02.04. ESSAY NO. 4

ESSAY NO. 4

Even when Paul writes about himself, his self-ef­facement before God in both nature and religion is apparent. In nature: "God, who separated me, even from my mother’s womb"; in religion: "And called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles" (Galatians 1:15-16). In writing about himself, his purpose is ever to glorify God, never himself. Paul felt that God had set him apart, at the very beginning of his life, from all other men as his particular apostle to the Gentiles. He saw no more place for human merit in his religious than in his fleshly life. Both were gifts entrusted from God. "When God gets ready to do something great for fallen man, he begins with a baby." Cosmopolitan Paul surely was a divinely prepared and appointed man unto the apostleship for Gentile nations. How many such appointed servants God now has scattered over the earth is something to think about. "Is anything too hard (or too good) for Jehovah?" (Genesis 18:14). In the closing verses of Galatians 1:1-24, Paul proves that he needs neither instruction nor authentication from other apostles: first, before he saw an apostle, he preached successfully in Damascus (Acts 9:29-35); second, when he first went to Jerusalem three years after his conversion, he saw none of "the twelve" ex­cept Peter; and third, after this short, inconsequen­tial visit with Peter he independently executed an ex­tended, fruitful ministry in Syria and Silicia. He might have told the Galatians that he also brought the gospel to them, without further contact with the apostles.

During all these years the churches of Judea, though they had not met Paul, knew the story of his life, "and glorified God in" him. In Paul’s writing the Galatians that Judaean brethren, who had never seen him, thanked God for him, I think I see gentle rebuke and tender pleading for the alienated Galatians, who had known him in closest, personal intimacy, and who had until so recently loved and trusted him fully. Paul was shocked and deeply hurt by their capricious desertion of him and the gospel. Not this human hurt, however, but the fact that "the truth of the gospel" was en­dangered, accounts for his determination not to com­promise the independence of his apostleship.

Paul’s object in Galatians 1:1-24, Galatians 2:1-21 is to show that he, individually and independently, re­ceived his apostolic commission from Christ after he ascended to his Father, just as the original apostles, collectively, received theirs from him before he as­cended. In the first chapter, he boldly affirms that upon this prime fact he stakes his authority as an apostle, gives historical evidence that his work was ap­proved by God, and takes oath ("before God, I lie not") that his affirmation and collateral proof are true. How earnest, positive and final he is about the apostleship being twofold. Now, he is ready in the second chapter to make his second argument, namely, that the church in Jerusalem formally endorsed him as an independent apostle, with a new work from God.

Paul Vindicated in Jerusalem (Galatians 2:1-10) The unity and fellowship of the church in Antioch, composed largely of Gentile Christians, was soon dis­rupted by the coming of legalists, "deceitful men," from Judaea, who taught the necessity of circumcision for Gentile disciples. Inasmuch as this heresy perverted Christianity so as to destroy its very foundation prin­ciple, "Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and questioning with them" (Acts 15:2). But it was the wisdom and will of God that this constitutional question pertaining to the all-sufficiency of his grace in Christ should be taken to Jerusalem, where the church began, that "the apostles and the elders, with the whole church" there, guided by the Holy Spirit, should go into the matter thoroughly, and with deliberation and finality hand down a decision once and for all. Consequently, under God’s overruling providence, "The brethren (at Antioch) appointed that Paul and Bar­nabas . . . should go to Jerusalem . . . about this ques­tion" (Acts 15:2). (These passages in Galatians and Acts refer to the same occasion, supplement each oth­er, and should therefore be studied together).

Let us now consider the use Paul makes of this divinely prearranged, pivotal meeting in his second argument to establish his independent apostleship. He says that he "went up by revelation" to Jerusalem, tak­ing with him Titus. Titus, being Paul’s Gentile fellow-worker who had never been circumcised, would be a test case in the atmosphere to bring out the Christian truth.

Some in the meeting who did not understand how differently grace and law work in the human soul, probably thought that much ado was being made over a small matter, but to Paul, who saw into the heart of things, greatest issues were involved. With him it was a matter of life or death, for if the decision should be circumcision for Titus "the truth of the gospel," Chris­tian liberty, and his years of work among the Gentiles would all be lost. But he so skillfully presented the whole truth and so boldly stood his ground against the troublemakers "privily brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage," that the church decided Titus, having access to all Christian privileges and blessings already, could "press on unto perfection" without being circumcised. Therefore, Christianity, free from restrictions of rite and race, is a universal religion.

Moreover, Paul tells the Galatians that the other apostles imparted nothing- to him. Rather, when they saw that God had entrusted him with the apostleship to the Gentiles as he had Peter with the apostleship to the Jews, and when they saw the grace that was given to him, Peter, James, and John, "They who were reputed to be pillars," gave him and Barnabas "the right hands of fellowship." Doubtless the Judaizers in Galatia had said that the leaders in Jerusalem stood with them, but Paul by showing instead that they were with him, turned the tables on them. Paul’s vindica­tion and triumph were complete. The perverters of the gospel suffered a crushing defeat. When the church in Antioch, where the question came to a head, heard of the divinely ordained division of the apostleship be­tween Paul and Peter, and other results of the meet­ing, "they rejoiced for the consolation." Neither An­tioch nor Galatia nor any other place of any time or country should have ever been troubled again by the mixture of the systems of law and of grace.