"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.

The name "Cephas" is Aramaic. It means "the Rock." It is the counterpart of the Greek name Petros (Peter). Jesus had given this nickname to the apostle when they first met (John 1:42).

Peter came on a trip to Antioch. This trip took place some time after the Jerusalem Council. It took place after the issue of Gentiles entering into the church had been settled. Perhaps this was one of the reasons that Peter cane to Antioch — to encourage the believers at Antioch and to take part in their acceptance.

During Peter's visit to Antioch, Paul found it necessary to rebuke him. This was not an easy task. It would have been very easy for Paul to ignore Peter's misconduct. But Paul did not do this. Instead, he confronted Peter face to face.

Many preachers are quick to speak against sin, but are reluctant to do anything about it. They speak very clearly that certain things are wrong and that Christians are to live accordingly, yet when it comes to a specific application they fall short. The result is devastating. The result is that both false doctrines and false practices are permitted to come into the church. But Paul was not going to allow this to happen in Antioch. And so, he confronted Peter face to face.

Who were these men? We are told that they were from James. James was the half-brother of Jesus, one of the sons of Mary and Joseph. James had grown up with Jesus. He had been a witness to many of the miracles of Jesus. And yet, he had remained an unbeliever throughout the Lord s entire earthly ministry. It was not until after the resurrection that James believed. You see, James saw Jesus after He had died and then rose from the dead. He was a witness of the resurrection. I believe that it was the miracle of the resurrection that convinced James.

Perhaps this tells us something about James. It seems as though James had a rather obstinate character. He seems to have been stubborn when it came to changing his views. This had a positive effect in that James was not likely to be carried about by every wind of doctrine. He was solid and unmovable in what he believed. But this may have had a negative effect in that he seems slow to accept the revelation that believers are free from the Law.

These men who now came to Antioch were from James. They were self-styled disciples of James. In the end of this verse, they are referred to as "the party of the circumcision." They gravitated to James. But they took their views on circumcision and the keeping of the Law to far greater lengths than James did. They identified themselves with James, but I am not certain that James would have wanted to identify himself with them. They were men who agreed with James that it was not necessary for Gentiles to keep the Law to be saved. But they insisted that the keeping of the Law made you more spiritual. They demanded that all Jewish believers observe the Law. And they now come to Antioch where Peter and the other Jews have been eating with Gentiles. You can see right away that there is about to be a conflict.

Instead of standing up for what he knew was right, Peter backed down from the party of the circumcision. He began to withdraw from the Gentile believers within the church at Antioch.

This action is described in an imperfect tense. This indicates that it was a gradual and continued action. Peter didn't stand up in the middle of dinner and walk out. He was much more tactful. He just stopped accepting dinner invitations from Gentiles. When Sunday morning rolled around, Peter was not in church. He was meeting with a group of Jewish believers. A Jewish church was in the making.

Why did Peter do this? Was he abandoning what he had formerly believed? Had he changed his mind about the Law? Not at all. He did this because he was intimidated.

Peter had stood before the high priest in Jerusalem and had refused to stop preaching the gospel, though he was beaten and imprisoned and threatened with death. Herod Agrippa had actually sentenced Peter to death and it had only been because of an angelic jailbreak that he was still alive. In spite of all of these experiences, Peter was still afraid when it came to facing these legalistic Christian Jews.

You see, legalism can be very intimidating. It goes on in today's churches just as it did in the early church. People think that they are more spiritual if they dress a certain way, talk a certain way, and even carry a certain type of Bible. Then they measure the status of others according to this false standard.

Peter was afraid of what these Jewish Christians were going to think of him. He was afraid that they might carry negative reports about his behavior back to the Jerusalem church. And so he began to make a practice of separating himself from the Gentile believers.

Peter's defection had a disastrous effect on the Antioch church. The reason for this is that all of the Jews in the church began to follow example. Peter was a natural leader. No matter what he did, people would follow him.

Once again we see people following Peter. The entire Jewish-Christian community began to follow his example of separation from the Gentile believers. Even Barnabas was swept up in this separation. The result was a giant split in the church.

To make matters worse, this involved a split over the eating of the Lord's Supper. The one place where unity should have been the most evident had now become the scene of division. Paul calls this action "hypocrisy." They were saying and believing one thing while they were doing another. They were preaching the gospel but they were not living the gospel. They were preaching that faith in Jesus Christ is sufficient for salvation, but they were living as though Gentiles were second-class Christians.

Peter and Barnabas knew better than to act like this. But they had been intimidated. Peter was intimidated by the disciples of James. Barnabas and the other Jewish Christians were intimidated by Peter's defection. By running away from the problem, Peter had created a far greater problem.

Now I want to ask you a question. Why did Paul confront Peter in the presence of all? Why did he rebuke Peter in public? Why didn't he go to Peter in private as he had in Jerusalem when he had presented his message to Peter and James and John?

I think that the answer is seen in the nature of Peter's sin. Peter had sinned in public. His defection had affected the entire church. His actions had resulted in splitting the church in two. Therefore, only by an equally public rebuke could the harmful effects of Peter's sin be remedied. The only way that the divided church could be brought back together was for the reproof of Peter to be made manifest to the entire church.

This is an important principle of church discipline. A leader in the church who continues in a sin before the eyes of the entire church is to be rebuked before the entire church.

If we are preaching that believers are to live a holy life and yet do nothing to discipline those who continue is disobedience, then soon people will begin to think that we do not believe what we say.

Peter has been preaching that all men are saved through faith in Jesus Christ and not by the keeping of the Law. But now he is cutting himself off from the Gentile believers who do not keep the Law. People are going to think that Peter's actions indicate that believers must keep the Law to be saved.

Peter was a Jew. He had been raised to live like a Jew. He had once kept all of the Jewish rituals of Judaism. But he has been given a revelation from God and all of that has changed. Since that time, he has been living like the Gentiles. Since that time, he has been going into Gentile homes and having fellowship with Gentiles and eating with Gentiles. This is not the way an Orthodox Jew lives. This is the way a Gentile lives. Peter has been living like a Gentile.

But now Peter had begun to separate from Gentile believers because they did not follow the ceremonial ritual washings and eating habits of the Jews. He does not want to be caught eating Gentile food contrary to the Laws of the Jews. This means that if Gentile believers was to remain in contact with Peter, they are going to have to take up a Jewish lifestyle. They are going to get the idea that living like a Gentile and not keeping the Mosaic Law will make them a "second-class Christian."

In effect, Peter is insisting that Gentiles must live as Jews live, even though he himself has not been living as Jews live. And so, Paul points out Peter's inconsistency.

There is an important lesson of which we need to take note. It is that even great people of God still make mistakes. God's Word is infallible, but God's people are not. They make mistakes.

Sometimes their mistakes are made in private. But sometimes, as is the case with Peter, their mistakes are out in the open for everyone to see. This means that you are going to be hurt and misdirected and led astray if you keep your eyes on people rather than on the Lord.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21).

"We" refers to Jewish Christians. Peter and Paul are both Jewish. They are Jews by nature. They did not proselyte into Judaism. They were born Jewish.

The word "sinners" is synonymous with being a Gentile. A Gentile was considered to be a sinner. This is not so much a moral term as it is a legal term. You see, the Gentile had no Law. He had never been given the Mosaic Law. The Law had only been given to Jews. The Gentile did not have the Law. Therefore he could not help but to be one who did not keep the Law.

Because he did not have the Law, he lived in violation of it. Since he had none of the ceremonial laws, he could not obey them. By virtue of being a Gentile, he was automatically classified as a sinner.

The Jews, on the other hand, lived by the Law. They were brought up to observe the ordinances of the Law. But here is the point that Paul is going to make. Don't miss this!

Even the Jews who had the Law and were brought up to keep the Law soon discovered that there was only one way to be justified. They discovered that they could only be justified through faith. This means that Jews are the same as Gentiles when it comes to being justified. Jews are not justified by keeping the Law. Jews, even though they are not sinners from among the Gentiles, still have to be justified by faith and not by keeping the Law.

This verse contains three statements. Each statement deals with this same truth of justification. The first statement is general. The second. statement is personal. The third statement is universal.

Now Paul moves from the general to the personal. The same principle is repeated in a way that relates it personally to Peter. It is a plea to his personal experience.

Both Peter and Paul were Jewish. They had been brought up under the Law. And they had both learned from personal experience that they would never be able to be justified by keeping the Law. They had been born Into the Law, but the legalistic experiment ended in failure in both their lives. They eventually had discovered that they were bankrupt before the Law. They had each come to the point where they realized that the Law could only condemn them and that they could only be justified by faith in Jesus Christ. Even though they were Jews and not sinners and Gentiles In the legal sense, they still had to be justified by faith, just like any Gentile.

The first statement was general. The second statement was personal. Now the third statement moves to the universal. It has its authority rooted in the Scriptures.

One of the Old Testament Psalms had recorded a prayer of David. It was a prayer of mercy.

What Paul is telling Peter is not some new teaching. It goes back to the Old Testament. David had known that it was impossible for any man to be justified before God on the basis of his own works. This is why David had asked for mercy instead of justice. David knew that if he received justice, it would result in eternal death. David knew that only by the mercy of God would he receive eternal life.

If Paul or Peter or any other Jewish Christian seeks to rebuild the legalistic system which he did away with when he was saved, then he is showing by his actions that he is a transgressor. He is either a transgressor for having torn the system down in the first place, or he is now a transgressor for trying to rebuild what he once tore down. In either case, he is showing that he has sinned. The point is obvious.

Paul is saying in effect, "You are guilty of transgression, Peter. The only question is when did you do it? Did you do it when you first followed Jesus and set aside the ritualistic system of Judaism, or did you sin just now when you stopped eating with Gentiles?"

This is the reason that Paul cannot rebuild the Law that he has in effect destroyed. This is the reason he cannot go back to the Law. It is because he is dead to the Law. The Law judged him as a guilty sinner. The Law condemned him to death. And then the sentence was carried out.

When did this take place? In what way did Paul die to the Law? The answer is found in the next verse.

When the Law demanded that the penalty of death be carried out, those demands were carried out against Christ. This means that Jesus was crucified as Paul's representative. Paul was legally crucified with Christ. He is legally considered to have been put to death.

You see, Paul has been identified with Christ through faith. Anyone who has placed their faith in Jesus as their Savior has been identified with Christ. When the Law demanded our death, the sentence of death was carried out in the death of Christ on the cross. He took our place. He died instead of us. The sentence has been carried out. We are considered by the Law to have died on the cross. This means that the Law has no more dominion over us. The Law does not condemn a dead man. The Law only judges the living. The Law can no more judge us than a court could dig up a corpse and require it to stand trial.

Not only have we been placed into the body of Christ, but Christ has also come to live within us. This means that my life is eternally wrapped up in Jesus Christ. His destiny is my destiny. His inheritance is my inheritance. His life is my life.

Christianity is not merely a theological system of beliefs or a code of moral conduct that I am to follow. Christianity is a new relationship. It is a person living inside me.

Even though I now have a position with Christ in heaven, I still have to live out this life confined within this earthly body. But this does not mean that my present life is not affected by that heavenly position. Because I have been crucified with Christ, I now have a new responsibility to live accordingly.

How am I to live? Paul gives the principle here in this verse. I am to live by faith and in the light of God's love. I am to live in accordance with the new life that I believe I now have.

Peter's problem was that he had not been living by faith. He had been living by public opinion. He had been living as though righteousness could come through the keeping of the Law instead of through faith in Christ.

Either righteousness comes through the keeping of the Law or else it comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Peter has been living as though it could come through the Law. But if this is true, then Christ did not have to die on the cross for our sins.