Ver. 4. +False brethren unawares+ [in an underhand manner] +brought in privily to spy out.+--As foes in the guise of friends, wishing to destroy and rob us of our liberty--from the yoke of the ceremonial law. Ver. 5. +To whom we gave place by subjection not for an hour.+--We would willingly have yielded for love, if no principle was at issue, but not in the way of subjection. Truth precise, unaccommodating, abandons nothing that belongs to itself, admits nothing that is inconsistent with it (_Bengel_). Ver. 6. +They in conference added nothing to me.+--As I did not by conference impart to them aught at my conversion, so they now did not impart aught additional to me above what I already knew. Another evidence of the independence of his apostleship. Ver. 9. +They gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship.+--Recognising me as a colleague in the apostleship, and that the Gospel I preached to the Gentiles by special revelation was the same as theirs. Ver. 10. +Remember the poor.+--Of the Jewish Christians in Judea then distressed. Paul's past care for their poor prompted this request. His subsequent zeal in the same cause was the answer to their appeal (Acts. xi. 29, 30; Rom. xv. 26, 27; 1 Cor. xvi. 3; 2 Cor. ix. 1; Acts xxiv. 17). Ver. 11. +When Peter was come to Antioch I withstood him to the face.+--The strongest proof of the independence of his apostleship in relation to the other apostles, and an unanswerable argument against the Romish dogma of the supremacy of St. Peter. Ver. 13. +The other Jews dissembled likewise with him.+--The question was not whether Gentiles were admissible to the Christian covenant without becoming circumcised, but whether the Gentile Christians were to be admitted to social intercourse with the Jewish Christians without conforming to the Jewish institution. It was not a question of liberty and of bearing with others' infirmities, but one affecting the essence of the Gospel, whether the Gentiles are to be virtually compelled to live as do the Jews in order to be justified. Ver. 14. +Walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel.+--Which teaches that justification by legal works and observances is inconsistent with redemption by Christ. Paul alone here maintained the truth against Judaism, as afterwards against heathenism (2 Tim. iv. 16, 17). Ver. 17. +Is therefore Christ the minister of sin?+--Thus to be justified by Christ it was necessary to sink to the level of Gentiles--to become sinners, in fact. But are we not thus making Christ a minister of sin? Away with the profane thought! No; the guilt is not in abandoning the law, but in seeking it again when abandoned. Thus, and thus alone, we convict ourselves of transgression (_Lightfoot_). Ver. 19. +I through the law am dead to the law.+--By believing union to Christ in His death we, being considered dead with Him, are severed from the law's past power over us.