So far in his letter Paul
has been appealing to the Christians in Galatia to follow the Good News he taught
them and hold fast to the promises of God.
Just before our text today
we learn that the Good News that Paul preaches is verified to be truth by the ‘Pillars
of the Church’ - the key apostles and James the brother of Jesus who were leading
the mission to the Jews from Jerusalem.
Paul and Peter agree and Paul says that the same God is working through
both of them.
Yet now Peter is shown to be in Paul’s bad books. Paul is telling the Galatians what he is to
show them that he has power over other teachers - a power that comes not from
himself or his human skill and strength but by divine appointment. Without this divine appointment it would have
been foolish to challenge one like Peter, the foremost of the twelve disciples.
The Story
But let’s start at the
beginning. Paul tells us that Peter –
called by his Hebrew name Cephas – comes to Syrian Antioch which is North East
of Cyprus when the coast forms a ninety degree angle. Antioch was the third largest city in the
entire Roman Empire and was a major place of culture and influence. All trade going East and West had to travel
through it and by land it was also a point along the main trading road from
North to South or the rest of Europe to Egypt.
Why did Peter leave
Jerusalem to come to this gentile city of commerce and culture? We don’t know but maybe it was due to the kind of
persecution we find recorded in Acts 12.1-19 at the hands of Herod Agrippa in
the area that is now Isreal.
Whilst in Antioch Peter
enters gentile, non-Jewish, houses and eats with non-Jews. This is something which is a big no-no for
Jews living under the Old Testament Law, not only were gentiles and their
houses dirty and unclean but they ate non-Kosher food. Early in Acts we have the account of God
revealing to Peter on a roof top that all foods are clean and Kosher and that
it is fine to eat and have fellowship with non-Jews. God has a tablecloth with all kinds of unclean
foods like pork and snake and camel and insects come down three times before
Peter’s eyes and each time God tells Peter to eat. At first Peter thinks it is a test and says
he won’t but he finally gets the message.
When he does a messenger arrives and Peter heads to the non-Jewish Roman
Centurion Cornelius’ house to tell him about Jesus. Peter thus begins the mission to the Gentiles
and radically breaks with the Jewish laws about purity.
The fear and hypocrisy
But then people came from
James the brother of Jesus, the man who led the early church from
Jerusalem. Whether James actually sent
them or they were just associated with him we don’t know. When these people get to Antioch Peter slowly
begins to withdraw from eating and having fellowship with gentiles or thieves or
sinners who would be considered ‘unclean’ by the Jews. Why? Because of fear and cowardice.
Who did Peter, first among
the disciples fear? Likely it was fear of the non-Christian Jews. There were many ultra-nationalist Jews who
were seeking and stating a revolution and demanded strict Old Testament Law
observance. If you didn’t keep the Law
and keep pure then you faced an inquisition and likely death.
This fear seems to spread
to other ‘Jewish-Christians’ and even to Paul’s trusted Barnabas. But Paul is having none of it – if Christians
are martyred so be it but they must not compromise on the Gospel.
Paul publically opposes
Peter face to face, mano-a-mano. The gloves come off as it were. Paul recognises that by his actions Peter is
bringing himself and others into condemnation.
Paul considers Peter a total hypocrite – a word which was used to
describe actors in Greek plays who wore different masks to play different
characters, you never saw their real faces or heard their real voices. A hypocrite is someone wearing a mask,
someone who hides their real self and their real beliefs behind a fake image
out of fear or desire to be loved. It is
something God despises – Christ is the light of the world and unless you walk
in the light as He is in the light, which shows up all our darkness, then you
have no part of Him.
Peter clearly knows the
Old Testament Law is exactly that – Old Testament, Old Covenant Law. He knows that they are now living under the
New Covenant and are in the New Testament. He knows that what he is doing is wrong, that
withdrawing from his brothers and sisters in Christ because of their race is
wicked in the sight of the Lord. But
still he does it because of fear. Fear
is a powerful emotion, it drives so much of who we are and what we do. We so often, knowingly or unknowingly let
fear create our identity and mould our actions.
Church Discipline
Paul confronts Peter
before a crowd – but this raises a big question. Jesus tells us in Matthew 18 to firstly
confront the person alone. In that
passage Jesus sets out how we as Christians should deal with sin and hurt. First we must go to the person responsible
and tell them and rebuke them and ask them to repent. If they do then you have won back your
brother or sister. If they don’t you take two or three witnesses or experts,
perhaps church leaders, and confront them again. Hopefully they repent, but if they don’t you
take them before the whole church for judgement in the hopes the seriousness of
their not repenting is clear to see and they change their heart and mind. If they still remain obstinate and unrepentant
then the whole church is to treat them like a non-Jew or tax-collector would be in the time of Jesus– in other
words the person is to be shunned and ignored by the entire church family till they come back to the fold with humility.
In modern society and church life it is most
unpopular and controversial to ‘excommunicate’ a person because they have
sinned – but it is the biblical model
and without such church discipline the wolves will quickly infect the sheepfold
and destroy it from within. As the bride of Christ, the moment we depart from
His teaching we are putting ourselves in danger – like a child who has been
told not to play in the road but goes ahead and does it.
We so often hear people
saying, as Miley Cyrus did in her recent hit single, “only God can judge me.” They are right, God is the judge, He alone
hands out the sentence – but as brothers and sisters it is our duty and our responsibility to look out for, lovingly warn
and rebuke, those who are living lives where because of Scripture we know what
the judgement is going to be. Cain after
killing his brother Abel said to God sarcastically “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The
answer was YES. As a church we must
encourage and build up one another, challenge and rebuke one another, we must
be open and humble, submit to proper discipline and be fervent in prayer and
the pursuit of holiness.
We are all
going to sin, we are all going to be hypocrites who fail to live up to what we
preach, and the world may judge us for that, but what makes us different from
the world is that where we sin and mess up we repent to God and neighbour, we
recognise the enormity of our guilt and, by the grace and help of the Holy
Spirit, we act upon it.
Why didn’t Paul confront
Peter alone and follow the pattern Jesus laid out? Because this was not a
normal situation – this was not a private issue between two parties, one of
which was wronged. This was a public
issue of huge importance, Paul needed to publically rebuke Peter to make sure
others didn’t follow Peter’s example.
So what was the Big Deal?
But what was the big deal?
Why the need for such a dramatic and climactic throw down with the
Apostle? We know from 2 Corinthians that
Paul was a small man, quietly spoken, humble and not intimidating or prone to
public rebuke and controversy. Why such
a change of character? What could have driven Paul to such a radical course of
action against Peter?
The answer is simple. It is because Paul, as he says in verse 14
believes that the very truth, the bone and marrow, the flesh and blood, of the
Gospel, it’s very heart, is at serious risk of cancer, disease, and ultimately
death. Paul says that he “saw that they were deviating from the
truth of the gospel.”
How were they deviating from the truth of the Gospel?
Because they were living under the Old Covenant and not under the New
Covenant. They were living as slaves at Mount Sinai not as sons of God at
Calvary.
They were not living by grace alone but were adding in works based
salvation. They were living in the
chains of legalism not the sunshine of freedom.
Salvation is not by works of the Law and it is not by a genetic claim to
be a Jew. Peter was breaking apart and
tearing asunder the unique freedom of unity, of Jew and Gentile, in one single family
– the Body of Christ. He was rebuilding
the very walls that Jesus came to rip down and he was reinforcing the
barricade the Holy Spirit had been showing needed to be dismantled.
Ignatius of Antioch – the Bishop of the same city where all this
happened not long after the time of the Apostles – writing around 97 AD to the
Megnesian Christians said:
“it is monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and to
proclaim Judaism”
The early church abolished the food laws, it threw away the Passover, it
dismantled the Sabbath, and it abolished the Jewish Festivals and Holidays. The old has passed away and clinging to it
can only bring imprisonment.
Paul was making clear that these things had no place in a life lived
under Jesus Christ, in a life lived under the Grace of the Cross.
In their song ‘Feeling Good’ the band Muse has the words:
“It’s a new dawn,
It’s a new day,
It’s a new life...
And this old world is a new
world
And a bold world...”
It is indeed a new dawn: a
new dawn with the light of hope shining from the tomb of Jesus. It is indeed a
new day: a new day under the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is indeed a new life,
a new life purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ. It is indeed a new world made from the ruins
and sin of the old world - a bold world of freedom and intimate relationship
with God. A world in which the curtains
and the walls that divide God and man and man and his brothers have been torn
down and trampled under foot by the feet by the angels as Jesus cried out the words "IT IS FINISHED!"
Because of this, as Muse
go on to sing:
“Yeah, freedom is mine,
And you know how I feel!
I'm feeling good!”
We must hold fast to the
joyous Gospel no matter what persecutions or temptations come. Do not ever give in to legalism, do not ever
submit to the yoke of Sinai – submit to the love and power of Jesus Christ.
very good adam just read it my god bless you all at is birthday Christmas over 2.000 years ago
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