You have a life saving job. It is vitally important for the lives of many people. The welfare of people you care about is in the balance.
There are some new people on the scene. They reputedly do the same life-saving job as you. They are meant to be on the same team, working toward the same ends. They are working on your patch. They have come from head office. They seem to have all the authority of your organisation. And they seem to be unsettling your clients.
They have a message for your people. It is this. The things you’ve been relying on to save people’s lives aren’t enough. They are good, but not complete. More is required to save their lives. Much more. You have foolishly and misleadingly only told people part of the solution, and said it was the whole. And these new people have come to fix up your half-baked work. And these people are putting your clients on a rigorous routine. And they say that this is the only way to save the clients. Without it they are lost. Now, you didn’t come up with the method you are using. It was shown to you by the best life saving practitioner that the world has ever seen. In fact, it cost this great first pioneer everything he had, including his life, to make this new way of rescuing people freely available. And it has worked in your own life. You are a witness to the power of this way of rescuing people.
What are you going to do? What are the options?
Give up! Apologise for your ignorance and help the new teachers implemnt the new technique. After all, they are from head office. Who are you, working out in the sticks? Surely they are the experts?
Or go off into quite retirement. Go and flip burgers to pay the bills. Go back to your day job.
But what if you are convinced they are wrong. What if you believe they are doing irreparable harm to the people you’ve poured your life into.? You might need to become a whistle blower.
You better go and find them. Or talk to head office. You better go and see from where this directive has come from. For even if you confute one or two of them, that won’t help if the misinformation is widespread.
You better eyeball the CEO and the board of directors. You need to work out whether they are behind this plot.
We saw last week that in Galatians chapter 1 Paul set up his ’Alibi’ defence. Paul wants to show that he was not sent from any other Apostle. In fact, it was impossible for this to happen. Paul wants to prove to the Galatians that he got his gospel straight from Jesus. He did not receive his gospel from the other Apostles in Jerusalem or indeed any of the Judean churches.
Paul’s gospel is that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Galatians chapter 1 verse 4, he starts with his gospel. Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age. Galatians chapter 1 verse 2. Jesus is the Christ whom God the Father raised from the dead.
There is the heart of the gospel right there. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He died for our sins. He was raised from the dead for us. And by faith apart from our works we receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. And this is the gospel Paul said he received directly from Jesus Christ. He did not receive it from any other human. Paul wants to prove it was impossible for him to have done so. So in Galatians chapter 1 verses 11-24 Paul showed that he was engaged in mission to the Gentiles for his first three years as a Christian. Straight away he preached in Damascus. Then he went to the Nabatean tribes in Arabia. Then he returned to Damascus. For three years after the Damascus Road, he was preaching the gospel. Because that is what the risen Jesus told him to do when he appeared to him on the Damascus Road. Jesus said to him on the Damascus Road:
’I am sending you to them [the Gentiles] to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ (Acts 26:17-19 NIV)
And the Apostle Paul was not disobedient to the heavenly vision (Acts 26:20). He preached in Damascus first, and also among the Gentiles in Arabia, to the Nabatean tribes. And for that first three years he swears he hadn’t even been to Jerusalem.
And when he did go to Jerusalem, it was only for 15 days, he only saw Peter and James, and he while he was going in and out of Jerusalem freely, he was personally unknown to the churches in the region of Judea. Probably because he was too busy evangelising the Greek speaking Jews, called Hellenists, in Jerusalem.
And then, for the next 11 years or so, Paul was busy working in his home region of Cilicia, in which his home town of Tarsus was found, and also in Syria, and later particularly at Antioch, where a large church-planting church had developed and grown following Stephen’s martyrdom.
That is his alibi. That is his account of his activities.
But while Paul was in Antioch, the Antioch church got news of an impending disaster in Jerusalem. Luke provides an account of these events in Acts 11:25-30:
25Then [Barnabas] left [Antioch] for Tarsus to search for Saul, 26and when he found him, he brought [him] to Antioch. So it came about that for a whole year they met with the church and taught a great crowd. And the disciples were first called ‘Christians’ at Antioch. 27Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up and indicated through the Spirit that there would be a severe famine throughout the whole Roman empire. This happened during the reign of Claudius. 29So the disciples, in proportion to how well off each of them was, ear marked [an amount] to send to the brothers living in Judea for distribution. 30 This very thing they did, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. (NIV)
Agabus the Prophet visits Antioch. He stands up and by the Spirit prophesies that there will be a terrible famine. This will be a disaster for the Christians living in Judea. And so the mixed Jew and Gentile church in Antioch resolves to do something. They resolve to send money to the poor Christians in Judea, to keep them from starving. And we see that Saul, who is Paul (Saul was his Hebrew name, Paul was his Roman name), plays a key role, again with his co-worker Barnabas.
I am saying that this visit in Acts 11:30 is the same visit that Paul reports in Galatians 2:1-3. It fits. It is the second visit Paul makes to Jerusalem as recorded by Luke in Acts. It is the second visit Paul himself says he makes to Jerusalem since becoming a Christian. In Galatians 2:2, he says he visits Jerusalem ‘in response to a revelation’[1] (NIV). And in Acts 11:27 Agabus makes a prophecy. In Acts 11:30, it is a famine relief visit, for the sake of poor Judean Christians. And in Galatians 2:10, Paul says that remembering the poor was ‘the very thing I was eager to do’.
So we might put together a timeline based on Paul’s autobiography in Galatians and Acts.
In Galatians chapter 2 verses 1 to 3, Paul himself talks about this Jerusalem visit, some 14 years after his conversion. Luke makes it clear that it was part of a famine relief visit. However, Paul clearly wanted to kill two birds with one stone. In the last 14 years, he had spent only a day more than a fortnight in Jerusalem. So not only did he want to drop off a substantial amount of material aid for the Jewish Christians of Judea. He also wanted to set before the leaders of the church in Jerusalem his gospel. Let me read again Galatians chapter 2 verses 1 to 3.
1Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. But I did this privately to those who seemed to be leaders, for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain. 3Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. (NIV)
It is clear that by this stage Paul was concerned about the gospel and felt the need to present his gospel privately to the Jerusalem church leaders. The first question we can ask is, Why did Paul take Titus?
Most probably, Paul took Titus as a test case. This Titus is no doubt the Titus who, 20 years later, the elderly Apostle Paul would leave on Crete and direct him to straighten out the church there by appointing elders, and now has a letter in the New Testament that bears his name.
Titus was more than likely a walking visual aid. Titus was a Greek, and not circumcised. Yet he clearly was a faithful long term co-worker and assistant missionary to the Apostle Paul. Here is a non-circumcised Greek, Titus. Is the Jewish church going to make him become a Jew before they accept that he is saved and is a true Christian brother? Well, the fact was, uncircumcised Titus was never a problem for the Jerusalem Apostles and Elders. Non-circumcision was never an issue. Sure, Paul wouldn’t take him into the temple in Jerusalem. But that says nothing about whether Titus was a Christian or not. For the true temple is now Jesus and those in Jesus, the church. So not going to the Jewish temple, whose curtain had been ripped open when Jesus died, was a nothing.
But Paul did more than use Titus for ’show and tell’. He sets before the Jerusalem Apostles and Elders the gospel that he preaches among the gentiles. And as we saw, Paul sets his gospel before the leaders of the Jerusalem church privately, and out of some concern.
So the second question that we can ask is, What was Paul afraid of? What was it about the gospel, either his gospel, or that of the Jerusalem apostles, that he was worried about? Now there are two reasons that Paul might have been concerned and acted privately.
Firstly, it might have been because he was afraid that his gospel was wrong or mistaken in some way. And so, after preaching the gospel for 14 years, and not knowing the Jerusalem Apostles very well, he might want to present his gospel to them privately so as not to cause embarrassment to himself. He might be afraid that for 14 years he had got the gospel wrong. That is, for 14 years since he met Jesus on the Damascus road, Paul had been running around, vainly preaching a wrong gospel, a gospel that wasn’t the full gospel, which now had to be supplemented by the information provided by the Jerusalem church.
I just don’t see that this is remotely possible. We have read in chapter 1 that Paul calls down curses upon anyone, even an angel, who would bring a gospel to the Galatians other than what he preached. He has said in the strongest possible terms that he has been sent not from men nor from man but from Jesus Christ. He has said that the gospel he preached to the Galatians was not something that man made up. He said that he had received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. It is inconceivable that after all this, Paul would then go all weak-kneed and timid, not sure whether his gospel is the right one, and that maybe these Jewish Christians who want the Galatians to get circumcised where perhaps right after all.
So second, the real reason why Paul presented his gospel before the Jerusalem leaders, Peter, James and John, was to test them. Just like Titus was a test case, so Paul’s gospel was a test case. Are Peter, James and John standing behind these people who are going around and unsettling all my churches? Are 'those reputed to be pillars' stuffing up all my work. Oh no! Maybe the Jerusalem church has gone off the rails. Maybe they have let go of the gospel. I better go to them and see what they believe. I’ll do it privately at first. After all, Jesus says, if a brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you.
Paul was concerned that he was running or had run his race in vain in the same way that he used the expression in Philippians 2:16. In Philippians 2:16, Paul wants the Philippian Christians to do everything without complaining and grumbling, so that they will be blameless, so that Paul may boast on the day of Christ that ’he did not run or labour for nothing.’ In other words, Paul wanted them to stand firm and persevere as Christians, so that Paul will have them as brothers and sisters in Christ into eternity.
So in Galatians 2:2, Paul runs his race in vain if these false brothers make his converts fall away. Then Paul won’t have them as Christian brothers and sisters, his crown in which he will glory on the day of Christ. And if this false teaching was coming from the top, from Peter and James and John, then Paul would find out. And that was why he set his gospel before ’those who seemed to be something’.
Do you notice the somewhat dismissive, offhanded way Paul talks about the Jerusalem Apostles?
Suppose James, Peter and John are Apostles too, commissioned by Jesus Christ himself. Well, so is Paul. And so what! And so Paul says, it doesn’t matter what they are and who appointed them. Even if they were angels of light sent from heaven, if they announced a different gospel, it is no gospel, and let it and them be anathema. It is the gospel that stands over the apostle.
However, we will discover that the Jerusalem apostles were not opposed to the gospel. There has been no division between Apostles to the Jew and the Apostle to the Gentiles. Rather, there have been some infiltrators, some perverters of the gospel, some false brothers, who have turned out to be spiritual peeping toms. Verses 4 and 5:
4This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. (NIV)
These teachers are described as false brothers. James would later say that they went out from us without our authority (Acts 15:24). These men have snuck in. They have infiltrated. They do not attack from the outside. They attack from the inside.
And their intention? To spy on the freedom Christians have. Freedom regarding food laws. Freedom regarding ritual purity. Freedom regarding special days and seasons and festivals. Freedom regarding circumcision. Freedom from the law of Moses. Freedom regarding the fact that there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, but all are one in Christ Jesus. And they want to bring Christians under the law of Moses again. They want to enslave. They want the Christians to be bound once again under the law of Moses, which is the ministry that kills, that puts us to death, because of our sin, and that divideds Jew and Gentile once again. Jesus has abolished the dividing wall of hostility – which condemns us in our relationship with God and cannot justify us, and which divides us in our relationship with each other. But these teachers wish to erect it again.
And this is why Paul fought and didn’t give in. The freedom was won at a too great a cost – the cost of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It shall not be yielded unfought. At the end of this chapter Paul will say,
‘I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be obtained through the law, then Christ died for nothing’ (Galatians 2:21 NIV)
Paul fought for the free justification of the sinner not only because it is true, not only because it ensures the freedom of the church and the individual Christian, but ultimately because saying as these men did, ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved’ (Acts 15:1), says that Jesus Christ died for nothing!
The reality was, there was no division among the Apostles. The Apostles were of one mind regarding the gospel. So we read in chapter 2 verses 6 to 9:
6As for those who seemed to be important—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance—those men added nothing to my message. 7On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. 8For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. (NIV)
To Paul’s gospel of Jesus is the Christ, who died for our sin and rose again for our justification, the Jerusalem Apostles added nothing. No circumcision. No food laws. No special days. No works of the law. They recognised that Paul was doing the same work as them. When Paul went to Jerusalem, he didn’t have a fight over the gospel, but he had fellowship in the gospel with the other Apostles. There was no division in the Apostolic ranks. They were all of one mind.
We see this in Acts 15. In Acts 15:11, Peter summarises the gospel.
11Rather, [it is] through the grace of the Lord Jesus [that] we believe in order to be saved, in the same way also that those [Gentiles are to be saved].
That is, salvation is by grace, through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, lest any man boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). Paul and Peter have the same gospel.
The only division or demarcation that we see is one of task. There was a demarcation of who should go to whom. And it seems this came from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Paul was sent to the Gentiles. Peter was sent to the Jews. And even this was not a hard and fast rule. For Peter, the Apostle to the Jews, was sent to the Gentile Cornelius. And Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, went to the Jew first, then the Greek. But it was a helpful rule of thumb, that Paul would scour the empire looking for new nations to evangelise, while Peter would seek out the scattered remnants of God’s elect from among the Jews, to point them to their Messiah.
So as we leave this second meeting between Paul and the Jerusalem Apostles we observe this. There was no challenge nor change to Paul’s gospel. There was no addition and no subtraction to the simple gospel Paul had been give by Jesus. There was no different gospel for the Jew and the Gentile. There was no contradiction between between gospel and apostle. Nor was there a contradiction between the gospel of Paul and the gospel of Peter, James and John. Instead, their was the right hand of fellowship, and a pragmatic general demarcation of ministry. Peter to the circumcision. Paul to the nations. And this fitted both the commission of Christ and the gifting of each.
Let’s pray.
[1] Lit, ‘according to a revelation’
[2] Lit, ‘to the ones seeming’