–20).

Gentile sinners, that is, Gentiles who do not even attempt to follow the OT laws and therefore clearly do not live up to them.

“Justified” means “counted righteous” or “declared righteous” by God (see esv footnote). If people were sinless and perfectly obeyed all of God’s perfect moral standards, they could be justified or “declared righteous” on the basis of their own merits. But Paul says that this is impossible for any Gentile or even for any Jew to do (cf. Romans 1–2). we know that a person is not justified by works of the law. Paul saw that Christ had taught justification by faith, and so he called God the one “who justifies the ungodly” (Rom. 4:5). Paul will soon show that this view was taught even in the OT (see Gal. 3:6–18), though it was not the view of most of first-century Judaism. (For example, a 1st-century-B.C. Jewish writing states, “The one who does righteousness stores up life for himself with the Lord, and the one who does wickedness is the cause of the destruction of his own soul” [Psalms of Solomon 9.5]). In Gal. 2:16, “works of the law” means not only circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath, but any human effort to be justified by God by obeying a moral law. faith in Jesus Christ. Some contend that the Greek means the “faithfulness of Jesus Christ.” But “faith in Jesus Christ” seems much more likely since “faith in Jesus Christ” is synonymous with the next phrase, “we also have believed in Christ Jesus.” “But through faith in Jesus Christ” is the opposite of depending on one’s own good deeds for justification, since justification comes through faith in Christ alone. We also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ implies that justification is the result of saving faith. The contrast and not by works of the law shows clearly that no human effort or merit can be added to faith as a basis for justification. (This verse was frequently appealed to in the Reformation by Protestants who insisted on “justification by faith alone” as opposed to the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification by faith plus merit gained through the “means of grace” administered by means of the Roman Catholic sacraments such as penance and the Mass.) Paul concludes decisively: by works of the law no one will be justified (cf. 3:10–14; Acts 13:39; Heb. 10:1–14). On justification, see also notes on Rom. 4:25; Phil. 3:9; James 2:21.

found to be sinners. Paul has just discussed how Gentiles are known among Jews as “sinners” (v. 15). When Jewish Christians associate with them, they are liable to the charge from traditionalist Jews of becoming “sinners” themselves. Paul firmly dismisses any such charge.

I would prove myself to be a transgressor. Ironically, the one who is most clearly seen to be a sinner is not the one outside of the law (i.e., the Gentile), but the one who is under it. So, if Paul were to reintroduce the edifice of the law, he would merely prove that he stands condemned.

through the law. Paul is not talking about a conscious experience of being dissatisfied with the law, but about how he was unknowingly caught up in God’s plan in which the law actually pronounced the sentence of death on Paul’s old way of life. Paul has died to the law, probably meaning that he no longer lives in the realm of trying to gain justification by obeying the law and that therefore the law can place no demands on him. Paul died to the law, he says, so that I might live to God. That is, since he no longer is under the impossible burden of trying to earn acceptance with God through his own efforts, he has gained God’s approval through the justification that is in Christ, and in this new relationship with God he has found an amazing new freedom to live a life devoted to God. Thus Paul is always seeking to live in a way that pleases God, yet not at all depending on his own actions for justification.

I have been crucified with Christ. Paul’s former “self,” the person Paul was before he trusted Christ, with all of his sinful goals and proud, self-exalting desires, came to a decisive end—he “died.” It is no longer I who live does not mean that Paul has no personality of his own (all his writings show that he does) but that his own personal interests and goals no longer direct his life; rather, Christ who lives in me now directs and empowers all that he does. How then does he, as a “crucified man,” gain any strength to go on living? the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God. Paul seems to be saying that, as he trusts Christ moment by moment, Christ then works in and through Paul to give spiritual effectiveness to all that he does. who loved me and gave himself for me. The fact that on the cross Jesus bore believers’ sins as their personal, individual substitute (“he … for me”) shows that the crucifixion was not an impersonal, mechanical transaction, but a personal expression of Christ’s love for people as individuals.

Paul returns to the hypothetical situation raised in v. 18 of imagining that the law was back in force again as a means by which he was trying to earn justification. In that case, if righteousness were through the law, then Christ’s death would have been pointless, for people could earn their own justification by their obedience. But in fact, this is something they can never do. This highlights the depth of the human problem: it cannot be remedied by the God-given law. Sin is so serious that only the substitutionary, atoning death of God’s Son can deal with the problem. God’s grace in the gospel must therefore be humbly and thankfully accepted as the only way of salvation.