Due to the confusion over the matter of
circumcision, Paul came to Jer=
usalem. He went there “according to
revelation” (Gal. 2:2).
Paul was a man of revelation in the middle of a confused situation. There in Jerusalem were a number of ex-Pharisees=
who had
believed in Christ, but did not believe in the grace of Christ for
justification (Acts 15:5). Th=
ere
were also believers of great repute (Gal. 2:6)—James and Cephas and J=
ohn
(Gal. 2:9). It was difficult =
to
sort through their feelings about the circumcision issue, because James see=
med
favorable toward Jewish ways, but accommodating toward grace (Acts 15:19),
Cephas was definitely for grace, but changeable for Jewish law (Gal. 2:11-1=
2),
and John seemed completely silent.
&=
nbsp;
The way to navigate through the situation was not by reputation, that i=
s,
by simply taking the word of those of repute. Paul presented the truth of his go=
spel
(Gal. 2:2), then the brothers saw that he had been entrusted with the gospe=
l to
the uncircumcision by way of the divine operation (Gal. 2:7-8) and perceived
the grace given to him (Gal. 2:9).
These three items—truth, operation, and grace were the guiding
light of the fellowship.
=
=
&=
nbsp;
------=_NextPart_01C72441.D2FF9D70
Content-Location: file:///C:/D848D252/Galatians12_files/header.htm
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"