How often have we not heard Peter spoken of as head of the church! That Peter, ardent and full of zeal, began the work at Jerusalem, the Lord working mightily by his means, is certain: we see it plainly in scripture. But he had nothing to do with the work carried on among the Gentiles. That work was done by Paul, who was sent by the Lord Himself; and Paul entirely rejected the authority of Peter. For him Peter was but a man; and he, sent by Christ, was independent of men. The church among the Gentiles is the fruit of Paul's, not of Peter's, work: it owed its origin to Paul and to his labors, and in no way to Peter, whom Paul had to resist with all his strength, in order to keep the assemblies among the Gentiles free from the influence of that spirit which ruled Christians who were the fruit of Peter's work. God maintained unity by His grace; had He not kept the church, it would have been divided into two parts, even in the days of the apostles themselves.
It is marvelous that so many should hold as head of the church among the Gentiles Peter, who was the apostle of the circumcision, and who openly left the work amongst the heathen to Paul, who had already labored in it independently for more than fourteen years, sent and blessed by the Lord and by the Holy Ghost, without any reference to Peter, and who had moreover expressly rejected Peter's authority, which the false brethren sought to impose upon the Gentile churches. Peter, though greatly blessed by the Lord, is the apostle of the circumcision, and of the circumcision only; Paul, of the uncircumcision, that is, of the Gentiles. Paul alone among the apostles speaks of the church, the body of Christ: this truth was confided only to him as its administrator.
Verse 11. Paul recalls another case; one in which he had been compelled to reprove and withstand Peter, who had come to Antioch, where the church had been founded among the Gentiles, though there were Jews among them also. Poor Peter! he showed himself at the beginning quite ready to eat with the Gentiles, being free from the prejudices of his countrymen; but alas! when certain came down from Jerusalem, from James, who was the leader of the work and of the assembly in the civil and religious capital of the Jews, where the law was still observed by the Christians-then Peter, full of ardor but sensitive to the opinion of others, and timid in the presence of reproach, withdraws, and no longer eats with the Gentiles.
This was to destroy the divine work, which had already been wrought at Jerusalem-an evident act of unfaithfulness. The more a man is honored-and in this case there was true ground for respect-the greater the stumbling-block to others if he fail; and thus it happened here. All the Jews, and even Barnabas also, dissembled with Peter, and no longer dared to walk with the Gentiles. The unity of the Spirit was lost, as also the truth of the gospel. Paul could not let this pass; and when he saw that Peter walked not uprightly, he reproved him before all. Authority cannot make evil good, nor good evil. We see moreover that Peter had not the very smallest authority over Paul; and this is why the latter recalls the fact. Peter deserved to be rebuked, and Paul rebuked him in presence of all, saying: “If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?”
This leads us away, from the history and from the question of owning Peter's authority, to that of the truth of the gospel, which he was imperiling. Not only did Peter show a false and deceitful spirit, boasting of his liberty one moment, and the next concealing what his previous walk had been, but he was also establishing error; and there was danger; forasmuch as in him lay, and as far as it depended upon his authority, he was destroying the truth of the gospel: “we,” continues Paul, “who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.”
Paul begins here to treat of doctrine, not, merely of Peter's authority, leaving aside the question of the work committed to him among the circumcision. He reasons thus:-Peter, being a Jew like the rest, was building again the system of the law, when he refused to eat with the Gentiles; he was seeking to be justified by works and by the exact observance of legal ordinances. But he had abandoned this means of justification, in order to believe on Christ, that he might be justified by the faith of Christ; and in building again the system of the law, he made himself a transgressor in having left it. But it was Christ who had led him to do it. Christ then was the minister of sin! this could not be. If he built again the things he had destroyed, he became a sinner in having destroyed them—and Christ had led him to do it!