Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

Guest (Male): Welcome to Hear the Word of God, the online and broadcast teaching ministry of the Reverend Eric Alexander.

Eric Alexander: Let's open our Bibles together at the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, Chapter 2, from which we read together. And as we have our Bibles open before us, let's bow together in prayer. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, as we bow ourselves before your open word, we want that to signify to you our humble desire to obey your truth and to submit our lives to its authority. We thank you for Holy Scripture, and we again bow before you because we acknowledge that you are the only and there is no other its true interpreter.

We pray that having yourself breathed out these words, you will feed our souls by them. We are here before you with many different kinds of need this morning, Lord. We ask that somehow in your sovereign wisdom, you would minister to that need from your word through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

When we began our study of Paul's letter to the Galatians, I did warn you that there might be times when you would find Paul's language a little bit intemperate. You might find his spirit or mood sometimes somewhat aggressive, if not downright pugnacious. The reason is not that Paul is a belligerent, aggressive, vinegarish, ill-tempered character. It is that he is a faithful shepherd of the sheep God has put into his care, a faithful guardian of the souls God has given to him.

Some intruders, false teachers is how he describes them, have come into the church and have sought to upset the faith of some and are attempting to destroy them spiritually. Paul finds himself in the position of a parent who sees his children are in mortal danger, and he confronts that danger with honesty and courage and with clear thinking.

What is it that he is battling against? Let me read you part of Dr. James Packer's introduction to Galatians. "Here is Paul the Apostle," he says, "fighting for the truth of the gospel and the survival of Christianity, battling for grace and faith against works and merit. Here is Paul the pastor fighting for the souls of his sheep, for he sees that the Judaizers were taking from the gospel its saving power. Here is Paul the Christian fighting for the honor of his Savior and the right to glory in Christ's cross alone. And he fights with the devoted energy and noble passion which alone could be proper to the defense of such a great cause."

That's a good description of how we find the apostle here in the beginning of Galatians. In Chapter 1, we found Paul emphasizing three basic facts which continue through the whole of the epistle. One is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is unique. There is no other gospel. It is irreplaceable as well as incomparable. The second emphasis is that Paul's apostleship is divinely authenticated. It is not just from men. Paul, he begins his letter, "an apostle sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father." The third great emphasis is his gospel was divinely revealed, not learned when he went up to Jerusalem, not passed on to him by any other individual. It was revealed to him by Jesus Christ.

Now at the beginning of Chapter 2, he recounts a second visit that he made to Jerusalem. He had gone up, he tells us in Chapter 1 at Verse 18, for a fortnight to get acquainted with Peter, and he stayed there 15 days. But 14 years later, he tells us at the beginning of Chapter 2, he went up again, by which time obviously Paul was established as the evangelist and church planter amongst the Gentiles. The Galatian churches were the evidence of the fruit of his evangelism and the result of his church planting along with Barnabas.

He and Barnabas and Titus, who were leaders of the Gentile church, went to meet the leaders of the Jewish church in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the headquarters of the Jewish Christian church, that is the company of those who had been converted out of Judaism and a Jewish background. Antioch was the headquarters of the Gentile church, that is of Christian believers who had come from a Gentile background.

Paul tells us that there are two great reasons that he went to Jerusalem at the beginning of Chapter 2 and took Titus and Barnabas with him. One was that God sent him. He had become powerfully convinced and aware that God was leading him to Jerusalem. The second and subsidiary reason was to set before the Jerusalem leaders the gospel which he preached among the Gentiles.

That gospel is what the epistle to the Galatians is all about. It is attacks on that gospel that distress and disturb Paul. It is the progress of that gospel which is the passion of his life. What was that gospel? There are three things about it which are non-negotiable and fundamental. One is that that gospel is a gospel which offers salvation by grace alone. That is, there is nothing that human beings like ourselves can contribute to it. It is a free gift of grace, cannot be earned or deserved.

Second, this gospel is of a salvation which is found in Christ alone. That is, it may be found nowhere else, only in Jesus Christ and wholly in Jesus Christ. Third, that gospel will be received, that salvation will be appropriated by faith alone, not by any effort or work of ours, but purely by saving faith. These were the three great foundation stones of the Reformation: grace alone, Christ alone, faith alone. And if you wanted to add the fourth which they added, scripture alone.

Paul's great concern in this visit to Jerusalem is not to get the approval of other people for his gospel. In Verse 6, he specifically tells us that. "As 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." What is his concern in going up to Jerusalem then?

His concern is that the whole Christian church, wherever it existed, of whatever race or kind the people were, might have absolute unanimity about the truth of the gospel. That was his great concern: unanimity about the truth of the gospel. Notice he is not concerned to establish some kind of uniform organization and say that's the Christian church. He is not concerned at whatever price to create some kind of union. What he was concerned about was absolute unanimity about the message of the Christian gospel.

He is not just concerned about his own work among the Gentiles. He is concerned about the whole church of Jesus Christ. If ever there was a man who had a global vision, it was the Apostle Paul. He not only had a global vision, that is for the whole of the world, and by his ministry was constantly pushing back frontiers, he had a global burden for the prosperity of the true gospel amongst all peoples.

We need to pause and apply that to ourselves this morning because we need to have that same global concern for the cause of the true gospel, whether in our own nation or throughout the rest of the entire globe. We need to share Paul's zeal for the unanimity of the Christian church on the question of the Christian gospel. Where that gospel is denied or compromised or detracted from, we shall not be able to sit silently and undisturbed and unconcerned.

Whether it is in America or England or India or South Africa or North Africa or wherever it may be, where the gospel is distorted, we will be burdened. Our souls will be anguished because the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ is at stake. That was Paul's great concern. Where the gospel is honored by being proclaimed in its purity and received in its fullness, we shall rejoice and give thanks to God.

That means that we may not, as biblical Christians, look out on the world and say, well, we are glad that there is some prosperity in the church here and there. What they are preaching is not the vital thing. The fact that they are getting on or growing or whatever, that's the thing that matters. It is the prosperity of the gospel that mattered to Paul, and it needs to matter to us.

In Paul's experience, the threat to the purity of the gospel came from the Judaizers. Who were the Judaizers? Basically they were professing Christians who were saying that to be a true Christian, you needed to observe some of the practices and restrictions of the Jewish ceremonial law, principally, for example, here we would understand in Verse 3 the necessity of circumcision for those who were Gentiles and had been converted to Christ. What they were really saying to the Gentile was you need to become a Jew in order to become a full Christian.

This is why Paul says, "I took Titus along also. I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel 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." That is, he is concerned about the cause of the gospel. "Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek."

Titus was not just a Jew who had not been circumcised. Nor was he like Timothy, the son of a Jewish mother. He was a true Gentile. The important issue that Paul is raising is that when Titus came with him to the headquarters of the Jewish church at Jerusalem, Paul refused to have him circumcised. That is, to have him an example of saying in order to become a Christian, you need to become a Jew first. He says, "This 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." That was freedom from the restrictions of the ceremonial law. Verse 5, "We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you."

Paul clarifies this doctrinally later in Verses 15 and 16. The reason it is so important is that the Judaizers were attacking these three cardinal doctrines: the free grace of God as the basis of the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ and His atoning work as the one in whom salvation is to be found, and faith alone as the means by which salvation is received.

In Verses 7 to 9, Paul is demonstrating that Peter and his helpers had served God and preached the gospel in a different area from Paul and his helpers. The result of this visit of his to Jerusalem, when they talked together about the nature of the gospel, about what the gospel was and how people were truly converted, the result of it we read in Verse 9 is that they gave me and Barnabas, this is halfway through Verse 9, "James, Peter, and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship."

They were saying to them, "We are at one with you." That's what that right hand of fellowship meant. It meant above all other things that they were saying to them, "We are at one with you in the gospel. We are covenanted together in the one gospel. Go on preaching it," they said to Paul. Paul is saying to Peter and James and John, "You go on preaching it. Wherever the gospel is preached, it is the same gospel." That's the principle.

There is not one gospel for the Jew and another for the Gentile. There is not one gospel for Africans and another for Europeans. There is one gospel, and they gave each other the right hand of fellowship. As we would say, they said shake on it then, and they did and were agreed.

But now let me add this truth which is here in Verses 11 to 14. It could be summarized in this way: the truth of the gospel must not only be perceived and believed, it must also be practiced. It was about that that Paul had a pretty major disagreement with Peter. Verse 11, "When Peter came to Antioch..." He was returning the visit. You can just imagine the Apostle Paul went to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus, and before he left he said, possibly even as they shook hands, "Come and see us sometime. Come down to Antioch." And Peter came. He responded to the invitation.

In Verse 11, "When he came to Antioch," Paul says, "Now here's hospitality if you like. I opposed him to his face because he was clearly in the wrong." Now I reckon this must have been one of the most difficult and distasteful experiences of Paul's life. I say to you again, I don't think he was a vinegarish, difficult, obstructive, angular, aggressive kind of person. I think there was a tenderness in the Apostle Paul's heart. I think there was a grace and a warmth and a love that makes him say to some of the churches, "I was like a mother nursing her child when I was with you. I felt orphaned when I left you."

There is some quality of love in the apostle's heart that denies all that we might find people accusing him of. But it was a confrontation nonetheless, and it was a confrontation between two Christian brothers, between two servants of Jesus Christ, between two leaders in the church of God, and between two apostles, both commissioned by the Lord Jesus.

Let me just clarify what the disagreement was about. It was public, you will notice, not private. Verse 14, "When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all..." The controversy was not about the nature of the gospel. They both preached it. They both agreed upon it. The controversy was about the practice of truth, the application of truth to life, and particularly in the world of relationships.

It was Francis Schaeffer, whom some of you may know, who first in my experience used this phrase so penetratingly and effectively of the practice of truth. The preaching of truth is vital, the perception of truth is fundamental, but the practice of truth is absolutely essential for the progress of the gospel. This is why Paul raises it with Peter, particularly in the world of relationships.

The crunch came when some professing Christians from Jerusalem arrived in Antioch. They were under the pastorate of James, but according to Acts 15:24, they did not have authority from him. Let me just read to you Acts 15:24. This, I think, was after this visit of Peter to Antioch, and here is what James says when he presides over this General Assembly at Jerusalem: "We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said." So clearly they didn't have James's approval.

But what they began to say was that you couldn't be a real Christian unless you first became a Jew and were circumcised. More than that, they said Jewish believers should not have table fellowship with uncircumcised Gentile believers. Now Peter had broken the Jew-Gentile barrier before these people from Jerusalem came. You can read that in Verse 12. "Before certain men came from James, Peter used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group."

So when they arrived, these people from Jerusalem, he began to dissemble. He lost the courage of his convictions. He refused to eat with the Gentiles because of the fear of man. Now if you had asked Peter, "Do you believe the gospel?" he would have said undoubtedly. If you had asked him, "Do you not believe that there is only one way for Jew and Gentile to be saved?" he would have said incontrovertibly. If you had asked him, "Do you not believe that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female?" he would have said without question.

"But," he would have said, "so that I can keep in with these chaps, I must act against my conscience." In doing so, Paul says he denied the gospel. Paul says to him, "My dear brother," and I think he spoke to him in these terms, "you are striking a fatal blow at the truth of the gospel by your inconsistency. You are denying in your practice what you affirm in your preaching. Is justification by faith or is it not?" That's the issue, says Paul to Peter. Because if justification is by faith, the works of the law count for nothing in terms of this ceremonial law of circumcision.

Let me bring it up to date to you. When I was newly converted to Christ and the whole thing was fresh and new to me, somebody came to me and said, "Now I hear you've made a profession." That was the language in these days. "I hear you've made a profession." Having been taught a little even, I remember saying, "By God's grace I have." I even remember thinking that was quite a good answer.

He said to me, "Well now, I was glad to hear that. But you will want to have real salvation, and I want to talk to you about being baptized by immersion." Now he was an earnest, sincere Christian man. I knew him and he continued to be my friend. But I want to say to you, he was doing exactly the same thing as these people in this particular part of Galatians. He was taking something which was not essential to the gospel of justification and making it central. There are all manner of other things that can be in the same place.

Paul says to Peter, "If we are justified by faith and justified in Christ and justified by God's grace alone, there is no 'and.' You cannot add anything to Christ's finished work on the cross." Now in this congregation there are many of us who believe one way or other about the mode by which we should be baptized. So long as I am minister of this church, the church will never be divided over the mode of baptism. People will have liberty. But whenever anything is added to Christ and to justification by grace through faith alone, we are denying the gospel.

So let me bring some concluding questions to you by way of application. One, do you practice the truth of the gospel as well as believe and proclaim it? Two, do you have a courage of your convictions so that the approval of God matters more to you than the approval of men and women? Three, do you make distinctions ecclesiastically, socially, or racially which are abolished in the gospel? Four, do you care about the progress of the true gospel and the safeguarding of it throughout the world? Five, does it matter to you when the gospel is denied and Christ is robbed of His glory as the only Savior wherever that happens?

We desperately need in our day the heart of the Apostle Paul for the one true gospel, not because we want to be dogmatists, certainly not because we want to be bigots, but because we are burdened for the salvation of men and women who cannot be saved by any other gospel. That's why. May God give us a heart for it. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we pray that you would conform our mind and will to the zeal of the apostle and grant that we may have the same single-minded hunger for the glory of Christ and the prosperity of His gospel. We ask it for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Mark Daniels: You're listening to Hear the Word of God with the Reverend Eric Alexander, a minister in the Church of Scotland for over 50 years. To access more Bible teaching from Reverend Alexander, visit hearthewordofgod.org, where your generous contribution will help us sustain and grow this ministry. That's hearthewordofgod.org. You could choose instead to mail a check to this address: 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. Or call 1-800-488-1888. This program is a presentation of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. I'm Mark Daniels. Thank you for listening. Please join us again next time for Eric Alexander and Hear the Word of God.