5. Paul clashes with Peter in Antioch
This is without doubt one of the most tense and dramatic episodes in the New Testament. Here are two leading apostles of Jesus Christ face to face in complete and open conflict.
The scene has changed from Jerusalem, the Jewish capital, to which the early verses of this chapter belong, to Antioch, the chief city of Syria, even of Asia, where the Gentile mission began, and where the disciples were first called ‘Christians’. When Paul visited Jerusalem, Peter (together with James and John) gave him the right hand of fellowship (1–10). When Peter visited Antioch, Paul opposed him to his face (11–16).
Now both Paul and Peter were godly Christian men who knew what it is to be forgiven through Christ and to have received the Holy Spirit. Further, they were both apostles of Jesus Christ, specially called, commissioned and given authority by him. They were both honoured in the churches for their leadership. They had both been mightily used by God. In fact, the book of Acts is virtually divided in half by them, the first part telling the story of Peter and the second part the story of Paul.
Yet here is the apostle Paul opposing the apostle Peter to his face, contradicting him, rebuking him, condemning him, because he had withdrawn and separated himself from Gentile Christian believers, and would no longer eat with them. It was not that Peter denied the gospel in his teaching, for Paul has been at pains to show that he and the Jerusalem apostles were at one in their understanding of the gospel (1–10), and he repeats this fact here (14–16). Peter’s offence against the gospel was in his behaviour which was, in J. B. Phillips’s words, ‘a contradiction of the truth of the Gospel’.
We must investigate this situation in which these two leading apostles were at loggerheads. In particular, it is important to note what each apostle did, why he did it and with what result. We shall begin with Peter.
1. The conduct of Peter (2:11–13)
a. What he did
When Peter first arrived in Antioch, he ate with Gentile Christians. Indeed, the imperfect tense of the verb shows that this had been his regular practice. ‘He . . . was in the habit of eating his meals with the Gentiles’ (jbp). His old Jewish scruples had been overcome. He did not consider himself in any way defiled or contaminated by contact with uncircumcised Gentile Christians, as once he would have done. Instead, he welcomed them to eat with him, and he ate with them. Peter, who was a Jewish Christian, enjoyed table-fellowship with the Antiochene believers, who were Gentile Christians. This probably means that they had ordinary meals together, although doubtless they partook together of the Lord’s Supper as well.
Then one day a group arrived in Antioch from Jerusalem. They were all professing Christian believers, but they were Jewish in origin – indeed, strict Pharisees (Acts 15:5). They came from James (Gal. 2:12), the leader of the Jerusalem church. This does not mean that they had his authority, for he later denied this (Acts 15:24), but rather that they claimed to have it. They posed as apostolic delegates.
On arrival in Antioch they began to preach: ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved’ (Acts 15:1). Evidently they went even further than that and taught that it was improper for circumcised Jewish believers to have table-fellowship with uncircumcised Gentile believers, even though the latter had believed in Jesus and been baptized.
These Judaizing teachers won a notable convert to their pernicious policy in the person of the apostle Peter. For Peter, who had previously eaten with these Gentile Christians, now withdrew from them and separated himself. He seems to have taken this action shamefacedly.
b. Why he did it
Why did Peter create this disastrous breach in the fellowship of the church in Antioch? We have already seen the immediate cause, namely that certain men came from James (12). But why did he give in to them? Are we to suppose that they convinced him that he had been doing wrong to eat with Gentile Christians? This cannot be so.
Let me remind you that only a short while previously, as is recorded in Acts 10 and 11, Peter had been granted a direct, special revelation from God on this very subject. He had been on the rooftop of a house in Joppa one afternoon when he fell into a trance. He saw in his vision a sheet let down from heaven by its four corners, containing an assortment of unclean creatures (birds, beasts and reptiles). He then heard a voice saying to him: ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’ When he objected, the voice went on: ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ The vision was repeated three times for emphasis. From it Peter concluded that he must accompany the Gentile messengers who had come from the centurion Cornelius and enter his house, which action was unlawful for him as a Jew. In the sermon that he preached to Cornelius’s household he said: ‘I now realise how true it is that God does not show favouritism.’ When the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentiles who believed, Peter agreed that they must receive Christian baptism and be welcomed into the Christian church.
Are we to suppose that Peter had now forgotten the vision at Joppa and the conversion of the household of Cornelius? Or that he now went back on the revelation that God had given him then? Surely not. There is no suggestion in Galatians 2 that Peter had changed his mind. Why then did he withdraw from fellowship with Gentile believers in Antioch? Paul tells us. He separated himself because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group (12). The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray (13). The Greek word for hypocrisy means ‘play-acting’. This is what they were doing. They ‘played false’ (neb).
Paul’s charge is serious, but plain. It is that Peter and the others acted in insincerity, hypocritically, and not from personal conviction. Their withdrawal from table-fellowship with Gentile believers was not prompted by any theological principle, but by cowardly fear of a small pressure group. In fact, Peter did in Antioch precisely what Paul had refused to do in Jerusalem, namely yield to pressure. The same Peter who had denied his Lord for fear of a maidservant now denied him again for fear of the circumcision party. He still believed the gospel, but he failed to practise it. His conduct ‘did not square’ with it (neb). He virtually contradicted it by his action, because he lacked the courage of his convictions.
c. What happened as a result
We have already noticed that the other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray (13). Even Barnabas, Paul’s trusted friend and missionary colleague, who had stood firm with him in Jerusalem (1, 9), now gave way in Antioch. This is important. If Paul had not taken his stand against Peter that day, either the whole Christian church would have drifted into a Jewish backwater and stagnated, or there would have been a permanent rift between Gentile and Jewish Christendom, ‘one Lord, but two Lord’s tables’. Paul’s outstanding courage in resisting Peter on that occasion preserved both the truth of the gospel and the international unity of the church.
Now we leave Peter and turn to Paul.
2. The conduct of Paul (2:14–16)
a. What he did
Paul opposed Peter to his face (11). The reason for Paul’s drastic action was that Peter stood condemned. That is to say, ‘he was clearly in the wrong’ (neb). Not only so, but Paul rebuked Peter in front of them all (14), openly and publicly.
Paul did not hesitate out of respect for who Peter was. He recognized Peter as an apostle of Jesus Christ, who had indeed been appointed as an apostle before him (1:17). He knew that Peter was one of the ‘pillars’ of the church (9), to whom God had entrusted the gospel to the circumcised (7). Paul neither denied nor forgot these things. Nevertheless, this did not stop him from contradicting and opposing Peter. Nor did he shrink from doing it publicly. He did not listen to those who may well have counselled him to be cautious and to avoid washing dirty theological linen in public. He made no attempt to hush the dispute up or arrange (as we might) for a private discussion from which the public or the press were excluded. The consultation in Jerusalem had been private (2), but the showdown in Antioch must be public. Peter’s withdrawal from the Gentile believers had caused a public scandal; he had to be opposed in public too. So Paul’s opposition to Peter was both ‘to his face’ (11) and ‘in front of them all’ (14). It was just the kind of open head-on collision which the church today would seek at any price to avoid.
b. Why he did it
How is it that Paul dared to contradict a fellow apostle of Jesus Christ, and to do it publicly? Was it because he had an irritable personality and could not control his temper or his tongue? Was he an exhibitionist, who enjoyed an argument? Did he regard Peter as a dangerous rival, so that he leapt at the opportunity to down him? No. None of these base passions motivated Paul.
Why then did he do it? The answer is simple. Paul acted as he did out of a deep concern for the very principle which Peter lacked. He knew that the theological principle at stake was no trivial matter. Martin Luther grasps this admirably:
he hath here no trifling matter in hand, but the chiefest article of all Christian doctrine . . . For what is Peter? What is Paul? What is an angel from heaven? What are all other creatures to the article of justification? Which if we know, then are we in the clear light; but if we be ignorant thereof, then are we in most miserable darkness.
What was this theological principle that was at stake? Twice in this chapter the apostle calls it the truth of the gospel. This was the issue in Jerusalem (5), and this was the issue again in Antioch (14). Paul saw this. Notice the spiritual perception into the basic issue which he claims – that Peter and the others were not ‘walking straight’ (literally, verse 14) according to the truth of the gospel. ‘The truth of the gospel’ seems to be likened to a straight and narrow path. Instead of sticking to it, Peter was deviating from it.
What, then, is the truth of the gospel? Every reader of the epistle to the Galatians should know the answer to this question. It is the good news that we sinners, guilty and under the judgment of God, may be pardoned and accepted by his sheer grace, his free and unmerited favour, on the ground of his Son’s death and not for any works or merits of our own. More briefly, the truth of the gospel is the doctrine of justification (which means acceptance before God) by grace alone through faith alone, which he goes on to unfold in verses 15–17.
Paul simply will not tolerate any deviation from this gospel. At the beginning of the epistle he pronounced a fearful anathema on those who distort it (1:8–9). In Jerusalem he refused to submit to the Judaizers even for a moment, ‘that the truth of the gospel might be preserved’ (2:5). And now in Antioch, out of the same vehement loyalty to the gospel, he withstands Peter to his face because his behaviour has contradicted it. Paul is determined to defend and uphold the gospel at all costs, even at the expense of publicly humiliating a fellow apostle.
But someone may wonder how Peter’s withdrawal contradicted the truth of the gospel. Consider Paul’s reasoning carefully: We . . . know that a person [anyone, whether Jew or Gentile] is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ (15–16). These words are part of what Paul said to Peter in Antioch. He is reminding him of the gospel which they both knew and which they held in common. On this matter there was no difference of opinion between them. They were agreed that God accepts sinners through faith in Christ and in the work he finished on the cross. This is the way of salvation for all sinners, Jews and Gentiles alike. There is no distinction between them in the fact of their sin; and there is therefore no distinction between them in the means of their salvation.
Now, if God justifies Jews and Gentiles on the same terms, through simple faith in Christ crucified, and puts no difference between them, who are we to withhold our fellowship from Gentile believers unless they are circumcised? If God does not require this work of the law called circumcision before he accepts them, how dare we impose a condition upon them which he does not impose? If God has accepted them, how can we reject them? If he receives them to his fellowship, shall we deny them ours? He has reconciled them to himself; how can we withdraw from those whom God has reconciled? The principle is well stated in Romans 15:7: ‘Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you.’
Besides, Peter himself had been justified by faith in Jesus. He not only ‘knew’ the doctrine of justification by faith, but had himself acted on it and ‘put his faith’ in Jesus in order to be justified (16). And Peter no longer observed Jewish food regulations. You are a Jew, Paul says to him, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? (14).
c. What happened as a result
We are not told explicitly in this passage the result of Paul’s action, but the perspective of later history tells us. For this incident in Antioch triggered the future Council in Jerusalem, described in Acts 15. It is possible that Paul was actually on his way up to Jerusalem for the Council while he was writing this epistle. We know from Acts 15:1–2 that the disagreements provoked by the Judaizers in Antioch were the immediate cause of the Council. Paul, Barnabas and certain others were appointed by the church to go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this very question. We also know the decision which the Jerusalem Council reached, namely that circumcision was not to be required of Gentile believers. And so, partly as a result of the stand Paul took at Antioch against Peter that day, a great triumph for the gospel was won.
3. Conclusion
What can we learn for today from this clash between Paul and Peter in Antioch? Was it just an undignified, unseemly collision of personalities without any lasting significance? On the contrary, the controversy between Paul and Peter is being re-enacted in contemporary ecclesiastical debate, especially with regard to issues such as intercommunion. The scene is different. It is not Syria and Palestine, but other parts of the world, not least the UK. The participants are also different. They are not first-century apostles, but some of today’s church leaders. The battleground is different too, for it is not the question of Mosaic circumcision, but of such secondary matters as episcopal confirmation, the mode of baptism or the church’s ministry. Yet the basic issue at stake is precisely the same, namely on what grounds Christian believers may share together, and on what grounds they should separate from one another and excommunicate one another. The answer to these questions is given by the gospel. The gospel is good news of the justification of sinful humanity by God’s grace. It tells us that the sinner’s acceptance with God is by faith only, altogether apart from works. This is the truth of the gospel. Once we have grasped it clearly, we are in a position to understand our twofold duty towards it.
a. We must walk straight according to the gospel
It is not enough that we believe the gospel (Peter did this, 16), nor even that we strive to preserve it, as Paul and the Jerusalem apostles did, and the Judaizers did not. We must go further still. We must apply it; it is this that Peter failed to do. He knew perfectly well that faith in Jesus is the only condition on which God will have fellowship with sinners; but he added circumcision as an extra condition on which he was prepared to have fellowship with them, thus contradicting the gospel.
Various Christian bodies and people still repeat Peter’s mistake today. They refuse to have fellowship with professing Christian believers unless they have been totally immersed in water (no other form of baptism will satisfy them), or unless they have been episcopally confirmed (they insist that only the hands of a bishop in the historic succession will do), or unless their skin has a particular colour, or unless they come out of a certain social drawer (usually the top one), and so on.
All this is a terrible affront to the gospel. Justification is by faith alone; we have no right to add a particular mode of baptism or confirmation or any denominational, racial or social conditions. God does not insist on these things before he accepts us into fellowship; so we must not insist upon them either. What is this ecclesiastical exclusiveness which we practise and which God does not? Are we more unapproachable than he? The only barrier to communion with God, and therefore with each other, is unbelief, a lack of saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Of course we are not rebels for the sake of it. There is a place for wholesome church discipline. Every church has the right to make its own rules for its own members. The purpose of such domestic discipline is to ensure, so far as it is possible for human beings to ensure, that those applying for church membership have been justified by faith. But to deny a fellow Christian (a believing, baptized, communicant member of another church) access to the Lord’s Table simply because he or she has not been immersed or confirmed, or is not this or that, is an offence to the God who has justified that believer, an insult to a brother or sister for whom Christ died and a contradiction of the truth of the gospel. Am I to regard a justified fellow believer as unclean, that I will not eat with him or her? We need to hear again the heavenly voice, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean’ (Acts 10:15).
b. We must oppose those who deny the gospel
When the issue between us is trivial, we must be as flexible as possible. But when the truth of the gospel is at stake, we must stand our ground. We thank God for Paul who withstood Peter to his face, for Athanasius who stood against the whole world when Christendom had embraced the Arian heresy, and for Luther who dared to challenge even the papacy. Where are the people of this calibre today? There are many vocal pressure groups in the contemporary church. We must not be stampeded into submission to them out of fear. If they oppose the truth of the gospel, we must not hesitate to oppose them.