When Truth Was at Stake at the Table

I had already gone up to Jerusalem and found the pillars of the church giving me the right hand of fellowship. But at Antioch a harder thing happened, and I will not hide it from you: "when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned" (Galatians 2:11). He had been eating with the Gentiles freely, as brothers do. Then certain men came, and out of fear he drew back and separated himself, and even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. This was not a small matter of manners. I saw that "their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel" (Galatians 2:14), and so I confronted Peter openly — not because he was less than I, but because the gospel was worth more than his comfort or mine.

Do you see what was at stake in who sat where at supper? To make the Gentiles feel they must become Jews to be full brothers is to say the cross was not enough. And so I laid the whole matter bare: "we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ" (Galatians 2:16). Hear that. Not the law added to Christ, not your performance stitched onto his mercy — faith in him, and nothing beside. For "by works of the law no one will be justified" (Galatians 2:16). No one. Not the Pharisee I once was, straining at every jot. Not you, on your best day.

Then how do I live at all, if the law cannot make me right? I told them, and I tell you: "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" (Galatians 2:20). The old Saul died on that cross with my Lord; the life I have now is his life in me, received moment by moment by trust, not by tallying merits. And I closed with the line I will not soften: "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose" (Galatians 2:21).

So bring this home today, wherever you are reading. There is a Peter in each of us who knows grace is free and then, under the eyes of others, begins to act as though we must earn our place — measuring, comparing, drawing back from those we secretly count as less. Repent of it, gently, as I called him to. And rest: you were loved and bought before you performed a single thing, by the Son of God who gave himself for you. Live this day by faith in him, and let no one — not even your own fearful heart — add a single work to the finished love of Christ.