Galatians 2.1-2
“Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.”
In order to validate his apostolic authority and demonstrate that his gospel was a direct revelation from Jesus Christ, Paul makes the case that the gospel he proclaims is not dependent on human teaching or on the churches in Judea. The next plank in the evidence he presents is that his gospel was independent of the senior leaders in the Jerusalem church. Finally, he will show that he did not get his gospel from Peter, the lead apostle.
The issue at stake is whether the gospel is Jewish and law-driven, or grace-driven and open to all nations. On the one side of this dispute is Paul, who is saying: The gospel of faith in Christ is for people of all cultures. On the other side are the Judaizers, who were claiming: Not all Jewish people are Christians, but all Christians must become Jewish.
If the Jerusalem apostles had sided with, or even merely tolerated, the Judaizers, then Paul’s position would have been undermined, and the early church would have been deeply divided. Neither side would have accepted the other, and the unity of the church would have been catastrophically compromised. The Gentile churches would doubt that the Jewish churches really had faith in Christ, and the Jewish churches would doubt the salvation of the Gentiles.
Would the Jerusalem leaders give their approval to Gentiles committing to the Messiah without a commitment to Judaism? Did they see the gospel of Christ as a movement to reform Judaism, or did they see the gospel as good news for the entire world, with the church of Christ being a fellowship of all believers, irrespective of nationality or ethnicity?
More importantly, and this will become very evident later in the book of Galatians, did they understand the nature of true Israel? Did they understand that true Israel — the covenant people of God — is made up of all who believe in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile?
Thus Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem — fourteen years after his first — was of monumental importance. The other apostles had stayed in Jerusalem and had not yet obeyed Christ’s command to take the gospel to all nations. Paul had taken the gospel to the Gentiles; the Jerusalem apostles had not. Therefore, they had not worked out the implications of the gospel for Gentiles who were converting to the Christian faith from paganism. They simply had not confronted those issues practically. It would have been extremely easy for them to miss the implications of the gospel when it came to living as a Gentile Christian. It would have felt natural for them to say: Of course all Gentile Christians should be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses.
The ramifications of such a doctrinal mistake would have been enormous. There would have been two opposing parties within Christianity that were hostile to each other on the fundamental point of whether adherence to the Law was necessary as a condition for inclusion in the body of Christ. That’s why Paul said “the freedom we have in Christ” (v 4) was under threat, and therefore the very “truth of the gospel” was at stake (v 5). This meeting could have ended up splitting the church; and at such an early stage in its life, two virtually different religions would have emerged.
Having been taught directly by the resurrected Christ, Paul understood that Jesus had not come to reform the physical nation of Israel; rather, Jesus had come to create the true spiritual Israel, which would be composed of all who trust in Christ irrespective of nationality. All who believe in Jesus would be brought into the Body of Christ, and this supernatural fellowship is the true covenant people of God … the true Israel. It is accurate to say that Jesus radically redefined what it means to be Jewish.
As Paul will explain in great detail later in this letter, being part of the Body of Christ and a citizen of true Israel has nothing to do with ethnicity or adherence to the Law. It is a matter of faith in Jesus. Thus Paul went to Jerusalem seeking alignment of message and mission. He was seeking solidarity and unity with the other apostles regarding the true gospel of Christ.
The stakes could not have been higher.
