In 2:11, we encounter the famous showdown between two apostles, Paul and Peter (Cephas). And again, if even they conflict, who are we to think we are above it? What is crucial is to carefully note the fundamental issue and not let go of it as the conflict moves toward resolution. The issue is "table fellowship." It is about who, on the basis of common Jewish scruples (based on Torah/the Law), is able (or not able) to eat with whom???
It is also significant where this argument is located. Antioch is famous for two things. By the way, there are two places named Antioch. The one here is Syrian Antioch, the one closest to Israel. It is famous for being the first place at which disciples of Jesus were called "Christians." And, it is famous for being the location of the first church that blended into a single fellowship both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. Though we may scarcely raise our eyebrows at this, given our historical and cultural position, this was a monumental accomplishment! It was so unprecedented that the "mother church" in Jerusalem sent an investigator to look-in and report-back. His name was Barnabas, and he appreciated and approved of what he found at Antioch. For whatever reason, he left here for Tarsus, the hometown of Saul (Paul), and brought him to Antioch. Paul was a new Christian who, without a doubt, struggled to find a place inside the Christian fellowship that he had even recently persecuted. In his official role in Judaism, Paul had imprisoned and even killed Christian Jews (like the martyr Stephen). Now Paul and Barnabas are found at Antioch, and how interesting is it that they are joined by none other than the apostle Peter, who has the distinction of bringing the first "raw Gentile" (Cornelius) through a Christian conversion!
Paul confronts Peter with the charge of hypocrisy. Previously, Peter would eat (share fellowship) with Gentile Christians. In Acts, we recall that Peter's conversion of Cornelius came only after a three-times-repeated vision in which food animals notoriously outside of the "kosher" dietary limitations are set before Peter, and he is commanded: "Kill and eat!" Peter, like any good Jew, refuses, again and again. But finally the message attending the vision is that he should, no longer, consider "unclean" what God has, now at last, pronounced to be "clean." The message is two-fold. The kosher food laws are now abrogated and taken off the books (recall that Jesus had settled this when he declared defilement to originate, not with what one might eat, but with whatever evil proceeded from the human heart. Easing dietary restrictions was only part of the revelation; the other half of the message is that "unclean people" (again, unclean in reference to Jewish limitations) were now to be regarded as "clean". That means that Gentiles are now fit to be "insiders" that take their place in fellowship with God's Jewish people!
Peter understood all this, and the evidence is his conversion of Cornelius. He preached the Gospel of Jesus to the Gentile household, and baptized them. But, suddenly, Peter withdrew himself and would no longer eat with Gentiles who were insiders to the Christian fellowship. Paul rightly perceived hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was taken-in by it! What caused this reversal? Certain men were sent from James in Jerusalem (just as Barnabas had been sent earlier). These men were Christians, Jewish Christians, who still believed that the central organizing focus of God's people was the Torah, as it had been for centuries for the Jewish people in the theocratic nation of Israel, and as it now continued to be (they thought) for God's people in the church. They were willing to admit Gentiles into the fellowship, but only insofar as they respectfully embraced Judaism. Essentially, a Gentile could be accepted if he/she first became a Jew.
Paul takes careful aim with his first rebuke of Peter: "But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Cephas before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, how compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?" (Gal. 2:14, ASV). Here Peter had set aside Jewish scruples and gave a place at his table to Gentiles. In Jewish perspective, this was "living like a Gentile". But now, to refuse such dinner guests is not only a social rejection, it implicitly carries pressure. If the Gentiles, who formerly shared table with Peter, want to ever again take a seat at the table then they must comply with Jewish restrictions. They would have to "live like Jews."
Vs. 15 presents the "social map" marked out when Torah is the organizing feature. It was the map, indicating insiders and outsiders, as recognized by Law-observant Jews. The Gentiles were located in the sphere marked-out for "sinners", and this would then locate Jews in some different sphere, marked perhaps by "holiness" or "cleanness" or "righteousness." The conflict arises because Paul does no longer accept this social map. He once did, but no longer. Paul now has a new map.
The key topographical feature on the competing "maps" is "righteousness" or "justification" (both English words stem from the same, identical Greek root). You may have to set aside what you have been taught about these words, and may have to learn to think of their meaning in a new way. What Paul is communicating is the basis on which a given person (Gentile or Jew) may "rightfully" or "justifiably" take his place as an insider among God's people (this has implications for the place then taken at table). By tradition accumulated over centuries of history, a Jewish person would "justify" only those people located as God's on the "social map." And since that map was organized around the Law as its focus, that meant only "Torah-honoring Jews" could be justified. If a Gentile should seek inclusion, they would have to become one of those.
Paul used to think in these terms also, but since Jesus had been nailed to the Cross and resurrected, Paul could no longer do so. What God did in Christ Jesus was so significant that, for anyone who understood it, it would mean a re-drawing of the social map. The Cross had to become the new center, the new focal point, the new organizing feature that determined insiders and outsiders. It was the new means of "justification." Notice the contrast Paul offers: "yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed on Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." (Gal 2:16, ASV).
We may need to change our thinking and change the definition of words that we have accepted. Since the Protestant Reformation in the 1500's, "works" have often been understood as "works of merit" or "human accomplishments" that might be held up to God to earn one's salvation. After all, this was the way Catholics in the days of Martin Luther used the word "works." And ever since then, the common assumption is that Paul faced exactly the same "legalism" or attempts at "self-righteousness" that Luther faced in medieval Catholicism. He did not.
Studies of the Judaism that existed in the times of Jesus and Paul (the era of "Second Temple Judaism") simply was not legalistic, in these terms. Jews did not try to accumulate deeds that were moral or religious to "justify" themselves to God. If you are thinking that this is what Paul argued against, you will not read Galatians. You will mis-read Galatians, and never understand what Paul was saying. By the way, the studies of Judaism that are now changing our thinking on these matters is called "the new perspective on Paul" and was touched-off by a scholar named E. P. Sanders.
What Paul meant by "works of the Law" and by its opposite "faith somehow referenced to Jesus" will be the subject of the next post.
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