Galatians Two

Aug 2

1 Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. 2 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. 3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. 4 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 might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. 7 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 8 (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), 9 and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed 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. 10 Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. 11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 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. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 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?” 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 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. 17 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! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 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. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Galatians 2, ESV Bible)

The Revelation

Paul explained to the Galatians, "I went up [to Jerusalem] because of a revelation" (Galatians 2:2). A "revelation" is something revealed from Heaven. After that first encounter on the Damascus road, revelations like that directed Paul's life. The Master appeared to him in the Temple; the Spirit of Jesus prevented him from entering Bithynia; the LORD told him in a dream to remain in the city of Corinth; etc. Heavenly revelations, visions, and prophecies dictated Paul's comings and goings.

Acts 11 describes how some Jewish believers reputed to be prophets came to Antioch from Jerusalem while Paul and Barnabas were teaching there. The word of the LORD came to the prophet Chagavah (Agabus, a name that means "locust"). He predicted that a great famine was soon to come upon the Roman world:

And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. (Acts 11:28-30)

The communal believers in Jerusalem would be particularly hard-hit by such a famine. Sharing all things in common had taken its toll, and the impoverished community did not have the means to lay up provisions for themselves. In keeping with our Master's teachings about giving one's wealth to the poor, the early Jewish believers came to be known as Evyonim, i.e., "Ebionites." The Hebrew word evvonim means "poor ones." The early Church Fathers knew of the name. Centuries later they applied the name "Ebionite" to a particular sect of Jewish believers, but the name may have originated in the early days of the Yeshua movement in Jerusalem.

The Evyonim (the poor ones) stood to be the hardest hit by a coming famine. The prophets from Jerusalem saw that the result would be devastating if some measure was not set aside for the Jerusalem community. Following the Torah's example of Joseph's preparations for the seven-year famine, they requested a collection from the Antioch community. In the Jewish community, such collections were common. The Talmud preserves several anecdotes and incidents regarding similar collections for charity in the Diaspora.

The Antioch disciples collected funds for their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem and sent them back to the Holy City by way of Paul and Barnabas. The gift served a twofold purpose. On the one hand, it provided for the Jerusalem believers, much as the careful preparations of the patriarch Joseph in the Torah had provided for his brothers. On the other hand, the collection might buy the mixed-blood Antioch community a little bit of favor in the eyes of the Jewish Jerusalem assembly.

The predicted famine came to Judea in about the year 44 and lasted three years. The Talmud refers to it as the "years of scarcity." The famine in Judea was severe, and not only in Judea, but also up the coast in Phoenicia as well. It stemmed from a great drought which lasted several years. Josephus reports that food was scarce, extremely expensive, and many people died for want. When King Izates of Adiabene heard from his mother about the famine in Judea, "he sent great sums of money to the principal men in Jerusalem." In so doing, he emptied out the coffers of accumulated wealth that he had inherited from his fathers. The Talmud tells the story:

It is related of King Monobaz [Izates] that he exhausted all his own treasures and the stores of his fathers during the years of scarcity. His brothers and his father's household brought a delegation before him and said to him, "Your father saved money and added to the treasures of his fathers, and you are wasting it." He replied, "Truth springs from the earth, and (charity] looks down from heaven' (Psalm 85:11). My fathers stored their wealth in a place which is vulnerable to tampering, but I have stored my wealth in a place invulnerable to tampering, as it says, '[Charity] and judgment are the foundation of his throne' (Psalm 97:2). My fathers stored something which produces no fruits, but I have stored something which does produce fruits, as it is written, 'Tell the [charitable] that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds' (Isaiah 3:10). My fathers gathered treasures of money, but I have gathered treasures of souls, as it is written, 'The fruit of [charity] is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise' (Proverbs 11:30). My fathers gathered for others and I have gathered for myself, as it says, 'It shall be [charity] for you' (Deuteronomy 24:13). My fathers gathered for this world, but I have gathered for the world to come, as it says, 'Your charity shall go before you'" (Isaiah 58:8). (b.Bava Batra 11a)

Izates' words sound like a midrashic expansion on the Master's own teaching and provide the closest Talmudic parallel to Yeshua's teaching about treasure in heaven:

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:19-21).

Izates sent his famine relief to Jerusalem after the famine was already severe. Paul, Barnabas, and Titus brought the Antioch collection up to Jerusalem before the famine had even begun.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Let Us Go Up to Jerusalem

A short time after the death of King Agrippa, Saul and Barnabas set out for Jerusalem. They carried a substantial sum of money that the Antioch community had raised to prepare the believers in Jerusalem for a coming famine. They wanted to fortify the Evyonim ("poor ones") of Jerusalem against the famine predicted by the revelation of the Prophet Agabus. Saul later alluded to the prophecy when he explained, "I went up again to Jerusalem ... because of a revelation."

Saul and Barnabas would have timed the trip to attend one of the pilgrimage festivals. They may have coordinated their travels so that they could arrive for Shavuot (Pentecost) of the year 44 CE. The Festival of Shavuot, the traditional time to bring first fruits to the Temple in Jerusalem, seems like an appropriate time for Saul and Barnabas to appear in Jerusalem with a gift for the mother community.

They brought along Titus, a God-fearing Gentile believer from Antioch. Saul had an ulterior motive for the journey. He wanted to find out what the apostles would say about Titus and all the other God-fearing Gentile believers. Saul told the Galatians, "I set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running or had run in vain" (Galatians 2:2).

References

This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.

Back to Jerusalem

In the second chapter of Galatians, Paul recounts a trip to Jerusalem. He wrote, "After fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me" (Galatians 2:1). It had been fourteen years since the Damascus road incident, or perhaps it had been fourteen years since he had last been to Jerusalem. The point is that after a long time, more than a decade, he finally went back to Jerusalem.

Try to understand the significance of Jerusalem for the believers: They cherished it, not only as the Holy City, as the place of the Temple, as the place of the Master's tomb, and as the place of the future kingdom, but also as the place of the apostles. Jerusalem was where the elders and the original disciples could be found.

Jerusalem was to the first-century believers what the Vatican is to Catholics. Jerusalem of that era is difficult for Protestants to understand because we have inherited disrespect for ecclesiastical authority, but Catholics will better understand the analogy. The first-century believers respected the authority of James the brother of the Master on par with the authority that the Roman Catholic Church accords to the pope. The apostles had the authority to bind and loose: according to the Master's word, whatever they bound on earth was bound in heaven, and whatever they loosed on earth was loosed in heaven. That is to say, they had the authority to make rulings and decisions for all believers everywhere.

After more than a decade, Paul went back up to Jerusalem. He took with him Barnabas, the man who vouched for him on his last visit, and he brought along Titus. Barnabas was a Jewish believer with good credentials among the apostles. Barnabas represented the original school of the Jerusalem-Yeshua movement; he was a veteran apostle and had belonged to the inner circle since the year of the Master's death and resurrection. Titus represented the opposite extreme: a God-fearing Gentile from Antioch, uncircumcised, who had not accepted conversion and did not seem to be planning on it. He was one of Paul's Gentile disciples.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

The Big Meeting

Saul wanted to meet privately with "the pillars," those who were of reputation in the assembly of Messiah. James and the apostles in Jerusalem held positions of authority and could censure Saul if necessary, censor his message, and issue correction.

Barnabas had no difficulty securing a confidential meeting with the men at the top: James, the brother of the Master; Simon Peter, the head over the twelve apostles; and John the son of Zebedee, the beloved disciple. They had dispatched Barnabas as their sent one to Antioch more than a year before, and he wanted to provide them with a report on the situation. He brought Saul of Tarsus with him.

The meeting probably took place at an arranged time in the house of Mary. Saul, Barnabas, and Titus were already there, waiting nervously for the others to arrive.

John the son of Zebedee came. Barnabas made the introductions. This was Saul's first time meeting the fisherman from Galilee. Saul must have expressed his condolences for John's recent loss. He was surprised to realize that the esteemed, beloved disciple was so young. At the time of the meeting, John was still in his mid-thirties and still unmarried.

Saul recognized Simon Peter at once and greeted him with peace. He had spent some time with Simon and his family nearly a decade earlier. Simon Peter was well into his fifties, a grandfather already, and his beard streaked with gray. Perhaps Saul and Barnabas asked to hear Simon Peter's own version of his recent miraculous escape from the clutches of King Agrippa. More pertinent to the meeting, Saul probably asked Simon Peter to retell the story of the vision of the sheet and the incident with Cornelius.

James the brother of the Master arrived, accompanied by a few of his closest disciples. Saul had met him during his last visit to Jerusalem, but only briefly. James was nearly fifty at the time. His healthy glow and slender frame resulted, in part, from his strict ascetic, vegetarian, Nazirite diet. He wore a simple, white linen tunic, like those worn by the Essenes, except that he kept his immaculately clean. The tunic was tied at his waist with a linen belt. Like John the Immerser, James lived as a lifelong Nazirite, dedicated to the Nazirite path by his mother and father before his birth. He kept his great mass of knotted dreadlocks pulled back behind his shoulders. He rolled his unshorn, virgin beard modestly under his chin. If James was married, we have received no tradition about his wife or children. He had no son to succeed him at his death. That may indicate that, like the Master and John the Immerser, James had chosen the ascetic life of celibacy advocated by the Essenes. If so, his younger brothers did not follow the example. I Corinthians 9:5 indicates that the brothers of the Master were married and traveled itinerantly with their wives.

Other apostles might have been present as well. Saul and Barnabas presented the gift they had brought from the believers in Antioch. They set the money before the men and explained how Agabus had predicted a famine, and they had raised the money for the Evyonim ("Poor Ones") of Jerusalem. The apostles received the gift gladly and gave thanks to the LORD for anticipating their need.

Do not worry then, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" ... for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:31-33)

References

This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.

The Authority of the Apostles

Paul's controversial gospel message does not sound too controversial to Christians today, but Paul had a sinking feeling in his stomach as he and Barnabas and Titus approached Jerusalem. He knew that he was teaching a radical interpretation outside of the apostolic norm. Special revelations from Heaven are good, but Paul had not yet cleared this teaching with the authority in Jerusalem. He had never submitted it to the court of the apostles. He had been teaching on his own initiative, without authority and without sanction from those to whom our Master gave the power to bind and to loose and to govern the body.

To Peter, Yeshua said, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:19). In saying this, he promoted Peter to the head over the Twelve, made him the chief disciple, and gave him, along with the other disciples, the legal authority to make Torah decisions regarding the community of believers (and all Israel). Rabbinic literature uses the terms "to bind" or "to loose" thousands of times to describe the rabbis' authority to interpret Torah, to set halachah, and to make legal decisions. The Roman Catholic Church understood that authority, from which it derived the tradition of papal authority. In essence, Yeshua set the apostles in the position of the Sanhedrin, not a replacement (not until the kingdom is revealed), but a higher authority with veto power if necessary. The Torah instructs:

"If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the LORD your God will choose [i.e., Jerusalem]" to seek a ruling from the judges (Deuteronomy 17:8).

In the late Second Temple era, the judges in Jerusalem were the Sanhedrin. Our Master, however, appointed a higher power above the Sanhedrin: the twelve thrones of the twelve disciples. He said they will sit upon twelve thrones judging over the twelve tribes. The twelve thrones should be understood as places of judicial authority immediately under the authority of the throne of David, i.e. the Messiah's throne.

In the absence of King Messiah, the authority over the throne of David passed on to a steward. Another from the same line and the same family, the next Davidic heir in line, took the position. In the days of the Apostle Paul, James the Righteous, the brother of the Master, took the position. Not that James was the Messiah or the Messiah King, but he was the steward of that position of authority in Messiah's absence. The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas reports a tradition about James:

The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you will depart from us. Who is to be our leader?" Jesus said to them, "Wherever you are, you are to go to James the Righteous, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being." (Gospel of Thomas 12)

The expression "for whose take heaven and earth came into being" may sound jarring to Christian ears, but it is a common hyperbole employed by the rabbis to praise a person's virtue. Over the Sanhedrin our Master appointed the twelve thrones, and above the twelve thrones he left the empty throne of David. In those days, temporarily occupying the throne of David on behalf of his older brother James, the brother of our Master, presided.

The Master said, "Wherever you are, you are to go to James the Righteous" as it says in the Torah, "If any case is too difficult for you to decide, between one kind of homicide or another, between one kind of lawsuit or another, and between one kind of assault or another, being cases of dispute in your courts, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses," i.e., to Jerusalem.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Apostolic Authority Challeneged

American Protestants have a hard time with the notion of apostolic authority. We want to be more like Paul; we are more like Paul. Paul was not interested in that ecclesiastical authority. He received a private revelation from God, confirmed it in the Scriptures himself, and went with that. He had not bothered to check with the apostles above him. He boasted, "The gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:11-12). He also boasted, "I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me" (Galatians 1:16).

I think that many of us can identify with Paul's sentiments. Who needs the rabbis, the sages, the Sanhedrin, all that Jewish tradition? Traditions and interpretations of men! And the same impulse says, "Who needs the twelve thrones? Who needs the interpretations of the apostles? Why do we need them to tell us what the Bible means?"

Spiritual authority grates against us, not because it is wrong, but because in this Western culture we resent authority. Protestants especially are trained and theologically inculcated with a distrust of spiritual authority, and that is why we tout the sola scriptura mantra. We cite the abuses. We point out the apostasies. We point to church history. In the past, men in authority over the church have twisted Scripture and abused authority and led us away from the truth. Therefore, we do not want to submit to apostolic authority.

The sola scriptura Protestant says, "I can read the Torah myself and come to my own conclusions."

The defendant who represents himself in court has a fool for an attorney. We need to consider our hearts. God's spirit works through authority structures. He instituted the authority structures. The LORD instituted priesthood, king, judge, the seventy judges, the Sanhedrin, the apostles, the twelve thrones, the court systems, the beit din (a rabbinical court in Jewish law), and even the eldership over the local body: heads over thousands, over hundreds, over tens.

What about when your leadership is wrong? Or what do you do if you disagree? Daniel Lancaster from FFOZ wrote in his book about an incident from his church that he leads:

“A friend of mine told me an amusing story about Beth Immanuel. He informally polled the congregation about the authority of the elders. In every conversation, he asked, "Do you think we should submit to the authority of the elders?" In every conversation, the people answered, "Absolutely. The elders have the authority." Then he asked, "What if you disagreed with them on some matter?" And the answer was, "Well, in that case, then I would not submit." Some said, "I would leave." Others simply said, "I would not cooperate." The irony is that we have a mentality that believes in submission to authority so long as we agree with that authority. That's a dangerous mindset because if that is how we treat human authority, that is how we will treat God's authority. That will be the answer to Torah: I submit to the mitzvah so long as it makes sense to me and I agree with it. Likewise: I submit to the apostle's rulings so long as they make sense to me and I agree with them. That's not submission at all.”

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Running in Vain

Paul had not confirmed his calling, his ministry, or his gospel with the authorities. His message of salvation for Gentiles had not been confirmed with the Twelve, the elders at Jerusalem, or with James the brother of the Master.

He took advantage of the famine-relief trip to Jerusalem to seek a private audience with James, the brother of the Master, and with Peter, the first over the Twelve, and with John the son of Zebedee, the beloved disciple. He sought the counsel of those three pillars, and whoever of the Twelve might be available.

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. (Galatians 2:2)

What does he mean by "I might be running, or had run, in vain?" He was talking about his gospel to the God-fearing Gentiles. Suppose Paul came to Jerusalem and said, "Shalom, I have good news. Lots of Gentiles have embraced the faith, and I told them that they don't even have to become Jewish to enter the kingdom of heaven, to merit the resurrection, the world to come, and a position within the people of God. In fact, I've been telling them they don't even need to be circumcised. Isn't that great?" And suppose that James and the apostles reply, "Paul, are you out of your mind? That's heretical and contradicts the teachings that Yeshua entrusted with us. You cannot teach that."

If they said that, Paul would have been running his race in vain. It's like a runner in a footrace who takes off from the starting line, running as hard as he can to win the race. He runs for miles. He sees no one around. He assumes he must be in the lead, but then someone tells him, "Hey, you are off the race route. You've been running in the wrong direction."

What does it profit a man if he expends his life proclaiming some other gospel? How do you know if you are off the path? Paul's teacher, Rabban Gamliel, used to say, "Do not rely on your own interpretation. Take upon yourself a teacher, and remove all doubt."

Paul was a brilliant, spiritually gifted protégé, but he was also a man under authority. He turned to the authority, to the men of reputation regarded as the pillars of the assembly of Messiah:

If any case arises ... that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the LORD your God will choose [i.e., Jerusalem]. (Deuteronomy 17:8)

Wherever you are, you are to go to James the Righteous. (Gospel of Thomas 12)

Paul did not want to run his race in vain. He once wrote to the God-fearing Gentile believers in the city of Philippi, beseeching them to prove their faith and commitment to Messiah "so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain" (Philippians 2:16). He regarded the Gentile believers as proof that he had not run or toiled in vain. They were the fruit of his unique gospel message. If the apostles in Jerusalem were to tell him that there was no such thing as a "God-fearing Gentile believer" and that a Gentile must be circumcised and become Jewish to be secure in the kingdom, then his efforts were in vain.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. 4 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 might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. (Galatians 2:3-5, ESV Bible)

False Brothers

Why was Titus there? What did Titus have to do with it? Was Titus a guinea pig? Was he the token Gentile? Galatians 2:4 explains why Paul brought Titus along to the meeting. Titus was part of the discussion, Paul said:

"Because of false brothers secretly brought in who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery" (Galatians 2:4).

This verse requires some unpacking. It's hard to put the pieces back together. Who were these false brothers? In what sense were they false? In what sense had they been brought in? Into where did they slip? What was the freedom in Messiah Yeshua on which they spied? Who is the "we"? Who is it that they sought to subject to slavery? What did Paul mean by slavery? All of these questions need to be answered before we can make sense of Galatians 2:4, but unfortunately we cannot have definitive answers to all of these questions. We can only make a few halting guesses based upon some vague inferences.

In his book The Irony of Galatians, Jewish scholar Mark Nanos does not assume that the "false brothers" were believers in Yeshua. We have seen elsewhere that "brothers," in Pauline literature, can refer to the Jewish people in general. Nanos does not suggest that the "false brothers" are "false Jews," but that they are non- Yeshua-believing Jews. According to Nanos, Paul called them false brothers not to suggest that their brotherhood as Jews is false but rather their motives were false.

Daniel Lancaster disagree with Nanos. He thinks in this context, Paul used "brothers" to refer to fellow believers, and "false brothers" was Paul's way of dismissing their sincerity as believers. Nanos does raise an interesting suggestion on the passage though. Nanos retranslates the Greek word translated as "to spy out" in the phrase "who slipped in to spy our freedom," as "to investigate." So it is not that they were spies, so to speak, but rather, investigators, investigating what they considered to be a problem for Judaism.

Nanos suggests that they were investigating on behalf of some administrative authority. Suffice it to say that they had concerns about Paul, about his message, and about his work among the Gentiles.

Into where did they slip and do this investigating? We do not know. Nanos suggests they might have slipped into the meeting with the apostles. Lancaster would suggest that they slipped into the fellowship of the Antioch community. We have already seen traffic between the Jerusalem and the Antioch communities of believers, and when Gentiles first began joining the faith in Antioch, the apostles in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to "investigate."

Based on this information, Daniel Lancaster suggest that the so-called "false brothers" were actually believers sent from the Jerusalem community who had travelled to Antioch and become familiar with the situation there. They had gotten to know the people and the message that Paul was preaching. All the while, they were investigating the situation to report back to Jerusalem. Paul, Barnabas, and the other Antioch believers were unaware that the brothers from Jerusalem were there to investigate the Gentile phenomenon in Antioch or as Paul puts it, the "freedom that we have in the Messiah Yeshua.”

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

The Opposition

Galatians 2:4-5 seems to imply that the "false brethren" Saul had met in Antioch also attended the meeting. Whether or not they were personally present, their reports and arguments against Saul were represented at the meeting.

Saul knew that the "false brethren" who had visited Antioch earlier in the year had brought a bad report back to the apostolic authorities in Jerusalem. They disapproved of Saul's gospel for Gentiles, and they disapproved of the free intermingling between Jews and Gentiles that they observed among the Antiochian congregations. They had already tried to convince Saul to bring the Gentiles into circumcision and under the whole Torah.

The so-called "false brethren" were actually believers sent to Antioch by the apostolic authorities in Jerusalem to assess the work of Saul and Barnabas. Saul considered them "false brethren" either because he did not regard their allegiance to Messiah as sincere or, more likely because they did not initially disclose their motivations to him. They had "secretly" slipped into the fellowship of the community of believers in Antioch to investigate. When Saul says that they spied "out our liberty ... in order to bring us into bondage," he means that the men were there to investigate reports of Gentiles freely mingling with the Jewish believers. They brought the matter to the attention of the elders in Jerusalem, the very men with whom Saul sought a private audience.

We can easily recreate the counterargument the "false brethren" lodged against Saul's gospel.

The Torah requires a Jewish man to be circumcised and to circumcise his son on the eighth day (Genesis 17:0-11). The commandment applies to "every male among you," regardless of age (Genesis 17:10). A Jew who neglected circumcision was liable for punishment. Genesis 17 requires circumcision of every male, whether born in Abraham's house (which would be Abraham's own sons and the sons of his servants and maidservants) or bought with money (which would be any foreigner brought into Abraham's household).

An uncircumcised male in Abraham's family or household was to be cut off from his people. Saul's opponents argued that allowing Gentile believers to participate in the community created serious problems for the whole assembly. How could the Jewish believers maintain separation from the Gentile world, Gentile pollutions, Gentile foods, and general assimilation into non-Jewish society if they allowed Gentiles into the assembly of Messiah?

Saul's controversial gospel also had serious implications for the public face of the believers and for the constitution of the synagogue-not just the believing congregations but Jewish synagogues everywhere. His gospel did not compel the God-fearing Gentile believers to become proselytes, i.e., "sons of Abraham." In that regard, his gospel might be construed to pose a threat to the Jewish constitution of the community of Israel as natural demographics began to create synagogues with a minority of Jews.

References

This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.

Freedom in Messiah

What was this freedom of which Paul spoke? It starts with circumcision and the concept that Gentiles, like Titus, were free from the mitzvah of circumcision. They did not need to become proselytes.

The Torah required a Jewish man to be circumcised and to circumcise his son on the eighth day:

And God said to Abraham, "As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised." (Genesis 17:9-10)

One might have thought that this rule applied only to a baby eight days old and that an uncircumcised adult was not required to undergo circumcision so long as he circumcised his sons. That's why it says, "Every male among you." One might have thought that the law applied only to the physical descendants of Abraham, his literal, biological children. That's why it says, "Every male among you.”

You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. (Genesis 17:11)

Circumcision is one of several commandments that the Torah identifies as a "sign." It was a sign of the covenant with Abraham. In the days of the apostles, Judaism did not consider the sign commandments as incumbent upon non-Jews because non-Jews were not part of the covenant. The Jewish people did not pressure the average Gentile to undergo circumcision. In the case of God-fearing Gentile believers, however, that was another matter entirely. Paul's Gentile believers claimed to have a position in the people of God and a share in God's covenants of promise. Therefore, logically they should also keep the sign commandments connected with those covenants.

That's how the logic goes. It is logical, but that was not what Paul taught. He taught that they need not keep the sign of circumcision.

According to the Torah, a man who neglected circumcision was liable for punishment. Genesis 17 requires circumcision of every male, whether born in Abraham's house (which would be Abraham's own sons and the sons of his servants and maidservants) or bought with money (which would be any foreigner brought into Abraham's household). This is a clear and certain rule. An uncircumcised male in Abraham's family or household was to be cut off from his people. The rabbis differentiate between being cut off by the hands of men and cut off by the hands of Heaven. Cut off by the hands of men means excision from the community or capital punishment, depending on the crime and situation. Cut off by Heaven means premature death--a death sentence from God.

The Torah presents an example of the latter in the case of Moses, who had not circumcised his son Gershon. The angel of the LORD appeared to him and his wife and was going to put Moses to death. The angel would have cut Moses off at the hands of Heaven if not for the quick intervention of Tzipporah, who circumcised the child. (Gershon was no longer eight days old, but the mitzvah to circumcise the child still stood.)

These texts indicate that the circumcision question was a serious matter, and it merited investigation. The so-called "false brothers" investigating in Antioch, I believe, were disturbed to see the "freedom in the Messiah Yeshua" that Paul proclaimed when they understood that it meant freedom from circumcision and free association between the circumcised and the uncircumcised.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Putting it Together

Who are these false brothers? Believing Jews from Jerusalem.
In what sense are they false? Either in the sense that Paul did not regard their allegiance to Messiah as sincere or in the sense that they did not disclose their motivations to him.
In what sense had they been secretly brought in? They had slipped into the fellowship of the community of believers in Antioch to investigate.
They brought their complaint and concern against Titus (and the Gentile situation in Antioch) to the apostolic authorities in Jerusalem.
What was the freedom in Messiah Yeshua on which they were spying? They investigated reports of God-fearing Gentile believers neglecting the sign commandments, or at the very least, not taking on the sign of circumcision.
Who is the "we" in Galatians 2:4? Paul refers to himself and Barnabas and the message they proclaimed among the God-fearing believers in Antioch.
Who is it that the "false brothers" sought to subject to slavery, and what does Paul mean by slavery? They sought to require the Gentile believers to keep the sign commandments, at a minimum, the sign of circumcision, which entailed not just circumcision literally, but full, legal conversion to Judaism.

At some point, the false brothers had brought the results of their investigations in Antioch to the attention of the elders, the very men with whom Paul sought a private audience.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Results of the Meeting

Paul brought Titus with him to the meeting, and he presented his case for why he thought that Titus could remain as Titus the God-Fearer and did not need to take on the sign of the covenant with Abraham. The so-called "false brothers" may also have been present at that meeting because Paul says:

"To them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you" (Galatians 2:5).

Paul refused to yield "so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved" for the Galatians and for Gentile believers everywhere. When he says, "We did not yield in submission even for a moment," Mark Nanos suggests that the "we" includes James, Peter, John, and the rest of the apostles. They sided with Paul, and together they did not yield to the pressure regarding Titus. Paul announces the verdict in Galatians 2:3:

"But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek."

That is to say, Paul learned that he had not run his race in vain. Instead, he received the apostolic endorsement that he had been seeking. They considered his case, listened to his presentation, weighed his argument, scrutinized his gospel, and they endorsed it. They gave Paul and his gospel the apostolic stamp of approval.

Paul's epistle to the Galatians is largely an explanation of the argument he presented at that meeting. It presents his gospel regarding Gentiles and their freedom in the Messiah.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

The Decision

In his epistle to the Galatians, Saul said, "I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles" (Galatians 2:2). He presented his case from the Scriptures. He cited Simon Peter's experience with Cornelius and the outcome of that incident. He added the anecdotal evidence of his own personal revelations from the Master.

He also presented Titus as an example typical of the God-fearing Gentiles under his discipleship. He wanted the apostles to see that Titus was not an idolater, that he lived according to the Torah's universal standards, that he had a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, that he understood Jewish dietary concerns, that he was conversant in Judaism, that he manifested the presence of the Holy Spirit, and that he was a devout disciple of Yeshua of Nazareth. Saul argued that Titus could remain Titus the God-Fearer and did not need to become Titus the Jew. He used Titus to force the issue. The apostles would have to tell Titus, "You must also be circumcised," or they would have to let Saul's policy stand.

Even if the so-called "false brothers" were not present at the meeting, their opinion was present. Saul later recounted, "To them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you" (Galatians 2:5).

Saul's arguments convinced James, John, and Simon Peter. The epistle to the Galatians is largely an explanation of the argument he presented at that meeting. The epistle to the Galatians presents his gospel regarding Gentiles and their freedom in the Messiah.

The apostles considered his case, listened to his presentation, weighed his argument, scrutinized his gospel, and they endorsed it. He announced the decision in Galatians 2:3: "Even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek."

He had not run his race in vain. Instead, his presentation of the gospel to Gentiles received the apostolic endorsement that he had sought.

References

This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.

6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. (Galatians 2:6, ESV Bible)

Is Paul Dismissing the Apostles Authority?

By "those who seemed to be influential," Paul referred to James, Peter, John, and any other elders of the community who were present at the big meeting. It sounds like he dismissed their authority when referred to them as "those who seemed to be influential" and when he said "what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality."

Despite the dismissive air, Paul submitted to their authority. He had already conceded that, if they had rejected his gospel of Gentile inclusion, he would have been running his race in vain. They had the power to utterly discredit the gospel message he had been presenting. Therefore, he certainly did respect their authority. But he seems less than reverentially respectful in Galatians 2:5.

In his commentary on Galatians, Richard Longenecker suggests that the influencers in Galatia based their appeal upon the practice of the elders in Jerusalem. That is, those teaching "some other gospel" to the Galatian Gentiles and compelling them to be circumcised did so in continuity with apostolic authority from Jerusalem, and they set that authority in antithesis to Paul. They pointed out to the Galatian God-Fearers that Peter and James received Gentiles into the faith as proselytes through circumcision and conversion. Therefore, Paul must be wrong. They may have asked, "Do you want to follow the real disciples of Yeshua -or Paul?"

As a result, Paul is a bit cheeky as he refers to their authority. This explains why he carefully taught in the first chapter of Galatians that he did not receive his gospel from the other apostles; he received it directly by divine revelation, confirmed by the Scriptures. Regarding the apostles in Jerusalem, he only sought validation, as a man under authority, but that authority was not the source of his gospel.

The people to whom Paul was writing (if Longenecker's suggestion is correct) had been told,' "Yes, Paul says one thing, but the 'Pillars in Jerusalem,' James, Peter, and John, disagree with him." If so, Paul's point in retelling the whole story was to demonstrate that the charge is false. Remember, the entire Epistle to the Galatians predates the decision of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) which ruled on this issue in a definitive manner.

Paul's recitation of the story is consistent with Talmudic disputation. In the Talmud, when a halachic (legal) decision is in question, the sages relate anecdotes about their teachers or earlier generations as evidence to support their opinions. This is the situation here. "Not even Titus was compelled to be circumcised," Paul told the Galatians.

Paul's tone may sound dismissive, but he ultimately was not dismissive at all. Instead, he leaned heavily upon that apostolic endorsement as he declared, "Those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me" (Galatians 2:6).

What does it mean that they added nothing to him? Only this: that they did not add anything to his gospel. They did not correct him in any way. They did not say, "You must also teach the Gentile believers to keep the Sabbath and undergo circumcision." They added no further obligation than what Paul was already teaching to the Gentiles.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

7 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 8 (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), 9 and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed 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. (Galatians 2:7-9, ESV Bible)

Apostle to the Gentiles

In his epistle to the Galatians, Saul retold the story of how he received the apostolic endorsement in Jerusalem. He referred to the apostles with whom he met as "those who were of high reputation." The tone of the description sounds a little dismissive. Saul claimed, "What they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality." He reported that "those who were of reputation [added] nothing to me" (Galatians 2:6). What does it mean that they added nothing to him? It means that they did not add anything to his gospel. They did not correct him in any way. They did not say, "You must also teach the Gentile believers to keep the Sabbath and undergo circumcision." They added no further obligation than what Saul already taught to the Gentiles.

Despite the dismissive air, Saul submitted to the authority of the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. He conceded that if they had rejected his gospel of Gentile inclusion, he would have been running his race in vain. They had the power to utterly discredit the gospel message he had been presenting.

The apostles in Jerusalem saw that Saul had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, meaning that they acknowledged that Saul had received a special mission from God. They recognized that God had given him grace and favor to declare the message of the gospel to the Gentile world. They recognized his calling; they endorsed his message, and they endorsed his apostleship to the Gentile world. One might say they ordained him.

Henceforth, Saul refers to himself as "the apostle to the Gentiles." For example, in Romans 11:13, Saul says, I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles." Again, in I Timothy 2:7, he declares: "I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying) as a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth."

This is not to say that Saul would never again declare the gospel to Jewish people. His first calling, mission, and goal, however, was to minister to the Gentile world, i.e., to call God-fearing Gentiles to faith in Yeshua.

Simon Peter, on the other hand, as head over the Twelve, worked primarily among the circumcised, that is, among Jewish people and proselytes to Judaism.

Why did Saul refer to James, Peter, and John as "pillars" The pillar imagery is similar to the rock imagery. The metaphoric language indicates that, just as pillars carry the weight of a structure, the three apostles carried the weight of the community. In the Midrash Rabbah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are also called the "pillars":

When the patriarchs came and showed themselves righteous, God said, "On these will I establish My world; as it says [in I Samuel 2:8]: For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and on them He has set the world.?" (Exodus Rabbah 15:7)

In the Talmud, the disciples of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai referred to him as "the Pillar of the right hand," perhaps alluding to the right-hand pillar at the entrance to the Temple. Likewise, the body of believers referred to themselves as a living temple. Yeshua was the door. The primary apostles were the pillars. The early believers referred to James, Peter, and John as "pillars" to indicate their position of authority in the spiritual temple of the body of Messiah.

References

This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.

Paul and Peter: Apostles to the Gentiles and Jews

The apostles in Jerusalem saw that Paul had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, meaning that they acknowledged that Paul had been given a mission by God. They recognized that God had given Paul grace and favor to declare the message of the gospel to the Gentile world. They recognized his calling; they endorsed his message, and they endorsed his apostleship to the Gentile world. One might say, they ordained him.

Henceforth, Paul refers to himself as "the apostle to the Gentiles." For example, in Romans 11:13, Paul says, "Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles ..." Again, in 1 Timothy 2:7, Paul declares: "For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth."

This is not to say that Paul would never again declare the gospel of Yeshua to Jewish people. His first calling, mission, and goal, however, was to minister to the Gentile world, i.e., to call God-fearing Gentiles to faith in Yeshua.

Simon Peter, on the other hand, as head over the Twelve, worked primarily among the circumcised, that is, among Jewish people and proselytes to Judaism. His apostleship (and that of the twelve) was first and foremost to the Jewish people. Not that Peter would never present the gospel to non-Jews. He certainly did, but he followed the Master's mission in seeking first the lost sheep of Israel, the sinners among the Jewish people, calling them to repent, turn back to the Torah, and believe in the risen Messiah for the forgiveness of sins.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Distinct Gospels - One for the Jew and One for the Gentile

For the last eighteen hundred years, the church has triumphantly declared that the gospel has cancelled the Torah and that Gentile Christians have replaced the Jewish people. Those dogmas stem from a failure to understand the distinction between Peter's ministry and Paul's ministry, between Peter's apostleship and Paul's apostleship. Christians quickly forgot that Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles and that his letters needed to be read as addressed primarily to God-fearing Gentile readers, not to Jewish readers.

We forgot this detail. Since Gentiles were at the center of Paul's concern, we came to believe that Gentiles were at the center of the gospel's concern. We forgot that Paul's gospel was distinct from the gospel of the rest of the apostles and that his mission was an outgrowth of the mission of Messiah to redeem Israel.

We forgot that Galatians, Ephesians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Philippians, Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians-the whole batch of Paul's epistles- were written by the apostle to the Gentiles. Therefore, when Paul speaks of not being "under the law" and free from the obligation of circumcision, having freedom in the Spirit, and all of that, he was speaking to Gentiles-not to Jewish believers. Christianity overlooked that important detail, and Christian theology became a Gentile theology positioned against Torah observance that taught (and still teaches today) that if a Jewish person becomes a believer, he should be compelled to set aside Torah and leave Judaism. What happened here? The theological tail of the New Testament has been wagging the dog.

If faith in Yeshua means that Jewish people should be exempt from circumcision or the other sign commandments and distinctions enjoined upon them by the Torah, then faith in Yeshua, for a Jewish person, is a sin against God. According to the Bible's own testimony, Jesus must be castigated as a false prophet, and the gospel message should be rejected (Deuteronomy 13).

We are one body, many parts. The foot is not the eye; the eye is not the foot. Oneness is not sameness. We can be one in the body but not have the same function and calling. There is one faith, one baptism, and one body, but that body has many parts.

Theologically, we run into trouble whenever we fail to make a distinction between one thing and another. Historically, in Christianity, we have obliterated distinctions between the Father and the Son, between the holy and the profane, between the seventh day and the six days, between Israel and the nations.

God is a God of distinction. He is called HaMavdil, "The One who separates." He formed the earth, separating light from dark, the waters above from the waters below, the sea from the dry ground, and the female from the male. At havdalah-time (end of the Sabbath), we say, "HaMavdil, he who separates between the holy and the profane, between light and dark, between the seventh day and the six days of labor, between Israel and the nations."

If there is no havdalah-no distinction between Israel and the nations, then why did the apostles appoint one apostle to the nations and another to the Jewish people? If the end goal for the Gentiles was the same as that of the Jewish believers, why a distinct mission? Why appoint an apostle to the Gentiles with a gospel for the Gentiles distinct from the apostleship to the Jewish people?

You might ask, "But aren't we all one in Messiah?" Yes. But we are not the same. We are swinging the pendulum back to correct the error of the last two thousand years that said Jewish Christians are one with Gentile Christians, so they should behave as if they are Gentiles.

Some of us, however, have crossed the center and gone to the opposite extreme, now saying that Gentile Christians are the same as Jewish Christians so they should therefore be Jewish. It blurs the line of distinction, and ultimately it is the same mistake.

This does not mean that the God-fearing Gentile believers should not participate in commandments such as the Sabbath. As we will see later, there are good reasons for Gentile God-Fearers to do so, but they should not consider themselves as Gentile-Jews.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

The Pillars

Paul referred to "James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars" (Galatians 2:9). In early midrash, the rabbis referred to Abraham as "the Rock." God said, "Upon this Rock I will build my world." In the Yeshua movement, Peter is called the Rock, and the Master said, "Upon this rock I will build my assembly." In the Midrash Rabbah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are also called the Pillars:

When the patriarchs came and showed themselves righteous, God said, "On these will I establish My world; as it says [in 1 Samuel 2:8]: 'For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and on them He has set the world.'" (Exodus Rabbah 15:7)

Paul uses this language when he speaks of the whole body of Messiah as Jewish and Gentile believers being built into a spiritual house, i.e., a temple. Not every part of the temple is identical. It is one temple of the Holy Spirit, but it has different parts. So when Paul refers to James, Peter, and John as "those who seemed to be pillars," he speaks of their position of authority in the spiritual temple of the body of Messiah.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

10 Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. (Galatians 2:10, ESV Bible)

Reminder the Poor

James, Peter, and John gave Saul and Barnabas "the right hand of fellowship." They commissioned them to go to the Gentiles while they themselves continued to witness Messiah to the Jewish people. Saul says, "They only asked us to remember the poor-the very thing I also was eager to do" (Galatians 2:10). How should this single caveat be understood?

It does not mean the apostles laid upon the Gentile believers no greater obligation to Torah than the commandment of giving charity generously to the poor. Saul did not say, "Only they asked the Gentiles to give charity to the poor." He said, "Only they asked us to remember the poor." In this context, us must be Saul and Barnabas. Why did the apostles ask Saul and Barnabas to remember the poor? In a Jewish context, to "remember" something can mean more than just remembering. For example, the Ten Commandments tell us to "remember the Sabbath day." The prophet says, "Remember the Torah of Moses." The LORD says, "Remember the covenant." In all of these contexts, to "remember" something is to be mindful of the thing remembered and to act upon that obligation.

"The Poor" in Galatians 2:10 is a shorthand abbreviation for the longer title that Saul gives them in Romans 15:26, where he refers to them as "the poor among the saints at Jerusalem," i.e., the Evyonim. Saul and Barnabas were to remember the Poor Ones of the apostolic assembly of believers in Jerusalem: the pillars, the elders, the assembly of James, and the apostles.

In other words, the apostolic pillars at Jerusalem endorsed Saul's apostleship and his gospel message to the Gentiles with one caveat: "Remember the Evyonim," which is to say, "Remember us and our community in Jerusalem.

Remember your obligation to us. Remember your position under our authority. Remember your obligations to this mother community, the Jerusalem community." Saul says that this was the very thing he was eager to do.

References

This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.

Remember the Evyonim

Paul said that James, Peter, and John, the reputed pillars, gave the right hand of fellowship to him and to Barnabas. They commissioned them to go to the Gentiles while they themselves continued to witness Messiah to the circumcised. Paul says, "Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do" (Galatians 2:10).

I might have thought that the apostles laid upon the Gentile believers no greater obligation to Torah than the commandment of giving charity generously to the poor. In other words, they said to Paul, "We are fine with vour message to the Gentiles and about their exemption from the covenant signs. In fact, they do not need to keep any of the commandments of the Torah, just so long as they give generously to the poor." Paul agrees, "That's exactly what I was thinking, too!"

I might have read it this way, but that's problematic. Paul already said that they added nothing to his gospel. It sounds like they are adding something here: "That's fine Paul, but have everyone remember to give charity to the poor." Out of the entire Torah, is that the only commandment that the apostles thought should apply to Gentiles?

Paul did not say, "Only they asked the Gentiles to give charity to the poor." He said, "Only they asked us to remember the poor." Look at this carefully. Who is the "us"? In this context, it must be Paul and Barnabas. The apostles asked Paul and Barnabas to remember the poor. Why? What does that have to do with the entire question? "Paul, you be the apostle to the Gentiles, and we original apostles will take the message to the Jewish people, so long as you remember to give charity to the poor." That explanation does not work.

Why did they lay this one caveat on Paul's ministry? It does not even say that he should be generous with the poor or support the poor financially, just to remember them. In a Jewish context, to "remember" something can mean more than just remembering. For example, the Ten Commandments tell us to "remember the Sabbath day." The prophet says, "Remember the Torah of Moses." The LORD says, "Remember the covenant." In all of these contexts, to "remember" something is to be mindful of it and to remember one's obligations. It means to remember one's obligation to the thing remembered and to act upon that obligation.

I believe that the poor whom Paul and Barnabas are to remember are not just any poor. They are the Evyonim, the Poor Ones, i.e., the apostolic assembly of believers in Jerusalem: the pillars, the elders, the assembly of James and the apostles. In his commentary on Galatians, Richard Longenecker identifies "the Poor" in Galatians 2:10 as simply a shorthand abbreviation for the longer title that Paul gives them in Romans 15:26, where he refers to them as "the poor among the saints at Jerusalem."

In other words, the apostolic pillars at Jerusalem endorsed Paul's apostleship and his gospel message to the Gentiles. They put a heksher (kosher certification) on him and confirmed his message to the Gentiles with one caveat: "Remember the Evvonim," which is to say, "Remember us and our community in Jerusalem. Remember your obligation to us. Remember your position under our authority. Remember your obligations to this mother community, the Jerusalem community." Paul says that this was the very thing that he was eager to do.

This is the very thing that I am eager to do. I hope I can share with you my zeal to remember the authority of that community, to remember the Evyonim, the brothers of our Master, the original disciples of our Master, and the men in whom he invested his ministry. To them he gave the authority to bind and to loose and the keys to the kingdom of heaven. They preserved the gospel for us and transmitted it to us. They were the original mother of our faith, the pillars of the temple of the Holy Spirit, the assembly, the rock on which the assembly of Messiah is built, the men who endorsed Paul and to whom Paul submitted and to whom he was eager to submit.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 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. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 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?” (Galatians 2:11-14, ESV Bible)

Petros in Anteyocha

The gospel continued to flourish in Antioch. The believers in Antioch, no doubt, requested Simon Peter to come and tell his stories and to relate to them the Master's teachings. They wanted to ask him, "What was it like to know Him, to walk with Him, to be with Him? What was He like?"

At some point between 44 and 47 CE, Simon Peter arrived to testify about the risen Messiah and transmit the words of Yeshua to the believers. His wife traveled with him (I Corinthians 9:5). He came to nurture the community because Antioch had become the second city, after Jerusalem, for Jewish believers and the principal city for Gentile believers. In Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. They probably had a synagogue or two, perhaps several, which were Messianic, i.e., "Synagogues of the Christians."

Simon Peter discovered an amazing community of believers where, in the midst of the Jewish community, God-fearing Gentile believers (the disciples of Saul and Barnabas) mingled freely with Jewish believers. They worshiped with the Jewish believers; they celebrated the Sabbath and the festivals along with the Jewish believers to the extent each was able. They fellowshiped with the Jewish believers, and they ate and drank with the Jewish believers at fellowship meals, at ritual meals, festival meals, and so forth-not as guests in the synagogue or second-class citizens, but as brothers and sisters in the Messiah, fully participating, and even preparing and contributing food.

According to high Jewish standards of the first century, Jews were not supposed to eat food (even otherwise kosher food) that Gentiles might have contaminated. The possibility, indeed the likelihood, that the food might be contaminated by idols or by other Gentile defilements often prevented Jews from eating food prepared by Gentiles and, in some cases, from eating with Gentiles at all.

The Gentiles themselves were almost certainly ritually contaminated by idolatry. From a first-century Pharisaic perspective, the disciples should have maintained a distinct wall of separation between themselves and the God-fearing Gentiles. Prior to the vision of the sheet, Simon Peter considered it unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile (even a God-fearing Gentile), and the rest of the apostles were shocked that Peter went to a Gentile home and ate with them (Acts II:3).

Peter (not Saul) first crossed the line, tore down the metaphoric wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, and went into a Gentile home. He was the first to preach the gospel to the God-fearers. He saw them receive the Holy Spirit, and most importantly, he was the first to break the taboo and eat and drink with them in the home of Cornelius.

Years later, in Antioch, Simon Peter saw Jewish believers and God-fearing Gentile believers freely mingling, eating together, and fellowshiping together. He did the same until some more guests from Jerusalem arrived.

References

This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.

The Antioch Incident

Thus far in the epistle to the Galatians, we have noted that Paul is arguing for his radical interpretation of the gospel as it applies to non-Jews. He has just finished telling us that he went to Jerusalem to discuss it with "the Pillars." He has happily reported that the apostolic authorities sided with him, and they did not even compel Titus to be circumcised. Until this point in the epistle, Paul has cited only anecdotal testimony because all of this took place prior to the Jerusalem Council's definitive legal ruling in Acts 15.

In Galatians 2:11, Paul relates a second anecdote to buttress his contention that Gentiles need not keep the sign commandment of circumcision. This is the famous (or infamous) Antioch Incident, a conflict between Peter and Paul. The traditional Christian interpretation of this passage presupposes that Paul and the Jewish believers with him had given up Judaism and the practice of Torah. When Paul saw Peter waffling on this matter by practicing some aspects of Torah, such as returning to the Bible's dietary laws, he rebuked him for Judaizing-that is to say that Paul rebuked Peter for backsliding back to Torah and Judaism.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

A Different Interpretation of the Peter/Paul Conflict

Magnus Zetterholm of the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies in Sweden offers a different perspective in his book Approaches to Paul:

Such a basic presupposition is far from self-evident-it is not at all certain that Paul's intention was that all Jews in the Jesus movement should stop observing the Torah. Furthermore, if the non-Jewish adherents of the Jesus movement were recruited from the group of non-Jews that already took part in the activities of the synagogue [i.e., God-Fearers], it is likely that they previously had adapted a Jewish lifestyle, especially with regard to food.

The problem in Antioch, then, was probably the degree of intimacy in social relations ... it probably did not affect the food they ate, but rather the ritual of community meals. Such matters as the seating at the table and how wine and food were handled may have indicated to some Jews (like James) who did not share Paul's ideology regarding the equal standing of the non-Jews before God that the Jewish identity of the community was threatened ... the delegation from James the circumcision faction that Peter feared-seems to have recommended that the status of the non-Jews should be altered. The reason for this may simply have been an effort to try to get the ethnic identity and the social intercourse to correspond. If Jews and non-Jews socialized as if they belonged to the same ethnic group, James's representatives may have thought it best to have the non-Jews turned into Jews, in spite of the earlier agreement from Jerusalem. This does not mean that James had changed his mind on the general principle that non-Jews could be saved without becoming Jews, only that he disagreed with Paul on the implications for social interaction resulting from this theology. According to James, non-Jews could very well be connected to the Jesus movement, but only if the distinction between Jew and non-Jew was manifest also in social relations.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Peter in Antioch

Peter came to Antioch, the city in which Paul and Barnabas ministered among the Jewish community in the midst of the Christianoi, the Jewish believers, and specifically among those God-fearing Gentile believers like Titus. Simon Peter came to see the work there because Antioch had become the number-two city, after Jerusalem, for Jewish believers, and the number-one city for Gentile believers. In Antioch, the believers were first called Christians. They probably had a synagogue or two, perhaps several, which were Messianic, i.e., Christianoi. The believers in Antioch, no doubt, requested Peter to come and tell his stories and to teach them the Master's teachings.

In Antioch, Peter discovered an amazing community of believers where, in the midst of the believing Jewish community, God-fearing Gentile believers (the disciples of Paul and Barnabas) mingled freely. They worshipped with the Jewish believers; they kept the Sabbath and the festivals along with the Jewish believers to the extent they were able; they fellowshipped with the Jewish believers; and they ate and drank with the Jewish believers at fellowship meals, at ritual meals, festival meals, and so forth--not as guests in the synagogue or second-class citizens, but as brothers and sisters in the Messiah.

Peter arrived in Antioch and saw this mix of Jewish and Gentile believers, and he had no objections. After all, it was through Peter that the revelation of the gospel for Gentiles had first come. It came, not through Paul, but through Peter when he had the vision of the sheet from heaven descending and a voice saying, "What God has made clean, let no man call unclean." Peter first crossed the line, tore down the metaphoric wall of partition, and went into a Gentile home. He was the first to preach the gospel to the God-fearing Gentile Cornelius and the God-Fearers in Caesarea. He saw them receive the Holy Spirit, and most importantly he ate and drank with them. The other apostles in Jerusalem expressed shock and dismay when they heard about Peter eating and drinking with Gentiles.

Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” (Acts 11:1-3, ESV Bible)

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Eating with Gentiles

What's the problem with eating with uncircumcised men? Peter explained to Cornelius, the Roman centurion, in Acts 10 the following:

And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.” (Acts 10:28-29, ESV Bible)

Was it unlawful? According to halachah (Jewish law) of the first century, Jews were not supposed to eat food, even kosher food, that had been prepared by a Gentile. The possibility, indeed the likelihood, that the food might be contaminated by idols or by other Gentile defilements, prevented Jews from eating Gentile food. The Gentiles themselves were also ritually contaminated by idolatry, almost certainly. A Roman centurion, for example, had no choice but to participate in the Roman cult functions of his legion. From a first-century Jewish perspective, a clear and distinct wall of separation should have been maintained between Gentiles and observant Jews. Prior to the vision of the sheet, Peter considered it unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, even a God-fearing Gentile, and the rest of the apostles were shocked that Peter went to a Gentile home and, most surprising of all, ate with them.

Years later, Peter visited Antioch. He saw how much things had changed since those days. In Antioch, Jewish believers and God-fearing Gentile believers freely mingled, ate together, and fellowshipped. Peter did the same. He mingled and ate with the God-fearing Gentile believers until some more guests from Jerusalem arrived.

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. (Galatians 2:12, ESV Bible)

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Certain Men From Ya’akov

When certain men from James arrived in Antioch, Simon Peter withdrew from mixed table fellowship. Under the influence of the newcomers, Simon Peter ate only with other Jews.

Who were the certain men from James? In the Greek of the period, the term "a certain man" usually indicates someone of prestige. The "certain men" from James must have been prestigious members of Jerusalem's community, perhaps apostles, members of the Twelve, or even members of the Master's extended family, such as the sons of Clops. Whoever they were, their approval or disapproval carried weight.

The Jewish believers from James argued that if the Gentile believers were fellowshiping and worshiping and eating within Jewish space, they should go the full distance and become Jewish. If they chose not to do so, they should be put outside the Jewish community-quarantined, so to speak-so that the distinction between Jew and Gentile remained perfectly clear. In expressing that opinion, they may or may not have been expressing the opinion of James, the brother of the Master.

In any case, their opinion obviously carried significant weight. Simon Peter capitulated to their influence and withdrew from table fellowship with the Gentile believers. Barnabas withdrew from table fellowship with the Gentile believers. The rest of the Jewish believers in Antioch quickly followed their lead.

Saul saw that the separation could only result, ultimately, in two different faith communities, two different religions, and two different peoples: a Gentile ekklesia and a Jewish ekklesia, and he did not care for that prospect. He took a bold step; he even stepped out of line and rebuked Simon Peter. He told the Galatians, "When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned" (Galatians 2:11).

References

This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.

Certain Men from James

Who were the certain men from James? Paul referred to them as "the circumcision party." By saying that they were certain men from James, Paul indicated that they were from the Evyonim, the Jerusalem community of Jewish believers.

The term "Evyonim" (or Ebionites) refers to an early Jewish Christian sect that existed during the early centuries of Christianity. The name "Evyonim" is derived from the Hebrew word "evyon," meaning "poor" or "poverty." This name might have been chosen to reflect their emphasis on voluntary poverty or to signify their spiritual humility.

The Ebionites held unique beliefs and practices that distinguished them from Gentiles. They adhered strictly to Jewish law and customs. This included observing the Sabbath, circumcision, and dietary laws.

The Ebionites are considered by many scholars as part of the early diversity within Christianity, representing a continuation of Jewish Christianity. They were eventually declared heretical by the mainstream Christian church as orthodoxy began to be established, and they gradually faded out of history. Their exact doctrines and the specifics of their practices are known mostly through the writings of their opponents, such as the early Church Fathers, which makes it difficult to have a complete understanding of their beliefs.

The certain men from James must have been important people. Perhaps they were apostles themselves-certainly representatives of James, the brother of the Master, the head over the believers.

Why they came to Antioch, we are not told, but we do know that on arrival, they expressed their disapproval about the free intermingling of Jewish and Gentile believers. Paul refers to them as "the circumcision party," indicating that they were convinced that Gentile believers should undergo conversion; not for salvation, but, as Zetterholm has suggested, these men were only trying to bring the Gentiles to the obvious next step. If the Gentile believers were fellowshipping, worshipping, and eating within Jewish space, they should go the full distance and become Jewish. If they chose not to do so, they should be set aside from the Jewish community- quarantined, so to speak- so that the distinction remained perfectly clear.

When Gentiles start doing Jewish things, it blurs those neat lines of distinction. Even within Messianic Jewish congregations today, this discussion appears to be ongoing.

Under their influence, Peter withdrew from table fellowship with the Gentile believers. Barnabas withdrew from table fellowship with the Gentile believers. The rest of the Jewish believers in Antioch followed suit. Paul saw where this was going. Paul saw that this could only result, ultimately, in two different faith communities, two different religions, and two different peoples: a Gentile ekklesia and a Jewish ekklesia, and he did not care for it.

He took a bold step; he even stepped out of line and rebuked Peter.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Halachah of the Gospel

Paul said:

But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel (Galatians 2:14, ESV Bible)

We could understand it as "their conduct was not in keeping with the halachah of the truth of the gospel." The word halachah refers to the legal interpretation of Torah, but it literally means "walk." To be out of step with the truth of the gospel is to be outside the correct halachah of the gospel.

The halachah of the truth of the gospel of which Paul spoke was his belief that Gentile believers are part of the covenant and the greater commonwealth of Israel. They were no longer "Gentile sinners" and pagans. This new status enabled Jewish and non-Jewish believers to mingle freely, fellowship freely, worship together, and most importantly, eat together. The matter had already been established after Peter saw the sheet from heaven and after the Cornelius incident. It was already an accepted halachic practice of the apostolic community, so this new policy of segregation and separation that the circumcision party introduced in Antioch ran contrary to the already-established halachic practice and norms of the believing community.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Judaizders

I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, llive like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Galatians 2:14, ESV Bible)

Paul rebuked Peter. That is to say, "If you, though you are Jewish, have been, up until now, freely mixing with the Gentile believers, eating with them, fellowshipping and worshipping with them, unlike the common Jewish standard, i.e., you have been living 'like a Gentile and not like a Jew," how then can you now force the Gentiles to live like Jews?"

It does not mean that Peter was living as a Gentile in the sense of not keeping Torah, not keeping Sabbath, not keeping kosher, etc. It means that he was freely associating with the Gentiles and setting aside higher halachic concerns about food prepared by Gentiles and concerns about Gentile defilement. Consider the Young's Literal Translation on Galatians 2:14:

If thou, being a Jew, in the manner of the nations dost live, and not in the manner of the Jews, how the nations dost thou compel to Judaize?

This is the passage from which we have inherited the title "Judaizers." In its original context, it refers to the ambitions of the Circumcision Party, namely the conversion of the Gentile believers. The Circumcision Party among the early Jewish believers sought to bring the God-fearing Gentiles "under the law" in the same manner as Jewish believers by requiring them to undergo conversion. The word is used this way in the LXX of Esther 8:17 (The abbreviation "LXX" refers to the Septuagint, which is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible):

And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them. (Esther 8:17, KJV)

And many of the Gentiles were circumcised, and Judaized [became Jews], for fear of the Jews. (Esther 8:17, LXX)

So Paul said to Peter: "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to Judaize, i.e., to become Jews?"

In later Christian use, the term Judaize came to mean "persuading Gentiles to live like Jews," that is, to keep the Sabbath in any measure, the Torah in any measure, attending synagogue or eating matzah at Passover, and so forth. The original context, however, and the goal of the Circumcision Party, was to compel the Gentile God-Fearers in Antioch to become Jewish. That is why this anecdote was relevant to the Galatians to whom Paul was writing. So Paul said, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile in regard to fellowshipping with Gentiles, and not like a Jew who separates from them, how then can you force the Gentiles to become Jews?"

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Rebuilding What You Tore Down

Paul went on to expand upon the rebuke by providing a theological argument:

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. 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. (Galatians 2:15-18, ESV Bible)

In other words:

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that [whether Jewish nor Gentile a person is not justified by works of the law [i.e., conversion, circumcision, etc.] but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we [the Jewish believers] also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law [conversion to being Jewish], because by works of the law no one will be justified. But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners [by eating and fellowshipping with Gentiles], is Christ then a servant of sin? [In other words, does becoming a believer mean we forsake Torah? Is eating and fellowshipping with Gentiles really a sin against Torah?] Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. (Galatians 2:15-18)

That is to say to Peter, "If you of all people, Peter, rebuild a sharp division between Jew and Gentile by removing ourself from table fellowship with Gentiles, you are rebuilding the barrier that you originally tore down. If you refuse to eat and worship with them, you rebuild the barrier that you originally tore down. You yourself were the first of the apostles to tear that separation down. If now you are putting it back up, then you are admitting that you were wrong in the first place, and you are proving yourself to have been living in sin and transgression."

How did Peter receive this rebuke? How did he answer? We would like to hear the other side of this story. Ultimately, Paul was right, and ultimately Peter conceded. Several years later, at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Peter offered an opinion, stating:

And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” (Acts 15:7-11, ESV Bible)

May God, who knows the heart, bear witness to us as well by giving us the Holy Spirit just as he did for them. And may he cleanse our hearts by faith so that we may serve him sincerely.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Rebuilding What I Once Destroyed

Saul rebuked Peter for holding a double standard. He said to Peter, "If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles [in regard to interacting and eating with Gentile believers] and not like the Jews [who separate from the Gentiles], how is it that you compel the Gentiles [to becoming Jewish and] to live like Jews?" English translations of Galatians 2:I4 suggest that Peter was guilty of forcing Gentiles "to live like Jews." The Greek is more direct. Saul rebuked Simon Peter for compelling Gentiles to "Judaize (loudaizo, Ἰουδαΐζειν)." In its original context, loudaizo means to become Jewish. It refers to the ambitions that Saul's opponents had for the God-fearers. They sought the elimination of Gentile believers through circumcision and legal conversion. They wanted to bring the God-fearing Gentiles "under the law" in the same manner as Jewish believers by requiring them to undergo conversion.

Up until that point, Peter had lived "like the Gentiles" freely mixed with the non-Jewish believers, eating with them, fellowshiping with them, and worshiping with them. It does not mean that Peter had been living as a Gentile in the sense of not keeping Torah, not keeping Sabbath, not keeping the dietary laws, and so forth. Saul only meant that he "lived like a Gentile" inasmuch as he freely associated with the Gentiles and set aside higher purity concerns that would have precluded mutual fellowship. He set aside concerns about food prepared by Gentiles and concerns about Gentile defilement.

By withdrawing from the God-fearing Gentile believers, Simon Peter implied that their status as Gentiles was deficient. From Saul's perspective, that implicit pressure was the same as compelling Gentiles to Judaize.

Saul rebuked Simon Peter when he saw "that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel" (Galatians 2:14, KJV). The word "walk" (halachah) is rabbinic lingo for the legal application of Torah. To be out of step with the truth of the gospel is to be outside the correct legal application of the gospel.

The particular "truth of the Gospel" of which Saul spoke was his belief that Gentile disciples did not need to become Jewish to qualify for the kingdom. The Gentile disciples were no longer "Gentile sinners" and pagans. This new quasi-legal status enabled Jewish and non-Jewish believers to mingle freely, fellowship freely, worship together, and most importantly, eat together. Simon Peter and the apostles in Jerusalem had first established the matter after the incident with Cornelius. They had confirmed it during Saul's recent visit. The new policy of segregation and separation that the circumcision party introduced in Antioch ran contrary to the already-established legal (halachic) practice and norms of the believing community.

Saul argued, "If I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor" (Galatians 2:I8). That is to say, if Simon Peter, of all people, reinstated the sharp division between Jew and Gentile by removing himself from table fellowship with Gentiles, he was rebuilding the barrier that he had originally torn down after the vision of the sheet and the visit to Cornelius. If he agreed that Jews and Gentile believers should limit their social and table interaction, then he had erred by tearing down that wall of division in the first place and proved himself to have been living in sin and transgression.

How did Simon Peter receive this rebuke from Saul, the former persecutor of the brethren? How did he answer? We would like to hear the other side of this story.

References

This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.

15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 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. (Galatians 2:15-16, ESV Bible)

Gentile Sinners

After retelling the Antioch Incident in which he rebuked Peter for returning to a segregationist policy of separating the Jewish and Gentile believers, Paul said in Galatians 2:15, "We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners." That sounds rather offensive. To elaborate on what Paul means by "Gentile sinners," we can read the first chapter of Romans, where he tells us exactly what he means by labeling the entire non-Jewish world as "Gentile sinners”:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they obecame futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:18-32, ESV Bible)

First-century Judaism divided the world into two main categories: Jews and Non-Jews. A "Non-Jew" could become a "Jew" by undergoing circumcision and legal conversion, so there was some crossover. Despite those few crossovers, there were two types of people in the world: Jews and Gentile sinners. Paul said to Peter:

Three terms from Galatians 2:16 need to be defined in order to make sense of the passage:

Justified
Works of the law
Faith in Jesus Christ

Justification

To understand “justification” let’s examine its Hebrew equivalent, to helps nail down a concrete definition. For example, consider Deuteronomy 25:1:

If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent (hitzdiku) and condemning the guilty, then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his guilt. (Deuteronomy 25:1-2)

When judges decide a law case, they acquit the innocent and condemn the guilty. The English Standard Version of the Bible translates the Hebrew word hitzdiku as "acquitting." I might say, "legally exonerating." It is the opposite of "condemning." To be condemned is to be found guilty by a court of law and delivered for punishment. Here's an example from the gospels. Jesus says:

"For by your words you will be justified [acquitted, legally exonerated], and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:37).

Likewise, in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, Jesus says:

"I tell you, this man went to his house justified [acquitted, legally exonerated] rather than the other" (Luke 18:10-14).

In the sense that Paul employs the term, he uses it to refer to a verdict in the heavenly court of law. The antithesis of the term is "condemnation." When you go before a court of law, the judge will offer a verdict. He will either say "Innocent" or "Guilty."

As in our own court system, the judge in a Torah court of law offers his verdict only in the eyes of the law and the court. It is a legal ruling, that's all. If the judge declares a man innocent, that does not make him actually innocent nor does it mean that he did not actually commit the offense. That's what it means to be justified: to be declared innocent, even if you aren't. In that sense, the old adage works: "Justification means just-as-if-I never-sinned." Actually, you did sin, but you are going to get away with it.

The same justification applied to the tax collector in the Master's parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. He was not innocent. He was a tax collector, collecting taxes for the evil empire of Rome. He left the Temple "justified," spared of condemnation in the eyes of God.

Justification does not make you sinless; it does not impart righteousness into your being and make you suddenly a more godly person. Instead, justification is a legal verdict of "not guilty" in the court of heaven, even though you are guilty. Justified means "not punishable." The justified person is reckoned righteous even if he is not.

Works of the Law

"Works of the law" is not a difficult term to understand. Works are deeds, so the term means "deeds of Torah." Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, one document has the title Miksat Ma'asei HaTorah, which I would translate as "Selection of the Works of the Law." The selection includes various purity measures, several of which are concerned with contamination by Gentiles. In 1994, Dead Sea Scroll scholar Martin Abegg published an article suggesting that when Paul spoke of the "works of the law," he was not speaking of keeping Torah in general, but rather of the type of rulings found in Miksat Maasei Halorah.

Abegg does not suggest that Paul was referring specifically to that Qumran document. Miksat Maasei HaTorah was essentially a halachic discourse on a few matters of Torah which had no relevance for the situation in Galatia, or in Rome, or in any of Paul's communities (or anywhere outside of an Essene compound for that matter). Abegg suggests, nonetheless, that Paul might have had sectarian rulings of that type in view. It does seem possible, as Abegg suggests, that "works of the law" should be understood as a specific subset of the Torah's commandments. In other words, it's not a generic term for obeying the Torah; it refers to certain ceremonial matters of Torah.

Likewise, in his book The New Perspective on Paul, James Dunn suggests that "works of the law" should be understood more narrowly than just "deeds of Torah" in general. Dunn claims that when Paul spoke of "works of the law," he was speaking of "the Torah's marks of Jewish identity." In that case, Paul had no problem with the Torah itself as a standard for righteousness for God-fearing Gentile believers. Instead, Paul took issue with imposing onto Gentiles the "works of the Torah" that marked Jewish identity: primarily the food laws, circumcision, the Sabbath, the calendar, and the sacrificial and Temple/Levitical obligations specifically those things that define who is Jewish and exclude the non-Jew.

I think Dunn is right about this because, as we know from the context, at least the circumcision and Jewish-identity question is on the table in Galatians. At the very least, "works of the law" means keeping the commandments, and for Jewish people, the most characterizing works of the law were, as Dunn says, those identity markers: sacrifice, food laws, circumcision, Sabbath, and calendar. What are the "works of the law"? In the context of contrasting Jews and Gentiles, they are the markers of Jewish identity: circumcision, Sabbath, dietary laws, Levitical obligations, etc.

For a more in depth look at the phrase “Works of the Law,” check out this study on Miksat Ma'asei HaTorah - “Works of the Law.”

Faith in Jesus Christ

Faith in Jesus Christ means believing in Jesus Christ, right? It does miss something in translation though. The translation "faith in Jesus Christ" translates the specific Greek phrase pisteos Yesou Christou. The phrase "faith in Jesus Christ" is actually a translation of a Greek phrase that looks more like "faith Jesus Christ" when you translate it directly. In English, when we have two nouns together like this, it often looks like a possessive form, like "John's book." Similarly, the original Greek phrase puts two nouns together, but it doesn't use a word that means "in."

In grammar, when two nouns are used this way, it can be taken two ways: one where Jesus Christ is the one having faith (like "faithfulness of Jesus Christ"), or the usual way we understand it, where it means faith directed towards Jesus Christ. However, the Greek doesn't have the word "in," which we usually use to show that the faith is directed towards Jesus. So, technically, saying "faithfulness of Jesus Christ" might be closer to what the original text is suggesting.

This is how Lloyd Gaston in his book Paul and the Torah translates the term. So it is not primarily about you and your belief in Jesus Christ as much as it is about the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. This is literally what the Greek says. It requires a fairly radical concept that challenges a lot of conventional notions about faith, but it is consistent with a literal reading of the Greek.

The "faithfulness of Jesus Christ" is his sinless obedience, his righteousness, his merit, and the favor (grace) that God found in him.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Rereading Galatians 2:15-16

Having defined our three terms, we are now ready to return to the text of Galatians:

Justification: A legal verdict of exoneration (the opposite of condemnation) issued by a court of law or by God's court of law.
Works of the law: The commandments of the Torah that identify a person as Jewish.
Faith in Jesus Christ: The faithfulness of Jesus Christ.

Let's reread Galatians 2:15-16 with these definitions. The substituted definitions will be in square brackets [like this]:

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that [whether Jewish or Gentile] a person is not [legally exonerated] by [the commandments of Torah that identify a person as Jewish] but through [the faithfulness of] Jesus Christ, so we [Jewish believers] also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be [legally exonerated] by the [faithfulness of Jesus Christ] and not by [the commandments of Torah that identify a person as Jewish], because by [the commandments of Torah that identify a person as Jewish] no one will be [legally exonerated]. (Galatians 2:15-16)

According to that reading of the passage, Paul merely asked Peter, "Why would you require the Gentiles to take on the commandments of Torah that define a person as Jewish when even we Jews who keep those commandments know full well that those commandments do not exonerate us?" If the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah is sufficient for Jews, it should be sufficient work for non-Jews. This is how Paul understands salvation. And he develops this concept in the book of Romans as well.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

“Works of the Law” in Romans 3

We can apply the same term-substitution trick to an important parallel passage in Romans 3. It makes for tedious reading, but the clarity that it affords is worth the effort:

By [the commandments of Torah that define a person as Jewish] no human being will be [legally exonerated] in his sight; since through the [Torah] comes the knowledge of sin. But now the [legal exoneration] of God has been manifested apart from the [Torah], although the [Torah] and the Prophets bear witness to it--the righteousness of God through the [faithfulness of] Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction [between Jew and Gentile, in this regard]; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are [legally exonerated] by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ... so that he might be just and the justifier [ie., the one who legally exonerates] of the one who has [the faithfulness of] Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of [Torah]? By [the commandments that identity a person as Jewish]? No, but by the [Torah] of faith.

For we hold that one is [legally exonerated] by faith apart from [the commandments that identify a person as Jewish]. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one-who will [legally exonerate] the [Jewish people] by faith and the [non-Jewish people] through faith.

Do we then overthrow the [Torah] by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the [Torah]. (Romans 3:20-31)

Paul was not criticizing being Jewish or keeping the commandments, nor did he set those things in antithesis to faith. Instead, he maintained that becoming Jewish is not the mechanism of salvation. That's not how justification works.

This entire argument would be completely irrelevant if Paul expected the Gentiles to perform the same "works of the law" as the Jewish believers. Instead, Paul assumed the Gentile believers were not going to do that. He assumed that they were not obligated to the commandments that identity a person as Jewish. For Paul, those commandments are the ones that make a difference between Jews and Gentiles.

Don't misunderstand. He was not discouraging Gentile believers from keeping the Sabbath, participating in the biblical lifestyle, or eating kosher, or anything of that nature. He was not discouraging them from Torah observance, but he was making it clear that there is a difference between Jews and Gentiles and their obligation to the works of the Torah. In Paul's mind, Jews are beholden to the commandments that identify a person as Jewish because that is what it means to be Jewish, whereas Gentiles are not. This distinction is irrelevant when it comes to the question of justification because both Jew and Gentile are in need of the faithfulness of Yeshua the Messiah.

In practical terms this means that we are all saved by grace, not by works, lest any man should boast. It also implies that Paul had no anticipation of the Gentile believers coming into obligation to those commandments which he termed as "works of the law." Therefore, the attempt on the part of the "circumcision party," the men from James in Galatians 2, or the Influencers who were convincing the Galatians to undergo circumcision were misplaced and distorted the essence of Paul's gospel.

This should help us immensely in understanding not just the epistle to the Galatians but all of Paul's writings. Paul did not erase the distinction between Jews and Gentiles. He did not mean to say, "There is no difference between a Jewish believer and a Gentile believer." Instead, he was simply saying, "Being Jewish is not what justifies you." What justifies a person? The faithfulness of Yeshua the Messiah: his righteous life, his obedience, his propitiating sacrifice, his resurrection.

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

17 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! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 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. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Galatians 2:17-21, ESV Bible)

Dead to the Law

For most of Christendom, this saying holds little to no difficulty; the meaning is self-evident. Paul simply distinguished between his former life as a Jew and his new life as a Christian. Formerly, he tried to live to Torah, for the Torah, and by keeping the Torah in order to earn salvation, but ultimately he realized that he could not earn salvation because his sin prevented him from meeting the Torah's impossible standards. In that way he died to the Torah, became a Christian, quit trying to keep the Torah, and learned to simply live to God by grace through faith without practicing Judaism any longer-that religion of dead and lifeless works.

This is the conventional Christian interpretation of what it means to die to the law through the law and live to God. To put it more simply, Paul is saying, "I was a Jew, but now I'm a Christian." Or "I used to be under the law, but now I'm under grace."

That explanation will work for most of Christianity. It has worked for most of the nearly two thousand years that the book of Galatians has been read and revered by Christians. But it does not work for a Messianic Jewish reading of the New Testament.

This explanation does not work for a Jewish reading of the text because the Messianic Jewish perspective recognizes that Messiah did not cancel the Torah and that Paul walked faithfully according to the Torah all his life. By his own testimony, "Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I committed any offense" (Acts 25:8). He went so far as to claim to have "done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers" (Acts 28:17). For more information on Paul check out this lesson from the Discipleship Study, Module One, entitled “Why Study the Bible Through a Jewish Lens? - Part 4: Recognizing the Jewishness of Paul.”

Paul did not reject Torah or Judaism. According to the book of Acts, the testimony of James, the elders at Jerusalem, and according to Paul himself, he remained Torah-observant all his life: a Pharisee the son of a Pharisee, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Jew, under the full obligation of the law, despite the fact that he considered himself an apostle to the Gentiles.

From a messianic perspective then, what did Paul mean when he said, "For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God"?

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Antioch Context

Most of the time, the problem we have with Paul is our failure to recognize that he makes a distinction between Jewish and Gentile believers and their respective relationships to the Torah.

For example, in the present case, when Paul says the law, or the Torah, we immediately are thinking about the scroll of Moses and keeping the commandments of Torah, whether the prohibition on adultery or the prohibition on pork.

But that's not what Paul was thinking about. He did not think of the Torah in a monolithic, one-size-fits-all sense. When Paul spoke of being "under the law," he meant halachically (legally) Jewish, and when he spoke of the "works of the law," he meant the commandments of the Torah that define and identify a person as Jewish. And it is in that same sense that he spoke of dying to the law through the law in our passage.

The troubling verse comes from the context of the Antioch Incident. It has to do with the anecdote about Peter and the men from James and their decision to withdraw from eating with the Gentile believers in Antioch. At that time, Paul rebuked Peter, pointing out that "If we rebuild the separation between Jew and Gentile that we originally tore down-that you yourself tore down-then we prove ourselves to be transgressors."

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

No Longer I Who Live

Let’s look at these verses in light of recent definitions we have established:

But if, in our endeavor [as Jewish believers] to be [legally exonerated] 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.e., if I rebuild the exclusivity of Jewish segregation from Gentiles] I prove myself to be a transgressor [because I as a Jew have already received and accepted Gentile believers and eaten and fellowshipped with them for years]. For through the law [that is to say, by virtue of relying on my Jewish status] I died to the law [which is to say, I realized that being Jewish is not sufficient for legal exoneration], so that I might live to God [by relying on the faithfulness of Messiah rather than on my Jewish status]. 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 [the faithfulness of] the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for [if legal exoneration and salvation were the result of being Jewish], then Christ died for no purpose. (Galatians 2:17-21)

When Paul said that through the law he died to the law, he means that through being Jewish and relying on Jewish status for salvation, he realized his own inadequacy before God even as a Torah-keeping Jew. He learned he could not rely upon that status. It does not mean he ceased to be Jewish or keep the Torah.

Instead, it is as if he died with Messiah and was raised with Messiah. He learned to rely upon the Messiah for salvation, for justification, and for legal exoneration in the court of heaven. So he said, "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" (Galatians 2:20).

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Dogs, Evil Doers and Mutilators

Paul expresses an almost identical sentiment in his epistle to the Philippians. Philippi was the Roman colony where Paul found Lydia and the other God-fearing women keeping the Sabbath in the absence of any Jews living in the city (Acts 16). They found no synagogue in the city; they met for Sabbath services by the river outside of town. Paul and Silas ended up in jail, and they sang through the night before their miraculous release. Paul addressed his epistle to the Philippians to that community:

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. (Philippians 3:1-2)

Notice here that Paul warned the God-fearing Philippian Gentiles to look out for three different types of people: dogs, evildoers, and mutilators of the flesh. These are not three descriptions of the same type of person, rather they are three different types of people.

Look Out for the Dogs!

In Jewish parlance, "dogs" are the heathen, the pagan world, the unbelieving Gentile world; as our Master said, "Do not cast pearls before swine or give what is sacred to dogs." Everyone to whom Paul wrote in Philippi was also a Gentile, so Paul redefined the term "dogs" to refer to idolaters. He contrasts them against the God-fearing believers of Philippi.

Look Out for the Evil Doers!

Evildoers are evildoers. Philippi had a lot of evildoers, such as the men who used the python girl for fortunetelling and had Paul and Silas arrested and charged with the crime of being Jews.

Look Out for Those Who Mutilate the Flesh!

Those who mutilate the flesh is a nasty, vitriolic way of referring to Paul's opponents among the Jewish believers who insisted on Gentile conversion to Judaism for the God-fearing Gentile believers. Since Paul's visit to Philippi, the God-fearing Gentile community he left behind had come into contact with both the larger Jewish world and other Jewish believers. They had experienced some of the same pressure to convert that the Galatian community did. Paul was not referring to circumcision as a mutilation of the flesh -except when it was pressed upon the Gentile believers under a theology of mandate. So Paul referred to them as "those who mutilate the flesh"-and no, Paul was not above being nasty with his opponents.

He went on to say, "For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh" (Philippians 3:3). He referred specifically to himself and Timothy, the authors of the epistle, but the Philippians would have also remembered Silas and probably Luke the physician as well. He also referred to other Jewish believers in his camp, including the apostles in Jerusalem who endorsed his gospel to the Gentiles. He said that he and the Jewish believers in agreement with him "put no confidence in the flesh," i.e., they did not rely on being Jewish for justification.

Paul told the Philippians that if anyone should have confidence in Jewish identity, it was him. He boasted of being circumcised on the eighth day, meaning he was not a convert. He was of the people of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, meaning he was not a convert and not a descendant of converts. He described himself as a Hebrew of Hebrews and a member of the sect of the Pharisees. Regarding his zeal for God, he had so much zeal that he persecuted other believers for God's sake, and "as to righteousness under the law, blameless" (Philippians 3:6).

Since becoming a follower of the Messiah, however, Paul said, "Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:7-8).

This does not in any way imply that after meeting the Messiah, Paul was no longer circumcised on the eighth day, or of the people of Israel, or of the tribe of Benjamin, or a Hebrew of Hebrews. It does not even mean that he no longer considered himself a Pharisee. (He did. See Acts 23:6.) It does not mean that he no longer lived blamelessly according to the righteousness under the law. It does mean that he no longer relied on the status and prestige he once derived from those things for salvation or justification.

He claimed to no longer seek legal exoneration of his own "that comes from the law," i.e., from being Jewish, "but that which comes through [the faithfulness of] Christ, the [legal exoneration] from God that depends on faith that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:9-11).

Another way to say this: "Through the law, I died to the law, 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" (Galatians 2:19-20).

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

A Different Perspective on Paul

When understood from this perspective of distinction between Jew and Gentile, Paul's letters become far more intelligible. One is able to hear Paul's voice unfettered, unencumbered. His message is not that complex. It boils down to this: Gentiles can be saved, too. The faithfulness of Yeshua is adequate for Gentiles as well.

It turns out that Paul was not at all about denigrating the Torah or Torah observance. He was not starting a new religion. He was not advocating lawlessness or arguing against Judaism. He was not forsaking being Jewish. Instead, he was bringing the teachings of Judaism of his day, as they related to Gentiles, forward in his arguments against other Jewish believers who contended that Gentiles must be under the law.

The picture of Paul that emerges from this "new perspective" (as it is called in academic circles) is one of a faithful Jew. He lived his life faithfully in obedience to the Torah, but he no longer relied on that status for his place in the kingdom or the world to come. Instead, he relied solely upon the faithfulness of the Messiah, and he encouraged Gentiles to do the same.

Paul was also a mystic, always internalizing his theology. He did not speak only in legal categories; instead, he internalized his theology, saying in Galatians 2:20, "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 [as a Jew and as a human being] I live by [the faithfulness of] the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Three Christian Clichés

Consider the mysticism of the statement: "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 [as a Jew and as a human being] I live by [the faithfulness of] the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.".

It seems a little bit self-centered for Paul to claim that Messiah died for him. As far as we know, Yeshua of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus never met one another during all the years that the Master lived in the flesh. It seems a little presumptuous for Paul to say that Yeshua died specifically for him. The Messiah died for everyone, right? At least for all Israel. But Paul said, "For me."

Have vou ever heard this Christian cliche: "Even if I were the only person on earth, Messiah would have died for me"? Really?

Paul says yes. It's no cliché; it's real. God has set his affection on you, and the height, the width, the breadth, the depth of God's love is unfathomable. Romans 5:8 says, "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." The Apostle John says, "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him" (1 John 4:9).

Have you heard this cliché: "I have Jesus in my heart"? Paul said that he did. It's not a cliché. Paul internalized and personalized this theology of not just knowing about God and His Messiah, but of actually knowing God and knowing his Messiah on a personal level.

Have you heard this cliché: "Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?" The honest answer is "No." You do not know him personally, and neither did Paul. But the mystical answer is "yes." And it is not just a cliché or theological platitude; the believer knows him and is known by him. He is bound to him, and he to the believer. The believer must live to him. He lives through the believer.

This idea of being bound up with the Messiah so that the Messiah lives through us has parallels in Judaism. The evangelical Christian "clichés" of personal relationship with the Messiah are similar to expressions of Jewish mysticism.

Chassidic Judaism teaches the same kind of mystical internalization and personalization of relationship with God through an intermediary. The Chasid connects with God through his relationship with his rebbe, the tzaddik. For example, I once read an interview with some Lubavitch girls who were doing outreach to secular Jews, handing out Sabbath candles and inviting them to a Shabbaton (Sabbath retreat). In the interview, they explained, "It wasn't us. It was the rebbe doing it through us." From their perspective, they had their rebbe in their heart. Likewise, Breslov Chassidim preface their prayers with a declaration, "I hereby attach myself to the soul of and in the merit of Rebbe Nachman."

The Christian life should be one of concentration on this inwardness. Every thought and action should be measured against this one intention: it is no longer I who live but Messiah who lives in me. This applies to every choice and decision in life, from the small things to the great things, from the choices we make in entertainment to the choices we make in employment and spouse. This mantra should be the thing that sets our alarm clocks and puts us to bed at night. A man should rise up in the morning like a lion because it is no longer he who lives, but Messiah who lives in him. We should take care of our bodies because they no longer belong to us, but to Messiah who lives in us. We should govern our passions because it is no longer about us and our desires, but Messiah who lives in us and through us. This is what Christian living is all about.

It is the governing principle for the believer's life. Towards the goal that we may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible we may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that we have already obtained this or are already perfect, but we press on to make it our own because our Master has made us his OWN.

"Through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God" Paul says. All he means is, "It's not about being Jewish or not being Jewish. It is about the faithfulness of the Son of God, Messiah within you, the love of God lavished upon you."

Referneces

This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”

Disciple X