This article is the first in a series by Brother Michael Edgecombe which will explore the background and the serious issues that the Apostle Paul had to answer that had arisen among the ecclesias in Galatia, recently established by him and Silas
Shocked. Angry. Amazed and indignant. Anxious and afraid. Betrayed and hurt. Paul’s first epistle, dashed off in a great hurry to the ecclesias of Galatia, is charged with emotion. By turns he challenges, denounces, curses, vows, expostulates, pleads, confronts, charges, warns and exhorts. What on earth had happened to upset the apostle so profoundly?
Paul’s new program
Paul had come to the Roman province of Galatia on his first missionary journey, with Barnabas, about AD 48. Actually, Asia had not even been on their itinerary. But when Sergius Paulus, a member of the Roman elite, the representative of the Senate and People of Rome and the emperor’s personal delegate, had himself asked to hear the gospel: and when it had been preached to him, he had believed it. Saul read the unexpected invitation, and its equally unexpected outcome, as a clear signal that the time had come to step forward and fulfil the personal commission he had received in Damascus by taking the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15–16; 22:12–16). He adopted the new name ‘Paul’ (Acts 13:9), and sailed for Perga on the mainland.
Not everybody agreed with this bold new program. John the Levite, a young cousin of Barnabas who had been travelling with them as their attendant, most definitely disagreed. He “departing from them, returned”, not to Antioch, but “to Jerusalem”, Jewish heartland (Acts 13:13). The word signifies a dramatic and emphatic departure. We might picture frowning faces, heated words, hands banging on the table, a slamming door. Disappointed but undaunted, Paul and Barnabas pressed on.
The great proposition
In Antioch Paul delivered his first recorded speech (13:14–41). Beginning with the history of Israel, he worked his way through to the great centrepiece of God’s work, the death and resurrection of the Christ. “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren,” he finished, “that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (v38–39).
Please, find a way to highlight these words in your Bible! They are one of Scripture’s great declarations, and highly relevant to Paul’s letter to the Galatians. For this, the climax of his presentation, is the very proposition denied so vehemently by the Judaists who later came to this same area, and affirmed even more fiercely by Paul in his letter to these same people. The whole of Galatians hangs on these two verses from the book of Acts.
The following Sabbath almost the whole population of Antioch came to hear this extraordinary new message, and there was standing room only in the synagogue. Far from thrilled, however, the leaders of the Jewish community were moved with envy, and argued aggressively with Paul, “contradicting and blaspheming” (v45).
But the two preachers were not intimidated. “Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth” (v46–47).
The focus – Gentiles
After taking the same saving message to Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch: and “when they were come, and had gathered the ecclesia together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles” (14:27).
The Galatians were not the first Gentiles to come to Christ. The “door of faith” had first been unlocked by Peter, at God’s direction, when Cornelius, a Roman centurion and his household, had been converted about ten years before (Acts 10). Many Gentiles had joined the ecclesia in Antioch, then one of the world’s largest and most cosmopolitan cities.
But the Galatians were the first Gentiles to be consciously targeted by Paul on his mission to take the gospel from Jerusalem “unto the uttermost part of the earth”, and ultimately, to Rome. His policy would always be “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”. Coming to any city for the first time, he would always attend the synagogue before visiting the agora. But it was now completely clear to him that the Gentiles were to be the focus of his mission: and from that point in time he dedicated himself to the great challenge of spreading the name of Christ to every city in the Mediterranean world.
Are we going to take up Paul’s work today? Of the 224 cities in the Asia–Pacific region with a population of 1,000,000 or more, the gospel has a footprint in 38. That’s a great start – and a great opportunity for all of us. 1,965 years after Paul’s first missionary journey, we must build on the foundations already laid by previous generations, and take the gospel even further.
Early opposition from the Judaists
The story of what had happened in Cyprus and Galatia filtered through to Jerusalem. Perhaps Mark had a hand in that, but there was plenty of traffic between Jerusalem and the Jewish communities dispersed across the Empire, and news travelled fast. Those opposed to Paul’s program were greatly alarmed by what they heard, and decided on a systematic campaign to head off the looming catastrophe – as they saw it.
It was not the first time that conservative members of the Jerusalem ecclesia had reacted in this way. When Peter had preached to Cornelius and his household, brethren in Jerusalem had objected, “Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them” (Acts 11:3). Peter could stave off their objections only by defending his mission as from God, and appealing to the witnesses he had taken with him.
Some time later the same people became concerned about reports of what was going on in Antioch, and Barnabas was sent on an exploratory probe, “as far as Antioch”. “When he came, and had seen the grace of God, [he] was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord” (Acts 11:23–24). Again the objections were met.
Paul visits Jerusalem with Titus
But opposition continued. About three years before Paul’s first missionary journey, Jerusalem had experienced a serious famine (AD 45–47): and the ecclesia at Antioch had sent Barnabas and Paul with food for the saints there (Acts 11:27–30). Paul had taken Titus, a Greek convert, and not circumcised (Gal 2:1). Paul might have guessed what effect this would have, and one suspects that it was a deliberate tactic on his part to draw latent opposition into the open. If so he was entirely successful!
Paul’s intention was to communicate the gospel that he preached, and its practical implications for discipleship and fellowship, “privately to them which were of reputation” (Gal 2:2). There were brethren in Jerusalem that he trusted and respected. He did not want them to be troubled or distracted by misrepresentations. He wanted to ensure that they heard what he believed and taught at firsthand, directly from him. He did not want to “run in vain”, to expend enormous energy on preaching the gospel and making converts only to find his work undermined by misunderstanding – something that did in fact cause trouble later on (Acts 21:21). It was a very sensible approach.
There were others in Jerusalem, however, for whom the fellowship of an uncircumcised Greek was a major stumbling-block. Paul was confronted by people that he attacked as “false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus” (Gal 2:3-4). These were Judaists, believers in Jesus Christ as Prophet and King, but also strict adherents of the Law of Moses. A case can be made that there was a deliberate attempt to wreck ‘The Way’ from within by slipping pretenders, ‘pseudo-brethren’, into the ecclesia. No doubt others were sincere: but they were all seriously mistaken.
Paul absolutely refused to contemplate circumcising Titus, not even for a moment. “To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you” (Gal 2:5). Titus became the test case for the truth of the gospel and liberty in Christ: and the Judaists could make no headway.
But the leaders of the ecclesia, “those who seemed to be somewhat” (Gal 2:6-7), recognised that the gospel to the Gentiles, “the gospel of the uncircumcision,” was Paul’s rightful task, just as Peter was recognised as the rightful leader of the apostles in the continuing work of preaching to the Jewish people, “the circumcision”. On behalf of the ecclesia James, Peter and John extended to Paul and Barnabas “the right hand of fellowship”, then as now the symbol of perfect fellowship in faith and life: and they parted on excellent terms.
The Judaists come to Antioch
The Judaists were ‘not done’, however. They were deeply concerned that the Law of Moses was being downplayed and sidelined; Jewish exclusiveness was being broken down, and Jewish privilege discounted; the distinctives of the Law such as the Sabbath, circumcision and food taboos were being erased; the moral code preserved by the Law of Moses was being endangered, especially sexual morality; worship of God in the Temple was being abandoned; and one thousand years of history and “the traditions of the fathers” were being ignored. While they had lost the first round, they were determined to ‘win the war’: and when it became clear that Paul was set on taking his gospel far and wide, they resolved to carry the battle into his home territory.
A party of Judaists arrived in Antioch about AD 49, purporting to come “from James”, the brother of the Lord, the acknowledged leader of the Jerusalem ecclesia, a devout man, and highly reputable, even among non-Christian Jews. As it turns out, James later disavowed the Judaist mission, stating very definitely that neither he nor the ecclesia had ever authorised their work (Acts 15:24). But nobody in Antioch could know that at the time.
The first target of the Judaists was the Jewish community. They insisted that Jews must hold to their traditions, especially the food laws (Gal 2:11–13). If that meant that fellowship between Jew and Gentile broke down – for even among first century Christians, fellowship was built on shared meals – well, too bad. Paul was astonished when Peter, now in Antioch, and other Jews – people he knew for a fact did not agree with this teaching – were intimidated by the Judaists, and broke off their fellowship with Gentile believers: perhaps not formally, but certainly in practice. With the Jewish community on the back foot, the Judaists moved against the Gentiles, affirming that “except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1).
When Barnabas was swayed by the pressure it was ‘the last straw’ for Paul, who did not ‘buy’ the Judaist line, and saw the capitulation of Peter and others as ‘out and out hypocrisy’. In front of the whole ecclesia, he confronted Peter, “if thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews” – as indeed Peter had lived, prior to the arrival of the Judaists: and that had been good enough for him then! – “why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” (Gal 2:14).
Peter had to be reminded of the principles of justification by faith, and their implications for life in Christ, all over again. It might have been one of his greatest failures. Instead, it became one of his greatest moments, and a testimony to the essential humility of that wonderful disciple. To his great credit he accepted the well-deserved rebuke, and stood shoulder to shoulder with his “beloved brother Paul” in the debate that followed.
Wisdom in Jerusalem
Barnabas, too, was confirmed in his faith: and they “had no small dissension and disputation with them” (Acts 15:2). All three men were highly competent, and Paul in particular was a skilled debater. Even so, it became clear that peace would not return to Antioch until Jerusalem itself came out unambiguously on the side of justification by faith, freedom in Christ, and untrammelled fellowship between weak and strong, Jew and Gentile. The ecclesia therefore “determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question” (Acts 15:2).
The Jerusalem Council was the result. After the debate had developed some real momentum in that city also, the apostles and elders came together to settle it once and for all. Peter spoke; Barnabas and Paul spoke; James spoke. It was accepted that while Gentile believers should be asked to understand and accommodate Jewish scruples, circumcision and the keeping of the Law were not required. Only four “necessary things” were identified: abstinence from idolatrous worship, from things strangled, from blood, and from sexual immorality.
It is sometimes said that Paul was unhappy with the outcome. That is untrue. The decree of the Council vindicated his position, and established for all time the principle of freedom in Christ. For his part, Paul accepted the wisdom of the Council in ruling that the consciences of Jewish brethren should be lovingly and sensitively accommodated, a principle that he expounded at length in 1 Corinthians 8–10 and Romans 14–15. It continues to be a core principle for ecclesial life today, and an important expression of what it means to “walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us”.