The Jerusalem Conference: Is Salvation by Faith Alone?

We're going to start in chapter 2 today, but we're going to actually go back a little bit before we get in the main part of chapter 2 and look at the steps which led Paul up to his statement in verse 1. So I'm just actually going to cover the first three verses, but we're going to spend some time looking at the timeline, if you will, that preceded the first seven verses there, and actually preceded the whole second chapter. So let's look at... I want to look at a little comparison to start off with. So I want to compare chapter 1 and chapter 2, and actually they're quite different. Chapter 1 really spent... we spent a long time talking, except for the very last part, a long time talking about the source of the gospel. And, you know, Paul was just really vehement about the fact that it did not come from man as its source. You know, it literally says it... It was not sourced in man. It was sourced in God. And it was through a revelation.

And we see, as we look through the history of Paul's life, he spent three years in Arabia. He was exceptionally blessed that he spent three years of his life, almost, with the Lord Jesus himself. So he was an exceptional person and had a unique view about God's grace that no other human has ever had.

So that's chapter one, a good part of chapter one, except for the very last part, which we'll cover in a bit. Well, chapter two is going to kind of switch gears. It's going to say, now that you know the source of Paul's gospel is from God, what about what's happened? What's transpired? The church started, we learned in Acts, it started back at Pentecost, and they had God's message. They had the word of salvation. Is there a difference between what Paul's preaching and what the apostles are preaching, what Peter is preaching?

So we're going to see a wonderful cooperation that's going to occur at this thing called the Jerusalem Conference. If you look in your Bibles, you won't find the word Jerusalem Conference. You'll find a meeting, a council, a few other words, but you won't find that phrase. That's been something man has tacked on to try to help us to understand. But it was a meeting that was very important. between Paul and Barnabas and Titus, and at least Peter, James, and John, and then possibly others, other leaders of the church at that time.

And they're going to actually, amazingly, they're going to come and have no issues. Where we see that what was happening in the body of Christ at that time, people, especially the Jewish brothers, which comprise a majority of the church, They were going and they were imposing the law and circumcision on bodies of believers, especially Gentile bodies. And that disrupted the body. But we're going to say amazingly enough that that is going to be put to rest, at least for this small time period. But Galatians is written really to resolve that problem as well.

In chapter 1, we saw that Paul was independent of the apostles. chapter 2 we're going to see cooperation we're going to see this what's called the right hand of fellowship they're going to shake hands if you will you can imagine this Paul and you know Paul and Peter they they shake hands and say right on brother this is good we're on the same page here we don't have different Gospels and the issue is is salvation by faith alone because he's you know the worst gospel says you got to add something to that and you can kind of see that in today's world Not everyone will sign up to a purely grace gospel.

Someone to add something to they say, well, brother, you got to be baptized. You got to read your Bible. You got it. They'll add, they'll tack on additional things that you must do. Well, that's not a new problem. That problem existed from the beginning of the church. And that's what Galatians is all about. Okay, so let's look at an outline. And I've kind of, you know, I kind of like Chester McCauley, the way he outlines things. I've used it. I'm going to continue to use it. It's pretty cool.

So basically, the Jerusalem Conference kind of breaks down as follows. First of all, he's going to bring along, of all things, a Gentile believer who hasn't been circumcised. So right there, it's right in the face, if you will, of those guys who'd say, you've got to be circumcised. So that's point one. Point two is that He really, the Lord actually led him to go to Jerusalem, and I think it led him to say, we need to have a private meeting.

We're going to see that 11 years will lapse between when Paul first met Peter, for only a short 15 days, 11 years lapsed until he saw him again. Can you imagine if I, 11 years passed between you and me, and I heard maybe, you know, Courtney's really, he's talking about the Lord, he's teaching, But I hadn't met Courtney in 11 years. I'd say, well, how's it going, Courtney? Maybe we don't exactly agree on everything. Wouldn't we want to have some time to kind of sort that out?

So I think the Lord is very practical in this area. And also, another point is that this isn't so much Paul looking for a blessing from the apostles. Well, I'm going to go get the blessing of the apostles with my gospel. It's almost the reverse. He's saying, God has called me out to be his messenger of the true gospel. I want to make sure that we're on the same page, that you guys agree that God worked in me and that we have the true message of gospel and it hasn't been altered in any way.

And then the victory alluded to here is this where they don't require Titus to be circumcised, and that was a pretty important thing. And then next week, actually J.D. is going to be teaching next week, it should be cool, he's going to cover these Remaining verse up to verse 7 which talks about the the opponents The opponents in that time period were these guys called the false brethren that the opponents that the courage Paul had was that he talks about not yielding to them for even an hour and they talks about that the truth of the gospel might remain and then he also points out the fact that These men, these apostles, Peter, James, and John, he doesn't say this negatively.

It may come across that way. I'm sure J.D. will explain that. But you think, wow, it sounds kind of strange. He says, they didn't contribute anything to me. I think what he's saying is, they didn't have information that I didn't already know. And he's saying that in a kind way. There wasn't some, oh, you forgot this, Brother Paul. You forgot that. No. Paul was the gold standard. His gospel was the gold standard. So it was making sure that the guys agreed with one another in the sense that they agreed that Paul's gospel was the true gospel.

So that's kind of a quick outline of where we're headed here in the next seven verses or so. Let's look, this is kind of a timeline. I thought about doing one where you have like a horizontal timeline, you have little marks like this, but I thought it actually was better to do it just right from scripture and just kind of do a bullet form of a timeline. So first of all, after Paul was saved, it says in verse 16, which Mike covered the last couple weeks, he says, Paul says, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood. So Paul didn't rush out to the apostles. didn't need to do that, but he stayed at Damascus. He didn't go to Jerusalem, to the apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia. So here's a totally different paradigm. He goes off to Arabia to be with the Lord and returned to Damascus.

And as Mike mentioned, there's a lot of stuff going on in the background here. There's a lot of issues that are happening. Paul's preaching, and he's not getting, they're not saying, oh, that's great, Paul. You know, right on, brother. No, they're not saying that. They're upset. A lot of the Jews are upset about that. So then what we see next is that scripture is kind of cool. It uses this word then, which could be translated next. It kind of leads you through a timeline.

Next, three years later, I went up to Jerusalem. and in Jerusalem. And one thing is that, as I mentioned at the bottom, it seems they're counting from his conversion. So it was three years till he went up to Jerusalem. And while at Jerusalem, he became acquainted with Cephas, or Peter, and stayed with him 15 days. So this is the first thing I was talking about. He met Peter three years after his conversion and stayed with him 15 days.

And he said, I didn't see any of the other apostles except for James, the Lord's brother. And then there's another then, or next, I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And he says, I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ. So at this point, we come to the end of chapter 1. So what we found is that Paul's been to Jerusalem one time.

He's done a lot of teaching. He's done a lot of interaction. And we're going to see, we're going to start chapter 2 is 11 years will have passed. And now he's going to start the dialogue in chapter two, and we're going to see what this conference is going to occur.

OK, so I have my version of the map, see how it comes out. OK, so that little arrow, that arrow shows the distance. As best we can tell, Paul was at this point in time when he starts chapter two in his discussion, He's an Antioch, and he's going to go up to Jerusalem. And we're going to see about this word, went up to.

After an interval of 14 years, or once again, next after an interval of 14 years. So once again, we're counting. The best way, I think, to do this is to count from his conversion. So 14 years of conversion, or actually 11 years from when he was there before.

I went up again to Jerusalem the second time. And the word again kind of gives you a clue there. He says again, so that kind of says, OK, this is the second time he's been there. And I believe he left from Antioch. And so why does Paul say, I went up? And also you'll see the phrase, I came down. I went up and I came down. Went up and came down.

So what's that all about? So it's the idea to ascend, a change in elevation. Here in Colorado, we can easily identify with that. If I go up to Vail, I go up to Vail and I come down from Vail. I go up to Telluride, I come down from Telluride. Well, a similar thing there. The landscape kind of dictated that. And that word is used in the story of Zacchaeus. We climbed up the sycamore tree to see the Lord, so he's going up.

So here's just, you know, this is just kind of some history and geography. Jerusalem is located on the top of this plateau, about 2,500 feet or so. And if you think about it, to one side, the Mediterranean is west 30 miles. The other side is the Dead Sea, the lowest place on the earth. So it is sort of up there on top.

So it seems like scripture picks up on that. So we see going up or coming down, going up or coming down. So that's how we start this, and you'll see that repeated over and over again. So this is a little bit of a sidelight, but I thought it was interesting. OK, so he takes Barnabas, Barnabas taking Paul also. So Barnabas was this Levite of Cyprian birth, and he played a key part in Paul's life. And his name is Son of Encouragement. His name means Son of Encouragement.

But Barnabas was really key in Paul's early ministry. You know, Paul went up to Jerusalem the first time, and it was Barnabas who really introduced him, if you will, to the apostles. They didn't know who, in fact, they probably were afraid of Paul, because Paul had a reputation that he was a killer of Christians. He hunted them down and wiped them out. So Barnabas was key in that. Whereas Titus, on the other hand, he was a believer also, but he was a Gentile.

And that's going to be a very key part in this, because, as you notice, he doesn't say, I went with Barnabas and Paul. It says, I'm taking Barnabas and Titus. He says, I'm taking Titus. It's like, if I say, I'm going to go to the store and take Vanni with me, then I have some purpose for her going with me, maybe to help me shop, because I'm not the greatest shopper in the world, and it takes me forever to find things. So I take Bonnie along to help me out. So he's taking Titus along for a purpose.

And the purpose is going to be, he's a Gentile believer who hasn't been circumcised, which is going to be exactly opposite to what the Jewish false teachers were trying to impose upon Gentile believers. You need to be circumcised. So it's a deliberate action, it seems, on Paul's part to solidify the point about circumcision and Gentile believers. Okay, so that's basically verse 1.

Then after an interval of 14 years, I went up again. for the second time with Barnabas taking Titus along also. Okay, so now he's going to give his rationale. Was this something he just kind of thought up one day? Hey, it would be good. It's been 11 years since I've been to Jerusalem. I probably ought to check in to see what those apostles are teaching these days.

No, it was because of a revelation that I went up. Paul was given a revelation by God, and the word revelation is the idea of the act of uncovering or unveiling or disclosing, typically from God or Christ. So Paul was... God had a plan, a purpose. He wanted Paul to go up to Jerusalem to, you know, to settle this matter, if you will. So Ouistaz says, I went up in accordance with a revelation. picking up on the Ketah because of.

And other revelations that Paul's received, a couple of those we're very familiar with back in chapter 1 of Galatians. But I received it, the gospel, through a revelation of Jesus Christ. And then secondly, in Ephesians, and there's more than just this, but this is two that kind of stuck out to me. He received this revelation about the mystery, if you will. The mystery is the idea that that Jew and Gentile are one body in Christ. They're one new man, as it says in Ephesians. So those are other revelations. But this revelation is unique. And it does actually bring up a point. Why was it so important that he go up to Jerusalem? And I kind of alluded to the fact that it wasn't just a, hey, I just want to go. And I think that it's a critical point in church history.

And we kind of see that if we look in Acts. And if you want to do a little homework, read Acts 15, almost all of Acts 15. It gives you a very good parallel passage to what we're studying today. So the first verse in Acts 15 talks about, it says, some men came down from Judea. Notice, came down. Judea is the plain around Jerusalem. Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren.

Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." So you can imagine, that's just like I pointed out, if someone came into our body of believers now and had a point like, you must be baptized. And there are some body of believers that have that. You have to be baptized. You cannot be saved unless you're baptized. Well, baptism, from scripture talks about it's a confirmation that you have been saved. You don't need it for salvation. It's confirming your salvation. So this was a ritual, the ritual circumcision, and these false brethren were preaching that you needed to do that. Actually, in addition to that, they preached that you had to follow the Mosaic law in addition to that. And it goes on, and Luke continues on in Acts.

He talks about When Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren, in this case, it's the brethren in, I believe, the church in Antioch, determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. So it looks like here, so the question is, is this Is this a conflict? So we saw in Galatians chapter 1 there, Galatians chapter 2, that it was by divine revelation. Here we see is that these brothers decided that Paul should go up to Jerusalem. So actually, this is not a new situation we see in scripture. So here we have a case where I think, you know, basically both are true. Paul had a divine revelation and the brothers said, go up to Jerusalem, Paul. So, you know, and there's other examples of that, like with Peter, with Cornelius.

He was a Gentile unbeliever. And Peter, the Jews wouldn't even enter the house of Gentiles. It was so, I mean, they wouldn't eat with them. I don't think they even greeted them on the street. They would not go into their house. So for Peter to go into a Gentile's house was just about the end of the world. And he had a hard time with that.

And he was asked by a servant of Cornelius to come to his house to share the gospel. Well, believe it or not, Peter was reluctant to do that until the Lord appeared to him and said, Peter, I made everything clean, basically. And so he settled the issue for Peter. So in a like manner, I think that this really is an issue that we see that Paul was, by divine revelation, was asked to go to Jerusalem. the brethren asked him to go as well. So when Paul got there, he got to Jerusalem, he's going to take a two-step approach here, we're going to see.

He's going to talk to, he's going to present the gospel, he says, and I submitted to them the gospel which I preached among the Gentiles. So what's kind of cool here, Paul didn't have, well I got a gospel for the Gentiles, I got a gospel for the Jews. No, it's the same gospel. The gospel didn't change.

And also, he didn't ask permission of the apostles when he got to Jerusalem to preach to the them, which are, it seems to be, the brethren in Jerusalem, the believers in Jerusalem, before he talked with the apostles in private. He just went for it. So who is them? Apparently, it seems to be the brethren in Jerusalem. That's the first group. The idea of submitting, he wants to sort of lay it out.

He's going to lay out the gospel, lay forth this matter for consideration. Here's the gospel, that Christ died for your sins, he was buried, and he rose on the third day. He's going to lay that out, and he's going to lay out the fact that that's all that's required, your faith in that. And we're going to see what's really cool. When we compare it back with Acts, I'm going to read it here shortly, Peter's going to get up in the middle of this conference, and he's going to say, brethren, here's what we, And I take the we to be Paul and Barnabas and the other apostles.

Here's what we believe. The man is saved by faith alone. And it's just amazing that there was the issue about circumcision and keeping the law. They agreed that was not part of being saved, which is pretty amazing because other Jews Other Jewish believers were trying to impose the law and circumcision on Gentile believers.

So Paul says, I'm preaching to you the gospel. I'm continually preaching this gospel among the Gentiles, and I'm going to give it to you, basically. So Paul's gospel of grace was the same for the Gentile and the Jew, as I mentioned. But the false brethren, which are called in verse 4, Galatians chapter 2, verse 4, proclaimed a gospel of works, which added circumcision and keeping the law. But here's the cool part I was kind of mentioning. I'm going to read parts of this later, the whole thing later on.

So a summary of what Peter said, point one, God made no distinction between us, Jews, and them, Gentiles, cleansing their hearts by faith and giving them the Holy Spirit. And then two, we believe that we are saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, it may not come across as being a huge deal, but that's a huge deal when you have many brothers scurrying around Judea and other places and going up to Antioch and beyond and causing trouble by trying to impose circumcision and following the law of Moses. This was huge, that Peter, He agreed with Paul's gospel, and these statements were penned by Luke.

It's just really, really outstanding. OK. So now, the Part B of Verse 2 is, But I did so in private with those who are of reputation, for fear that I might be running, or had run in vain. So this is Group 2. First to the body of the general populace, if you will, and then to the men of reputation. the well-thought-of, and probably, at a minimum, it's going to be the apostles and elders. Actually, if you look down in verse 9, we'll get to that eventually here in chapter 2, it talks about Peter, James, and John, so it's at least that group. The well-thought-of are at least the original set of apostles plus others, the elders. So the order is, First to the brethren in Jerusalem, then to the apostles and elders, and obviously not waiting for their okay to preach to the brethren in Jerusalem.

So why in private? So I spent a little time on thinking, why in private? Was he afraid that people would listen in? What was the thought process here? You might come away with that, saying, well, is he going to bend their arm? You know, today we watch the news and all kinds of negotiations, all different kinds of topics and negotiating, oh, they're going to go bend their arm, they're going to do this, they're going to do that. Paul didn't have to, I don't think he had to bend any arms. He just laid out.

The Lord appeared to me on the road to Damascus. I was in the wilderness with him for almost three years. This is God's message, brothers. Do you agree with me this is God's message? I think that was more like that than twisting their arms. Well, you've got to say what I say. We've got to have a unified statement, right? I don't think it was nothing like that.

It was glorifying God that he worked through the original apostles, and now he's working through Paul uniquely. So Paul gives an explanation, and this explanation, I don't know, you read the words and you say, hmm, that's an explanation? Okay, that's just me. For fear that I might be running or had run in vain. Okay, Paul, that's your explanation?

Anyway, so you could translate less by any means. I might be running. I'm running now. I might be spinning my wheels. That's how I think of it. You work real hard and nothing gets accomplished. Is that what he was doing? Or I had done it in the past? Let's just stop for a second. So actually I found this in this little... I kind of tried to expand this, lest I did this and that.

It says, lest my present mission with you is worthless and my past struggles against the false brethren were also worthless or in vain. So Paul's trying to communicate that I did so that there wouldn't be any misunderstanding. And I kind of tried to think about that. Paul wanted to make sure that the apostles and elders had the true gospel from him instead of a second-hand account.

You know, it happens many times. I know that If you're in business or any kind of situation where a story gets out, sometimes it gets out and it's slightly changed, and it gets back to you and you say, well, we never said that. You know, well, I saw that in an email, or I saw that in a text message, or I got that on the phone. Well, wait a minute, no, this is what we said.

And even when you try to be careful, you know, well, I'll send a message, I'll make a note of this, it still can get messed up. personally talking with one another is not to be the only sure way of making sure something gets communicated properly. That's why emails and listening are dangerous sometimes, right? Because you can't put your face can't pop out of the email and smile or frown or whatever. So anyway. Okay, now I had a few more thoughts. I kept thinking these are some of these are from my brother Hal and some other places, but more thoughts. You have to kind of keep your mind back on chapter one.

What's the source of Paul's gospel? Paul's gospel is directly from God, from the Lord Jesus Christ. He got it from the source. If I say I bring some water in, this came from the source. It came from Telluride, and I give it to you. This is Telluride water. I'm picking on Andrew because he's here. This is Telluride water. I got it from the source. Well, Paul's saying, I got this gospel from the source. This is it. This is the true gospel. So it didn't need any verification. It didn't need a stamp of approval. The Apostle Elder did not have, you know, they had a wonderful, you know, Peter was greatly used to the Lord. He had wonderful, you know, Lord used him. He used him with the Gentiles too for a short time period.

And others had a great understanding, but they didn't have the understanding that Paul had. So there had to be some, only Paul had the full understanding of God's grace gospel. And Paul didn't want any of the Apostle Elders to undo what he had done. I said, well, Paul says you've got to add this little extra part, or we think that Paul's good to this point, but you need this little part. Now, Paul was the source of the true gospel, and that's important as we go through chapter 2 to keep that in mind.

And then Titus. Titus was a Greek, not circumcised, and he wasn't compelled to be circumcised. So I want to read just really this is kind of cool here. Let me just probably the best I thought was just to read this little section. So here's here's Peter again. This is in Acts 15. And I'm going to read. I see what I have here. OK. Let me start.

Acts 15. And this is basically kind of the summation, if you will, of the conference. And Peter's going to be the spokesman. So in Acts 15, starting in verse Acts 15, 6. The apostles and the elders came together to look into the matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said, brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. So Peter was involved in the gospel of the Gentiles initially, like I said.

And God, who knows the heart, testifies, giving them, testify to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us also. So he's saying, back when I was interfacing with the Gentiles, they had the same experience that we had. He knows their heart. He testified, giving the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us also.

He made no distinction between us, Jews, and them, Gentiles, cleansing our hearts by faith. Now, therefore, He's basically going to rebuke these false teachers. Now, therefore, why do you put God to the test? By placing upon them, placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we are able to bear.

We believe that we are saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in the same way that they, the Gentiles, are also. I have a shorter version here. So, you know, They came and they're on the same page, and they agreed that it was the gospel of grace plus nothing, plus simply man's faith. Okay, so a few final thoughts.

I was trying to think about where that was at. I don't think that's Colorado, but anyway. And you find these cool pictures on the internet. I think, where is that? I don't know. Okay, so a couple of final thoughts. I've probably already said these before. But, you know, it won't hurt.

You know, the Jerusalem conference talking about is salvation by grace alone, is salvation by faith through grace. This was a critical meeting in the history of the early church. Remember back in chapter 1 it says, there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. So that's the whole reason Paul is penning the the book of Galatians, is that they're the people who want to disturb you and distort the gospel of Christ. And thirdly, the agreement was reached with Peter being the spokesman, I think in my mind, verified that God's gospel that Paul received was the true gospel.

They agreed with Paul that this is the true gospel, not the reverse, not the stamp of approval. They agreed that this is the true gospel. And it includes nothing of man's work. It's God's grace plus your faith plus nothing of man's work. If you had man's work, as we learned earlier, it's not the gospel anymore. It ceases to be the gospel. And lastly, Paul's message was the pure grace of God in man's salvation with no human contribution.

Okay, well, questions? That's what you do in Sunday school, right? Questions? Okay, well, let's pray then. We thank you, Father. Lord, we thank you for your wonderful word, Father. Thank you for the book of Galatians as we're going through it, Father, that kind of shows us history of the early church especially, and as we see Paul's ministry, and we see how important it is, and we see his faithfulness and his determination that your gospel would be unhindered and not distorted in any way, Father. Thank you for our time in Galatians. In Christ's name, amen.