Galatians Chapter 2 — Chip Brogden

Hello again, everyone. This is Chip Brogden welcoming you to another edition of our webcast. We're streaming online at www .watchman .net. And we are continuing our study this week in the book of Galatians.

The Christian Under Law or Grace

So if you would take your Bible and join me in the book of Galatians, chapter 1. Last week we came up just short of the end of chapter 1. So we're going to pick up where we left off and hopefully make it all the way through to the end of chapter 2 this week.

I am excited to be doing this study. I'm looking forward to it. We just are getting into the depth of Galatians. And the question before us is, a Christian under the law or under grace? And it's a valid question.

I get lots of inquiries on a weekly basis along the lines of keeping the Old Testament law. The Ten Commandments or the holy days and the feasts and tithing and all of these elements of the Old Testament law.

And the question is, are they applicable to Christians today who are saved by grace and living according to the Spirit? Well, that's not a new dilemma. That's not a new issue at all. It's something that has been debated and argued and asked about ever since the beginning of the church here.

And Paul gives us a foundation, thankfully, in the Word that shows us how we are to respond and relate to the Old Testament law. The Mosaic law, the books of Moses. And so what we are endeavoring to show here and what Paul is trying to teach to the Galatians is that we are saved by grace.

And that Christ, not only has He fulfilled the law, but He has gone beyond even what the law requires. And the work of Christ is a work that is done in us, bringing us into conformity to Him. And it is not the outward regulation of our behavior or our activities.

Do we eat or do we not eat? Where do we go? How do we dress? Religion is mainly concerned with the outward appearance of things. But in this new covenant where Jesus is our high priest and He lives within us, He is more interested on the inside.

So He works with us from the inside out. But it is real tempting, I suppose, when you are in an atmosphere of religious works and in an atmosphere where the outward appearance seems to be more important, that people tend to put themselves into bondage.

And I would say they tend to put themselves into unnecessary bondage. And that is exactly what happened to the Galatians. Now, of course, you know the Galatians were not Jews. They came to faith in Christ and they were Gentiles.

And again, the background of this letter, the occasion under which Paul is writing this letter to them, these people had become Christians, they had come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And as soon as they were just getting started in their Christian walk, some Jews from Jerusalem came up and paid them a visit and said, pretty much, we are glad that you have received Jesus.

We have received Jesus also. We believe He is the Messiah and He is the Son of God. We are happy that you believe. And now that you are believers in Jesus, here are these lists of rules and regulations from the Mosaic Law, the commandments of Moses.

And it would really make us happy if you would begin to obey these laws and these commandments. And in fact, what we would like you to do is to go ahead and be circumcised and become Jewish in addition to the faith that you are proclaiming in Christ.

Now, that may not sound like a very big problem, but Paul saw it as falling away from the simplicity of Christ. And remember in verse 6 of chapter 1, he says, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel.

And this is exactly the same pattern we see repeating over and over again in the lives of Christians who have come to the Lord, who are trusting in the Lord for salvation. And yet there is that pull and that attraction to go back and to study and to put themselves underneath the yoke of something from the Old Testament and use that as a means to please God.

And basically, Paul is saying that Christ has come and He has set us free from the law. He has set us free from the outward regulations of the law. And it's simply not necessary to go back and put ourselves underneath that law.

And does that mean that we are lawless now? We will see as we progress on through Galatians that no, there is a new law at work, but it is not the old law. It is a new law of the Spirit who is working within us and conforming us to the image of Christ.

And we will see that as we progress along, but that is the background to Galatians. So Paul, to begin with, he says that he is called by God. He is not called by man. He is not trying to please man. And the gospel that he preaches is not from man.

He didn't learn it from man, but he says it is the revelation of Jesus Christ. We are going to pick up right here in verse 15. But before I go any further, we should probably stop and pray and ask the Lord to bless this time that we have together in the Word.

Prayer for Spiritual Understanding

Father, thank You for Your Word. And I thank You, Lord, for everyone that is listening to this. I pray, Holy Spirit, that You would open the eyes of our heart. Open the eyes of our understanding. Open our minds, Lord, and just deliver us from our expectations.

Deliver us from our preconceived ideas. All these arguments and all these thoughts that would tend to rise up and fight against what is being said before it has even really been declared. Lord, just wipe the slate clean right now.

And open our hearts to receive Spirit and truth. Open our hearts to receive Your Word, which is Spirit and life. As we study these scriptures together, Father, I thank You for the Holy Spirit who was given to lead us into Christ.

And so I pray, Lord, that we would see Christ in this teaching. That we would see Christ in these words. That these words would lift themselves off of the page, so to speak, and would penetrate our heart, penetrate our spirit, where they can do us some good.

Thank You, Father, for the gift of Christ. And thank You, Lord, for the Holy Spirit who leads us and teaches us all things. And I thank You again for the many people around the world who are listening and hopefully benefiting and hopefully seeing Christ increased as a result of this study.

Thank You, Father, we commit this time to You. In Jesus' name, Amen. So, Galatians chapter 1, and to maintain the continuity here, let's begin reading in verse 15. Paul says, But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace.

Paul's Gospel Revealed by God

Now, see, grace is a theme that you're going to see throughout the book of Galatians. And you've already seen grace, grace, grace, as opposed to law, the law, the commandments. So, When it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.

I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood. We've already spoken at length last week of how God reveals the Son to us by His Spirit. And it is not a flesh and blood revelation, but it is a spirit and truth revelation.

So, if you still have questions or you don't quite understand that, I encourage you to go back and listen to last week's message because it will help you. Verse 17, He says, Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went to Arabia and returned again to Damascus.

And all He's trying to do here, folks, is just establish the fact that He did not get His message from some other apostle or from some group in Jerusalem. And the reason it's important that He establishes this is because the people coming behind Him were saying, Well, this is what Paul preaches.

He's just preaching the same thing that we're preaching. And that was certainly not the case. So, Paul had to really go back and establish the fact that he is called by God. He didn't get his teaching from Jerusalem or from the Jews.

In fact, the difference between the Jews and Paul is the difference between night and day. In fact, the Jews were trying to kill Paul because they saw him as an apostate, someone who had turned from the Jewish faith, who not only preached Jesus, but was preaching that you no longer had to live under or obey the commandments, the law of Moses.

And again, as we get into this, you're going to see that the law of Moses was directed to the outward, whereas the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is directed to us inwardly. It is a spiritual thing that the Lord is working deeply within us, and He's not so much concerned about the outward.

He is working from the inside out, whereas religion and even the Mosaic law was trying to regulate people from the outside in. We'll see that as we go on, but verse 18 of Galatians 1, then Paul says, After three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him fifteen days.

But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother. Now concerning the things which I write to you indeed before God, I do not lie. Afterward I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ.

See, he had no contact with any of these people that were coming behind him saying, We're preaching the same thing Paul is preaching, and Paul is saying that you need to be circumcised, okay? Which was not the case.

Verse 23, But they were hearing only, He who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy, and they glorify God in me. Okay, so that's the end of Galatians 1. Now, again, folks, Paul did not write in chapter and verse, they are just added for our convenience.

Paul's Independence and the Jerusalem Meeting

So, he's continuing in the same line of thought, giving his background. Chapter 2, verse 1,. Then after fourteen years, he says, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and also took Titus with me, and I went up by revelation and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I might run or had run in vain.

So, see, Paul had already gone out by this time, and had preached the gospel of Christ, and had seen people run to the Lord, he had seen disciples get turned on to the Lord, he had seen churches being established as disciples began to gather together, and so he's already out there in the thick of it.

It's only after fourteen years that he actually goes up to Jerusalem and meets with the leadership, if you will, and kind of compares notes just to make sure that he's on the right track. But see, the point is, folks, he heard from God and he obeyed God.

He didn't go get permission from someone to do what God had called him to do. When you have that revelation of Christ, and you know that God is speaking to you, you don't have to have confirmation from a lot of other people.

Yeah, there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors, and for most people I would say, yes, you need to check with other people, but sometimes the Lord just moves on you, and you just have to do what you know you have to do.

And I think that in this particular case, if Paul had a fear of man, and he was always looking for man's approval and looking to see what everyone else thought, and he always had his finger up in the wind to see which way the wind was blowing like a politician would, and he's on this side of the issue one day depending on who he's preaching to, and the next day he's all over in a different side of the issue depending on who's in front of him.

If that was the case, I think he would have just been swept away with everyone else's opinion. And we're going to see that there is value in hearing from the Lord directly. And if there's anything I think that we really need to grab hold of these days, it is that.

The ability to get before God and hear from God for ourselves. You know, the prophetic word is primarily intended, first of all, to bring forth the testimony of Jesus, to speak forth the truth concerning Jesus.

But a personal word of prophecy or a prophetic word directed to an individual person, you know, it really should be confirmation to what God is already speaking to you directly. And if not, then that prophet or that prophetic word begins to take the place of the Holy Spirit in your life, and that's out of balance.

So thank the Lord that Paul, he was humble enough to listen to others, but he was smart enough to take his direction from the Lord. And we need to just learn how to get before God, hear from Him, and go.

And if the rest of the world doesn't understand or comes against us or fights us, even if other brothers and sisters don't understand us, well, you know, you'll just have to be misunderstood. That's part of the work of the cross, but you cannot go through your whole life trying to get the approval and the permission of other people to do what the Lord has called you to do.

You have got to be delivered from the fear of man. In fact, there is an article on my website called Fear No Man, and I encourage you to check out that article and read it and apply it to your life because I think it will be beneficial to you, and it will help you to see where this fear of man comes from.

It will help you to deal with that and remove that so that you can move past that and be fruitful. And so Paul, he says, it was only after 14 years that I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and also took Titus with me.

And I went up, verse 2, chapter 2, I went up by revelation, and I communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles but privately to those who were of reputation lest by any means I might run or had run in vain.

Freedom from Legalistic Circumcision

Now verse 3, yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in. Now Paul is getting pretty direct here.

He says, this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into bondage. And you can actually go back in the book of Acts and read about this little confrontation where Paul is there along with all the other apostles.

And then it says that some Jews stood up who used to be Pharisees who were now Christians but they were saying that unless you keep the laws of Moses and you're circumcised you can't be saved. And so that started this big debate.

Well, is a Christian who believes in Jesus obligated to the Mosaic law? What is a Christian's obligation to the Old Testament law? The commandments of Moses and all the Jewish festivals and the holidays, the holy days and all the requirements of the law.

Paul calls them false brothers who snuck in to spy out on the liberty we have in Christ that they might bring us into bondage. So he is pretty adamant about not going back into an observance of the Jewish laws.

He calls it a return to bondage. So in verse 5 he says,. We did not yield submission even for an hour that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. He just continued steadfast to hold to the grace of Jesus.

Grace, by grace you are saved, he told the Ephesians. And here he is saying it is by grace, it is through faith and it is not through a righteousness that comes by keeping the law. In verse 6,. But from those who seem to be something, whatever they were, it makes no difference to me.

God shows personal favoritism to no man. And that is just an interesting little aside there again to demonstrate that Paul is saying, look, I went up to Jerusalem, I spoke to the other apostles, I shared this gospel with them and they accepted it and we were in agreement.

And he says, you know, I am glad that I have their endorsement, but I really don't need their endorsement. I just like the way that he puts that. Whatever they were, it makes no difference to me. Okay, so, verse 7,.

But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter. In other words, they understood that Paul was called to go to the Gentiles, just as Peter was called to go to the Jews.

Verse 8,. For he who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles. See, and again, if the Spirit of God is flowing through someone and you see the Spirit of God being poured out on these Gentiles, then how can you deny that God is in fact endorsing the gospel that is being proclaimed to them?

Peter, Cornelius, and the Inclusion of the Gentiles

And that's the lesson that Peter had to learn. Remember when he went down to the house of Cornelius? Do you remember how he got there? He had a vision. He was praying. And three times this sheet was let down out of heaven with all kinds of unclean animals in it.

Animals that were not lawful for a Jew to eat. And three times this sheet came down with all of the animals in there. And a voice from heaven said, Rise Peter, kill and eat. And Peter said, Not so, Lord.

Oh, I've never eaten anything that was contrary to the Jewish laws. I've never eaten anything unclean like that. And that voice spoke to Peter and said, What the Lord has cleansed, don't call unclean.

And this happened three times. And then you know the story. The Holy Spirit led him to go to the house of Cornelius, to a home where there were uncircumcised Gentiles who knew nothing and cared nothing for the Jewish laws.

And while Peter preached Jesus to them, the Holy Spirit came and fell on them and filled them and saved them. And they became disciples of Jesus. And Peter went back to Jerusalem and everyone, all the Jews criticized him.

And he said, Look, I went and I preached Jesus to them. The Holy Spirit came and filled them just as he did us in the beginning. And if the Holy Spirit came and filled them, then who was I to argue with God?

And so that's when they finally understood that God is not a God for the Jews only, but He is the Savior of all men. He is a light to the Gentiles. And it is just as much for the Jew and the Gentile and the Greek and everyone else, male or female.

We'll see that as we go on. See, Paul had a vision of a universal Jesus, a Jesus who was not restricted just to being a Jewish Messiah, the Savior of Israel. And that's really what they had in mind. But Paul had this revelation of Christ as the Savior of the whole world, the Savior of the Jews, Savior of the Gentiles, Roman, Greek, male, female, slave or free.

It didn't make any difference because He is the Savior of all, the Son of Man who takes away the sins of the world. So, Paul says, verse 9,. And when James, Cephas, another name for Peter, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.

They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do. Now, look at this, verse 11. Now, when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed.

Paul Rebukes Peter for Hypocrisy

Isn't that something? Verse 12,. Now, see, understand Jews were not supposed to eat with Gentiles. And understand that when Peter came up from Jerusalem, he was eating with the Gentiles. Antioch, if you'll recall, was the first fellowship of Christians established outside of Jerusalem, outside of Judaism.

Here are these Gentiles in Antioch, which began to believe on the Lord Jesus, and they became Christians. I'm not saying all of the believers in Antioch were Gentiles, but the majority of them were. And so Peter came up, and he was eating with them, which a Jew was not supposed to do.

But they were meeting around the grounds of Christ, the fellowship of Christ, and not Jew and Gentile. So those distinctions were torn down. It says, but, here's the problem Paul had with Peter in this particular instance.

When certain men came from James, came up from Jerusalem, he withdrew and separated himself because he was afraid. See, there's Peter, some of that old Peter coming back. But Paul wouldn't stand for it.

Well, verse 13, and the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. Do you see the hypocrisy here? If you don't see the problem here, re-read this passage several times, and you just pray through it and you see.

You can draw your own correlations, hopefully, and the Lord will show you. But see, here's Paul's point in verse 14. See, Paul, because he has no fear of man, he knows God is no respecter of persons, and whereas most people would just fall to the ground before Peter, Paul's not about to do that.

If it's Peter, or if it's Barnabas, or if it's James, or even if it's an angel from heaven preaching something different, or not standing up rightly according to the truth of the gospel, Paul is going to stand up and call them and hold them to account and thank God.

I don't see anybody else in Antioch that stood up and confronted the situation. I guess they were intimidated. But thank the Lord that Paul had the love. See, Jesus says, those whom I love I rebuke and chasten, and that's exactly what Paul is doing here.

And he spoke to Peter, because they were all kind of following Peter in this hypocrisy, but in rebuking Peter before them all. He didn't pull him aside. He didn't take him into a back room. He's just right there in front of everybody, because his sin was done before everyone, and so his rebuke was carried out in front of everyone so that they would all learn.

And what did Paul say? He says, if you're a Jew and you live like a Gentile and not as the Jews, then why are you trying to compel the Gentiles to be like Jews? See, and that's the issue. Now look at this in verse 15.

Justification by Faith Apart from Works

We who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles, we know that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

Do you see this? By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are also found sinners. Is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not.

Verse 18, for if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19, for I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. Died to the law. And here is, in verse 20, a very familiar verse, but as you'll see here, it's only the summation of everything that has been said up to this point.

Paul, how can you say that you are free from the law? How can you say that we don't have to follow the law at all? How can you say that the Mosaic law has no application to us as Christians, as spirit-filled believers in Jesus?

Paul says, I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. And then verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Hallelujah. Not I, but Christ.

Living Under Grace Through the Cross

And not only does he explain why and how and that we have been delivered from the law, but he also gives us the secret for living as people under grace. Grace. To live under grace means to live by the cross of Christ.

It does not mean casting off the law and living any way that you please. And that's where people who want to bring you under the law, they do it in reaction to people who throw off the law altogether and say, I'm free in Christ.

I can do whatever I want to do. I'm not under law. I'm under grace. So if I want to go out and drink and smoke and chew and beat my wife, it doesn't matter because I am free in Christ. Is that what free in Christ means?

If that's what you think it means, then you are sadly mistaken. But the answer, see, Paul says, is I'm crucified with Christ. See, you are free from the law when you take up the cross and die to the law because you die to yourself.

And only those who have died can live again and live under the grace and the power and the authority of Christ. See, he says, it is no longer I who live. It is Christ who lives in me. Hallelujah. Well, we are not quite to the end of chapter 2, but I just feel like we should stop right there and pick up and say some more about that next week.

So we're going to stop it right there for now and come back to it next week. But praise the Lord. I am crucified with Christ. That's a good place to stop and just meditate on here for the next several days.

I want to let you know that we are coming to the Dallas-Fort Worth area the second weekend in June to conduct another School of Christ. And so if you are in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area, or you have a way to get to that area and you'd be interested in attending that School of Christ, we would love to see you.

Just stay tuned to this webcast and to the email list where you will eventually get some updated information from us. So if you want to be a part of that, just be praying about that. And we would love to see you.

This is Chip Brogdon, streaming online at www .watchman .net. You can send us email at info at watchman .net. And until next time, God bless you. And we look forward to continuing in our study of Galatians with you next week.