Paul related other events of his previous ministry, specifically his meeting with the Jerusalem church leaders. He did so to establish for his readers that although he was not dependent on anyone but God for his message and ministry, he preached the same gospel the other apostles did.
"While chapter 2 continues Paul's defense of his apostolic authority and the gospel he preached, he focused not on the source of his message but on its content."44
2:1 From Acts 11:25-26 we learn that Barnabas brought Paul back from Cilicia to assist in the ministry in Antioch. Paul was living there when he visited Jerusalem with Barnabas.
". . . this is the third in a series of then' clauses Paul stitched together to form an airtight argument for his apostolic independence from the Jerusalem church (cf. 1:18, 21)."45
Probably Paul calculated his 14 years from his conversion rather than from his first visit to Jerusalem (cf. 1:18). Paul visited Jerusalem at least five times, and the visit described here seems to have been his second (Acts 11:27-30). It was not his third visit to participate in the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:1-29). This seems clear from Paul's statement that it was a private meeting (v. 2).46
The references to Barnabas (vv. 1, 9, 13) suggest that the readers knew him. If Paul wrote this epistle to Christians living in South Galatia, they probably knew Barnabas as Paul's fellow missionary to them on Paul's first missionary journey.47
Titus was a Gentile believer (v. 3) and one of Paul's faithful disciples in ministry. When Paul wrote this epistle Titus was apparently living in Antioch. Later Titus represented Paul to the Corinthian church (2 Cor. 2:12-13; 7:5-16), to the Jerusalem church (2 Cor. 8:6-24; 9:3-5; 12:18), and to the Cretan church (Titus 1:5).
Titus "possessed considerable people skills . . . and was a man of unquestioned integrity, especially with regard to financial resources."48
2:2 The first reason Paul went to Jerusalem evidently stemmed from one of two events. Agabus' vision of an impending famine and the Antioch Christians' consequent desire to send a gift to their hungry Jerusalem brethren may have prompted his visit (Acts 11:27-30). On the other hand Paul may have received a vision himself. In either case a divine revelation was one factor that moved Paul to visit Jerusalem then.
Paul's fear that he "should run . . . in vain"(lit.) may seem to refer to concern that the Jerusalem apostles upon hearing what he had been preaching would disapprove of it. However this cannot have been his fear. He previously said he was absolutely certain that his gospel, which came to him by special revelation, was the true gospel (1:11-12). He also said he did not need to get it approved by the other apostles (1:16-17). It seems rather that Paul feared that if he did not contact the Jerusalem apostles (Peter, James, and John) his critics might undermine his evangelistic work. They might point to the fact that Paul had had no fellowship with the Jerusalem apostles. They might go on to suggest that there was no fellowship because there was a difference of opinion between Paul and the other apostles over the gospel message. To avoid this possibility Paul met with Peter, James, and John privately. They may have met in private because Paul was a wanted man in Jerusalem at this time, and a public meeting could have resulted in more harm than good.
There may have been at least two other reasons for this meeting.
". . . positively expressed, his concern was to assure that they would recognize his converts as genuine Christians and members of the Church. He was concerned, in other words, with officially securing the freedom of the Gentiles from the requirements of the law and their equality of status with Jewish Christians.
"Implicit in this concern for Gentile freedom was concern for the unity of the Church: Paul's anxiety was not lest refusal of recognition on the part of the Jerusalem authorities should thereby render his own work invalid and his Gentile Christians non-Christian, but lest such refusal should bring about a rupture of the one Church into two separate branches of Jewish and Gentile Christianity"49
2:3 Paul's fear was not that he had been preaching an erroneous gospel. It was that the false teachers who were saying Gentile converts had to become Jews before they could experience justification might undercut his work (cf. Acts 15:1). James, Peter, and John agreed with Paul, the proof of which was their willingness to let Titus remain uncircumcised. Circumcision was a rite by which Gentile males became Jewish proselytes.
"Within the crosscurrents of political messianism and apocalyptic speculation, the idea grew that the Messiah would only come when the Holy Land had been purified of all uncircumcised Gentiles."50
2:4-5 Verse 4 introduces another reason Paul went up to Jerusalem (v. 1). Evidently representatives of the false teachers (counterfeit Christians) had entered Paul's arena of ministry and had opposed what he had taught. Their intent was to bring Paul and all other preachers and hearers of the true gospel into bondage by imposing circumcision as a condition for salvation. They were not successful. The truth of the gospel means "the gospel in its integrity . . . the doctrine of grace."51The liberty to which Paul referred is not freedom in the abstract, but a liberty that believers have in Christ Jesus.52
"It thus emerges that the interlopers were sham-Christians precisely because they had not really grasped the fundamental principle of the gospel--justification by faith apart from works of the law."53
2:6 Paul's reference to James, Peter, and John may sound a bit insolent, but his point was that they were not superior as apostles to him as an apostle. They contributed nothing to his authority or message.
"The repetition of the expression men of high reputation' from v. 2 (where NEB has men of repute' for the same Greek expression [hoi dokountes]) seems to indicate that it is a title given by the Jerusalem church to its leaders, which Paul uses, possibly with a tinge of irony, in depreciation of the arrogant and extravagant claims which the Judaizers were making for the Jerusalem leaders."54
The expression "allows Paul both to acknowledge the fact that these men possess authority and power and to remain at a distance with regard to his own subservience to such authority."55
2:7-9 James, Peter, and John did not seek to change Paul's message. They agreed with it. They shook hands in agreement over the gospel even though the focuses of their ministries were different. The Greek word stylos, translated "pillar,"can also mean "tent-pole."
"Peter was the great missionary. Hence, when Paul is speaking of the ministry to the Jews, Peter is prominent and James is not mentioned (vv7, 8). In dealing with a particular and official act of the Jerusalem church, however, James (who apparently presided at the council) is mentioned in the first position with the names of Peter and John following."56
The "grace"given to Paul (v. 9) refers to his apostleship to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; cf. Gal. 1:16; Rom. 1:5; 12:3; 15; 15; 1 Cor. 3:10; Eph. 3:8; Phil. 1:7).
"In Paul's eyes the compelling logic of the Christ-event pointed to the supersession of the age of law by the age of the Spirit (3:13f.); it was because there was now [still] but one way of justification for Jews and Gentiles alike--justification by faith (cf. Rom. 3:29f.)--that in Christ Jesus' there was neither Jew now Greek' (Gal. 3:28)."57
"While every Christian has an important role to play in missions and evangelism, we must never forget that Jesus himself is the great Missionary, the Son who has been sent from the Father; and the Holy Spirit is the true Evangelist, the divine One who convicts and converts."58
2:10 The only point James, Peter, and John made was that Paul should not neglect the poor in his ministry. Paul had already made a commitment to do this. This could be a shorthand reference to the poor saints in Jerusalem59or simply a reference to the poor in general.
"Thus the events of Paul's second post-conversion visit to Jerusalem, like the events of his life both before and after his call by God, substantiate his claim that he received both his gospel and his apostleship directly from the risen Lord. If the earlier set of events supports this by showing that there was never a time when he was in a position to have derived his gospel and apostolic commission from the Jerusalem leaders, the events of the second visit support it by showing the full recognition given by those leaders to the gospel and apostolic office which already were his prior to the meeting of the two parties. A third major support will be furnished by the Antioch incident (2:11-21).60
This section helpfully illustrates the diversity within the unity of Christ's body. Different Christians can minister to different segments of humanity. Nevertheless there must be unity in the message we proclaim. Paul expounded other types of differences that exist within the body elsewhere in the New Testament (1 Cor. 12:28-31, et al.).
