Paul Opposes Peter

Hello I'm Lee Webb host of Renewing Your Mind.

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Here now another edition of Renewing Your Mind in the book of Galatians, Paul confronts Peter and it's not a personality conflict is been brought about by Plato's refusal to allow Gentiles who once obeying the Jewish culture loss to be included within the family of God until he is introduced and a damnable plus since faith in Jesus plus obedience to the law when it came to the gospel in the positive home didn't back down God's plan of salvation was worth fighting for.

Even if it meant confronting a brother in Christ, one of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem that kind of approach.

It makes 21st century Christians nervous today on Renewing Your Mind, looking her teaching fellow Dr. Derek Thomas will show us why it's critical that we defend the one true gospel. Welcome back.

This is session number four and we are in the second half of chapter 2 from verses 11 through 21 and as I was saying at the end of the previous session.

This is like up stills at dawn moment between Paul and Peter. There was a sci-fi series when I was young many years ago and it's called Doctor Who and it's been revamped since then and it has set a time machine, the so-called TARDIS is a police box, mentor, and you can go back and time, and so on, and I often wondered if I could go back somewhere to seven-point and across excluding meeting Jesus assist with that out of it. Where would you go, what events would you like to see, and I think I would love to be a fly on the wall in Antioch when there was a showdown between Paul and Peter deep tells us here that he withstood Peter to the face. This look at this and Paul tells us in the first half, 11 to 14 gives us the historical narrative of what went down and then and 15 to the end of the chapter he gives us up a theological reflection on why this event happened and why it happened in the way that it happened on the issue involves pizza and moves the church in Antioch.

The church in Antioch was the mission center once persecution of come to Jerusalem and some of the Christians fled from Jerusalem and some of them end up in Antioch and to the north and it's from Antioch that the first missionary journey gets sent from and and so on. And it's too Antioch that Paul will reports after each of the missionary journeys. So Jerusalem is no longer the center of Christendom, Antioch and eventually Rome will become more and more of the sum of base from which Christianity will see itself in the Antioch church. I was much more Gentile than of course the Jerusalem church in the Jerusalem church was almost exclusively Jewish Jewish Christian, and therefore the assurance that we saw in the previous lesson with Titus and Titus is so circumcision was of particular significance in the Jerusalem church in Antioch. It's a little different. It's not this year circumcision.

It's the issue of food. Peter is in Antioch and he's becoming all things to all men unto set eating shellfish and prawns and ham sandwiches's and bacon along with his Gentile buddies until the heavyweights from Jerusalem by people like James and so on until they come up from Jerusalem to investigate what's going on in the Antioch church and whether the entry of churches become too liberal about the Antioch church is lost touch with its Jewish groups in basin so there's a second inspection committee coming up to Antioch and as soon as the man of James is Paul refers to them here come from Jerusalem.

All of a sudden Peter isn't eating with the Gentiles. He's only eating at the tables with his fellow Jewish Christians in his all kosher foods and so on and Paul sees once again like Titus, he sees this. This is not just some amount of Christian liberty, whether you should eat bacon on David Baker know whether you should just eat kosher food are not kosher foods. Does it or not is up to each individual to do whatever is right in his own conscience gone way beyond that.

This was now seen as a violation of the very gospel itself a violation of justification by faith that your behavior can undermine in your belief that your behavior can undermine the credibility of your belief and so when she first came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned and before seven men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles, with when they came the Jew back and separated himself feeling the pole now calls the circumcision party because that's what they were in the incident with Titus, even though this I think is more about food loss and and so on – he wants them to understand that in insisting that Gentiles only eat kosher food then making the Gentiles become Jews rather than allow the Gentiles to be Christians and so there's an important theological principle at stake, and I want to examine that simple and I want us to skip down to verses 19 through 21, which is the hot tub it's for through the law I died leads to the law so that I might live to God.

I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God's righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose is clear for the apostle Paul that the gospel and the purity of the gospel is at stake in the behavior of Peter here in Antioch and in analyzing the theological importance of justification. Justification by faith alone, apart from the works of the law. The gospel is by grace through faith and there must be no damnable plus under the damnable plus in this case is ceremonial obedience to the kosher food loss and Paul wants them to understand what justification actually entails that there is an implied needs loss and the insistence on complying with ceremonial food loss.

There is the implication the subtle implication that they're not otherwise truly justified that not otherwise in a proper relationship in terms of the righteousness of God. So Paul wants to say what exactly are you when you trust in Jesus only in so that he makes three statements here, but pack how Paul understands the radical nature of the gospel. The first ingress 20 I have been crucified.

I have been crucified with Christ. I have been crucified with Christ know four things weren't nailed to the cross, Jesus was nailed to the cross. There was a plaque in Aramaic and Hebrew and Greek, but red Jesus of Nazareth, King Jews, according to Colossians chapter 2.

The rack card of debt like a bill like a telephone bill assisted Bill mortgage it was nailed to the cross that direct cause of death was nailed to the cross and sheer in this latter section of chapter 2 Paul says, and I was nailed to the cross as a Christian I view myself as having been nailed to the cross.

All of you who you were. As child of Adam who you were when he first came into this world that identity that Adamic identity has been crucified. It was nailed to the cross that Adamic self is gone.

That Adamic self has dying all of you body and soul, so that the truth of the gospel is the issue of union and communion with Christ.

I have been crucified with Christ.

I am no longer who I once was. Paul is no longer the Saul of Tarsus, that person is dead, that person is gone. I might not always believe that I might not always behave as though that is the case, but the reality of the cases. Who are you, that's an important question to ask. Who are you as a Christian or somebody believes in the gospel of somebody who is justified to somebody who wears the spotless robe of the righteousness of Christ and first and foremost for Paul. I am no longer the person I used to be that person is dead, that person is gone. It's an important contemporary issue. The issue of identity and not culture that isn't sure of that of one's identity, one's sexual identity. For example, in the whole issue with Facebook and and the like, and that they can be 64 different categories of identity and young people and teenagers supposed to find that identity and no wonder there lost. No wonder there are no mass because it's impossible to know what your identity is. If it's based on whims and fences are not on the solid truth of God and the principal say infer of creation and God creates is male and females into back culture. Paul is addressing what is a Christian and a Christian is somebody who is no longer in union with Adam that Adamic self is gone. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, thought old I that old me is gone, but Christ who lives in me union with Christ. I am a man in Christ M I am somebody who is in union and communion with the risen and ascended Christ. It is served at the heart of Pauline theology uses that the phrase, and Crystal in Christ, 67, 68 times in the course of his writings. I sometimes think if we were to find, for example, one of the lost epistles that Paul wrote to the Corinthians in between first Corinthians in second Corinthians. He he mentions another letter that is in first Corinthians, and we don't have that letter sometimes wonder how would you know if that letter were to be discovered. Say archaeologists would uncover the scroll and it's the lost letter of Paul to the Corinthians, and there may be more than one. Some scholars say that to lost letters to the content. Some say there are more than that, but how would you know when one of the things that you would look for is interest in Christ because it's at the heart Paul contrite Paul kind think he can't move. You can breeze.

He can't preach without mentioning the fact that he was once an item, but now he is in Christ is a new man in Christ. That's his identity. We ended I think the last session by saying we should preach the gospel to ourselves every day and part of that gospel is to remind ourselves of who we are going to the bathroom in the morning you look in the mirror, mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them off and you say Jesus is and when you look into that mirror, you see Jesus because you are in union and communion with Jesus is who you are that your identity and you shouldn't be in doubt as to your identity, less the first thing I been crucified and then go back Avesta verse 19 I dines to the law through the law I dines to the law so that I might live to God.

Though we could read this verse and interpret this in a way that Paul didn't intend for it to be interpreted. Paul isn't saying here everything that one can possibly say about the law he speaking about the law in the context of a discussion about justification in the context of a discussion about how a person can be right with God and the answer to the question, how can I be right with God is not through my obedience to the law. If you are asking a different question on a different occasion in a different context. Are Christians meant to obey the law. Yes the Christians are meant to obey the moral law. The temperament not in order to be justified because there justified because we are filled with gratitude and thanksgiving for all that God is done for us in the Gospels but here in Galatians. The context is right with God's context is justification by faith and in justification my obedience to the law has no part to play whatsoever.

No, that's not to say that obedience to the Lord doesn't play a part is not my obedience to the Lord's Jesus is obedience to the law. He obeyed the law so that I don't have to obey the law and the fact of the matter is that my attempts to obey the law have been ruinous. One of the aspects of the law is that it's given in order to convict us of sin. The law was added because of transgressions decided to reveal to show to us to magnify the fact that we can't obey the law to magnify our sin. What does the law say what is its modus operandi of the law says do this and you will live. Go back to the Garden of Eden.

That was what God said in the negative to Adam and Eve's lungs obey this law that you don't each of the knowledge of the tedium of goods and evil under probation. Your position will be solidified by you will you will be in a right relationship with me forever. But they dissipates they didn't obey and item was set, all federal heads and as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made life of the law shows no mercy of the law is a taskmaster. The law is totally demanding and it demands that you obey it to the full. The slightest infringement of the law brings penalty well process I died to the law, there came a moment in my experience where I dines to the law I died to its demand-side idolatry threats. The law could threaten me no longer.

I couldn't obey it so I didn't try nothing in my hands I bring.

I didn't bring to God any of my obedience to any of my attempted away so for obeying the demands of the law.

What is the function of the law were one of its functions as a pedagogic function. It's to teach you to show you to reveal to you that you are a sinner that you have fallen short of God's glory that you broken his commandments. That's what the law did so that the law, Paul says in Romans seven mixed me out to be exceedingly sinful. It exacerbates the sense of sin that I have about myself. This is all very countercultural.

Of course, because those who are theists in our cultural roots. Ignore those who are nontheists there for the problems with those who are fierce thinks that God is nice is the prevailing view surveys will reveal again and again that people's view of God is that he's nice and that he wants us to be nice and everything will be nice and everything will be peaceful, terse, or just don't get too worked up about. I'm sure Paul is saying no, our very salvation is at stake and in order to be saved.

The law has to be obeyed you contraband. I can't debate Jesus debate and so Paul is saying, how do I view myself as a Christian all I view myself as someone who is in union with Christ I view myself as someone who is who is dying. There's been a death in my existence and it's the death of my Adamic self I've come to understand that through the doings and works of the law. There is no justification there is no salvation so I needs to the law I died to its demand-side I died to its effects through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me to remember that that's how Paul began the epistle to the Romans and the very opening verses when he says that Jesus was somebody who was given for us given – given us a substitutes given as someone who makes the laws, demands, and all of its fullness, where we could not then in verse 19 again and go back to the second half through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God were asking the question, how should you think of yourself as a Christian it's been brought about by Peter's incident with bacon in Antioch and his refusal to allow Gentiles who once obeying the Jewish culture loss to be included within the family of God until he's introduced in a damnable plastics faith in Jesus plus obedience to the law. Paul is now explaining that theologically, and you saying it's never about our obedience, our justification can never be about obedience, but I live to God.

He says at the end of verse 19. Just as gratitude for the grace that has been displayed to me in the gospel.

The Lord showed me that I could never make myself acceptable to God, so I quit trying.

But now that have been justified.

Now that I'm in the right standing and relationship with God now.

I live for God I live to obey him not to notice, to be justified, but because I know the time already justified on the child of God and the mayor of God in a joint heir with Jesus Christ.

He loved me. He gave himself for me. He lives in me and I in response live for him reverse those to Andrew for upset the entire narrative of the gospel, the entire balance of the gospel justified apart from works. We are sanctified by obeying God's law of gratitude for grace that has been received well. This more as the roses and Paul and that entrance into a theological explanation never seen in greater fullness suite step into chapters excluded her teaching fellow Dr. Derek Thomas with a message from his series. No other gospel. I believe Webb and that, thank you for joining us for the Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind all week. We have been airing portions of this new series by Dr. Thomas in 14 messages. He walks us through the background. The teaching and the importance of Paul's letter to the Galatians, leading us to the unmistakable conclusion. If we get the gospel wrong we get everything wrong.

Our founder Dr. RC Sproul felt very strongly about this issue.

In fact, the last complete sermon series.

He preached was from Galatians I highly recommend Dr. Thomas's series to you for further study and when you give a donation of any amount to look in her ministries will be happy to send you this to DVD set, you can do that online@renewingyourmind.org or you can call us at 800-435-4343. Over the past few years.

There is no question that we have seen a steady decline in our culture what is right is now called wrong and what is wrong is now called right more than ever we as Christians need to know what we believe why we believe it how to live it and how to share it. Dr. Thomas's series normally explains the gospel but also provides a great foundation for defending request your copy of no other gospel for your donation of any amount or web address again is Renewing Your Mind.Oregon. Our phone number is 800-435-4343. We hope today's program has been an encouragement to you. If it has, please feel free to share with others.

You can do that by visiting Renewing Your Mind.Oregon to get a small rectangular button there which allows you to share today's program on Facebook on Twitter or by email. You may never know who will be helped by the biblical truths you share with others. So thank you. The problem with following the law for our salvation is that we have to follow all of it perfectly and immediately we see a problem there. No, nobody can do that. That's why the book of Galatians is so important. Join us tomorrow as Dr. Thomas continues his series with a message titled the heart of Galatians is Friday here on Renewing Your Mind