(Chap. 2:1-10.)

(Continued from page 240.)

It is altogether likely that the perverters of the gospel among the Christians of Galatia, claimed that the gospel which they preached was identical with that preached by those at Jerusalem whom the risen Lord had put in the apostolic office. They sought to give the impression that, in what they were teaching and insisting on as the truth, they had the full approval and sanction of those who were held in honor by the saints of Jerusalem.

Such pretensions and claims are thoroughly exposed and proven to be false in chapter 2:i-io. Paul shows most convincingly that the leaders in the work of God among the circumcision were fully acquainted with the form in which he preached the gospel among the uncircumcised; that they had recognized his mission to the Gentiles as of God, and had unreservedly and heartily expressed their fellowship with him in the work he was doing. He makes it perfectly plain that the men of "reputation " at Jerusalem had authoritatively declared that what he was preaching among the Gentiles was the truth of God. He very conclusively proves that those who had received their commission from the risen Lord were not at the back of these men, whom he has denounced as troublers:and that the gospel which they were preaching was in no sense identical with the gospel which the apostles and elders of Jerusalem were proclaiming.

The history of the work of God as carried on by the twelve, and as recorded in the Acts, is ample confirmation of everything the apostle Paul is here insisting on. On the day of Pentecost, in Acts 2, Peter, as one of those who, according to Luke 24:47, were to proclaim "repentance and remission of sins in Christ's name," did not insist on circumcision and keeping the law of Moses. He proclaims there what the twelve had been authorized to preach among all nations. True, he was not there preaching to Gentiles directly, but indirectly he was. The great point to be observed is, they were beginning there at Jerusalem to preach the gospel which they were to preach among all the nations.

I may pause here to ask:If the risen Lord Jesus authorized His disciples to preach the gospel among all the nations, is it supposable that in committing the gospel to Paul later, whatever distinctive features might be given to it, it would be inconsistent with, or contradictory to, the gospel already authorized ? No; we would expect, whatever the distinctive features of the form given to the gospel in each commission, to find perfect harmony-no disagreement, no antagonism. Such is the case, as we shall see.

Returning to the record of the Acts, we may inquire, Was the gospel of "repentance and remission of sins in the name of Christ" the gospel that was preached in Samaria ? It was not the apostles of Jerusalem who first carried the gospel to Samaria. In chapter 8 :5 we read it was Philip who first " preached Christ" there. Now there is nothing to show that Philip had received directly from the Lord, as the twelve apostles had, a deposit of truth. However, energized by the Spirit in going to Samaria, it is evident the gospel he carried there must have been the gospel of the twelve apostles. It was, then, the gospel of "repentance and remission of sins in the name of Christ"-a gospel in which there was no insistence on circumcision and keeping the law of Moses.
But if the gospel of "repentance and remission of sins" was to be preached "in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria" (Acts i:8), it was also to be preached among the Gentiles, even to "the uttermost part of the earth." Accordingly, in chapter 10 it is recorded that Peter preaches it in the house of the Gentile centurion Cornelius. In doing so the testimony of "all the prophets" is appealed to, to show that "whosoever believes " in the crucified and risen Christ "shall receive the remission of sins." He does not therefore insist on circumcision and keeping the law of Moses. In chapter n, when charged with going in to men uncircumcised, and eating with them (verse 3), his defense is so unanswerable that his accusers agree that God has undoubtedly "granted repentance unto life" to the Gentiles, and there is no forcing the Gentile converts to be circumcised, no binding upon them the yoke of the law.

In this brief summary of the record of the preaching of the gospel that was given to the twelve, and which they were to proclaim everywhere, there is absolutely nothing to show that it was identical with the perverted gospel these "troublers" were preaching in Galatia.

If now we turn to Acts 13, where we find a record of the preaching of Paul, we shall see that he too preached, as did the twelve, the remission of sins in the name of Christ (verse 38). In verse 39 we find a feature not found in the gospel as the twelve preached it-a feature distinctive of the gospel as preached by Paul. "Justification-" a judicial clearance of the very charge of sins-is not a characteristic of the gospel as preached by those who received their commission from the risen Lord while He was yet upon the earth. But even though Paul's gospel contains this new and distinctive feature, it in no way annuls the gospel of the twelve. The two commissions-theirs and his-are in no sense contradictory or antagonistic.

In Acts 15 we find there was question raised at Antioch as to the gospel that Paul was preaching among the Gentiles. Certain men from Judaea, entirely without the approval of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, had come to Antioch and were insisting that the gospel as Paul was preaching it was defective. They thought it needed to be revised and corrected. They would have modified it to make it include circumcision and keeping the law of Moses as an essential requirement to salvation. Paul and Barnabas earnestly contended against this. In their minds it was a blow aimed at the very fundamental character of the gospel. They therefore strenuously resisted the Judaizers.

We may well presume that these "men from Judaea " claimed to be the representatives of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem; that they were teaching as the apostles and elders taught, and were only asking Paul to make his gospel conform to theirs. They would maintain that priority belonged to the twelve. If they could not altogether deny Paul's call, they would probably maintain that his call and authority were secondary, and he ought therefore to conform his gospel to theirs-to their perversion of it. The questions of the divine origin of Paul's call, of his entire independence of the twelve, and the divine authority of the gospel which he was preaching, being thus raised, Paul would naturally feel the-importance of an authoritative declaration on the part of the twelve, or some of them who could speak as representing them. Whether the proposal to take the matter to the apostles and elders at Jerusalem was first made by Paul or by the Judaizers, it was arranged that it should be done.

It is evident that Paul's consent to refer the questions under discussion to the apostles at Jerusalem was in no sense a concession that possibly he might be mistaken in regard to the matter. In the first place, he knew from whom he had received his commission. He could not have any doubt as to the authority under which he was preaching the gospel among the Gentiles. Secondly, he knew he had learned the gospel directly from the Lord Himself. It would be impossible for him to doubt that he was preaching a divinely-authorized gospel. Thirdly, he had already visited Jerusalem twice since his conversion. He could appeal to the fact that during his fifteen days' visit with Peter neither Peter nor he discovered anything conflicting in the commissions they had respectively received; and he would recall that on his second visit (the record of which we find in Acts ii:27-30; see, also, 12:25) there was not even a whisper of any antagonism between himself and the twelve. Up to this time all was harmony- nothing but the most frank and hearty fellowship. Fourthly, as he tells us in Gal. 2:2, God had come in, giving him a revelation, so that he was assured that God was guiding in that matter. He went up to Jerusalem, then, as counting on God to expose the pretensions and claims of the Judaizers; as expecting that the very ones who had been represented as opposed to the form of the gospel which he was preaching would give an authoritative declaration of its divine origin. It is in place to add that Paul was also encouraged by the joy of the brethren in Phenicia and Samaria, through which countries he was passing on his way to Jerusalem, as he declared to them the conversion of the Gentiles through the gospel he was preaching (Acts 15:3).

In Acts 15 :4-29 we have the record of the consideration of the matter at Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas were welcomed by the assembly, to whom they gave a report of the work of God among the Gentiles; also, that certain men, still undelivered from their former pharisaism, were objecting and urging that it must be required of the Gentiles to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses.

Now the issue thus raised was a very plain one. Did the commission the Lord gave to the twelve when He authorized them to preach "repentance and remission of sins" in Jerusalem, in Judaea, in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth, involve compelling the Gentiles to be circumcised? Did it authorize the twelve to impose the law of Moses on them ? Were the elders charged (as they were with the oversight in the assembly, and their responsibility to guide in the order established by the apostles) to see to it that no Gentile be allowed full Christian fellowship except upon the condition that he submit to being circumcised cmd wear the yoke of the law? The apostles and elders therefore meet to discuss and decide this great and important question.

Now Peter, one of the twelve, emphatically insists that God puts no difference between the Jews and the Gentiles in the matter of salvation (verse 9)-a fact God Himself has demonstrated by the gift of the same Spirit to both "them" and "us." He appeals then to what the believing Jews well knew; that they themselves were not saved through circumcision and law-works, but "through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ," and urges that the Gentiles are saved after the same pattern-in the same way (verse n, see Greek). The gospel, preached by Peter, then, was not identical with the preaching of the Judaizers.

Paul and Barnabas then show that God has approved them and the gospel they preached by bestowing upon them the same signs by which He had attested the apostleship of the twelve (verse 12).

James then, another representative of the twelve, declares it is evident God is calling out from among the Gentiles a people for His name (verse 14). He further shows that the testimony of the prophets fully confirms this (verses 15-17). He then authoritatively decides that the Gentiles are not to be troubled. The deposit of truth which they have received is thus declared to involve in no way the insistence upon circumcision and works of law as a condition to a Gentile being saved. A letter to this effect is written and sent to the Gentile Christians at Antioch, in Syria and in Cilicia, assuring them that the men of Judaea who were troubling them by insisting on their being circumcised and keeping the law had no authority, were in no way their representatives. Their preaching was thus shown not to be apostolic preaching, and had not the sanction and fellowship of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. C. Crain

(To be continued.)