Grace and Conflict: Understanding Paul and Peter’s Dispute in Galatians 2

In this sermon, D. A. Carson’s sermon focuses on a confrontation between Paul and Peter from Galatians 2:11–21. He discusses the implications of their public disagreement over how Jewish and Gentile believers should interact, particularly regarding Jewish customs. Carson elaborates on the theological significance of this dispute, emphasizing its relevance to the concepts of grace, law, and Christian identity.

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“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!’ ”

This is the Word of the Lord.

This is really quite a remarkable passage. How would you like it if Pastor Giese and Pastor Kelly started rebuking each other in public assembly? I mean, you’d think they could do it in private. They’re just two pastors in a local church. These are apostles! In Scripture, if you please, for all time, including us.

It’s a remarkable passage. Yet this dispute turns out to reflect some of the most deeply important matters regarding justification. So I want to begin, today, with this apostolic spat: portrait of an apostolic rebuke, first of all, and then, later, rationale of this apostolic rebuke.

1. Portrait of an apostolic rebuke

Verses 11–14. We’ll begin with the rebuke itself. What exactly is going on here? If you indulge in commentaries, you soon discover that people have all kinds of wonderful recreations of what went on. Once you boil them all down, they really head in one of two directions.

The most common way of reading it understands that the people in the expression certain men from James (verse 12) are exactly the same people as the circumcision group at the end of verse 12. Let me explain. “When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James …” That is, certain people from the Jerusalem church, where James was apparently the most significant and influential of the pastors and elders down there. Certain men from James in the Jerusalem church came to Antioch.

Before they came, Peter was quite happy to eat with Gentiles. Those of us who read our Bibles all remember that Peter did have some troubles about that at one point, but the whole Cornelius episode, reported in Acts 10 and 11, cleaned that up for him. Earlier, reported in Mark 7 and Matthew 15, Jesus has said some things that, according to Mark, made all foods clean.

But so much of what Jesus taught during the days of his flesh didn’t really register with the apostles. They would mutter under their breath, “Deep, deep,” but they didn’t understand it. Even after the resurrection, quite clearly it took a while for certain things to really sink in very well. One of these, clearly, was how to view Gentiles, even at the superficial category of eating.

So God gives Peter this remarkable vision: three times, the sheet of unclean food, which is not really just about food. It’s much deeper than that. It is a symbol-laden way of getting at the whole issue of whether or not it is necessary to keep kosher food laws in order to become a Christian at all. So Peter has already worked through that one.

It’s not too surprising, therefore, to read here that, before these men from James came, Peter managed to sit down at table fellowship with Jews and Gentiles alike in the Antioch church. The Antioch church seems to be pretty cosmopolitan, with Jews and Gentiles alike, and who knows what ethnicities were there represented. Peter mingled with them all and ate with them.

“But,” were told, “when they arrived …” These Jews from James. “… he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of the circumcision group.” Under the assumption that the expression the circumcision group refers to certain men from James, then the reasoning has to go something like this …

Perhaps, as was not uncommon in those days, the church met sometimes to have a whole meal before they would actually have what we call the Eucharist or the Lord’s Table or Holy Communion. People are mixing it up, not bothering about kosher stipulations. Oh, there may have been some Jews that ate a little more reservedly off to the side or the like.

But these folks that came from James came from the stricter side. They came from the side that often had pharisaic influences. They came from the side that really felt uncomfortable if they didn’t eat kosher foods. So perhaps a table was set up for them so that they could enjoy their kosher food in the same room but just be a little bit different.

Peter, then (on this reconstruction) on one occasion goes and has a meal with them. Then maybe the next time, he eats with everybody else. Then he goes and has a meal with them. The time after that, he has another meal with them. Pretty soon, they are the only group that he’s eating with. Now it’s beginning to send out signals.

On this reading, Peter is afraid of what Jews back in Jerusalem will think, what his fellow believers back in Jerusalem will think. So even though he has been eating with Gentile Christians, now he sidles up, more and more and more, to the stricter party and eats only with them, without quite realizing that he is sending out an implicit signal to the church at large.

“Yes, yes, they’re Jews, but it’s perhaps a tad bit more sanctified to eat kosher food” or “Yes, we have freedom in Christ, but you know that Old Testament tradition. It’s long-standing, and there are a lot of laws there. It can’t do us any harm to observe all of those laws.” Gradually, there is a subliminal association of sanctification and purity with observing the food laws after all. You’ve smuggled the food laws in through the back door because of the influence of this very prominent apostle.

That’s one reconstruction. I suspect it’s the most common one, but I don’t think it works. It would mean that Peter is not only a hypocrite, which is what Paul charges him with, but he’s a twit. He’s really thick. Because, after all, this is the Peter who has gone through the Cornelius episode and not only the Cornelius episode itself, reported in Acts 10, but also the report back to the Jerusalem church in Acts 11.

Do you recall how Acts 11 basically retells the whole story all over again to the Jerusalem church and the Jerusalem church, as a whole, has come to the conclusion that, all right, God has accepted the Gentiles then? They, too, have received the Holy Spirit, just as we have, even though they don’t eat kosher. In other words, why should Peter now be so afraid of Christians in the Jerusalem church if he’s already circumvented their initial outburst of wrath? The matter has already been discussed.

Moreover, earlier in this chapter, in chapter 2, we’ve already seen how when Paul brought Titus (an uncircumcised Gentile) to the Jerusalem church, none of the apostles, including Peter, required that he be circumcised. If they didn’t require that he be circumcised, why now should Peter be so upset if some people back in Jerusalem want him to eat food that’s a little more kosher? It doesn’t make sense as a reconstruction. It becomes more and more implausible the more you think of it. It means Peter is really slow.

There’s another reading that, I think, makes a lot more sense. This assumes that the two expressions, certain men from James (at the beginning of verse 12) and the circumcision group (at the end of verse 12) refer to two different groups. Just for the sake of clarity, the expression the circumcision group in the original can, depending on the context, refer to three quite different groups. I will give you some references for those of you who are taking notes.

First, the same expression, the circumcision group, can refer to Judaizers within the church. That is, people who really do adhere to Jesus the Messiah and believe that he died for their sins but who are, nevertheless, trying to bring the church back to submission to the law. Acts 11:2 and Titus 1:10 both use the expression, the circumcision group, to refer to such people.

Secondly, the expression can refer to Jewish Christians without any sort of partisan overtone. They are Jewish Christians over against Gentile Christians. For example, Acts 10:45 and Colossians 4:11.

Thirdly, the expression can refer simply to Jews who are not Christians in any sense. The expression the circumcision group just refers to Jews. For example, Romans 4, the second part of verse 12.

I want to suggest to you that it makes most sense here to take the circumcision group to refer to non-Christian Jews. Then the argument runs something like this: Peter is happy eating along with the Gentiles or the Jews equivalently. He’s already navigated through that theological issue. But then some people come from James.

Even that expression in the original is important. It doesn’t just say “come from Jerusalem” or “come from the Jerusalem church.” It says “come from James.” That has an overtone, in the original, of being messengers from James, sent from James, for some reason. The reason is not spelled out, but I’m going to make a good guess in a moment because I think it makes sense of the rest.

In other words, these people have not just come from the Jerusalem church, they have come as messengers from James and, apparently, because they’ve come with this message from James, Peter becomes afraid of the circumcision group. He does not become afraid of these messengers, but of the circumcision group: that is, Jewish people back in Jerusalem.

We know, from other sources, that about this time, persecution of Christians in Jerusalem was being ratcheted up. You can understand, from their position, why this would be so. Jews, who were not Christians, were persecuting other Jews who were Christians because they saw things the way Paul himself had seen things before he was a Christian.

These Christian Jews seem to be blaspheming. They’re claiming that Jesus is genuinely God. What they do with Christ and his sacrifice has the effect of minimizing the significance of the temple. This is a threat to their entire heritage! So persecution began to rise, again, in another cycle, against Christians. This is from the circumcision group.

Supposing, then, the message from James had been something like this. “Peter, Peter, you have to remember how prominent you are. You’re the Peter of the day of Pentecost. You’re the Peter of the great sermon of Acts 3.” In a sense, as later Latins would call him, he was primus inter pares, first among equals. “Peter, you’re very significant. The reports of you eating with Gentiles in Antioch filter back here to Jerusalem, and it feeds into the attacking mentality of our fellow Jews who aren’t Christians.

They say, ‘See, see? What we’ve said is true. You chaps really don’t care about the law. You just thumb your nose at the Hebrew Scriptures. You just do your own thing. Even Peter is doing this. All the reports coming here from Antioch prove it.’ The result is that the circumcision group is strengthened in its resolve to attack Christians in Jerusalem. Peter, be careful. Be careful. You have to understand that your actions there are having an effect on us here.”

Now I can’t prove that that’s what the message was. There are little hints. That is, these people are from James. That suggests ambassadors sending something. Certainly the expression the circumcision group can just refer to Jews. We know from outside sources that there was persecution breaking out in Jerusalem about this time.

For the rest, I suggest to you that this makes much more sense. Can you see what’s now going through Peter’s mind? “It’s one thing to be flexible and eat kosher or non-kosher, but brothers and sisters in Christ are being persecuted. If I can take some sort of step to alleviate the persecution, well, it doesn’t really matter to me whether I eat kosher or not kosher.” He’s afraid of those Jews, not for what they’re doing to him, but for what they’re doing to fellow Christians back home.

So increasingly, he sides with the kosher crowd, so that those reports could also get back to Jerusalem and maybe the pressure would come off, just a wee bit, back in Jerusalem. After all, a little earlier in this chapter, was it not agreed that Paul would primarily be responsible for outreach to the Gentiles, and Peter and his friends are primarily responsible for the Jews?

If Peter is responsible for the Jews, shouldn’t he be looking out for their well-being, not least back in Jerusalem? In other words, Peter is probably motivated by genuine compassion, genuine empathy, and genuine sincerity in his desire to help those believers, who are fellow Jews back in Jerusalem, facing one of those early whiffs of persecution that swept through the capital city.

But Paul sees it another way. I have no doubt that he did talk to Peter privately. He’s just the sort of man who would. I just cannot imagine that this blew up overnight, and then Paul made a federal case without talking to the man. But obviously, he hadn’t convinced him. Peter still does his own thing. The issue, from Paul’s point of view, is so serious and, because Peter’s action is public, Paul’s rebuke must also be public.

He says to Peter in front of them all, “Peter, you’re being two-faced. You’re claiming to be one thing, and now you’re acting in another way. It’s hypocrisy.” Paul says in verse 14b, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew …” That is, “You are ethnically a Jew. Yet until these people from Jerusalem sent from James arrived, you were having a fine time eating non-kosher food. You acted like a Gentile. You were free.”

“How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?” Not forcing them with a whip or a gun or an overt threat, but forcing them by the sheer power of his own example that this seems to be the higher or better way. Then Paul adds, “We who are Jews by birth …” and goes on to a long theological rationale.

We need to think very carefully about this. From Paul’s point of view, Peter’s actions, even if they are motivated by genuine compassion for Jewish believers back in Jerusalem, are undermining the gospel itself. Why? Why is it that Paul makes such a federal case of this? Elsewhere in the New Testament, Paul becomes a remarkably flexible man. He’s astonishingly flexible.

For example, when there are preachers preaching the gospel with quite a variety of motives, some of them quite crooked, in Philippians 1, Paul says, “Well, I might not like all those motives, but the gospel is being preached. I can live with that.” It’s remarkable, isn’t it? Or, if you recall, I’ve mentioned Titus, who was not circumcised. Paul himself circumcised Timothy.

How could he get away with not circumcising Titus and circumcising Timothy? There was a reason. There was a principle that was at stake. In Titus’ case, some people were saying, “You cannot truly accept the Jewish Messiah unless you become a Jew. You cannot become a Jew unless you get circumcised. If you’re going to accept the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, you have to become a Jew; you have to be circumcised.”

Paul and the other apostles, including Peter, all agreed, according to the first part of Galatians 2, “Nuh-uh, nuh-uh. What that’s doing is insisting, in effect, that Jesus and his sacrifice are not sufficient, that you need Jesus and his sacrifice plus becoming a Jew and being circumcised first.” Paul says, “That’s not the way it works. No, there is an exclusive sufficiency in Christ and his sacrifice, so we cannot permit Titus to be circumcised. It would be saying that Christ is inadequate.”

But when he comes to Timothy, there’s nobody saying there that you have to be circumcised in order to become a Christian. The reason he can circumcise Timothy is because everybody knows he’s a half-breed, half-Jew and half-Gentile, and was never “done.” If he’s never been “done,” then he can’t have free play in the synagogues. If we can get this right over with and everybody knows it’s been done, then he can move around the synagogues more freely. So for the sake of evangelism and outreach in the gospel, go ahead. Let’s circumcise him.

That reflects a man with a certain amount of flexibility and clever thinking. Paul understands where the principle is and, apart from that, he can be remarkably flexible, can’t he? So why can’t Paul flex just a wee bit here? It just sounds a bit mean, doesn’t it? Doesn’t he care about the Christian Jews that are being persecuted back in Jerusalem? After all, he himself has persecuted his share. You’d think that by this point, he’d be just a little more tender!

2. Rationale for this apostolic rebuke

Verses 15 to 21. Now in the Greek of this day, there were no quotation marks. So it’s impossible to know whether verses 15 to 21 are meant to be a kind of summary of what Paul said on that occasion to Peter or a theological reflection on it afterward. It doesn’t really matter because it’s still a theological rationale, whether he said it on that occasion or not.

In any case, he certainly had to say something more, on this occasion, than what he said in verse 14. So the NIV has quotation marks around it, and that probably makes as much sense as anything else. But it’s the rationale that’s important, whether or not he unpacked it all at this moment. Follow the line of his rationale.

“We who are Jews by birth …” That is, we Jewish Christians. “… not ‘Gentile sinners’ …” This is in quotation marks because sometimes Gentile was followed by sinners, just as a pair of words that belong together, like dirty dog. Gentile sinners. “We were Jews and not like ‘Gentile sinners.’ We have come to know that a man is not justified by observing the law …”

It’s as if Paul is saying, “That’s part of what has happened when we’ve become Christians. We’ve understood this. We’ve come to understand that we’ve been justified before God, declared righteous in his sight by faith in Jesus Christ. They’re Christians. We understand that.” “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 …”

Now comes a point that is made even clearer in Romans but is constantly reiterated in one fashion or another in the New Testament. “… because by observing the law no one will be justified.” We just aren’t good enough. We aren’t consistent enough. We aren’t whole enough. There’s no hope, finally, that way.

So we’ve become Christians. We’ve put our faith in Christ Jesus. Let me pause for a moment, there, before we press on with Paul’s argument. This is one of several passages where Paul lays out what might be called Christian self-identity. Another one that is, in some ways, even more fascinating, is found in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23. I wish I had time to set this within the argument of the entire chapter, but let me just read these verses and then draw a couple of observations that will help us with our understanding of Galatians.

“Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law …” That is, Gentiles. “… I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.”

You can read through those verses several times and come out with a distinct headache. The question you have to ask yourself is this.… Does Paul see himself as under the law or not? He says, “I became like someone under the law (though I myself am not under the law), to win those under the law.” Then he says over here, “I became like someone without the law (though I am not free from law)” and you think, “Whoa! Where are you, Paul?” He almost defines relativism and pragmatism, doesn’t he?

No, not quite. It’s very helpful to understand that Paul sees himself in what some have called a tertium quid, a third position. He does not see himself as a Christianized Jew, who has to flex to reach the Gentiles. That’s not what he says. He sees himself as a Christian: neither Jew nor Gentile, quite, but in a third position. From this third position, he flexes to reach the Jews, and he flexes to reach the Gentiles.

It’s very interesting, isn’t it? He does not, here, see himself as a Christian Jew. Elsewhere, he does, when the argument is different and the purpose he’s drawing is a little different. Here, however, he says, “To those who do have the law I became like one having the law. I submitted myself to it (though I am myself not under law).” That is, he himself is not bound by the Mosaic covenant. He is not under the Mosaic covenant of law anymore. He just isn’t.

“To those who are over here, who are free from the law …” They’re Gentiles. “… I became like one of them. I identified with those too. I became lawless.” Though he quickly adds, “I’m not absolutely lawless. I am, in fact, under the law of Christ.” What it really means is “in a legal obligation to Christ.”

Now that raises all kinds of interesting questions that we can’t explore here about how the Mosaic demands and the demands of Christ line up or do not line up, but the point is that Paul sees himself in a third position such that he has to flex to win Jews and flex to win Gentiles. How far he’ll flex on the Gentile side is constrained by the fact that he’s under the lordship of Christ. He is under the demand of Christ. He won’t flex too far.

I have heard people say today, “Well, you know, Paul says, ‘I’ve become all things to all men so that by all means I might win some,’ so we ought to have a similar sort of confidence to say, ‘To the modernists I became a modernist, to the postmodernist I become a postmodern, so that by all means I might win some.’ It’s missional. Just be sure of your own self-identity, and then you can be admirably flexible.”

Well, yes and no. You can hear Paul saying, “To the Jew I became a Jew that I might win the Jews.” It’s impossible to imagine him saying, “To the adulterer I became an adulterer so that I might win adulterers.” He has some constraints on him in his tertium quid, in his third position, because he is committed to submission to the lordship of Christ. He doesn’t have to obey all the food laws of Moses, but in a thoroughly Jewish context, he may well circumcise a Timothy. He may well so that he can win the Jews.

On the other hand, on the other side, he might have his own preferences about what he’ll do and so on, but he’ll flex and become as much like a Gentile as he can possibly become (while he himself is something different) so long as he does not circumvent the demands of Christ himself. “I am not lawless,” Paul says.

In other words, Paul has a deeply rooted and highly theologically sophisticated understanding of himself. When you start saying, “Yes, yes, I become all things to all men that by all means I might win some” and you can fit anything in there.… “I become a postmodern, I become a hippie, I become a rapper, I become a metalhead.” Whatever. You choose your music. “I become an aficionado of Mozart that I might win the Mozartians.” There’s a limit!

At the end of the day, where there is no demand from Christ that circumvents the move, it might be thoroughly missional. I don’t really care if you go and have a tattoo to win those with tattoos. On the other hand, I do start caring if they start having demonic signs on them and the like. Life is complex. What is at issue here is the degree of flexibility that is still thoroughly constrained with being in this third position. He has a real sense of his self-identity as a Christian.

Now then, back to Galatians 2. What Paul is saying by this first round, in verse 15 and 16, is this: “You have already established your identity as a Christian by being free to live with Gentiles as a brother in Christ, kosher food or not kosher food. So what right do you now have to give the impression you’re something else, even if it is for the sake of alleviating persecution back there? There is a deeper issue that is at stake, a theological issue on which the whole gospel itself hangs. Understand, now, that your actions have symbol-laden force.”

This is the issue as Paul sees it. Verse 17: “If, while we seek to be justified in Christ …” That is, we Jews seek to become justified in Christ by placing our faith in him as Paul has explained in the previous two verses. “… it now becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners …” It’s as if Paul is saying, “That is, because we go back and start acting as if the kosher food laws still prevail … if we now start giving the impression that it is right to observe the kosher food laws … then we’re now, in effect, saying that we were wrong in our steps in having become a Christian and setting aside our adherence to those laws in order to trust Christ.

We were disobeying the law. We were committing sin while we were becoming Christians, even because we were becoming Christians. Because we were becoming Christians and trusting Christ alone, we were setting aside the law and becoming lawbreakers ourselves. Do you really want to say that?”

Verse 17: “If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin?” In other words, becoming a Christian is bound up, thus, with actually promoting sin because we’re doing what the law forbids. Paul looks at this whole reconstruction of things and says, “Absolutely not!” “That doesn’t make any sense at all!”

“Don’t you see the implications?” he says. “If I rebuild what I destroyed …” That is, “If I rebuild adherence to the food laws after I implicitly destroyed them by becoming a Christian and showing that, at the end of the day, my acceptance before God is not bound up with observing the food laws.…” “… then all it does is prove that I am a lawbreaker when I become a Christian. Is that the message that you want to send out?”

Then we come to verse 19, which is the hardest verse in the passage. Once we get through this one, we’ll come to verses 20 and 21, which are the most quoted verses in the passage. Follow the flow of the argument. It becomes more and more theologically rich, theologically thick, in that sense.

Paul says (verse 19), “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.” What does he mean? Paul understands (in fact, he makes it clear in chapter 3, verse 13) that Christ’s death is our death. “Christ dies and becomes a curse for us,” he says in Galatians 3:13. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’ ”

In other words, by this death, in accordance with the law, Jesus bore its curse for us. Thus, if Christ died for me and I am now free from the law’s curse (because Jesus died for me), then I am dead with respect to the law. The law can’t come to me and say, “You’re under my covenant. You’re condemned.” How can that be? Christ bore the law’s curse on my behalf. I am now free from that curse. I am not under that law covenant. I am dead with respect to the law. The law does not see me, as it were. I don’t see it. I’m free. Do you see? So much, perfectly clear.

But all this happened through the law precisely because Christ died in accordance with the law. It happened through the law, through the entire structure that was set up. That’s why Paul says in verse 19, “For through the law …” That is, if you flesh it all out, through the law and Christ bearing the law’s curse in accordance with the law so that I would not be cursed. “… I died to the law so that I might live for God.”

Then Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” There is one more slightly tricky step here before I summarize this and then try to show us what bearing it has on our daily lives. When you hear verse 20 today, I’m sure most of you hear it the way we’ve been brought up with it in Sunday school and elsewhere. “Christ lives in me.”

Suddenly, you’re stepping away from talking about the forensic, the legal, how you’re justified, and now you talking about how Christ takes up residence within you by his Spirit. It’s sort of transformative from within. You’re out of the realm of how you’re just before God, and now you’re in the realm of how he sort of takes up residence within you. Isn’t that the way it seems?

I want to be the first to insist that there are many, many passages in the Bible that do talk about how God, by his Spirit, lives within us. In fact, we’re told in John 14 through 16 that the Father and the Son, by means of the Spirit, take up residence within us. There are many, many biblical truths that say things like that. But with all respect, I don’t think this is one of them. I think it’s a huge mistake. It just doesn’t fit the context.

The difficulty arises from our efforts to translate a little expression in Greek, en emoi, which is often rendered in me. Do you see how the text runs in verse 20? “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me [en emoi].” Go back to the end of chapter 1. There, we read in verses 23 and 24 that the churches of Judea “only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us …” Paul himself. “… is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. And they praised God because of me.” It’s the same expression in Greek.

In fact, I’m not even sure that because of me has it quite right here, but rather “they praised God in reference to me” or “they praised with respect to me.” In the context, that means because of me. The phrase en emoi often means with respect to me or something like that. About a third of its uses in the New Testament mean something like that. The expression that we use in English to get the equivalent value depends on the context.

So at the end of chapter 1, verse 24, it just does not make sense to render that “they praised God in me.” Were the churches in Judea in Paul? Or “they praised God in me.” But that doesn’t make sense in the context either. What they’re really saying is “they praised God with reference to the fact that I had become a Christian, with reference to me.” That’s what is being said.

Understand en emoi in exactly the same way in Galatians 2:20, and I think new light will show up on this passage. (I say new, though many Christians have argued this across the years.) “I have been crucified with Christ …” In other words, Paul understands that because Christ was crucified and bore his death when he was crucified, before the law and before God, Paul was crucified. Paul wasn’t literally crucified, he didn’t literally hang, but Christ was crucified with reference to Paul, with respect to Paul.

“… and I no longer live …” No, no, no, no, no. Before the law, I no longer live. I’m dead. I’m crucified with Christ. “… but Christ lives with reference to me.” Now I’m not denying that there’s a sense in which Christ does take up residence within us, but here, I think, it’s: “Just as Christ’s death was with reference to me, so also Christ’s life is with reference to me.”

There has been this great exchange that you find, again and again, in the New Testament. His death is my death. His life is my life. My sin has become his. His life and his righteousness have become mine. There’s been an exchange. His death was with reference to me; his life is with reference to me.

“That means,” Paul says in verse 21, “the life I do live in the body …” After all, he is alive; he’s not literally dead. “… I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” What this reading does is show that the entire explanation that Paul gives has to do with justification.

It has to do with how we have standing before God. It has to do with how we are accepted before God. It’s all secured by God’s love in Christ Jesus. In fact, Paul often starts talking about Christ and the cross, and he has to throw in a praise aside. So he does that here too: “I live by faith in the Son of God …” And he throws in immediately, “… who loved me and gave himself.”

That is, “I’m crucified with Christ; I’m alive with Christ. I’m crucified with Christ. His death was with reference to me, to my standing before God and his law. And his life? Well, yes, that’s with reference to me too. When God looks at me, he sees Christ’s life: his risen, resurrection life. As I hide under Christ’s death, so I hide under Christ’s life. God accepts Christ’s death on my behalf; he accepts his life on my behalf. Christ lives with reference to me.

Therefore, the life that I do, in fact, live in my body, I live by trusting Christ, because he has done it all. His death is my death; his life is my life. I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. And so, my dear Peter, I do not set aside the grace of God. That’s what you are in danger of doing. I know you don’t mean to. I’m sure you have jolly good motives for those believers back in Jerusalem who are getting shellacked again.

But you can’t do anything that sets aside the grace of God. If you do that, then you’re destroying the gospel, and you’re acting like a hypocrite. If consistency on this point means that Christians somewhere get persecuted, well, then I’m afraid they’re going to get persecuted. It’s the way it is. It’s just too important. You don’t duck on this one.” Paul concludes, “For if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Now let me wind up with some theological and practical reflections on all of this.

Where the heart of the gospel is at stake, nothing is more important. If that means that Christians get persecuted for it, then we get persecuted for it. If it means that sometimes one Christian who has this more sorted out than others has to rebuke another, well, so be it. But this is too important.

If people start misunderstanding the gospel at this fundamental level of the entire ground of our acceptability before God, the exclusive sufficiency of Christ.… You can’t duck this one. There might be all kinds of issues where you can permissibly duck, but you can’t duck this one. You just can’t.

This is another way of saying that it is essential to see that biblical truth is hierarchized. Biblical truth is hierarchized. That is to say that biblical truth is arrayed in hierarchy so that some bits.… I know I have to put in a footnote as soon as I say this, but I’ll say it anyway … some bits are more important than other bits.

You have to be careful when you say that. I don’t want to say that some bits of biblical truth are truer than other bits. It is true, or it isn’t true. But in the Bible itself, some bits are more important than others. After all, Jesus was asked the question, “Which is the first [the most important] commandment?” Then Jesus told them what the first one was and what the second one was. He was prepared to hierarchize the laws.

At the top of the hierarchy is the gospel itself, which is why Paul, elsewhere, can say, when he writes to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 15, “Now I want to remind you of the matters of first importance.” Then he starts out by outlining the gospel. I know some Christians who find it very hard to think in those terms. They just find it very hard. Everything instantly becomes an absolute.

I know a dear brother, who shall remain nameless (and some of you might know who it is), who went to another country from his rather culturally conservative country. This country that he went to is in a pretty torrid clime where people are not known for wearing pinstripe suits on Sundays. They’d rather be swimming in Bondi Beach. If they do show up, then, believe me, they’re not in pinstripe suits.

This dear brother goes out, sees the place of the Decalogue, isolates that, and labels it moral law. That includes the Sabbath law, and the Sabbath law, then, is worked out in terms of how you dress on the Sabbath, all the way down to pinstripe suits. So ultimately, if you don’t agree with him on the pinstripe suits on Sunday, then suddenly you’re breaking the moral law of God. Everything gets ratcheted up to the same level of transcendental importance. It’s just very difficult to have any flexibility anywhere because everything is transcendentally important.

In one sense, it is important. It’s God’s Word. You take it as God’s truth; that’s true. But when God’s Word itself hierarchizes things, then you must become familiar with where Christians have disagreed. Where you feel strongly about it, then try and show them a better way, by all means. But don’t treat them as if they’ve sacrificed the gospel because they haven’t understood all of the fine points of eschatology the way you have.

Somewhere along the line, there is a need to hierarchize, but when you find the gospel itself right at the top of the hierarchy, bound up with the very nature and character of God and what he has done in Christ Jesus, then at some point (despite the fact that our world likes to say today, “Well, it all depends on your point of view”), you have to say, “No, it doesn’t. There is some objective reality out there and if you don’t get the Bible’s point of view on this one, then quite frankly, you’re wrong, and I don’t want you teaching in our church because you’re leading people astray.”

Now you don’t do that about everything, but where you get to the top of the hierarchy, you just have to be strong: humble, discerning, wise, quiet, but strong. If you don’t believe me, then go and read Galatians right through. Go and read 1 John right through. Go and read half the New Testament right through, which warns against false teaching, all of which takes away from Christ or something essential in the gospel or the resurrection or the like. You simply cannot flinch at these points. But there is a scad of practical matters bound up with this. In one sense, what I’ve told you now is the easiest bit.

Most people in this room are not so enamored with endless openness that what you really want to do, deep down, is sacrifice the gospel so that you can define thing your own way. That’s probably not an accurate reflection of this particular crowd’s profile. But now there are some things that hurt.

In the last couple of years, some of us at Trinity have started another organization called CCI (Christ on Campus Initiative). It comes out of the fact that some of us still do university missions and the like. We’re increasingly aware that when we’re on campuses we’re dealing with biblical illiterates today. Complete biblical illiterates. The same is increasingly true in the broader society.

When I started doing university missions 30 years ago, if I were dealing with an atheist, at least he or she was a Christian atheist. That is, the God they disbelieved in was the Christian God, which meant that at least the discussion was still on my turf. Nowadays, you’re dealing with people who don’t know the Bible has two Testaments. They’ve never heard of Abraham, and they certainly haven’t heard of Isaiah. If they have heard of Moses, they confuse him with Charlton Heston. They really have no idea of how things work at all. None.

As our small contribution, we resolved to find some writers who would write essays of 13,000 to 15,000 words. They would be fairly short, booklet size. (But we would not print them as booklets since, nowadays, nobody reads booklets. If you’re an undergraduate, you don’t read booklets. You read things on the Web, or you don’t read.) We would produce these things on a variety of themes and subjects that were all anchored in biblical theology, the Bible storyline, and the gospel itself, written by competent people but for undergraduate biblical illiterates.

We got a small foundation behind us to pay for all of this so that we don’t have to sell copies to make money to make the whole thing work. We got a foundation to make it work. That means that we can post the essays for free and have them downloadable. The first two are already up. They’re on The Gospel Coalition website. Go to thegospelcoalition.org; then you go to CCI. We hope to produce five a year this way.

As part of our preparation for this, we invited to our campus (still with the foundation paying for it) six campus workers from around the country. All of them had theological degrees. All of them had been in campus ministry for between 5 and 30 years. In other words, they were experienced, serious, theologically trained people.

We had one or two from the East Coast. One guy, who works in the Ivy League universities, actually came in a pinstripe suit! The guy from California was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops, but they were both involved in university ministry. We brought them to the campus, and we just threw questions at them and had them talk. What’s going on? What do people see? What do they not see? Where are the blind spots?

I thought that I was up to date with what’s going on in university campuses. Let me tell you, I’m a first-class ignoramus compared to these people, because that’s where they live and move and serve all the time. One of the most insightful comments came from a young woman. She and her husband were graduates of Princeton and of Trinity, then had gone back to an Ivy League university where they have a particular ministry.

In that particular ministry, if you join their group, you agree not only to come to the public meetings but to a minimum of one hour a week of one-on-one discipleship under the Word every week for four years. When people come out of that, let me tell you: they are head and shoulders above every other university graduate. We’ve had some of them come into Trinity as students. They’re wonderful.

She had 28 women a week for five years. Can you imagine the experience she’s had talking to young women? The numbers would change, but every year during term, she had about 28 students, one-on-one, besides whatever other things she was doing. It’s a remarkable ministry. She said, “Out of this, I want to tell you what young women on Ivy League campuses think about today. This is how they identify themselves.…” We’re getting closer to our theme.

“First, ‘Never get less than an A.’ This from their parents and from their own drive for excellence.” That wouldn’t be found in every university, I know. This is Ivy League. But still, that’s what she found. You don’t get into these schools unless you’re trying to get an A all the time, in any case, do you?

“Secondly, ‘Be yourself. Don’t let anybody squeeze you into their mold. Don’t let any group or any authority or anybody else tell you what to do. Be yourself. Be your own woman. Along the line, throw in at least a week or two a year doing good to Katrina victims or going off to help AIDS people in Africa but, apart from that, be yourself.’ ” That comes from the whole surrounding culture, the idealism of youth, and so on.

“Lastly, ‘Be hot. There are only so many guys around. That affects how you dress, how you present yourself, and how you think you find a mate. It affects all kinds of things. It affects the magazines you read, how you go to Madison Avenue, what sort of things you flip through on the magazine counter when you’re in the groceteria, and so on. Be hot.’ ” Although very few would admit this quite straightforwardly, she was convinced this was true of the overwhelming majority.

She said, “Now the trouble with these things is that they are all setups for failure because not everybody is going to get an A, you can’t always be yourself, and despite our best efforts, not everybody is hot. So you’re set up for failure. Then on top of all of that, the world keeps saying, ‘You’re a woman. You can be anything you want to be.’

This pretty soon gets transmuted, in their hearing, to, ‘You’re a woman. You must be everything.’ Then there’s only another cause for failure, with the result that 80 percent of young women in Ivy League schools, at some point, will suffer from bulimia or anorexia. Eighty percent. A similar percentage will be on Prozac or some other drug.

Then one of them becomes a Christian. True to form, it’s not long before they have to be the best Christian. They’ll get the best marks, they’re going to be themselves, they’re going to be hot, and they’re going to be the best Christians. They’ll be at a prayer meeting. Yes, yes. They’ll lead the very best Bible studies in the women’s dorms. They’re really going to be good Christians. They’ll be volunteering for the summer ministries. You bet. They’ll be sure to go to Urbana or someplace. Yes, yes, yes. They’re going to be hot Christians! More failure.”

Pretty soon, the gospel that begins in grace with justification ground in the exclusive sufficiency of Christ’s cross work is all tied up with self-identity and doing stuff. This does not mean that Christians should not be doing stuff, but Christians who are doing stuff (whether it’s the Bible studies or the missions to Matamoros or wherever it is) should be doing things out of massive gratitude and thanksgiving for the salvation that is already theirs, for what God has already secured for them. They live and move and serve and think out of gratitude for grace.

The gospel is so easy to understand, and it is so easy to lose because, as soon as you understand it, you start patting yourself on the back for understanding it, and then you’re losing it. It’s horrendous.

Suppose you wake up, and it’s a miserable day with clouds and rain. The alarm didn’t work, so you’re late. Your spouse is grumpy, and you can’t find clean socks. You dash out to the car, having sipped your orange juice. You didn’t get a decent breakfast. You know your boss is going to growl at you. You put the key in the ignition, turn it, and nothing. You knew you should have had that battery fixed.

Eventually, you get to work, late, and get chewed out. You’re given a notice that you might be sacked from the company. The company is slimming down. These are hard economic times, you know. You have a couple of difficult decisions and then, at the water cooler, some other worker raises some Christian question or comment. You can’t be bothered, and you just about bite his head off. Then you go home, and there’s a note: “I’m out with my friends. You’ll find day-old lasagna in the fridge if you want it.” You see the kids a little later, and they’re all in bad moods.

That night, you get down to pray, and it sounds like this: “Dear heavenly Father, this has been a rotten day. I haven’t reacted very well. I’m sorry, but it has been a rotten day. I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better tomorrow. Bless everybody. In Jesus’ name, amen.” Am I the only one who has ever had a day like that?

Then there are others days where you’ve had a good night’s sleep. You wake up. The birds are singing, and the air is fresh and clean. You know this one is going to be a winner. All your clothes are laid out for you. You smell bacon coming from the kitchen. Yes, a good breakfast before you go.

You get out in the car, put the car in the ignition, and vroom! Yes! You drive to work and get there early. Your boss notices, commends you, and says, “You know, actually, I’m thinking of expanding the division after all. Our numbers look better than we thought. Would you be up for being manager for this division?” “Yes, Lord!”

Then the same poor sucker who got clobbered by you at the water fountain just a few weeks back dares to actually bring up something religious again, and this time, you testify with humility and grace and insight. It ends by inviting him to church on Sunday, and he promises he might well come. You get home, and there’s a wonderful meal. The kids are right little angels. The family devotions are superb.

That night, you go to bed, and your prayer sounds like this: “Eternal and majestic heavenly Father, in the fullness of your grace, I bow before you at the end of this day and thank you for the magnificence and munificence of all of your faithful blessings upon me, your humble servant.” Pretty soon, you’re into propitiation and reconciliation. You’re praying for people at church, the ministry, the gospel, worldwide mission, all the missionaries you’ve ever heard of and their first cousins twice removed, and on and on and on. Pretty soon, you go to bed justified.

And you have been an utter pagan both times because you have the amazing audacity to think that you enter the presence of our Holy God on the basis of what sort of day you’ve had. Can anything be more gross? More demeaning to grace? More destructive of justification? It’s like spitting on the significance of the cross work of Christ, and we do it all the time.

The doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, understanding the exclusive sufficiency of the cross work of Christ is not some esoteric doctrine for theological meatheads. Rightly understood, it shapes who we are. It touches all of our values. Even when we’re serving, we resolve to serve out of gratitude. We catch ourselves up in our pride and confess our sins, again and again and again, for we have been justified because Christ loved us and gave himself for us. Everything else is paganism.