Paul was all things to all men, but in matters of divine obligation, he would never submit himself to these acts of tyranny and legalism that would destroy or cast a shadow on the gospel and the liberty that comes with the gospel. In the book of Galatians, we read about a group of false teachers who were undermining the gospel with their doctrine. Who were they? What were they teaching? And how did the apostle Paul respond?
These are some of the questions that we'll be exploring today on the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. This week, we begin a series with R.C. Sproul on the book of Galatians. The gospel message has come under attack ever since the early days of the apostles, and just as Paul defends the message of God's grace in this New Testament letter, it must be defended in every generation. Doctor Swirl's commentary on Galatians offers a guided tour through Paul's epistle, equipping Christians to proclaim the gospel in our day.
For your donation in support of Renewing Your Mind, you'll receive the ebook edition of this resource. Go to renewingyourmind.org to give. But now, here's RC with today's message. We're going to continue our study of Paul's letter to the Galatians. I'll be reading from chapter two, verses one through ten.
Then, after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them, though privately, before those who seemed influential, the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they may bring us into slavery. To them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
And from those who seemed influential, what they were makes no difference to me. God shows no partiality. Those I say who seemed influential added nothing to me. On the contrary. When they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles.
And when James and Cephas and John, who seem to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me. They gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. Only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. Paul was wanting to make certain that he was not preaching a different gospel from what was revealed to the other apostles. He wants us to understand that he didn't gain his authority from the apostles, but at the same time, he was preaching the same message, the same gospel that they were.
But the issue that was before them was the question of circumcision. The Judaizers, who were the heretics in the Galatian region, were insisting on maintaining the ceremonial aspects of the Old Testament laws, and particularly the ceremony of circumcision, and insisting that a person could not be saved unless They were circumcised, and so, for purposes of giving Exhibit A, Paul brings with him an uncircumcised Gentile named Titus, who would later become the Archbishop of one of the major centers of Christendom, though he was remaining uncircumcised.
Now, this whole question of circumcision. Was of tremendous import to the whole nation of Israel. This was not a recent invention, but when God established His covenant with Abraham and to His seed, He commanded that the rite of circumcision be administered to everyone who was set apart. As part of this Jewish nation, circumcision was a cutting rite. It was the rite that established the Old Testament covenant, and was the sign of the Old Testament covenant.
And this covenant was made with Abraham, was a tradition that was two thousand years old. Not a recent innovation, and it was a tradition among the Jews.
Now let me just pause for a second and talk about that word, tradition, because we see the word tradition being used in different ways in the Scriptures, particularly in the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, where Jesus. Castigates the Pharisees for replacing the law of God with the traditions of men. That is, human tradition was interposed and interjected to supplant and to remove the very law of God. And when the Pharisees were guilty of that, Jesus. Didn't pull any punches about that godless activity of legalism, of imposing a law on people that was not of God but from men, and because of that rebuke that we hear from the lips of Jesus, we have the tendency to just think that the word tradition itself must be.
A bad thing, but the apostle Paul speaks not only of the traditions of men, but he speaks of the word parodisus, which means that which is given over from one generation to the next. He speaks of a different tradition, or the apostolic tradition, which was not of human invention, but Was of divine ordination, so you have human customs and divine traditions, and any tradition that is given over to us from God is a valuable tradition and is not one that is to be played with or treated lightly in any way. This whole question of tradition is something that is always controversial. Any time people get together in any kind of community, and particularly in the church, we have certain ways or certain customs that we observed, and God forbid that anybody should ever change it. And if you try to change something in the liturgy or something in the behavior of the church, Inevitably, somebody is going to stand up and say, "But we always did it a different way before," and we cite our customs and our traditions, which may or may not be valuable.
One of the most rich and entertaining theatrical productions of Broadway that I've ever seen was the play *Fiddler on the Roof*. That went through the poignant aspect of poor Reptavia, whose three daughters, each in turn, challenged the long-seated and deeply rooted tradition of the Russian Jews that they would only allow marriage by family arrangement, and in each case, one of the daughters of Tavia challenged the tradition and wanted to marry on the basis of love, and we've seen the anguish that proceeded out of that. And the image of the title of the play was provocative. Fiddler on the Roof. It's hard enough playing the violin or the fiddle.
On a level perch, but if you're trying to be a fiddler while standing on a steeply pitched roof, sooner or later a disaster will befall you. You are going to come crashing down from that roof and bang your head on the ground, and that's what Reptilia was facing, trying to maintain a tradition. That was being challenged was as precarious as a fiddler trying to keep his balance while fiddling on a steeply pitched roof.
Now, again, we follow customs, and some of them are good, and there's nothing wrong with them. We have a custom in this church where we stand when we read the scriptures. Not every church follows that custom. In fact, the vast majority of churches in America do not follow that custom. It's rooted in the Old Testament practice when the law was rediscovered under the reform of Josiah, and Ezra had a platform built and the people stood almost all day as the scripture, the law, was read in their presence.
And they remained standing through the whole time.
So, if you're uncomfortable for standing for a minute, think of those people who had to stand for hours listening to the law. But it's a custom; it's not a commandment. But circumcision was not a human custom; it was not a human tradition. It was ordained by God. And was a law delivered to Abraham and to his seed, a law that defined the identity of the people of God, the whole Jewish nation.
What circumcision meant was this: and almost crass forms where the foreskin of the male's flesh was cut off, signifying two things—a double sanction. On the one hand, this. Tradition that God instituted in circumcision was speaking to the world, where God was saying, "I've taken this people, this nation, of all of the nations of the world, and I have set them apart. I have cut them out of the rest of the world to have a unique relationship with them." The second part of the symbol was from the human aspect, where the human member of the covenant, the Jewish male, was saying to God, "God, if I disobey Your covenant, may I be cut off from Your presence and from Your grace, just as the foreskin of my flesh." Has been cut off from me, so it was the identity of the Jew, both in the positive and the negative sense of the sanctions of blessing and curse. And how important was it to them?
You remember, in the days when David was a young boy, and the traditional enemy of the people of Israel. Were the Philistines, and the Philistines were at war with the Jewish people, and every day from one side of the mountain, the champion of the Philistines, this giant Goliath, would come down morning and night for forty days, and challenge in a loud voice the Jewish people and say, "Send me your champion, and I will fight him." Mono or mono, and if I defeat him, then your nation surrenders to us. And if you defeat me, your champion defeats me, then my people, the Philistines, will surrender to you. And every day, day in and day out, Goliath would announce that challenge. And what happened to the Jews?
They were paralyzed in fear. Nobody wanted to engage in combat with Goliath. And David, visiting the troops because one of his brothers was involved, bringing lunch to them, he hears this challenge coming from the lips of Goliath, and he can't believe what he's hearing. He sees his brothers. He sees the whole army of Israel.
Paralyzed in fear and refusing to answer the challenge, and what did the young boy say? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine who defies the people of God? David said, "Give me five smooth stones and my sling." And I'll challenge the giant of the enemy. Oh no, no, Saul! You're too young.
Oh, he finally said, "I'm going." They tried to put the armor of Saul, and it wouldn't fit. He said, "I don't need that armor. I come in the name of the God of Israel." And you know the rest of the story. But notice how David defined the situation. Who is this uncircumcised?
Philistine, who defies the people of God. This was the identity of Israel, two thousand years, and all of a sudden, the apostle to the Gentiles comes to the Galatian region and saying, "Even though God commanded Abraham and his seed to be circumcised, and when Moses failed or was tardy in circumcising his son, God sought to take his life." Now Paul's saying you don't have to have it. How can this be? The Galatians are saying we've always been circumcised, and if you want to be a Jew, you can't be one and be uncircumcised. And if you're going to bring the gospel to the Gentiles as you've brought it here, then we insist, as the party of the Jews.
That any convert to Judaism subject themselves then to circumcision.
Now, Paul comes to Jerusalem and he brings with him exhibit a uncircumcised Titus, and he recounts this narrative to the Galatians for their edification. When he said, "Hey." What about Titus? I brought Titus to Jerusalem. He wasn't circumcised when I brought him there, and when I consulted with the rest of the apostles, with James and John and Cephas, and when we left the right hand of fellowship, Titus was still not circumcised. Oh yes, I circumcised Timothy, but not Titus.
Why? I don't know about you, but when I was in second grade, I had a teacher named Mrs. Griefos. I'll never forget her. I didn't like her at all, and I raised my hand one day.
And she said, "R.C., what?" My name was R.C. when I was in second grade. She said, "What do you want, R.C.?" And I said, "Can I go to the restroom?" And Mrs. Griefos said, "R.C., I'm sure you can." But the question is not, "Can I?" But may I? This isn't a question about ability.
It's a question about permission.
Now let me ask this question. I've asked you this before. How many of you had Mrs. Griefos in the second grade? She was ubiquitous.
Every second grade in America had a Mrs. Grieffoss that would correct the child who would say "Can I" instead of "May I." Well, this was a similar matter here. Not the difference between ability and permission. It wasn't the difference between "Can" and "May." It was the difference between May, and must, all the difference in the world. Paul said, "With the fullness of time, when that Old Testament covenant was fulfilled, and Jesus changed the terms of the covenant at the Last Supper, the new sign of the covenant was baptism, not circumcision." So now the question is, what do we do with circumcision?
Paul says, now though it was obligatory to the Jew in the Old Testament and was a matter of must, now with the change in the fulfillment of redemptive history, it is now a thing indifferent. What is called audiophorus in the New Testament.
Now that the new covenant has arrived on the scene, you may continue with circumcision, just as like I circumcised Timothy. But it's not a law anymore. It's not obligatory. It's not binding on the Gentile convert to have to submit to circumcision. It's a matter of his indifference.
You may, but not that you must. Do you get the difference? And this is exactly what was going on here with the Galatians and their principle of circumcision. They wanted the may to be a must, and so Paul is saying it was indifferent. I know you've had a rich tradition, and that tradition was there for a reason.
But now that reason has been fulfilled. If you want to continue the old tradition, that's fine. But if you want to make it a requirement in order to enter the kingdom of God, then I'm going to resist you to the death. And so he says, because false brothers secretly were brought in who slipped in the spy on our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they may bring us into slavery. To them, we did not yield in submission, even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
Paul was all things to all men. When he was with the Jews, he dealt with the Jews as a Jew. When he was with the Gentiles, dealt with them as a Jew. In matters of indifference. But in matters of divine obligation, he would never submit himself to these acts of tyranny and legalism that would destroy or cast a shadow on the gospel and the liberty that comes with the gospel.
And he talks about those who were false brothers; that is, they weren't real brothers. They were Fauni brothers. They weren't converted Christians. They were unconverted, but they had their formal relationship to Judaism, and so they were fighting for this tyranny, and so they would spy out Paul's liberty, waiting for a gotcha moment, say, "Ah, ah, ah! I saw you circumcise Timothy." And now you won't circumcise Titus.
We caught you, Paul, in your inconsistency. And so they were trying to spy out his freedom. You see the point. I hear people say all the time that when we are called to obey the law of God, people will say that's legalism. I said, no, no, no, no, no.
Legalism is when you add. Laws that God never prescribed. Legalism is when you substitute salvation by the works of the law rather than by faith alone and by grace alone. But obedience to the law is not legalism. We're called to obey the law of God.
If and when we ever encounter, if you love me, Jesus said, "Keep my commandments." Now that we'll say for a later time when we give Paul's further exposition of the current significance of God's law. What laws are still in place? What laws have passed away? But in the meantime, the apostles were of one mind. Paul.
We recognize your call, your vocation. God has anointed you to be the apostle to the Gentiles. You be the apostle of the Gentiles, and we're standing with you that you are not to require the Gentiles to be circumcised. Paul says to Peter and James and those who were ministering to the Jews, yes, and you are apostles to Israel. And if you want to have them circumcised, that's fine, as long as it's not a law.
As long as we understand that we both have a responsibility to declare the gospel in its purity, with all of the freedom that is contained therein. And then he finishes this passage by saying that they all received the grace that had been given. They gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and to me, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they should go to the circumcised. They only asked us to remember the poor, which the apostle was happy to do. The gospel is the good news about salvation in Jesus, and one of the reasons that the gospel is good news is that we don't have to earn this salvation.
Christ is offered to sinful people freely as a gift, a gift that we receive by faith alone. I hope you've been encouraged by this study from the Book of Galatians today on Renewing Your Mind. The message that we just listened to was from R.C. Sproul's sermon series, and all of his sermons from that series have been compiled in his expository commentary on Galatians. You can receive the ebook edition of this commentary today when you make a donation in support of Renewing Your Mind.
Use the link in the podcast show notes to give, and let me thank you in advance for your generosity. What does it mean that Christians have been crucified with Christ? Find out next week as we continue our series on the Book of Galatians with Dr. Sprole here on Renewing Your Mind.
