(Chap. 2 :1-10.)

(Continued from page 267.)

The decision of the controversy that had arisen at Antioch over the question, Shall the Gentiles be compelled to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses ? left the authority under which Paul was preaching untouched. He continued his mission among the Gentiles, and preached still the same gospel, carrying it into new districts. Galatia was visited by him twice at least (Acts 16:6 and 18:23). He had introduced Christianity there. The Galatians had heard the gospel from his lips; they had received it as he preached it. Through believing and receiving the gospel he brought to them, much suffering had come upon them on its account (chap. 3:4); yet they had so realized its wondrous power that they had spoken of its blessedness (chap. 4:15) until troubling Judaizers had disturbed them.

As already said, these troublers had probably pressed that Paul's gospel was defective, that it needed to be revised and corrected, that they represented those whose authority was higher than Paul's. It was necessary that their representations and claims should be exposed and disproved. To do this, the apostle narrates here (chap. 2:i-10) a number of facts which his third visit to Jerusalem established as being beyond question. In acquainting the Galatian saints with these facts, he proved to them that all the questions these troublers were raising, as to the authority and the authenticity of the gospel he preached, its recognition as of God by the twelve and their fellowship with him in his mission to the Gentiles, had been authoritatively decided. The apostle's arguments with which to convince the Galatians of their error in listening to the pretensions and in believing the claims of the Judaizers, are unanswerable. Let us look at them.

First, he assures them that when he went up to Jerusalem to discuss with the twelve these very questions, he took special pains to make the issue a very practical one. He says, '' I took with me Titus," a Gentile convert (verse i). He took him as one whom he associated with, as entitled to full Christian fellowship. Being a believer through the gospel which Paul had preached, Titus was uncircumcised. Paul made it thus a matter of their deciding definitely whether they would allow him to be entitled to full Christian fellowship. Thus it was not a mere theory they discussed-something they might or might not have occasion to carry out in practice. The question was, Shall Titus, an uncircumcised Gentile, be allowed full Christian fellowship ?

In the second place (verse 2), he informs the Galatians that in going thus with Titus (making it a question of deciding as to their practice) he was acting under God's guidance. This is a very important point. If God revealed to Paul that it was His will for him to take Titus and go and discuss with the twelve the question of his right to full Christian fellowship, it is evident that God was forcing the matter to a definite and authoritative decision. Were not the Galatians responsible to respect and abide by a decision God had forced the apostles to make ? Are not we also bound to accept that decision as being God's will ? It certainly was an authoritative judgment-a judgment to which the authority of God attaches. Saints who, by whatever influences, insist on law-works, on human efforts, as a condition of salvation, are antagonizing the will of God authoritatively revealed.

In the third place, Paul fully acquainted the apostles at Jerusalem with the gospel he preached among the Gentiles. He is here appealing to the fact that it cannot be truthfully said that the apostles and elders were in ignorance of his gospel. He is showing they had very precise knowledge of it; and, furthermore, that since he himself had laid the information before them their decision as to it was not based on unreliable testimony. There can be no question as to their authority to declare whether Paul's gospel was in conflict with their own; neither can there be any question as to whether, in doing so, they were in possession of trustworthy testimony as to what Paul preached.

Fourthly, he shows that he was specially careful about making it a matter for a decision by those who could speak with authority. He was anxious not to run in vain. He did not want men who had privily crept in to spy out Christian liberty so as to the more effectually subject Christians to bondage- men who had no call from God, who had received no commission from Him, therefore without authority, to decide the matter. It was an authoritative declaration of the will of God Paul wanted. Accordingly he went to the divinely-commissioned apostles by themselves. They were the ones who had received the truth directly from the risen Lord. He made sure that the decision of the questions that had been raised as to himself and his mission should be in their hands. He did not subject himself, "not even for an hour," to any who were not authoritative exponents of the truth, who could not appeal to the fact that they had received directly from the Lord that which it was their responsibility to maintain. The apostles realized that the Judaizers were striking a blow at the very foundations of Christianity, and felt the need of an authoritative judgment. Only so could the truth be preserved. What a strong argument to bring to bear upon the Galatians !

In the fifth place, let us notice that he informs them that Titus was not compelled to be circumcised (verse 3). These men of reputation at Jerusalem, with authority from the Lord, permitted Titus to associate with them as one entitled to full Christian fellowship without forcing him to be circumcised, and without subjecting him to the yoke of the law. Here the apostle is appealing to a sample of the practice of the twelve. If the troublers were telling the Galatian saints that the practice of the men of authority at Jerusalem was to circumcise the Gentile believers (which they very likely did), the apostle is showing that, of his own knowledge, he is certain the practice of the twelve has not been as was represented. Furthermore, this act of the apostles at Jerusalem, in granting to the uncircumcised Titus the privilege of full Christian fellowship, was an authoritative decision as to what Christian practice was to be. It was something more than a mere precedent; it was an act to be received as a declaration of the will of God-the establishment of a practice having God's sanction. What a complete refutation of the unfounded assumptions and claims of Judaizers, whether those of apostolic days or our own!

Sixth. In the sixth verse Paul bears witness to the fact that at this conference with the apostles at Jerusalem he had nothing to learn from them. They added nothing to him. They did not so much as suggest that his gospel was defective, or that it needed to be corrected. He was not asked to revise it in any particular. There was nothing in the truth committed to them that was not implied or involved in what he had already received from the Lord. A comparison of the message which they were commanded to proclaim with the message given him to declare did not reveal any antagonism at any point. There was perfect harmony; there was no demand on their part that he should at all modify the gospel which he had been preaching-a telling point; an unanswerable argument.

Seventh :they thoroughly recognized that the gospel Paul was preaching among the Gentiles had been authoritatively committed to him (verses 7 and 8), and that his apostleship stood on ground quite independent of themselves; that if they were divinely authorized apostles, so also had he been called of God and honored with the apostolic office. God had given him to do the same signs and miracles He had given them, and thus He had attested him as being one whom He had set in the place of authority. This could not be denied; nor could the significance of it be resisted. To the question, Has Paul been divinely constituted an apostle ? they could only answer, It is perfectly plain that he has been. If it were asked, Has a deposit of truth been given to him ? the only answer they could give was, It is very evident there has been. And if the question was raised, Must not his apostleship be subordinated to theirs ? they had to admit that he was divinely appointed in absolute independence of them-and they fully recognized it.

Furthermore, in the eighth place, in verse 9, Paul points out another fact of tremendous import. He says, These pillars of the church at Jerusalem seeing that special grace had been given to me, frankly gave me the right hand of fellowship. By this act the apostles at Jerusalem declared themselves to be in full accord with him in his special mission among the Gentiles. They thus said, We unhesitatingly give you and the mission you are carrying on the expression of our recognition, both as a divinely-called apostle, and of your gospel as what you have authoritatively received from the Lord.

Finally, the apostle says, The only matter as to which these pillars at Jerusalem expressed concern was the subject of ministering to the poor. I suppose we are to see in this an expression of their conception of the character of the grace which God is bestowing on Gentiles. In their minds it did not mean license and self-indulgence. To them the free grace of God stamped its own character upon its recipients. They wished it to be understood that in commending and indorsing the gospel as a proclamation of salvation by grace through faith, to be preached everywhere without conditions attached to it, without insistence on the principle of law-works, they were doing so as maintaining that the gospel must be without the suspicion of any taint of unholiness.

That they were not exceeding their apostolic authority in so declaring their idea of the character of the gospel they were indorsing, I think, may be fully allowed. It was right and proper that as apostles they should clear themselves of any complicity with a gospel that lacks the true power of transformation.

In this light then we may regard this suggestion to Paul, that it is incumbent on him to remember the poor, as an authoritative expression of the real character of the gospel and the grace it proclaims. The need of this expression, who that has preached the gospel and realized how men naturally mistake its character, will not recognize ? Universally, unless the heart is laid hold of by the real power of grace, men turn it to license; but such license has not apostolic authority-neither that of Paul, nor of the twelve.

Now if we consider the full import of these facts so forcefully set forth by the apostle for the consideration of the Galatian Christians, it is evident that every pretension, claim, or argument, which the perverters of the gospel must have made to win the Galatians over to their cause, could have no foundation whatever. Their arguments were pure assumptions. They could not cite a single fact in demonstration of their claims. The movement in Galatia in which they were the prime actors is clearly shown to be not of God. The apostle proves it to be a work of evil, an effort of the enemy to undermine the truth in the minds of the saints. He successfully maintains his own divine call. He clearly establishes the authenticity of his gospel, and so its trustworthiness, its perfect reliability. He fully proves his thorough independency of the twelve, while making it clearly manifest that whatever the difference in the features of their respective deposits of truth, there is the most perfect agreement that there is neither opposition nor conflict at any point. Further, he shows that the twelve themselves acknowledged all this, and had frankly and heartily put the seal of their authority on his own practice in giving to Gentile converts unconditionally full Christian fellowship.

How completely he convicts the Galatians of the seriousness of their error in turning so quickly from the preaching they had received from himself, and embracing so ardently the perverted gospel of these unaccredited, unauthorized troublers, who could not point to a single sign of their having received authority from God, or show the slightest evidence of their having the support or sanction of the twelve.

I may add that there are gospels to-day that are as unapostolic as was the gospel of these perverters -gospels which, like theirs, have for their fundamental characteristic the principle of self-effort- gospels which insist on works of man as the condition of salvation. Those who preach them are manifestly not preaching the gospel of God-the gospel He committed to the apostles, whether to the twelve or to Paul. And those who are believing and supporting such gospels are not believing and supporting the divinely-authorized gospel.

Many, no doubt, are sincere, but they are deceived. May God deliver them! May He open their eyes to see the truth that will free them from their wretched bondage to the error of salvation by their own works! May He work in their souls the sense of the grace that is in Christ! C. Crain

(To be continued.)