Paul Opposes Peter
When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he 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. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
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, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
“We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
“If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
My Understanding: As I prayerfully read through this passage of scripture and the lyrics to the song, “Teach Me, Lord,” the Lord helped me to see how the words to the song served as an outline of sorts of this passage of scripture in making it practical and applicable to our lives today. I saw five natural divisions of this passage of scripture based off of the lines in this song – 1) Walk in Christ’s ways, not the ways of men, 2) Desire to not offend Christ and his gospel instead of worrying about offending men with the truth of the gospel, 3) Make it one’s goal to never stray from the truth of the gospel, 4) Instruct others in the way of Christ and the truth of the gospel, instead of in the ways of man, leading them by example how Christ came to set us free, and 5) Care about others and show genuine love to them.
Walk in Christ’s ways
Peter had been walking in Christ’s ways and according to the truth of the gospel message. The Lord Jesus had previously visited him in a vision to let him know that he was not to call anything impure that God has made clean. The Lord taught him that the gospel was for all people, not just for the Jews, and that the Gentiles were to be accepted as equal with the Jewish believers, for they all received the same Holy Spirit, and God granted all who believe in Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile, repentance unto salvation. Peter even had acknowledged how true it was that “God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.”
Thus, Peter shared the gospel message with the Gentiles and concluded his message with the testimony of the prophets about Jesus Christ – “that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” And, it was with the conclusion of that statement that the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. Peter then fellowshipped with and ate with the Gentile believers and they had unity in Christ. And, he taught the gospel of grace, i.e. that we are saved by grace, through faith, and not of ourselves (our own good works), but it is through the gift of God via Jesus’ shed blood on the cross for our sins and his resurrection to life in conquering hell, Satan, death and sin that we are saved and are freed from the control of sin and the ultimate penalty of sin, i.e. eternal damnation.
Desire to Not Offend
Yet, even though Peter had a visitation from God in which he was taught the truth of the gospel, and even though he had preached and had practiced the truth of the gospel, when certain influential Jews came into town and began pressuring him to revert back to following Jewish customs and religious practices, he yielded to them instead of continuing to follow what he had known and had practiced as the truth. And, because of Peter’s standing in the church and his great influence, other Jewish believers were led astray along with him, including Barnabas. So, not only was he responsible for his own decision to revert to observing Jewish customs added on to God’s grace as a means of salvation, but he influenced others to do the same. In so doing, Peter became a hypocrite because he did not practice what he had so firmly been taught, had believed, had practiced and had taught. And, he led others to join him in his hypocrisy, which made it all the more a serious offense to God. It appears Peter was more concerned with offending the Jewish Judaizers than he was concerned with offending Almighty God and Jesus Christ, his Savior, who had taught him the truth and had led him to follow the truth and to teach the truth of the gospel.
Never Stray from Truth
Paul said that Peter was not acting in line with the truth of the gospel. The truth had a positive and a negative side to it. On the negative side, it was true that a man (or woman) is not justified (made right before God) by observing the law. No amount of good works, or good deeds, or strict adherence to dietary restrictions or to any kind of outward religious rite or ritual has any bearing upon our salvation whatsoever. We can do nothing to earn our salvation. It is a gift of God, by his grace, and via Jesus Christ paying the penalty for our sin on the cross so that we could go free. It is available to all people, yet not all people possess this salvation just because Jesus set us free and offered his grace to those who would believe in him. We individually must make the decision of our will to come to the Lord in faith in order to receive this salvation. Yet, the Judaizers countered that a salvation by grace and faith alone opened the door to lawlessness. I believe that is possible if we do not have the correct understanding of the word “faith.”
If I truly believe in something or I truly believe something to be true, my actions will follow. For example, if I believe that mixing two specific chemical agents together is going to produce a poisonous gas or an explosion and yet I combine them anyway, without the proper protection on my person, then either I have a death wish or I didn’t really believe that would happen, and so I was just testing it to see if it would really do what I had been told it would do. If I say I believe a chair, for instance, will hold me up, and yet I refuse to sit on it for fear that it might crash and I would fall, then I did not really believe. If you read Hebrews 11, which is considered the “Faith chapter” of the Bible, you will readily see that these people were all considered righteous for their faith but their faith was proved genuine by their actions that followed their profession.
So, true faith is not an intellectual assent to something nor is it a mere acknowledgment of our need of a Savior and of our recognition that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, nor is it an emotional decision we make at an altar. True faith is backed up by action that proves that true faith actually exists. So, if we believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins so that we could go free from the control of sin and the ultimate penalty of sin, why would we continue to willfully live sinful lifestyles? All through the New Testament we are taught that repentance (turning from sin) and obedience to Christ’s commands are synonymous with faith. In other words, faith that is absent of repentance and obedience is not genuine faith. And, this is proved out, as well, here in this chapter in Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we die, i.e. our flesh nature dies with Christ so that “I” (my will) no longer live, but it is the life of Christ that now lives in and out through me. If we do not repent (turn from our sin) then we have not died. If we do not set as our goal to obey Christ in all things and to truly make him the Lord and master of our lives, then we have not died and Christ is not the one living in and out through us. He cannot because we are still seated on the throne of our own lives. This does not mean we will now live in sinless perfection, for that will not happen until we reach heaven, yet what it does mean is that we make a conscious decision of the will when we come to Christ in faith in what he did for us on the cross that we will die to our old way of living and that we will be raised with Christ to new lives, free from the control of sin and free to walk daily in obedience to Christ. So, when we have the proper understanding of God’s grace and faith, we will no longer be concerned that God’s grace combined with faith gives a free license to sin. It does not. Yet, many are teaching God’s grace absent of true faith, i.e. absent of repentance and obedience, and by doing so, they are not only teaching a false gospel but they are teaching a libertine approach to Christianity, and that possibility is what concerned the Judaizers.
Instructing Others
One of Paul’s main concerns with Peter was not just Peter’s decision to revert to observing Jewish traditional practices in addition to God’s grace as a means of salvation, but what concerned him was that Peter was an apostle and a pillar of the faith and he had enormous influence and he was a teacher of the gospel, so Paul’s concern was for the truth of the gospel to be taught and he was concerned that many were being led astray by a false gospel. I have the same concern, only what I see going on more today is a false gospel in favor of a watered-down message that removes the need to repent and to obey and makes “faith” into nothing more than some kind of emotional decision or acknowledgment or intellectual assent to one’s need of salvation and of belief that Jesus Christ provided the way. Yet, if one does not follow the profession of faith with proof of genuine faith via repentance and a desire and goal to please and to obey Christ, then it leaves open the question as to whether or not true faith actually ever took place. So, to truly instruct others in the way we should all go, we must preach the full gospel message and we must not add to God’s grace and to faith nor should we take away from God’s grace and faith, both of which are false gospels. As well, we need to live what we preach so that we set the example of what it means to truly believe in Jesus Christ by our own lives, so we are not hypocritical.
Care for Others
Peter failed to care and to love others when he chose to reject those with whom he had once enjoyed sweet Christian fellowship because he caved to the pressures of men to follow them, instead. Many today are men followers instead of God followers, though many think they are following God when they are not. When we choose to follow the teachings of men over the teachings of God’s word and when we promote such teaching to others and we lead them to become men followers, too, and we use this as an excuse to exclude other brothers and sisters in Christ who do not fit into the mold of what men have decided are acceptable practices or not acceptable based upon man’s thinking and reasoning, and not based upon God’s word, then we are not loving others the way God loves. And, we are equally guilty with Peter for not acting in line with the truth of the gospel and for not loving others with Christ’s love. I find much excluding of believers in today’s churches based upon man’s criteria, not God’s, and it is breaking the church apart and is hurting the gospel message.
This is a song the Lord gave me to write, which is also a prayer. It is the prayer of my heart, and I pray it will be the prayer of your heart, as well.
Teach Me, Lord / An Original Work / June 12, 2011
Teach me, Lord, to walk in Your ways,
And observe all You command.
May I ever hasten to You,
And desire to not offend.
Teach me how to follow Your steps,
Gently guiding me each day.
May I love and serve You always,
Loving others, this I pray.
Teach me, Lord, to listen to You
Speaking Your words to my heart.
May I never stray from Your truth,
And from Your law ne’er depart.
Teach me how to instruct others
In the way that we should go,
Leading them by my life witness,
So that Jesus they should know.
Teach me, Lord, to be a light in
This dark world of grief and sin.
May I always care for others;
Share their burdens; help to mend.
Teach me how to share with them that
Jesus came to set them free,
So that they could be forgiven;
Live with Christ eternally.
Song Lyrics @ Public Domain
Audio, song lyrics and sheet music:
https://sites.google.com/site/psalmshymnssongs/home/songs/teach-me-lord
Song on video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiSrzoIXQyM
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