I do not make void the grace of God; for if
righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for naught.”
Galatians 2, R. V.
[Sidenote: Another Visit to Jerusalem.]
“Fourteen years after,” following the natural course of the narrative,
means fourteen years after the visit recorded in Gal. 1:18, which was
three years after the apostle Paul’s conversion. The second visit,
therefore, was seventeen years after his conversion, or about the year
51 A. D., which coincides with the time of the conference in Jerusalem,
which is recorded in Acts 15. It is with that conference, and the things
that led to it, and grew out of it, that the second chapter of Galatians
deals. In reading this chapter, therefore, the fifteenth of Acts must be
understood and borne in mind.
[Sidenote: That New Gospel.]
In the first chapter of Galatians (verses 6, 7) we are told that some
were troubling the brethren, by perverting the Gospel of Christ,
presenting a false gospel, and pretending that it was the true Gospel.
In Acts 15:1 we read that “certain men which came down from Judea taught
the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of
Moses, ye can not be saved.” This, we see, was the other gospel, which
was not another, since there is only one, but which was being palmed off
upon the brethren as the true Gospel. That these men who brought this
teaching professed to be preaching the Gospel, is evident from the fact
that they professed to tell the people what they must do to be saved.
Paul and Barnabas would not give any place to the new preaching, but
withstood it, in order, as Paul tells the Galatians, “that the truth of
the Gospel might continue with you.” Gal. 2:5. The apostles had “no
small dissension and disputation with them.” Acts 15:2. The controversy
was no insignificant one, but was between the real Gospel and a
counterfeit. The question was a vital one for the new believers, and has
no less interest for us; it concerns our salvation.
[Sidenote: A Denial of Christ.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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