Chapter 2                               

Galatians: Chapters -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- 
  2:1 Then, after fourteen years, I went again up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus with us as well. 2 More than that, I went according to revelation and laid a case before them, the good news that I proclaim among the ethnic families, (but apart and individually with those who were ‘esteemed’), lest I should be running or have run without purpose. 3 But not even Titus with me, though a Greek, was forced to be circumcised. 4 This issue happened because false brothers had smuggled in secretly to plot against our freedom which we possess inside of Christ Jesus, in order to enslave us, to impose abject bondage on us. • 5 We did not yield under subjection to them even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might thoroughly continue with you.

6 More than that, those who are esteemed to be something (whatever they were formerly does NOT mean anything to me, God does not receive the person of men), indeed these ‘esteemed persons’ added nothing to me (b). 7 On the contrary, when they saw that I have been entrusted with the good news of NO circumcision, just as Peter ‘was entrusted with the good news of circumcision.’ 8 Indeed, the One ‘having energeoed Peter into the apostleship of circumcision,’ also energeoes me into the ethnic families. [c] 9 Recognizing the grace having been given to me, James, Peter, and John, those ‘esteemed pillars,’ gave Barnabas and me ‘the right hand of fellowship,’ [d] that we should go to the ethnic families; while they should go to the circumcision. 10 They asked only that we should remember the poor, which I was also eager to do.

• 11 When Peter came to Antioch, however, I opposed him and resisted him to his face because he was clearly guilty of blame. 12 You see, prior to certain ones coming in from James, Peter had been eating with the ethnic families. But when these others came, he drew back and separated himself because he was terrified of those who were circumcised, and he played the fake game of hypocrisy [of putting on a show, of hiding behind a mask]. 13 As a result, all the rest of the Judeans in the assembly, including even Barnabas, were caught up in this fakery and pretending, hiding behind false masks of human performance.

14 When I saw that they were NOT walking straight towards the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of all of them, “If you, being a Judean, live like one of the ethnic families and not like a Judean, why do you compel the people to Judaize? 15 We who are born Judeans and not out the sinful ethnic families, 16 KNOW, in spite of our birth, that • a man is NOT made justly innocent out of works of law, but through the faith of Christ Jesus; even we have believed into Christ Jesus, that we might be declared justly innocent of all fault out from the faith of Christ, and not out of works of law; because out of works of law no flesh will be declared justly approved.

• 17 If we, however, who seek to be declared justly innocent INSIDE of Christ, ourselves are also found as those falling short of God, is Christ then a minister of falling short? It cannot be! 18 Indeed, if I build again those things that I had torn down, I simply establish myself as being contrary. Indeed, having come through the law [and found it ineffective], I died to the law, that I might live to God.

• 20 I have been crucified with Christ. I live, however, but no longer I. Christ lives inside of all that is me [as me]. More than that, the life I now live inside this sphere of flesh, I live entirely inside the sphere of the faith of the Son of God, this One who loved me and who gave Himself [traded Himself] entirely for me [e]. [See Ruling Verse 5]

21 I do not set aside or ignore the grace of God; indeed, if just approval and innocence comes through law, then Christ died for NOTHING!
 		  
Gospel Comments Notes
• Definition: Peter and the other disciples, even including John at that time, did not understand the Gospel. This fact is fundamental, especially since they had spent time with Jesus. This fact must strike us as Paul was smitten, that we should place ourselves before God until HE unveils Jesus to us.

• Covenant: To come to God through Jesus is to surrender to Jesus as absolute Lord. It is to forsake all of one’s own claims of self. Jesus alone CONNECTS anyone with God, the Covenant. Any attempt to come to God through “I got it right” is deceitful iniquity.

• Covenant: If I do wicked things against others inside of union with Christ, that is NOT Jesus causing me to sin, even though He shares my life with me. Even so, when I see how wrong I was, I run into Jesus, who alone saves me.

• Rule Verse 5: We CANNOT save ourselves; we cannot fix ourselves. God alone saves us by sending the Lord Jesus into us as the only way for us to know God. We awake brand new inside of Jesus with the old already gone, we know not how. Now we are one with Jesus in Spirit and in flesh; we live in full and intimate union with Him, sharing every moment.

• Speak Christ: Paul is giving us probably the strongest example of speaking Christ in the Bible. In every line, Paul is declaring himself to be inside that which is already absolute. By making union personal to himself, he is making that same union to be personal to us.

• Covenant: The Cross is absolute – or it is NOTHING at all. Either “it is finished,” or it never began. God placed us into Jesus by raising us into newness of life, brand new. We know nothing of what is outside the Cross. Grace is God sharing Life with us.		 b. Paul is referring specifically to Peter, to John, and to James, the brother of Jesus, as well as, by extension, all the disciples of Jesus. Paul is claiming that none of them really understood the gospel. Of these, John was struck the most inside his heart concerning Paul’s profound claim that he did not yet really know the Gospel.

c. Paul engages in sarcasm all through this chapter; his comparison to Peter here is entirely sarcastic. There is NO ‘good news’ of circumcision.

d. You see what I am saying. Paul is angry, and his sarcasm is unloosed. “The right hand of fellowship” is a slur.

e. Everything Paul says through the remainder of Galatians now comes out from this ruling verse of our union with Christ.
 

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