Would you like to turn with me this
morning to the Galatian epistle in chapter 2?
I would like to read again a short
passage that begins with verse 11.
This will be our final study in the
series on Peter, which we have entitled From
Simon to Peter.
And it may be that some of us
will feel that this is a strange episode
with which to conclude.
I can only say that this is the
biographical episode with which the Scriptures appears to
conclude, and therefore I can offer no apology.
I'd like to read a passage that begins
with verse 11 in chapter 2.
But when Peter was come to Antioch, I,
that is Paul, I withstood him face to
face, because he was to be blamed.
For before that certain came from James, he
did eat with the Gentiles.
But when they were come, he withdrew and
separated himself, fearing them which were of the
circumcision.
Or as another translation puts it, fearing them
of the circumcision party.
And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him,
in so much that Barnabas also was carried
away with their dissimulation.
But when I saw that they walked not
uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel,
I said unto Peter before them all, If
thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner
of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews,
why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as
do the Jews?
Now the reasoning of Paul goes on and
proceeds, but I think that we have in
that verse, in verse 14, the pith of
his reasoning and of his argument.
The title we have given to this last
study is this, How a Spirit-filled Man
Reacts to Valid Criticism.
You will remember that our last view of
Peter was of a resolute, dedicated disciple of
our Lord's, prepared almost to do anything for
his master.
He was chained in the Jerusalem prison.
Chained, of course, because of his loyalty to
Christ.
Chained to two of the sixteen soldiers that
had been deputed to look after him the
night before what was supposed to be his
execution.
And there he was asleep, dare I say
it, like a baby.
Asleep as a baby.
Almost careless of the kind of thing that
had been arranged for him the next day,
namely his execution.
And it was all because, of course, God's
will was his will.
And he knew that whatever the morrow held,
God held him.
And in that he found peace and hope
and wonderful.
He found sleep.
He found rest.
Now, the human writers of scripture might very
well have been tempted to end the biographical
sketches of Peter's life at that point.
If you were writing the life of Peter,
I've no doubt you would say, right, we've
reached the high water mark.
For the third time over, Peter is in
prison and is prepared to face anything that
comes his way for the sake of his
Lord.
That's the capstone.
That's the last chapter.
Let's write, finished.
But the divine author of scripture, in contradistinction
to the human writers, thought otherwise.
And let's remember, the writers of scripture are
not the authors of scripture.
Though we speak of the gospel of John
or the gospel of Matthew or the gospel
of what have you, or the epistle of
so and so, they were writers.
They were God's pen men.
We must never distinguish between the writers of
scripture and the author of scripture.
I say the divine author of scripture, the
Holy Spirit, deemed otherwise.
And he would have this last episode put
on record.
And it is one in which Peter does
not appear in such a bright light.
Great man that he was, great man.
And we are not worthy to draw near
to him in one sense.
We are not looking down at Peter over
our proud noses.
Not on your life.
Peter was a leader among the men.
Peter was God chosen.
Peter was spirit filled.
Peter was the apostle that God had chosen
to the Jews.
Peter was all that we've said he was
in the will and in the purpose of
God.
But nevertheless, the last biographical sketch of Peter
to be recorded in Holy Writ is of
an entirely different order from that we considered
last time.
Here, he who was there unafraid of the
very jaws of death is afraid of a
little pressure group from Jerusalem.
There were pressure groups in those days as
there are pressure groups today.
And there was a circumcision party, a little
pressure group that had come down from Jerusalem
to Antioch to see that Peter told the
lie.
And Peter was bullied.
And Peter was frightened.
And Peter gave in.
And in the words of the authorized version,
he dissembled.
He acted, let us say it because the
Bible says it, hypocritically.
I'll come to that a little later on.
Now the whole episode can be divided into
three main statements.
First of all, we have here a record
of a lapse into folly.
Peter's lapse into folly.
In coming to that, we've got to note
something that goes before it, namely Peter's initial
charity.
Look at the first part of verse 12.
For before that certain men came from James,
he ate with the Gentiles.
Arriving at Syria's chiefest city, Antioch, the apostle
Peter not only made for the Christian community
there, but he joined the Gentile and Jewish
community, probably first of all at the table
of our Lord, or at least at some
stage.
And then he ate with them at their
table.
In other words, he had what we commonly
speak of as table fellowship with the saints.
Whether they were Jews, whether they were Gentiles,
it made no difference.
They were one in Christ.
Peter was glad to meet them, and he
rejoiced with them, and he ate with them.
Of course, this is as natural as it
was necessary for a man like Peter.
I say necessary for this reason.
Peter had been taught the lesson that whom
God cleanses must not be called common.
There are no second-grade citizens in the
kingdom of our God.
Color of skin or nationality doesn't mean that
much.
Within the kingdom of our Lord and the
church of his Son, whom God cleanses, God
cleanses.
And I have no right to treat a
man whom God cleanses as other than made
white in the blood of the Lamb.
Neither did Peter.
Peter's first few days among the Antiochian Christians,
therefore, were days of unrestricted Christian fellowship and
Christian joy.
Can you see it?
The chiefest apostle to the Jews, mingling with
Jew and with Gentile, eating at their tables,
joining with them at the Lord's table, and
everything in the garden is lovely.
Peter's initial charity, but notice Peter's eventual change.
But, says verse 12, are these terrible buts?
Are there many buts in your life and
mine?
So and so and so and so but.
And I'm very sorry to say it gives
me no sense of joy, no glee.
I have no glee in my spirit today
to have to point you to this but
in the life of Peter at this point
especially.
But when they came, that is the people
who are ostensibly coming from James, the brother
of our Lord, he drew back and separated
himself, fearing the circumcision party.
I'm reading from the Revised Standard Version.
Peter's change of stance coincided then with the
arrival from Jerusalem of a group who claimed
at least that they had some special relation
to James, brother of our Lord.
The text is uncertain at this point.
We don't know whether they meant to say
that James had sent them.
We're not quite sure that they even meant
to say that they were doing what they
did or saying as they did on the
authority of James.
We don't know.
But apparently they put the emphasis on this,
they'd come from James and James was the
leader of the Jerusalem church.
The reference to them as the circumcision party
however, lets us know exactly what they stood
for.
They were ultra-conservative.
Ultra-conservative that is in matters of theology
and continued to give to circumcision a value
and significance which was a veritable denial of
the gospel.
They would deem it preposterous for Peter to
have tabled fellowship with uncircumcised Gentiles.
And Peter became ensnared.
Now we'll go into this in a moment.
We'll enlarge upon it a little.
The only thing I want to say now
in relation to Peter's eventual change is this.
This does not mean that Peter ceased to
believe the gospel of the grace of God
that the one thing you need to be
saved is to know Jesus as your savior,
to repent of your sin and to trust
in Christ.
It doesn't mean that he denied that.
What it does mean is this.
That he acted as if he no longer
believed like that.
The whole thrust is that he became hypocritical
in his behavior.
He behaved as if he believed that a
circumcised man has got something to commend him
that an uncircumcised man has not.
He acted as if he believed that for
a man to be circumcised then he belongs
to the elite in the church of Jesus
Christ.
That's not so.
That takes away from the glory and the
sufficiency of the Lord Jesus.
And even the great apostle Peter at this
advanced stage in his life and career behaved
in such a manner as to cast a
cloud over the gospel.
And he withdrew from table fellowship with a
Gentile Christian.
True, the tense of the verbs here, without
going into details, but the tense of the
verbs here do suggest that he did so
gradually.
Listen, he didn't do it all at once.
He didn't say, look, all right, that's the
end of it.
I'm not having anything more to do with
you.
He did it gradually, but he did it.
He withdrew.
Now that pathetically unjustifiable step was fraught with
gravest peril.
I can only refer to them.
First of all, think of the pain, think
of the tragedy, think of the heart soreness
caused to those Gentile believers gathered into the
church who've repented of their sin, who have
Christ as their treasure and their savior and
yet an apostle of Jesus Christ comes and
now withdraws from them and does not eat
with them.
Think of the tragedy of it.
Go a step further.
We see that this drove a wedge between
two of the best friends in the New
Testament, Paul and Barnabas.
Because Paul could not have it.
Paul saw through the whole thing.
He saw the significance of it straight away
and says, Paul, this is wrong.
Barnabas didn't see quite as clearly or he
was not quite as courageous.
And so you have a cleavage between the
great apostle Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles
and one of his very best friends in
the work of the Lord, Barnabas.
But more than that, I say to you
that the church stood poised precariously on the
edge of a precipice.
This could well have been the demise of
the church as we have come to know
it.
For had Peter not been reprimanded and his
sin exposed and the thing righted, then the
church would have been forever divided into parties,
Jew and Gentile.
And the unity of the body of Christ
would have been dismembered.
And a thing of the past.
A lapse into folly.
A second point, an example of fidelity.
We turn now from Peter to Paul.
At this strategic hour in its history, the
church was saved from almost inevitable disaster by
the courageous intervention and the discerning insight of
but one man.
Now if I had an hour at my
disposal, I would like to go through some
of the periods of history and say how
over and over and over again this kind
of thing has taken place.
God has had one man, just one man.
It's no wonder that Moody said, God only
needs one man.
Luther so long stood alone.
John Calvin stood alone.
John Knox in Scotland stood alone.
And so one could go on.
And in most of the countries of the
world, some of the greatest things have been
accomplished by one man alone with God.
God and his one man.
And so it is today.
There are individuals, lonely in some cases, very
lonely, but they're standing alone.
And they're the key to a situation that
will transform the course of history.
Armed with a razor-like mind, the Apostle
Paul was trained to think things through.
And inspired by an almost unrivaled love for
his Lord, he took the cudgels up and
he decided something's got to happen.
I don't care for consequences.
Principles are more important than consequences.
Now look first at Paul's challenge.
Irrespective of the consequences that might accrue to
himself on that score, Paul challenged Peter, and
this is how he reports what happened.
Can I read it again?
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed
him to his face, because he stood condemned,
verse 11, then verse 14.
But when I saw that they were not
straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I
said to Cephas, before them all, If you,
though a Jew, live like a Gentile, that
is, no longer attending to the dietary laws
of the Jews and things like that, you've
come to live very much like a Gentile
and not like a Jew, how can you
now compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?
Now that is a challenge that is directly
related to principle.
I want to stress that.
It is not a clash of personalities that
we have here.
In so many of the books one reads,
one would have to understand that here we
have a clash of personalities.
My friends, read the book for yourselves.
This is not a matter of one temperament
over against another or of one personality over
against another.
This is a matter of principle.
And one of the men in the case
could see the principle clearly, and the other
had blinds over his face.
He was blinded.
It isn't that Paul was out for a
fight.
He wasn't.
Though he has already acknowledged Peter to be
one of the pillars of the Jerusalem church,
chapter 2, verse 9, principle must come before
personality, and a silent acquiescence in Peter's behavior
was out of the question for Paul.
Principle is more important than peace.
Principle is more important than personality.
And so, you notice, in two ways Paul
approached this.
First of all, he spoke apparently to Peter
face to face, right up to his face,
not shouting at him from a distance, not
talking behind his back, but he goes up
to him face to face, face to face.
And then secondly, in the presence of them
all, a scandal has been caused.
The Gentile Christians have been scandalized and treated
as second-class citizens.
Well, you can't treat this thing in a
corner.
This is to be openly tackled and openly
rectified.
And Paul could see that.
If the rift is to be healed, the
thing has got to be healed in the
open.
Thank God for a pause.
He courageously raises his voice in protest, Paul's
challenge.
But now look at Paul's charge.
Be it noted that Paul does not content
himself with a mere general sort of a
challenge to Peter, a general protest.
In other words, he was not simply concerned
to ease his own conscience in the matter.
See, if Paul had been simply concerned to
ease his own conscience and to say, I've
got to say something about this.
Well, he might have said it in a
general sort of a way.
No, no, no, no, no.
Paul couldn't do that.
He couldn't be content with that.
He could see clearly what the thing was
leading to.
He could see the next step.
He could see the development of this kind
of thing in the church.
He could see the future of the church
split in two.
And so it does not suffice to deal
in generalities.
He's got to come right down to brass
tacks and put his finger on the very
issues.
Now you notice there are two things to
be stressed here.
Paul challenged Peter and all who had joined
with him with acting, I quote from the
RSV translation, insincerely.
Verse 13, And with him the rest of
the Jews acted insincerely, so that even Barnabas
was carried away by their insincerity.
Now, a little earlier on I used the
word hypocrisy.
The word underlying the English insincerely and insincerity
is the word for hypocrisy.
I have every sympathy with the translators of
the Bible because perhaps they didn't want to
give it its full force at this point.
Perhaps they didn't want to suggest that Peter
was acting as a hypocrite at least in
the full-blooded sense of that term.
And perhaps he wasn't.
But that's what the word is.
The word employed there means hypocrisy, hypocrisy.
Vincent's comment is straightforward and illuminating and needs
no further comment.
He puts it like this, Their act was
hypocrisy because it was a concealment of their
own liberal convictions and an open profession of
still adhering to the narrow Pharisaic view.
Peter did not mean to elevate circumcision as
something that was necessary for Christian fellowship.
He didn't mean to do that.
He couldn't do that and be a Christian.
A Christian is a man that says, Nothing
in my hand I bring, simply to thy
cross I cling.
I don't bring my circumcision and put it
down here on the balances and say, Now
here's a little bit of my merit.
I'm circumcised.
The eighth day of the stock of Israel
of the tribe of Benjamin or anything else.
Nothing is necessary for salvation but Christ and
Christ only.
Let me say that to someone here this
morning perhaps who doesn't know the realities of
the Christian faith and of Christian grace.
My friend, there is only one thing you
need and that thing is a person.
It is Jesus Christ in your heart.
It is the Christ who died for you
on the cross in your heart by the
Holy Spirit.
Nothing else, nothing else.
One thing is necessary and that one thing
is Christ in the heart.
Now, Peter did not mean, if you questioned
him, to elevate circumcision and to say, All
right, even though you only need Christ for
salvation, you need Christ and circumcision to have
fellowship.
He didn't mean that, but he acted as
if he did.
He knew that circumcision was not necessary for
salvation, therefore it is not necessary for fellowship.
But he is acting, let me repeat, as
if he did believe circumcision to be thus
important.
That is to say, at least, a form
of hypocrisy.
When we consciously behave in a manner that
belies our belief, we behave hypocritically.
That was Paul's first charge against Peter.
Before we go any further, can I ask
you to face yourself as I try to
face myself here?
Do we do this kind of thing?
Do we who so earnestly contend for the
gospel as revealed in Christ sometimes act as
if something more than participation in Christ were
necessary for fellowship?
Oh, I'll come right down to brass tacks.
Unless a man is baptized in a certain
way, can't have real fellowship with him.
Not real fellowship.
Or unless a man has been episcopally confirmed
after his baptism and that in a special
kind of building, consecrated building.
Can't have real fellowship with that man.
Or whisper it not in gasp.
Unless a man speaks in tongues.
Can't have real fellowship.
Not real.
Only second class.
You can go so far but no further.
My friend, it's the old Galatian heresy dressed
up.
Anything you put which you deem in your
estimate to be greater than Christ and to
supplement Christ and to be necessary for fellowship,
I say to you that takes away from
Christ and the gospel.
That was the Galatian heresy.
The second aspect of Paul's charge is this.
Paul enlarges upon that basic charge by saying
that they were not straightforward about the truth
of the gospel.
Verse 14.
As a matter of fact, that word for
straightforward may well be translated straight-footed.
That's far more literal.
Straight-footed.
There's a picture here.
The idea is that once you embrace Christ
and his gospel, there is a straight and
a narrow path that opens up before you.
Let me repeat.
The moment you put your arms of faith
around the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior,
that moment there is a straight path and
a narrow path that opens up before you.
And Jesus calls you to walk that way.
Not the course of this world.
I am the way.
Right.
What these people were doing was this.
They were not walking straight-footed.
In other words, they were turning their feet
a little bit off the straight, and they
were going either just a little bit to
the left or a little bit to the
right.
In this case, in our terminology, it would
be a little bit to the right.
And you cannot do it and maintain real
fellowship with God and his people.
You've got to go straight on to the
end of the road.
They were not straight-footed.
Paul charged Peter then with turning off at
a tangent and moving off the course that
the Lord Jesus had led down.
This is not in the gospel.
This is inconsistent with it.
It's not walking straight on.
Such was the challenge, and such was the
charge, leveled by the Apostle Paul against his
fellow Apostle Peter.
The perusal of the unfortunate incident may depress
some of us.
If I were to leave just here this
morning, you know, I can understand it being
depressing.
But Peter, and Peter at this point, Peter
an apostle, the apostle to the Jews, that
Peter should do this kind of thing.
But wait a moment.
There's a redeeming feature here.
And if I don't have time to expound
it, let me just say it.
One of the most wonderful things that comes
out of this whole dismal episode is Peter's
attitude to the criticism that was made of
him by Paul.
Peter's attitude to the criticism that was leveled
at him by Paul.
And that's why I gave the title to
this message this morning, How a Spirit-filled
Man Reacts to Valid Criticism.
Now my good friends, I don't normally do
this, but I think it's getting on for
twenty past twelve.
I'm very sorry.
And if somebody has to go, I quite
understand.
I'll only be about four minutes, but will
you give me four minutes?
If anybody is unwilling, I'll understand it if
you have to go.
But I feel I must say this for
the glory of the gospel and of the
truth.
And so my third main point is this.
The honesty that is a key to spiritual
reality and maturity.
The honesty that is a key to spiritual
reality and spiritual maturity.
There is, let me repeat then, a saving
virtue of priceless worth that emerges to transform
the otherwise shattering incident.
And it is seen in Peter's sheer honesty.
How humble he must have been, first of
all to be talked to face to face
by this other man, Paul.
And then not only face to face, but
before everybody.
You know, Peter must have felt just like
that.
Do you remember Peter's temperament?
He wasn't slow in coming forward.
I can almost hear Peter tempted to bark
a little loud here.
And to bite.
Wouldn't you be thus tempted?
But he didn't.
A man who can squarely, objectively and honestly
face up to valid criticism leveled at himself,
and realign his paths according to God's word
is a man who can be trusted anywhere,
anytime, under any circumstance.
This is the man for me.
You see, there is no man that never
makes a mistake.
Paul made mistakes.
You make mistakes, and I certainly do.
And the most precious thing in the world
is to have a man who is honest
enough when he's shown his mistake, to put
it right and to go on in the
light of truth and in the light of
righteousness.
Now, let me expand that a bit.
We all know too well how very difficult
it is to be honest with ourselves.
Especially so when a more clear sighted brother
in Christ points out the error of our
ways and has had to do so publicly
for the glory of God.
We know something of the danger of that
way, the kind of thing that can happen.
We know our human nature.
We know of men in the church of
Jesus Christ who have shown great zeal and
great enterprise.
They've served and served and served.
They've worn themselves out serving the Lord.
But they could never be shown their fault.
Never.
And if you showed them their fault, they
would make mincemeat of you.
There are people who consider themselves beyond criticism.
They're in an ivory palace of their own.
They cannot be wrong in their own estimation.
And therefore, they are arrogant, rough shod, and
sooner or later they will fall psychologically sick
or spiritual.
But Peter acknowledged his fault.
Oh, this is wonderful.
He's risen so high.
And here to be humbled so very much
by his brother Apostle Paul.
But he acknowledged his fault.
Now, this passage does not specifically say so.
And some of you may be questioning, ah,
where'd you get that from?
Well, now, it is fairly evident, if you
put things together, that this took place before
Acts chapter 15, in the council of Jerusalem.
And in Acts chapter 15, it is evident
that Peter had acknowledged his fault.
And he would not countenance this kind of
thing.
And you don't need to be circumcised in
order to have fellowship with Christian Jews.
He's changed his mind.
Without such unqualified honesty, no man can grow
in grace or in the knowledge of God.
Armed with such grace, however, the very least
can attain to the highest.
Are you honest with God?
Do you resent, terribly resent, being shown the
truth about yourself, even when it is true?
Now, that's Irish.
Do you know what I mean?
When it is unquestionably true, however graciously it
is done, do you resent having to face
the truth about yourself?
If so, your spiritual life may be strangled
at that point.
Pray for Peter's humility, because Peter's Lord still
gives such humility to his followers.
The folly, the fault was acknowledged, and the
folly was forsaken.
And lastly, let me just say one word
about this.
Fellowship was restored.
This, to me, is the most wonderful thing
of all.
Fellowship was restored.
We know from the rest of the New
Testament that Peter, far from bearing a grudge
against Paul, speaks of him in 2 Peter
3, the end chapter, as our beloved brother
Paul.
According to the wisdom that is given him,
which Peter treats as something that he himself
hasn't got.
Isn't this wonderful?
The context is the coming again of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and he refers to Paul
in this elevated way as somebody who's ahead
of him in an understanding of certain truths.
Our beloved brother Paul.
But can you see what that means?
Fellowship was not broken.
The man who was criticized and who was
shown up and shown up in the open
had grace to receive it, grace to acknowledge
the truth of it, grace to turn away
from his evil, and grace to see how
really indebted he was to the man who
dared stand up and say, Peter, you're a
great man, but you're wrong.
You read chapter 3 in 2 Peter verses
14 to 18, and with this I conclude.
A lapse into folly, an example of fidelity,
and the honesty that is a key to
spiritual maturity.
A man who is rock-like in his
convictions about Christ and the gospel must not
be so rock-like that he cannot change
his mind when he's wrong.
We need the rock character concerning the certainties
of the divine revelation, but we also need
the pliability of the humble who, when he
sees that he's done something wrong, turns away
from it, acknowledges it to be sin if
that is required, and humbly returns into fellowship
even with those who have thus been the
instruments of God's chastisement in his life.
Oh God, make me a man like this.
Lord, make me a man like this.