He was introducing a form of legalism into the gospel. It wasn't a gospel of free grace. It wasn't a gospel that said, nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling. No, Peter was now singing a different song, something in my hands I bring.
He was bringing a plus. It was faith plus, and it was a damnable plus for Paul. When the gospel is at stake, R.C.
Sproul would often say, everything is at stake. And so throughout church history, there have been men who took bold stands in defense of the gospel. This was also true in the early church. As we continue this study of the life of Peter, we now come to the confrontation between Paul and Peter in Antioch.
Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and you're listening to Renewing Your Mind, a daily outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Throughout his ministry, R.C. Sproul sought to be crystal clear in his proclamation of the gospel, never wavering. The gospel we believe and proclaim must be preserved and reaffirmed in every generation. So today's message in this moment in the life of the Apostle Peter is a welcomed reminder for each of us to never compromise or even give the appearance of compromise. Here's Dr. Thomas as we continue our study of the life of Peter. Let's go back to Acts 11 and pick it up just where we left off.
And we're not going to spend more than half a minute here. In Acts 11 and verse 19, now those who are scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen, traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. And in verse 27, now in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them and one of them was named Agabus, and so on. Now I want you to flip over to Galatians chapter 2 and beginning at verse 11, because this incident took place in Antioch. It's hard, it's very hard to know when this incident in Galatians occurred chronologically, because it's not recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The issue will be about circumcision and food laws, something that was settled in the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. And therefore, this incident in Antioch in Galatians chapter 2 must take place before Acts 15. Otherwise, all they would need to do is to cite the agreement that they came to in the Jerusalem Council. So, this has to be before that.
But when exactly? Well, in Acts 12, 13, 14, leading up to the Jerusalem Council, it's all about Paul. It's all about his, the beginnings now of his importance, and Peter more or less disappears from the narrative. There is no mention of Peter after Acts chapter 12, which is the one that we'll be looking at in our next session. So, I think that what took place in Galatians took place somewhere around Acts 11 and Acts 12. I can't prove that, but that would be the logical thing. The problem is that we leave Peter in Acts 11, still in Jerusalem, and in Acts 12, he'll be back in Jerusalem.
But that's not a huge difficulty. He could have gone to Antioch for a season and then come back down to Jerusalem in Acts chapter 12, which will be the next session. So, let's read from Galatians 2 and verse 11. When Cephas came to Antioch, I, this is Paul, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was a man of the which will be the next session.
So, let's read from Galatians 2 and verse 11. When Cephas came to Antioch, I, this is Paul, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles.
But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas, before them all, if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews? We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. Yet, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So, we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified. Yet, but if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin?
Certainly not. For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I do not nullify the grace of God. For if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. This is a gospel issue in Antioch. Antioch will become the mission base for the early church.
It wouldn't be Jerusalem. It'll now be Antioch further north. It's from here that Paul will begin to go to Cyprus on his first missionary journey and then into the regions of Galatia and so on. It's about justification by faith, but it's about what is the relationship of justification, how we are saved, to obedience to the ceremonial law, and in particular, obedience to food laws and to circumcision. Chapter 2 of Galatians begins in Jerusalem, and it's fourteen years after Saul's conversion.
Now, Saul's conversion occurs in Acts chapter 8, and therefore the narratives of chapters 10 and 11 and 12 may occur, you know, maybe several years have passed, and Luke is condensing the story. And the issue is that you've got Paul and Barnabas and Titus on the one hand, and you've got James and Peter and John on the other hand. And the issue of Titus, the issue of Titus is that Titus wasn't asked to be circumcised.
He had a Jewish parent and a Gentile parent, and Paul does not insist that he be circumcised. Let's talk about spies, spies that have entered in. And are these spies the men of James that we read about now in verse 12? For before certain men came from James.
And what is the problem here? The problem is Peter's table manners. When Peter came to Antioch, and he might have been there several months before the delegation of James came, and we don't know whether James was there. He didn't speak, so probably wasn't, but it was his representatives that came from Jerusalem. But before they came, Peter had been eating with the Gentiles.
He'd been eating pork and bacon, and he had been bacon and shrimp, eating non-kosher food. But when the men of James came, the circumcision party from Jerusalem, the very ones that he had addressed in the first half of Acts chapter 11, and convinced them that it wasn't necessary to obey the kosher laws or to enforce circumcision, he stopped doing it. Imagine how offensive that would have been to the Gentile Christians in Antioch. You know, one day he's sitting with them, eating with them, joking with them, laughing with them, putting his arms around them.
They're one in Christ. And now the important people from Jerusalem, the influential people from Jerusalem, a delegation from James, the Lord's brother. And if Peter's future was going to be influential, James would have something to do with it, perhaps. Perhaps that's what Peter was thinking.
There's also the issue of Saul of Tarsus, who's now the apostle Paul. And all of a sudden, it's all about Paul. You know, you've been number one. You've been in the spotlight. You're the one that they've been coming to to ask questions about this and that.
And you are the one that has been giving the advice and so on. And now all of a sudden you're in the shadow. Your light seems to be waning. He had 30 more years of ministry before he would die, but all of a sudden he's no longer in the picture. Luke never mentions him.
He will soon disappear off the face of the map. And maybe, maybe we're reading between the lines here. Maybe he was fearful of the men of James. Maybe he was fearful of losing influence with James in Jerusalem. Maybe he was grieved. Maybe he had a chip on his shoulder. You know, Christians can have a chip on their shoulders.
They're not perfect. And why should Paul get all the attention? Who is this man? He comes out of nowhere, the one who'd been persecuting the church. You know, Peter was never going to be one of the missionaries in those phenomenal missionary tours that Paul engaged in, in planting churches in Asia Minor and Greece and elsewhere. So, he moves table. He only sits with the Jews. And all of a sudden he's eating kosher fruit. And Peter knew better. He knew better.
He'd argued the very opposite case. Christians still wrestle with issues of obedience to laws that are no longer necessary. In our time, it's over entertainment and alcohol and things like that.
But here, you've got the clash of the titans. You've got Paul against Peter. Paul says, I withstood him to his face and he did it publicly. Oh, I would love to have been there.
I'd love to have been a fly on the wall, just to see this moment. It must have been tense. There must have been a hush in the room. Because Paul is saying to Peter that he's denying the very essence of the gospel. In his behavior, he is denying the essence of the gospel. In his behavior, he is denying the very essence of the gospel. That's Paul's charge.
It's not that Peter's just being rude. Perhaps there was a meal to honor these men. It would be a several days journey from Jerusalem to Antioch. They would come, they'd refresh themselves, and then there would be a meal perhaps in someone's house. And now there's this change of behavior on Peter's part, and public was noticed. And Paul withstands him there and then in the room.
Can you imagine? They're putting their utensils down, and all of a sudden they overhear this clash between Paul and Peter. Between the mother church, that is, Jerusalem, and now this new, expanding, largely Gentile church in Antioch, and Paul and Peter.
It's all very surprising, given the fact that Peter had seen a vision in Joppa. He'd gone to Caesarea, to the centurion. He'd gone there to convince the centurion that he could be baptized without circumcision and without food loss.
He'd eaten with him. He'd gone to Jerusalem and explained himself and won the argument. And now, he seems on the very other side of the argument. Should Peter offend Jesus' brother or a few Gentiles in the church in Antioch, and he chooses the former rather than the latter? And for Paul, this was a denial of the gospel itself.
He had capitulated to the gospel itself. If you ask, why did Paul oppose Peter? Was it a clash of personalities? Well, there was certainly a clash of personalities.
They are very different personalities, to be sure. Paul is always right, and he has opinions about everything, and he wants you to know what those opinions are. But in this case, he certainly was right, because in the actions of Peter, what was Paul reading, and what were others in the room observing? That before you could be a Christian, you had to obey the works of the law. You had to obey these boundary markers of food loss and circumcision. That you cannot have an assurance of your salvation unless you add, in addition to faith in Christ and repentance, to the and repentance obedience to these laws.
So, it's faith plus obedience to the ceremonial law, or faith plus obedience to a part of the ceremonial law, and without it, you cannot be saved. Now, did Peter mean to say that? No.
No, of course not. Peter hadn't changed his mind about what the gospel was. It was fear. It was fear. Perhaps it was resentment.
Perhaps it was just fear of the loss of his status, and he capitulated, and he capitulated in a very visible and ugly way. And for Paul, well, he tells him, we're both Jews, verse 15. We ourselves are Jews by birth.
We're not Gentiles. Yet, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law. We know that, and Paul says we know that.
He knows that Peter knows that. It was his practice that was denying the gospel. He was introducing a form of legalism into the gospel. It wasn't a gospel of free grace. It wasn't a gospel that said, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Naked look to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace, foul eye to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die.
No. Peter was now singing a different song. Something in my hands I bring. Also, to thy cross I cling. He was bringing a plus. It was faith plus, and it was a damnable plus for Paul.
It was a damnable plus for Paul. It undermined it, took away, it pulled the rug from under the gospel itself. It took apart the very essence of the gospel, which is grace alone, grace alone. There's something here that reminds you, doesn't it, of the Reformation. There's something in this scene that sort of reminds you of Luther standing firm, here I stand, I can do no other. There's something here, and people have seen it.
There are those now in our time that deny all of this and that we've completely misunderstood these boundary markers of food laws and circumcision. But it seems to me crystal clear that what Paul is saying here is that if you insist that you have to, that you have to have Gentile circumcision, that you have to have obedience to kosher food, then you're introducing something in addition to free grace. It's grace plus works. It's grace plus my obedience. It's grace plus something in which I now invest assurance of salvation, and that without it, I cannot be saved.
It was that important. If I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. We have torn down the middle wall of partition. We have torn down the ceremonial law. We have torn down obedience to kosher foods and circumcision. But now you're building it up again, and you're building it up again in a manner that makes you and me a transgressor again. Because if my salvation depends upon obedience, I cannot be obedient.
I cannot be obedient enough, and therefore I'm back to being a transgressor again. If I'm going to be righteous in God's sight, it has to be by faith alone, apart from the works of the law. For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. And I think Paul now sees that in the visibility, the visual, that the visibility, the visual that Peter did in not eating with the Gentiles and eating with the Jews, that visual conveyed something much bigger than food loss and circumcision. It conveyed a return to obedience to the law in addition to faith as necessary for salvation, and that was damnable. That's why he did it publicly, because that might be what those in the room were now beginning to think, those less instructed than Paul, those with weaker consciences than Paul. And so, he had to do it publicly. Peter had done it publicly, so the rebuke had to be public. And it had to be stern, and it had to be swift, because the gospel was at stake. And I think Peter understood that.
It was yet another moment when Peter, you love him, you love him with all your heart. What a man! What a Christian! What a leader!
What an apostle! But he had feet of clay. In the moment, he could fumble. In a moment, he could yield to pride. In a moment, he could yield to a sense of self-importance, or the fear of the loss of it, the fear of status. And who knows what was going on in his mind? But what he did for Paul was to nullify the grace of God. If righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
It started off with just moving to another table. It started off with him refusing bacon, and it ends up being something that nullifies the grace of God and makes the death of Christ of no purpose. It was as important, it was as big, it was as consequential as that.
I would love to have been there, and maybe not. I imagine Peter had another recall of the time when he denied Jesus, and this almost seems to be as grievous an error. And maybe the reason why his ministry now fades from view. Although not the end of this study, we do only have one more message remaining in the series. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, and that was Derek Thomas from his teaching series on the life of Peter. Like Peter, you and I have feet of clay, to quote Dr. Thomas, so there is a lot for us to glean from Peter's life and ministry. This 19-message study and the study guide can be yours when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, or when you call us at 800 435 4343. Use it in an adult Sunday school or Bible study setting in 2025, or select the companion hardcover book as your New Year read, as we'll send you the book and unlock digital access to the series to thank you for your generosity when you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org, or by using the convenient link in the podcast show notes. If you'd like to highlight the content of this series, if you're a Bible study leader, or perhaps one of your pastors, be sure to share this past Monday's episode, which featured a conversation I had with Dr. Thomas about the series. Then request this resource bundle at renewingyourmind.org, but be quick as this offer ends tomorrow. Next time, Derek Thomas concludes this series on the life of Peter, so join us tomorrow here on Renewing Your Mind. you
