Paul and Peter and the Gospel: Part 2
Galatians 2:8-14 · Roger Henderson · Mar 21, 2010
Galatians (2010), No. 12
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492615815419

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, this morning we're going to look at Galatians 2 through 14. And could I get a volunteer? You can read it off the overhead if you want, or just read it from your Bible. And actually, there's an interesting word that's in here that I'm curious. Does someone have the King James, by chance? OK, would you mind reading it? Is that the King James? Well, that's the King James from the New American Standard. Oh, well, I can read it. You read it there? OK, well, whatever. I'll read it.

When Cephas came to Antioch, I approached him in his face, because he stood condemned, for prior to becoming a certain man of name, He used to eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, he began to withhold himself aloof during the party and circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas, in the presence of all, if you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles, and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?

This section is an interesting section, as is all of God's Word. But in particular, this is one that we're going to see where Paul... If you notice right before that, if you have your Bibles, if you look back at what we covered last week, back in verse 9 of Galatians chapter 2, Peter, James, and John, or Cephas, basically extend to Paul the right hand of fellowship. So they were in agreement about spreading the gospel. Now we're going to see that Paul's going to publicly reprimand Cephas, or Peter, for his actions. And so one of the things, do you think Paul stepped over the line here? Do you think he's been too hard on Peter here? Because he doesn't just go to him privately. He could have chosen a couple of different options here. He could have chosen to go to Peter privately and say, Peter, don't you think you've got an issue here? He didn't. He publicly reprimanded him.

I think part of the reason, if you look at the sequence of events here, that basically it says, when these men came from James, Prior to that, he was eating with the Gentiles. But when they came, he changed his mind. He said, well, wait a minute. I've got Jewish tradition here. I just can't go eat with Gentiles. That might offend somebody. That might hurt somebody. So I'm going to go over. I'm just going to draw away from the Gentiles. And I'm going to go over here and eat with my Jewish brethren.

And he did. And then pretty soon, other Jewish believers there, they said, well, wait a minute. Peter did this, Cephas did this, I'm going to join him too. And then, to make matters worse, Barnabas, which is Paul's co-worker, as we've seen so far in Galatians, he says, well wait a minute, a pillar of the church, Peter and the rest of the Jews have done that, I'm going to go too. So here's Paul saying, wait a minute here. something's really getting, you know, it's just going downhill fast.

And you can, maybe you experience that in situations, not have to be a church, other places where somebody's action is so significant that pretty soon everybody just starts trickling over to that side. I mean, it's just incredible. Well, that's what happens. And so at the end here, Paul has to set the record straight. So he just doesn't go to Peter or Cephas privately. He publicly, in front of everyone, reprimands them. So that's a pretty, this is actually, you know, you say scripture isn't exciting, this is pretty amazing.

What I'd like to do is ask you a question here. I've kind of given you a capsulated form of what happens in these four verses. What do you think is a primary... I don't want to give away the answer to the question. There are several thrusts here, but is there one that is a bottom line thing, all said and done, what is... What is the main point here?

There are many points here. There's points about Cephas, and about the Jews, and about Barnabas. I mean, you just listen. But there's one point that kind of that's, and this is one of the things, after you study it for a week and a half, it's not fair. But not to say I have any great abilities over any other person.

But anyway, but is there something that sticks out in your mind? in this passage. Actually, I'll give you a clue. It's been mentioned before in previous, earlier up in Galatians, and maybe Randy's going to catch on here. Earlier up in Galatians, it was mentioned before. There's one thing that kind of sticks out. It's a phrase. And actually, once we do this, I'll point to it. Compromise and political correctness. OK, that's certainly a point that Cephas was guilty of, right? He said, hey.

All my Jewish brethren, I'm going to be with them. I don't want to be with these Gentiles. Our tradition says Gentiles are a no-no. We don't eat or do anything with them. There's unity in Christ. There's not barriers between the groups. Okay, that's a good one. That's still not the one I'm looking for though. I'm going to keep you here until you get it. The truth of the gospel. Excellent. Did someone else have that too? That's right. Excellent.

So actually, that phrase occurred earlier in Galatians. So let's look at that. Let's look at Galatians chapter 2. Don, you'll get a star. My wife, who teaches primary school, she gets a little star. So you get a star at the end of the class. I'm joking. I only have stars. I'm going to try harder now.

Can I have someone read Galatians chapter 2, verses 3 through 5? But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And that because of false brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy at our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage, to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. OK. So in verse 5 there is kind of what I was looking at.

You see here, when it's all said and done, when Paul's ready to reprimand Peter, he says, but when I saw, and that saw is the idea he perceived and he knew what was going on. that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel. And that's when he reprimanded Peter. And it was all based upon he was not being true to the gospel. So you go back up here. It's interesting, up here in this one, there was something that came into view. And he points out, hey, Titus, he was a Greek. He was not a Jew. And he wasn't compelled to be circumcised. And so they confirmed the false brethren, basically.

And the bottom line was, so the truth of the gospel might remain with you. And that idea of remain is that word, of course, men ought to abide. The gospel was to abide. And that's what Paul's desire, the gospel abide with them and not be corrupted, not be twisted. He said it was not straightforward. He made the gospel crooked. Well, now you've got, let's see, if you've got Jewish brethren here, then we've got to make sure that we do the things that their tradition says. He says, no, no, no. If he wants the gospel to be true and straightforward.

So that's kind of the big picture, if you will. Now we're going to kind of go through and look at some of the details here. Actually, after all that, I don't have my pen. OK. So the first verse here, basically, we're just going to kind of step through this. Actually, if you look at the order, this is almost like maybe it should occur later down. He doesn't talk about the sequence of events. He just kind of says, this is my interaction with Cephas.

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. So you don't really see why he's condemned until you read the rest of the verses. So basically, I looked a little bit at this, and this isn't a biggie in my mind, but there's some question about when did Cephas come to Antioch? And there's not a direct scripture that talks about when he came to Antioch, and there's different opinions there, and some say the Jerusalem Council is kind of key in that.

But we do have scripture, and let's just look at this for a second, when Paul and Barnabas came and had their ministry. So let's look at that. And then the fact about when Peter came, we really don't have exact evidence on that. And let's look at Acts chapter 11. And one thing I think we've already mentioned before by Bob and by Randy is that the book of Acts is just invaluable. in understanding a good part of Galatians here. Acts 11, and this is going to talk about Paul and Barnabas and their coming to Antioch. And can I get someone else to read 19 through 26.

Now they who were scattered showed upon the persecution that arose from that Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they were come to Antioch, spoke unto the Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus.

And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church, which was in Jerusalem. And they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch, who, when he came and had seen the grace of God, was glad and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cling unto the Lord. For he was a righteous man, and full of the Holy Spirit, and of faith. And many people were added unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus to seek Saul.

And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass that for a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught many people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." So Antioch is a significant city.

It's kind of like the center of Paul's ministry to the Gentiles. And if you notice that he was there for a whole year with Barnabas. So he was there. And then during that time period, Peter came. And that's kind of the sequence that we're reading. So that's just kind of some background. And then there's some question about when did he actually come? I would say the next verse in 27 would seem a good probable time, just because he says, now at this time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. It's not unreasonable to think that Peter could have possibly, maybe, kind of, sort of, been here.

OK. Actually, there's a bunch of different ones I found. We've been looking at Macaulay and Merriman. They both differ on this one. And I didn't feel it was, I could have spent a lot of time, but I said, no, I'm just going to not do that. So there's so many other neat parts in here. So we'll leave that for your study.

When did he actually arrive in Antioch and have this confrontation? So often the questions you want to answer, the commentaries are not helpful. The obvious things we can find. It's that extra biblical revelation. Okay, all right, so so basically the first thing we see here is that Paul opposed him to his face and You know, this is a this is the word opposed. This is word to to stand against to resist whether indeed or in word So so it was that you know It was a significant interaction. It wasn't just a light. Oh, by the way, I know I got you know, I It's a nice day, and I have a few things to say to you. And then the next word is really interesting.

This is the word cross-upon in the Greek. It talks about the countenance of your face. It's literally the part toward the eyes. And actually, some have rendered this, and it's kind of a popular thing, eyeball to eyeball. So when he opposed him, he got in his face, to use a popular vernacular, right? eyeball to eyeball.

I always think about that when I see the baseball and the umpires and the players, that's the only sport they can actually, they almost virtually bump each other. In football, they're out of the game. In other places, they can't ever touch the referee. But in baseball, they can get right in his face and they can just walk back and forth like this until something happens and then they go on.

So Paul was in his face. And you might say justifiably so, because things were not good. His actions being, quote, a pillar, as we learned earlier. He was considered a pillar of the church. His actions were impacting the other believers there. OK, then basically, because, you know, The reason he opposed him is that he was condemned.

And this word condemned is the idea to be blamed, worthy of blame. And actually, some have rendered it guilty. He was guilty. So we haven't learned. I mean, if you're just reading the first verse, we're going to find out why he's guilty. But he was guilty. He stood condemned. So Cephas or Peter was guilty. Go ahead. He got gonged. He got gonged. Alright, so let's go on.

So now, let's go on to verse 12. So now we're going to learn why, the why of it being then. So the first part of the verse, for prior to the coming of a certain man from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. So Peter's habit, he used to eat with the Gentiles.

And basically, the verb tense really helped us out here. And it's in the imperfect tense. And I really haven't come across it to me in perfect tense. But what that means is continuous action and pastime. So from that verb tense, you realize that this just wasn't an occasional thing.

And there's nothing wrong. Peter was doing the right thing. He was fellowshipping with his brethren in Christ. And they were Gentiles. And he was doing that continuously. The problem is his switching It wasn't that he was eating with them, it was switching this issue. So he was eating continuously in pastime.

And this was prior to the coming of certain men from James. So you kind of think, well, and one of the questions is, is this Peter, James, and John? And this is another one I didn't really search out. But we do know, and I think it probably was, anyway, and based upon that, let's look at James' doctrine. Did James have, did these men from James, did they get some faulty doctrine from James when they came down?

Actually, Antioch is actually up north. Coming down from Jerusalem kind of hurts my head a little bit. May have some phraseology, but yeah, we're mad. If you look at Jerusalem's like here, and the Antioch's way up here, north of that. So coming down. They came down in elevation, to sea level. Elevation, okay. I guess that's right, that's good, thank you. Thank you, that's great. I'm sitting there struggling with up and down, going up, uptown or downtown. I don't know, you drive yourself crazy.

Enough of that. Let's go on to the copy. Let's look at James. James' doctrine, let's say. This is, once again, it's in Acts. Acts chapter 15. Acts 15. So here we're going to see, what was James about? Was he kind of wishy-washy? Was he kind of, maybe not real accurate about his doctrine? So can I get someone to read 13 through 19 in chapter 15, after they had saying, Brethren, listen to me.

Simeon has related how God first concerned himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for his name. With this the words of the prophets agree, just as it was written, After these things I will return, and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which is fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it. So that the rest of the mankind may seek the Lord. All the Gentiles who are called by my name says the Lord who makes these things known from long ago.

Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles. what is strangled him from blood and I'm going to add one more down at the bottom here and 24 it says since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction had distributed and disturbed you with their words unsettling your souls so it's a little bit hard unless you spend a little time you know they didn't want if you look at verse 19 they didn't want to to trouble the Gentiles Basically, they were concerned about them, that the Jews would try to lay an additional burden, additional extra, you got the gospel plus, if you will. So they said, we don't want to do that. But they did recognize there were some, in verse 24, and that's the possible ones that were unsettling souls of people.

And I think that's a possible connection. It's a little bit hard, and I agree. There's a lot more to be done. Well, that's a possibility there. OK. So actually, I've kind of alluded. Who were these men? It says, basically, in the rest of the verse, it says, they're called the party of the circumcision. So the circumcision, basically, I kind of looked through that. Most cases, that refers to Jews who aren't saved. But in some cases, like here, a subset of those come to the Lord, the party of the circumcision. Or literally, it's the ones of the circumcision. So that's referring to Jewish Christians.

And there are several places where it talks about, both positively and negatively, about the circumcision in terms of them being believers. And let's just look at a couple of those, both in positive and negative ways. So in Colossians chapter 4. I'll just go ahead and read this one. It says, in Canon 11, it says, I've got a word that I probably can't pronounce here. Aristarchus. Aristarchus. Aristarchus. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends to you his greetings. Also Barnabas, cousin Mark, about whom you received instruction. If he comes to you, welcome him. and also Jesus who is called justice. These are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision. They have proved to be encouraging to me. So basically, there's a subset of the circumcision that are believers, Jewish Christians. So there's a positive one about that.

Then the other one in Titus is kind of a negative, basically saying there can be some issues. Titus chapter 2. I'm sorry, it's chapter one. Well, there are many subordinates, those idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision. OK. And it kind of goes on, basically. So it just points out that the circumcision, there can be those who are believers who can support the Lord's work, although those can be unbelievers. So anyway, so I think basically it's saying that these men that came from James were a part of the circumcision. And in this case, they were not helpful.

All right. So let's go on to the second part of the verse. whose mouths must be stopped to continue reading. Okay, actually, good. That's good, excellent. Must be silenced because they are unsettling. Yeah, that's excellent. Thank you. I didn't go far enough. Yeah. They support poor households with teaching things which they ought not for the sake of dishonest gain. Yeah. Thanks, Tom. That's great.

So in this case, they were unsettling. They unsettled Peter, certainly. And they had a ripple effect. Okay, so basically, after the coming of these men from James, He began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcisions. So this word fear comes from phobia, I believe. To put in fear, terrify, frighten. And actually, it's in the middle voice, which means that it's usually for his own benefit. This is for his own. It's a negative, right? The middle means the person involved in the action.

So this means that fear was, he was very fearful. So one of the questions is, why was he so fearful? I sure didn't remember that verse. Fear not them who can kill a body and can't do anything further. Fear the other person who is the Lord. Other thoughts on why he was fearful? A related question. Was this purposeful or simply ignorance?

Well, I want to show you a verse here. Peter's actions, and my next question is, Let me just put that up there. This is the first time that this has happened with Peter before. I found this really key. You might say, well, we learn from experiences, right? We learn sometimes. I have children. They're all growing now. In raising them, sometimes I make mistakes. Hopefully, I learned from that. So the next time he came along and said, OK, we're going to do this differently this time. We're going to do something different. So was this Peter's first time? You might give him a little slack here, right?

You say, well, OK. You haven't been confirmed by this. You've got these people. And you're considered a pillar. And you didn't know which way to go. I don't want to lose my Jewish brethren to Christ. Maybe they'll leave. They'll leave the church and we won't have any money. I don't know. But that's the kind of thing. Isn't that true today? Many churches, boy, if we say this or say that, people might leave. And that's not good. That's really not good.

Anybody have a thought about this? Anybody remember? I have an answer to this very shortly here. Well, the key word and name really is Cornelius. What happened there? OK. That's an excellent one. We're going to read about that, parts of it. I won't drag this out.

This wasn't the first time. Actually, what's interesting is the first time he handled it right, but the second time he didn't. And if you think about Peter, isn't that kind of his Lifestyle. Peter was a wonderful guy. He just was so excited. He said, Lord, I'll follow you anywhere to the ends of the earth. And then he denies him three times. So this is the flip-flop for Peter.

And let's look at the previous case. The previous case is back in Acts again. This is why Acts is just so neat in understanding what's going on here. Acts 11. And this actually is a long part here. Acts 11, I'd like to read, and actually this is going to be the part that Tom mentioned. Tom, would you like to read this? Here we go. 1 through 18 in 11. Okay.

Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him, saying, You went in to uncircumcise men, in order from the beginning, saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision of it descending like a great sheep, let down from heaven by four corners, and it came to me. When I observed it intently and considered it, I saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, Rise, Peter, kill and eat.

But I said, Not so, Lord, for nothing common or unclean is at any time entered my mouth. But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God has cleansed you continue. Okay, and why don't you skip down and do 17 and 18. If, therefore, God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God? And when they heard these things, they became silent. And they glorified God, saying, Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. Okay, stop there.

So in this case, Peter gave his testimony about what God had done with him. And the result of that was 17 and 18, right? They said, well, the Gentiles have the same blessing we have. we're not going to give him a hard time about eating what we eat. So in that case, Peter handled it right.

But in this case, he didn't. He flopped. And the thing is, we flop too. Sorry to say. When we do that, sometimes the Lord will trust him. Something will happen. And we'll trust him and say, yes, Lord, the next time, we don't. So as believers, we're capable of doing that. So I mean, it's not something that's common just to Peter. It happens to us as well. But we're going to learn from this. Other thoughts on that? I don't know. Just go on if you're not. OK.

OK, so now that fear that drove him, what was the result of the fear? He began to withdraw and hold himself aloof. Withdrawal is the idea to draw oneself back out of sight. And let's see here, what happens in those verses? Pulling out the needle after you've injected. I was trying to think what I didn't have to read everything. I had something to read here. What were you guys out here? Let's see. Twenty.

But basically, those were to talk about not shrinking back from something kind of parallel with a word issue. It's not shrinking back. So he did shrink back. He did shrink back. He did succumb to that. Those actually are positive. And the other one is hold himself aloof or separating himself. So he withdrew. And he didn't want to be, I'm just not going to talk to you. I'm just going to go away.

Because I might be, you know. Something bad might happen. Donna? You know, what's interesting about this is that it doesn't indicate that the people that came said anything to him. It's almost like it was something that he worked out in his own eyes. Right. Well, it's sort of like...

I was looking at Hal's notes on this, and Hal gave some examples about church situations, and he liked the use of ones about, you know, you're somewhere. Imagine that Bonnie and I are Let's see, what was the example he used? We're waiting in a lounge to go in to eat dinner or something like that, and Vern and Nancy walk in. So what do I do? Just quickly find Vern and just walk away, because I don't want to say, wait a minute, I was in there maybe having a few drinks or something like that. I don't want to, even though I was only waiting, you don't want to be associated.

So that's, you know. Like I said, he just saw him and said, But then there's, you know, on the other hand, there's the concept of we also don't want to be a stumbling block. And so you have to find, I mean, you have to know what, as you said, Don, if nothing's being said, are questioned, then you sort of wonder, did he feel maybe that he was being a stumbling block to these people, which is why he withdrew, or in fact, should he have stayed and explained himself, like he did the first time?

Yeah, it seems like he should have followed his previous example. He should have said, when these guys came from James, and some, I read in some notes here or there, that some people think that they came for that very reason. They, well wait a minute, the pillar of the church is eating with the Gentiles. We've got problems here in River City. So it was to accuse him. That's what some think, but you can't find it. That's one of the things I couldn't find. I couldn't find words to that effect. So I think you have to use discernment. Exactly.

On whether, in fact, it's being a stumbling block in some way to some young believers or whatever. Well, actually, it's going to have a ripple effect here real quick, we're going to see. It's going to go from the other Jewish believers and then the Barnabas, real quickly.

But just like for our lives today, I mean, Peter's mistakes, if we want to call them that, are ultimately his being conformed in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ to God's glory, right? So in other words, the outcome is always to God's glory. And so the sequence, no matter what the motives were, whether we could claim he was inadequately spirit-led or this is the power of the flesh or whatever this is, it ultimately worked to God's glory.

But you have to say, at a minimum, he wasn't walking with the Lord when he was doing that. He wasn't in fellowship. He was in self, right? He was saying, hey, I'm concerned about myself and how I gather. Because I don't want to be seen with these people. He withdrew and couldn't tell back.

In a way, it's kind of being stupid because Just like with shepherds, fishermen were not exactly high on the list of honorable occupations by the Sanhedrin or by the Pharisees or by any of the strong Jewish Old Testament plus tradition people there. They felt a certain way about shepherds being kind of like a solo. They weren't even allowed to go into the temple. And fishermen might not have been that much higher up, even though they were tall or even just because they handled unclean food all the time, trying to get rid of the crawdads when they're trying to catch fish. So Gentiles were not the top of the social ladder. They were definitely not there, right? Plus the dietary issues. The Gentiles ate food that the Jews could not eat.

It just seemed like Peter, coming from that strata of society, was kind of overreaching and saying, wait a minute, should I go all the way back to at least in this one area, the old traditions? But he did it right before. Just like with Peter, back with the Lord. Lord, I'll follow you anywhere. I'll go to the ends of the earth for you. And then as soon as the push comes to shove, he says, who is that guy? I never knew him. And we're there, too. I'm not exalting myself or anyone. We all have been there. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Just a brief thought.

The same concept of fearing is the same word for used considering the relationship between a husband and a wife, the fear that that a wife has toward her husband. I think to find it consistent with Peter that he was always, as the man was saying back there, he always felt low. And that same word is the concept of reverence.

And I think it's possible that he wasn't so much fearing for himself as he was recognizing a group coming from James, coming from Jerusalem. They were of the circumcision, they were from the Jews. he was thinking, okay, these men are above me, maybe I need to submit to probably what he was thinking they would have preferred. Well, definitely, I would say it was definitely what we call peer pressure, right? His peers, his brethren, you know, they were believers, you know, so he felt, but the thing, what's interesting is he was, he was considered, earlier in the passage, he was considered A pillar, he was considered, so it's kind of a mixed deal there. I mean, he was, it's almost like, well, I'm the president and this is, I might be thought, I might get bad reviews or bad polls or whatever. They took polls back then. I like your idea, that's good. 13th, okay. So now we see the waterfall effect.

The rest of the Jews join in his hypocrisy. And hypocrisy, actually this is this word, does anyone have a King James version by chance? This is an interesting word, but I actually never, I've only used, haven't really used King James that much, but dissembled, it's a verb form of hypocrisy. Dissimulation. Dissembled, actually.

Anyway, so it's the same core word, the act of acting as a stage player to be something you're not, is what Lyon said. And it's basically a little way to join in pretense. So who did Cephas or Peter act like? People of the Democratic National Convention. Other thoughts? Well, they were acting like the circumcision. Exactly. I mean, that's the thing. They were going back to the law. He had freedom in Christ, right? But he went back and he said, well, I'm back, you know. But you know, we're not any different, because look how often we put ourselves back under law, and we don't even kind of realize we've done it. But all of a sudden, here we are. And we go, gosh, how did that happen? Here we are. What's wonderful about scripture is to show us, we say, I see myself there. I would do that. I could do that. I've done that. Who is the real Peter? He has liberty in Christ. This would probably be a better way to say it. He has liberty in Christ. And now we're going to see the second part. Now we get down to barters.

With the result, that even Barnabas was carried away by their Hippocrates. Carried away is to be led or carried away with something. Actually, you can think of this like, you know, you have a fast-moving river, and if you fall in, you go with the river, right? So that's kind of, Barnabas was the last of the three here, so he was carried away.

And that passage in 2 Peter 3, I'll just, I have it written down here. be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your steadfastness. So scripture warns us not to be carried away. We see something, we see the crowd going that way, we're careful about that.

We test it against God's Word, against what He said. And then we have So by their hypocrisy, Cephas and the Jews, he's basically acting as a Jew and not a Christian. And that 2-1 passage is the one putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy. And basically that's the idea that Christians have already, their position in Christ, they've already done that. who they are in Christ, they've already put away hypocrisy. So now, here's the confrontation.

Paul, he says, I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel. So this is kind of the crux of this passage. This word, I saw, is basically, it's the idea to see with perception. I actually didn't put that down. And basically, Paul saw what was going on here. He perceived this is not good. He perceived what was going on. And they didn't walk straightforwardly, to walk in a straight path, to walk correctly. They were crooked, if you will. And what they were crooked about was the truth of the gospel.

And we already looked at that before. And that's the one that talks about in verse 5 there about the truth of the gospel is to remain or continue with you without interruption. So the truth of the gospel is being distorted here. So this kind of leads into what truth about the gospel is being spoken of here? It's not works that we do, it's faith. Okay, that's good.

Basically, since we're going back to a law system, this law versus grace, that's the truth. And so that's not, you have the gospel as explained in 2 Corinthians, but this is an aspect of that that comes out of that basically, who we are in Christ. Bob? sense of that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the spirit but after the and not after the flesh but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit do the things of the spirit. So I mean, at some sort of righteousness coming from obeying the law, but the law is totally worked out in us. Exactly. I mean, Roy, like we talked about several weeks ago, I mean, in effect, the law has been accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, and now the spirit leads the life away from legal matters.

Peter, again, back, was this purposeful or was this ignorance? I mean, to some extent you could say this is the old man showing up with tradition, but in a sense I'm not sure that he quite had the grace message totally wrapped up. And that's true. Was he well-grounded in that?

Like we are too many times, we'll catch on to something, say, I see that, and then something will happen, and then we won't be consistent, we'll be inconsistent. So we're seeing inconsistency. But the truth of the gospel is nothing but grace. That's all it is. There's nothing else to it. All right, so now we come down to the reprimand.

And so this turns out to be one of these, can be, if-then clauses. And actually, I believe, I'm pretty sure that the if is a first class condition. So someone remember what a first class condition means? It means you're assumed to know better for yourself that it indeed is true and you don't have to be taught again. This is just a reminder of this. Alright, so it's if... And sometimes you can't know who you are. Is if better translated as since here? Right, you could. And it's a logical situation. So since or if being a... I can't talk.

If you being a Jew, live like or as the Gentiles, and not like the Jews. So basically, here, we see that he's a Jew by birth, right? So I found it a little bit hard in this. Sometimes it's referring to his nationality, and sometimes to his, you know, so in this case, he's a Jew by birth, right? and you live like a Gentile, which would mean you don't follow the Jewish traditions, and not like a Jew. So that's the first part. And then, or it could be why, why do you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?

And the why, you're compelling it, you're compelling it, so he's telling him, actually interesting, he says that your message is so strong, this is kind of an interesting point, This wasn't just a light message that Paul was saying. He said, Peter, you're compelling them to live like Jews. That's pretty amazing. So Paul was pretty, he was not easy on Peter at all. He was, you're compelling them. So you think, how in the world did he compel them? How do we compel somebody to do something?

Give me some possibilities. Rail-beating. What's that? Rail-beating. Okay. The intimidation that's going on right now in Washington is perfect. Arm-twisting. Arm-twisting. Go ahead. You can either do it by implication, by implying something either by your actions or your words, or by directive. Right. Telling something that they have to do that way. Right. With a consequence if they don't. Right. Send that memo out if you're in business. Send a memo out that says it will be this way. Or if you're in the terrorist organizations, you say, you know, you want to live? You want to live? We'll do it this way.

In this situation, it's by his example. His example. That's pretty compelling. That's pretty incredible. Well, and don't you think the compelling part was because they respected who Peter was. That he was an apostle. He was well-schooled. He had known Christ. And so he had a lot of authority. And so if he was doing this, than people who had never met Christ and were just hearing this message and being taught. Of course, they're being influenced. He's a very important person.

So back to us. This is kind of condemning, but kind of food for thought by our actions. And that's what scripture tells us. Don't do something that might be misunderstood. Your actions, many times, are influential. It doesn't mean that you spend Christian life saying, I want to focus on my actions. No, your focus is on Christ. But remembering that your actions can be compelling. Hey Roger, just a thought.

The Jews were instructed to lead the Gentiles to know God. That's a good point. And one of their, they twisted it of course, but one of the things that they would do is to go into other cities and form synagogues and show them the Lord through the law and keeping the law was the right way. This was their thing. And the only help for the Gentiles was that they become a Jew and live like a Jew even though they were Gentiles. to know God. So these Judaizers coming from James, man, what an example for them was put out here too. We think of ourselves that they were hit square in the forehead with grace is the message, not law. And we're no better than the Gentiles. We live as Christ lives in us. And separating themselves from And now all of a sudden, it's following Christ. And ones who have been with Christ, Christians, was first named here in Antioch. This is where it's happening for them, right?

It is. That's good. Quite a deal that the Lord gave us this message, isn't it? It is. Alright, so, kind of to close here, I have one of Hal's charts from back in 1995. This is great. This has been wonderful for me. If you guys want copies of this, chapter two is about that thick. Just notes. But it's wonderful. I haven't gone through all of them. I just do a subset. But it's neat. So this is one of his charts. So basically, this is focusing on what we started out with.

So the issue in both those two passages, one we have today, and then the one from a couple weeks ago, in three through five, that the truth of the gospel might continue through believers' lives. So what is the truth of the gospel? So I'm going to have a good job here, just kind of pretty basic stuff. It's the good news, who Christ is as person, what Christ has done, his work, who we are in Christ, his body, and specifically in Galatians, we have liberty in Christ, we are free from our sin nature, we are free from the lost system.

Stand in your liberty. And lastly, let this truth of your liberty continue in you. I don't think we could have summarized it much better. So that's a stand in your liberty. Other closing thoughts? You know, I was going to say, we're free from our sin nature. A lot of people would say, well, that's not true. You still have a sin nature. You still have the old man.

Well, but what this is pointing out in Galatians is our position is totally free from the sin nature so we need to reckon ourselves and understand what that freedom is and not be a slave to that sin nature because if we focus on Christ and he's living through us more and more as we grow that sin nature is dissipating as we grow and his life is more and more living through us. Well, it's the freedom to live a life pleasing to God, right? We didn't have that freedom before we came. Right, we had no choice.

Now that freedom is there and it's Spirit led by the truth of the Word of God. that's great freedom. Oh it is. And you know the thing is to be excited about that gives you great joy. It does. It's not a burden. It's a joy. Seeing that you have no hope or this is just going to happen and I can't do anything about it. I mean the sin nature still shows up but we confess and move on by the great grace God has given us. And it showed up in And we benefited by that today. All right, let's close.

We thank you, Father. Thank you for your word. Thank you for our time this day, Lord. Thank you for the the liberty we have in Christ that because of your death on the cross you provided that and we can stand in that liberty, we can stand separated from our sin nature and from the law and that we can glorify you. In Christ's name, Amen.