Living by Faith - Galatians

Defender of the Faith

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 5-19

Genre: Talk

Track: 05

Dictation Name: Tape 03A

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. Having these promises, let us draw near to the throne of grace with true hearts, in full assurance of faith. My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning oh Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father we come into Thy presence mindful of the sickness of this world and its evil, its willful contempt of Thy word, and of Thy purpose; but mindful also that Thou art on the throne, and Thy kingdom shall come, and Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Therefore our Father, we praise Thee; we rejoice in Thy government, knowing that all things work together for good in Thy purpose. Keep us ever in the hollow of Thy hand and in Thy ways, Thy purpose, that we may serve Thee with all our heart, mind, and being. Bless us this day and always, and give us joy in Thy word and power in Thy Spirit, in Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture is Galatians 2:11-21. Our subject: Defender of the Faith. Galatians 2:11-21.

“11 But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

12 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.

13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.

14 But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?

15 We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,

16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

17 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.

18 For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

19 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”

At the council of Jerusalem, the challenge of the Pharisees was met. The Pharisees who had come into the church believed that Judaism is the mediator to Christ, that the Gentiles must be circumcised and keep the law before becoming Christians. The council ruled against the Pharisees. They held, plainly, that the law was not the means of salvation, but sanctification. To become a Christian mean to know the grace of God through faith. The council set forth four simple requirements, for those coming to be baptized. Three had to do with diet, and the other was with reference to sexuality. These were established as a roadblock to antinomianism. If a man before baptism were unwilling to meet these four simple requirements, how could he baptized? What kind of a Christian would he be thereafter? Would he not be totally lawless after being baptized?

The apostles, thus, were seeking to do two things in the council decision. First, they denied that Judaism can be the mediator to Christ, or that salvation is by works of the law. The position of the Pharisees was simply not true to the Old Testament.

Second, while trying to prevent a works salvation, they were also seeking to forestall, to ban antinomianism, a contempt for the law. Hence they said: “Anyone who says ‘I have become a Christian and am coming forward to be baptized’ had to agree first to these four simple requirements, that his sexual life is going to be changed, and that he was going to observe three simple requirements with respect to diet. Now if they were not willing to do that, there was no place for them in the church.

The Pharisees were compelled to give assent to the decisions of the council of Jerusalem. They had to do so, because Peter, James, and John, the three most important men at the council other than Paul were in agreement with Paul and with Barnabas. But they continued their attempted subversions by means of a devious strategy. Paul now, as he faces the problems in Galatia, reminds them first of the council of Jerusalem. This we saw last week.

Now he deals with an episode that followed at Antioch. Certain people came there from Jerusalem, Judaizing Pharisees, or else their representatives; important people, important enough to intimidate Peter and other important Jews there. They came and the result was that not only Peter and a number of other Jews who were Christians, but also Barnabas Paul’s closest associate, began to play the role of the Pharisees, to dissemble, and were guilty we are told, of dissimulation. The word in the Greek is the same as our English word ‘hypocrisy’. Putting on a front, putting on a mask. So Paul says they were guilty of hypocrisy.

Why this effect on Peter, Barnabas, and others, so that Paul was isolated, so that all his associates were now taking another course? Was there an action or a letter or a message on the part of James our Lord’s brother? They apparently came from James, or gave that impression; at least the English here seems to indicate that. But the Greek is more subtle. In a very literal translation by Robert Young: “For before the coming of certain from James.” The Twentieth Century New Testament renders it: “Before certain persons came from James, Peter had been in the habit of eating with the Gentile converts.” Philips rendered it in his paraphrase: “It happened like this. Until the arrival of some of James companions, he, Peter, was in the habit of eating his meals with the Gentiles.”

Now what is inferred here? Not that these men came with a particular message from James. They may have been in the synagogue or church of which James was the pastor; they may have implied that they came from James, that is the implication of the text. Had they come with a warrant, a letter from James, Paul would have made clear his opinion of James error. He would have made clear that he was rebuking James, or intended too, as well as his public rebuke of Peter.

A.T. Robertson, one of the great authorities on the Greek text, says: “These men tried to give the impression that they represented James.” Well what was the problem about? Why had Peter himself and Barnabas, Paul’s closest associate been effected, and Paul left isolated? We are told that Peter had been eating with the Gentiles. Had he been eating blood or things strangled? No such charge is made. Such food would have sickened Peter, as a life-long Jew. He could then in fact have been charged with breaking his own decision at the council, and this is not done. What was the eating problem? Well, a very simple one, one that was not touched by the council of Jerusalem. Orthodox Jews were forbidden to eat with Gentiles. Also there were many extra-biblical rules concerning the utensils they were to use.

Now both these regulations had some connection with certain regulations in scripture, but the Pharisees had carried them to the point of absurdity. Granted, they had some basis; error usually does. Eating is a form of communion with God, and also with man, and historically in all cultures when you eat with a man it is a sign of a bond of peace between you, it is often a covenant act whereby you include them in the covenant.

Now, beginning with that fact, the Pharisees had carried the rules concerning eating to far-reaching and preposterous conclusions. This was a gray area for Peter, Barnabas, and all the others. It had not been dealt with by the council of Jerusalem. And so, when these men came they didn’t say: “You have violated the regulations of the council of Jerusalem,” they said: “How can you eat with them?” This was something they hadn’t thought about, it was to them a gray area, an area where they had done no thinking, no decision had been made, and so they went along with these people hypocritically, and withdrew from the gentiles.

For them to have done so meant that these people who came had some kind of position. One of the problems on the mission field to this day is precisely this kind of fact. Supposing in some tribe or culture that is non-Christian in Asia or Africa, a church is started; and then someone important in that tribe or culture is converted. When he comes into the church, and expresses his disapproval of something, it carries undue weight with the elders and with the native pastor. They are so used to deferring to his authority in other areas, that when he comes into the church his authority, even though he may actually have none, is considerable.

So here were prominent Pharisees, men who were supposedly now Christian, coming to Antioch and their authority was carrying over with all who were Jewish converts. This is what happened at the council of Jerusalem. It was these important people in Jerusalem who were Pharisees and had become ostensibly Christian who had created the crisis, and now again the same thing at Antioch.

Lenski, one of the great Lutheran commentators has written concerning verse 12, and I quote: “’From James’ is scarcely the same as ‘from Jerusalem.’ These people were not sent by James, did not represent him. They were from the circle about James, in close association with him.” They were important people, but they were Pharisees.

Now, Paul had been called by God to a unique ministry. He himself was a person of note. He himself came from a very important family in the tribe of Benjamin, important in Jerusalem before his conversion. And so, because of his stature, he was not a man ready to defer to anyone because they were important. God had prepared him for this. But consider his problem; Paul to whom we must look as basic to the understanding of scripture, had a very unsuccessful career, humanly speaking. When I was in seminary there were ostensible letters passed around pretending to be from the first century, and occasionally some of these are printed, because their point is a very good one, humorous, but good.

Church committees looking for a pastor ask for a letter, and the Corinthian church or the Galatian church, or some other church, or some ministerial relations committee, writing a letter about Paul, the gist of which is: “This man is hardly the one you would want as pastor. By his own admission he is not a good speaker. Everywhere he has gone he has split churches, even his closest associates, virtually all except the very young like Timothy have abandoned him at some time or other because they found him to be an impossible person to work with. No, we must regretfully say, although we love our brother Paul as a believer, that he is a problem person and unfit to be a pastor or a missionary anywhere.”

Now these letters, humanly speaking, were all outwardly correct. Paul’s ministry among all the apostles was humanly speaking a failure. And this is why this letter is such an emotional one; Paul is rehearsing all these problems, and he does not enjoy doing it. He thinks the Galatians are fools, and tells them so in the next passage. But he must work with them because it is his duty. He must recount these episodes where he has been betrayed by those he loved the most, who were closest to him.

Too often people will go through a series on Galatians and on Corinthians without ever appreciating the grief and the suffering of Paul. In fact, they act as though the Bible were by and large an unemotional book. They can watch a t.v. program and shed tears, but they don’t like emotions in the Bible. Over the years I have encountered many people who as they have read the 137th Psalm have told me: “Well, I believe the Bible from cover to cover, but I don’t think that is inspired, and I don’t think that should be in the Bible.” It says: “By the rivers of Babylon,” (these the captives) “there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion… For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” ‘Entertain us.’ And the Psalmist goes on to say: ‘May you be served in time by those who will destroy you as you have served us. May they pick up your children by the heels, and dash their brains out on the stones.’ Oh, how can anyone in the Bible talk like that? Why, that is how the captive Jews were treated as they were taken, after a mass rape in Judea. They were rounded up and taken, and if any little child were too slow for the line of march, that was the treatment. And so the Psalmist says: ‘In time, you too will go to captivity, and in time you too will see your children treated thus. As you have done,’ the Old Testament says, ‘So shall it be done unto you.’ No the Bible is not a pretty book, but it is an honest one, it is the word of God. And Paul here is dealing with a crisis situation where he stands alone.

And he says: ‘But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, and knowing better, knowing the whole word of God, were not living as these Pharisees tell you to live, how can you expect these Greeks who have been converted, these other Gentiles who have been converted, to live in a way you are not ready to live?’

Paul tells the Galatians about this. He is reviewing common knowledge. He was vindicated at the council of Jerusalem, he was all alone at Antioch, even Barnabas deserted him, but he was vindicated at Antioch. And so: ‘You foolish Galatians. Are you going to stand up and say you are wiser than Peter who acknowledged his error, and later in his epistle expressed strongly his approval of Paul and said that those who twist Paul’s words are inviting judgement upon themselves?’

In the course of telling this Paul makes two tremendous points. He tells the Pharisees a man is not justified by the works of the law. No man, Jew or Gentile is saved by his works, but only by the grace of God unto salvation. As for their covenant privileges, those are of grace not of works, and he tells them: “Israel has been the covenant people by the grace of God, not by any works that they have wrought. But all men are saved by the electing grace of God.”

Justification has reference to a court of law, and it was Christ who rendered satisfaction. We were under the death penalty; Christ paid the death penalty for us, so that we are dead to the law as a death penalty, but we are alive in Christ now to obey God and to serve Him with all our heart, mind, and being. We have been legally executed in Christ, and now we give ourselves to Him who loved us.

But then in verse 17 he goes after the Antinomians: “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.” The meaning is clear in the translation of Conybeare and Howson, who render it: “But what if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we have indeed reduced ourselves also to the sinful status of unhallowed Gentiles? Is Christ then a minister of sin? God forbid!”

What Paul is here saying has been well expressed by Lubbers, and I quote from him: “Paul now asks a very telling and arresting question. He asks “Is therefore Christ the minister of sin?” It would seem that seeking to be justified by faith in Christ would need to lead to that conclusion. If there were absolutely no need to keep the law in order to be justified, then the law could be set aside and men could lead lawless lives. To that terrible position, it seems, the free grace in Christ must lead. Christ, instead of making men keepers of the law, makes men transgressors of the law by this teaching of the truth of the Gospel. And so Paul asks the question whether those who seek to be justified in Christ are not in the ministry of sin, rather than in the ministry of grace!”

And he says, “God forbid.” This is not the case. What Paul does thus is to close the door to works religions, to salvation by law on the one hand, or to antinomian religions, the lawless doctrine of grace; grace with lawlessness, as though that were possible. As against the Pharisees he says: “Salvation by law means that Christ has died in vain, because of man could be saved by his own works, why was it necessary for God the Son to suffer the agony of the most fearful method of crucifixion devised by the mind of the Romans?” Works puts man in a position where God is in debt to him, obligated to give him something, and this is blasphemy.

Paul concludes in verse 21 by saying: “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” Frustrate means ‘to make void’ in the Greek. Paul’s implication is clear. Anyone who relies on the law or works for justification is denying, is making void, the grace of God. Again, if any man sees God’s grace as a denial of His law, they thereby make Christ the minister of sin; they have again voided grace. Such men are in effect writing a new Bible, or they are revising and editing the existing one, either eliminating most of the Old Testament, or most of the New as the case may be. Paul says: “I will not be such a transgressor.” He will not rebuild the whole false structure of Phariseeism, which he destroyed in Christ. He had pulled down the framework of Phariseeism. If he gave it any ground now, whether presented by Jewish notables, or briefly assented to by Peter, Barnabas and others close to him, he would prove himself to be a transgressor. No, he sets forth Christ who destroys the whole structure of Phariseeism, and of antinomianism; because if our sin necessitated the death of Christ, because God takes His law so seriously, then the law is not a trifle; then the law is the way of life, of sanctification for us.

“I do not,” says Paul, “frustrate the grace of God. Even though I must stand against Peter and against Barnabas, even though it means separating myself or having those I love separate themselves from me.”

This letter was a costly thing for Paul. It required him to review things that were a grief and a pain. We are the richer for it, and the church had better heed what Paul says in Galatians, or face the judgement that Peter spoke about for wresting, twisting the words of Paul. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word, for the burdens of Thy saints of old whereby we have been made rich and blessed. Grant oh Lord that we do not lay waste this treasure, nor abandon it, nor neglect it; but in faithfulness to Thy word walk with grace, wisdom, and power in Thy Spirit and in Thy service. Grant us this we beseech Thee, in His name amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience Member] The Orthodox Jews still retain that difference, the Reformed Jews have abandoned it; and I wonder how that applies in Israel.

[Rushdoony] In Israel there is a growing problem because the Orthodox Jews are increasing their power, and their demands on the others and on the state are to push it into the direction of an increasing separation of all Jews from the Arab population. So in this respect while they are to a degree non-political, the Orthodox Jews, they are serving to a degree the ends of Rabbi (Calhane?) they are also pressuring the liberals increasingly, so that a problem is growing; precisely because the Oriental Jews and the Orthodox Jews are the more prolific element there. The Liberal Jews are the ones who are leaving Israel as they are able. These others are the ones who are prolific, and are increasingly a powerful element, and are therefore effecting the voting.

What we are seeing in Israel today is that what began as a Liberal to leftist western state in the midst of a Middle Eastern context, is becoming increasingly very much like the Arab states in its type of legislation. As you yourself have noted, they still retain and have never adopted a constitution, they still retain the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish laws. They have passed some laws against proselytism, which are virtually identical with that of the Arab countries; so that there is a growing resemblance of Israel today to the Arab states in its outlook, and that creates a problem because you have the same intransigence on both sides, and a hostility to all who might be moderates. When (Saddat?) was massacred and the Shah overthrown, the two major forces in Islam for modernization and for a more liberal outlook disappeared. So as things stand now, there is a hostility to solutions, only an insistence: “My will be done” on all fronts.

[Audience Member] So the religious war is intensified.

[Rushdoony] Yes, the religious war is intensified, very much so. Now, one possible solution there in Israel is the fact that now you have a number of Jewish Christian leaders who are not separating themselves from the Jewish community on conversion, and are quietly winning more and more converts, while maintaining the façade of being a part of Orthodox or Liberal synagogues. They believe that at the present rate of growth, in two or three years they may have enough that they can demand a representation in the legislative body.

[Audience Member] As Christians?

[Rushdoony] As Christians. And according to the law they would have to be granted it, and then they feel they can increasingly be a voice in the country. They will demand it as Christian synagogues, they will separate themselves into synagogues. Now this is something that is not in the press, has never been written up.

[Audience Member] I’ve never heard it, but I did hear that the Supreme Court of Israel had ruled that a Christian convert, a Jew who converted to Christianity and became a priest, had thereby lost his status as a Jew and would be refused the right of return.

[Rushdoony] Yes. However, they feel that they have built up the legal groundwork to obviate that. It’s very important, a major move that is underway now. Any other questions or comments?

Well, if not let us bow our heads in prayer. All glory be to Thee oh God, who has made us rich through the work of saints of old, through Thy providential care, and through Thy glorious purpose for Thy kingdom. Make us faithful stewards of that which Thou hast given, that we might pass on an inheritance to our children and our children’s children, that we leave not the world more empty because we have been in it. Bless us to this purpose.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost… [tape ends]