Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too. I went there because God revealed to me that I should go. While I was there I met privately with those considered to be leaders of the church and shared with them the message I had been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing. And they supported me and did not even demand that my companion Titus be circumcised, though he was a Gentile. Even that question came up only because of some so-called believers there—false ones, really—who were secretly brought in. They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations. But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you. And the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.) Instead, they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews. For the same God who worked through Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the Gentiles. In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews. Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do. But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions? “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.” But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not! Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down. For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.
Galatians 2:1-21 NLT
There is freedom in Jesus! Paul had experienced true freedom in Christ, and he wanted everyone to experience this freedom. He had a relationship with Christ, his Savior who died for him and loved him. Paul saw himself as crucified with Christ. His old life—including his legalistic obedience to the law—was crucified. He lived by faith in Jesus, walking with the Spirit. For Paul the issue was about what makes someone right or in right standing with God ("righteous"). When he was a Pharisee, he thought that following the law was what brought righteousness. When Jesus appeared to him on the road Paul realized that his zeal for the law had actually made him an enemy of the living God. Paul did not want the Galatians to get circumcised because they had already received the Holy Spirit! As Gentiles they did not need to become Jews before God would accept them or save them.
This is not an issue of Old Testament versus New Testament (the way of faith is in the entire Bible), of Judaism versus Christianity (Paul saw himself as a Jewish Christian living out the promises to the Jews), or of faith versus works (for Paul all faith must include action). When he was a Pharisee, Paul had taken God's good law and turned it into a path of salvation (which it never was) and used it to judge (and even persecute) those who were not living up to his standards. Many people still do this today. We all need a Damascus road experience where we see the light of the risen Jesus, have the scales fall from our eyes, and change the way we see the rules, God, ourselves, and others. Jesus loves you and gave Himself for you. You are called to follow the Holy Spirit – an active faith filled with love that will fulfill the commands of God.
How does your faith live out grace and obedience? How has following Jesus changed how you see the rules?
