People often say, “Freedom is not free. You have to fight for it.” This is true in the realm of individual liberty. And it is true all the more in the realm of the gospel, because if you believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, you have a far greater spiritual freedom that lasts forever. You have freedom from the law as a covenant of works, freedom from the guilt of your sins, freedom from the bondage of any man-made legalism—and the source of that freedom is worth fighting for. In the book of Galatians, the apostle Paul is a gospel freedom fighter. We get a glimpse of that fight in this passage as Paul fights for the gospel by preserving its truths against the false gospel being proclaimed by the Judaizers.
First, we see the truth of the gospel confirmed in Galatians 2:1–2: “Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.”
Paul continues to recount his personal story—how the risen Jesus converted him from a self-righteous enemy of Christ to a believer in the gospel justified by faith alone. He tells of how Christ commissioned him to preach the good news of God’s grace to Gentile sinners. This converted Pharisee! Imagine that!
What has Paul emphasized so far, according to Galatians 1:11–24? He explains that he received the gospel not from men but directly from the Lord Jesus Christ. He met briefly on only one occasion with the “VIPs” in Jerusalem—the apostle Peter and James, the respected elder in the Jerusalem church and half brother of Jesus. Paul did not meet any of the churches in Judea in person, but everyone there heard about Paul. Those Jewish churches were saying, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy” (Gal 1:23). And so they glorified God because of Paul.
Paul continues his apostolic autobiography in Galatians 2. Paul is not telling us his story because he is a narcissist who loves talking about himself, like some awful bore at the family cookout. No, Paul’s story validates the one true gospel. The enemies of the gospel in Galatia—the Judaizers who want Gentiles to become Jews in order to be saved—have tried to discredit Paul. They say he has departed from the VIPs in Jerusalem with his law-free, grace-alone, faith-alone gospel.
Paul’s ministry is not centered in Jerusalem. He is busy preaching the gospel throughout the Roman Empire and planting churches. He is carrying out the Great Commission, as we are to continue to do today in the same way. How do we do it? We preach the law and the gospel— repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’s name. We plant churches because churches are where disciples are made by baptism and by the ministry of the Word.
Christ’s church is where we hear the gospel and its implications—what we are to believe, how we are to worship God, and how we are to live as followers of Jesus in this world. We preach the word of Christ, and we bring those who believe under the ordinary week-in, week-out ministry of the gospel in Word and sacraments. It is not razzle-dazzle. It is weekly Lord’s Day worship. It is the ministry of the ordinary means of grace. It is accountability to elders. It is mutual love and service in the body of Christ. This is the apostolic pattern of the New Testament. We obviously do not have apostles today, but we still follow that apostolic pattern established in Scripture.
After his first visit to Jerusalem, Paul went up again some fourteen years later. He went with his fellow Jewish Christian Barnabas. And they brought along a Gentile convert to Christ—namely, Titus. These men were part of Paul’s gospel-preaching, church-planting team.
When we compare these events to the book of Acts, we see when this second visit happened. It most likely correlates with Acts 11, after Paul’s first missionary journey. Paul says here that he goes up to Jerusalem because of a revelation. At the end of Acts 11, the prophet Agabus comes to the church in Antioch. He foretells by the Spirit that a great famine is coming. The believers in Judea will suffer greatly. As a result, the church plans to collect funds for relief of the poor brothers in Judea and to bring that collection to Jerusalem by the hands of Paul and Barnabas. It is a ministry of mercy, an important diaconal ministry.
But here we see that Paul plans to conduct other business while he is there—gospel business. The gospel is bearing fruit among the Gentiles. But some tensions have surfaced. Jewish believers in Christ have lived all their lives under the law of Moses. The way they live has set them apart from pagan Gentiles. What sets them apart most of all as God’s people is circumcision. And yet Paul is not requiring these Gentile believers to be circumcised or to observe the ceremonial requirements of the law of Moses.
Circumcision was a sign of gospel promise given to Abraham. As Romans 4:11–12 explains,
[Abraham] received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
To paraphrase, circumcision is a sign and seal of the gospel of justification by faith alone—the promise of righteousness not only for believing Jews but also for believing Gentiles. Circumcision signified and sealed the all-nations gospel promise God gave to Abraham.
How are you righteous before God? Because you are baptized? Because you are a member of the church? Baptism is important and so is church membership, but they are not your righteousness before God. Christ is your righteousness before God—the One who died for all your transgressions of God’s law, who kept all the commandments of God for you, who rose from the dead to give you His righteousness and the free gift of eternal life. Believing in this crucified and risen Jesus, God declares you righteous for His sake alone, not because of what you have done but because of what Jesus has done for you.
But what happened to that sign of circumcision? Many Jews began to trust in the sign self-righteously instead of in the promise it signified. It became merely a legalistic badge of religious pride: “We are Jews, and we are circumcised; therefore, we are better than those uncircumcised Gentiles. If you want to be favored by God, you must be circumcised and become a Jew.” This thinking still lingered among some in the early Jewish church. The apostle Paul knew this error had to be rooted out, or the gospel would be lost.
Paul says he “set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.” Did Paul doubt whether he was preaching the one true gospel? Of course not. After all, the risen Jesus revealed the gospel to him directly on the road to Damascus. Then what does Paul mean? If this error won out—if the Judaizers succeeded in requiring Gentiles to become circumcised Jews in order to be justified—then all Paul’s gospel labors would have been in vain. The true gospel would have been lost to history. Of course, God would not let that happen. God did not waste the blood of His Son.
How seriously do you take justification by faith alone? We cannot tolerate anyone who would dare tinker with the heart of the gospel. There are errors to be marked and avoided to this day even among alleged Protestants. Let me name a few. First is the error of Norman Shepherd, who was an instructor at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia for many years before he was finally dismissed. He denied that faith alone was the sole instrument of justification. He taught that works are co-instrumental with faith in justification. This is a fancy way of saying that Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection are not sufficient for your justification. Your works are necessary if you are to be justified in the end.
The New Perspectives on Paul error (promoted by N. T. Wright and others) teaches that justification is not so much about your salvation before God but your membership in the people of God. You are made a member of God’s people by faith in Jesus—but you stay in by your works. The Federal Vision error (held to by Doug Wilson, Peter Leithart, and others), influenced by both Shepherd and the New Perspectives, teaches that in the end, on the last day, you will be justified by your covenant faithfulness—in other words, by faith plus your works. Sadly, John Piper, of all people, teaches a two-stage justification. You are justified by faith initially but by faith plus works on the last day.
All of them would claim that these works are non-meritorious, or Spirit wrought, to distance themselves from the Roman Catholic error, but frankly it is all just slippery semantics. Because if works are necessary for your so-called final justification, then Christ’s works are insufficient to justify you. As Paul will say later in verse 21 of Galatians 2, “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”
Do you see what is at stake? The gospel is either all Jesus—his cross and his righteousness alone to justify you—or it is nothing. Christ died in vain. And that does not just leave you in your sin and under the wrath of God. It also makes a blasphemous mockery of the cross. This is not about scholarly opinions, the opinions of religious VIPs, the opinions of celebrity pastors. This is about the one, true gospel, which alone is the power of God for your salvation. The good news is that by faith in Jesus, you have already received the verdict of judgment day. You are not under condemnation, you are delivered from the wrath of God, you are righteous for Jesus’s sake alone, you are reconciled to God, you have eternal life. You are free—free from the guilt of all your sins, free from the futile pursuit of justifying yourself by your works in whole or in part. And so, yes, the truth of the gospel is still worth fighting for, because without it we have no freedom!
©Tony Phelps. All Rights Reserved.
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Tony Phelps
Tony grew up in Rhode Island. He was educated at University of Rhode Island (BA) and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He worked in the insurance industry for ten years. He planted a PCA church in Wakefield, RI where he served for eleven years. He has pastored Covenant Reformed Church (URCNA) in Colorado Springs (2015–18), and Living Hope Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Allentown PA (2019–25). He is currently pastor of Christ Our Hope Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Charlestown, RI. Tony is married to Donna and together they have three children.
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