Paul Confronts Cephas

Paul says that when Cephas came to Antioch he opposed him openly, because his conduct had become blameworthy. Cephas had been eating with Gentiles, but fear of those from the circumcision party led him to draw back, and his withdrawal pulled other Jews, even Barnabas, into hypocrisy, so Paul confronted him for no longer walking straight with the gospel's truth.

W¹¹hen Cephas came to Antioch, however, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹²For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself, for fear of those in the circumcision group. ¹³The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. ¹⁴When I saw that they were not walking in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Speaking from their shared Jewish background, Paul says that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, and that even Jews have believed in Christ on that basis. To seek justification in Christ does not make Christ a servant of sin, he says, but rebuilding what has been torn down only shows the builder to be the transgressor.

¹⁵We who are Jews by birth and not Gentile “sinners” ¹⁶know that a man is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. ¹⁷But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners, does that make Christ a minister of sin? Certainly not! ¹⁸If I rebuild what I have already torn down, I prove myself to be a lawbreaker.

Paul says that through the law he died to the law so that he might live to God. He has been crucified with Christ, so that the life now lived is lived by faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave himself for him, and to place righteousness back in the law would be to set aside grace and empty Christ's death.

¹⁹For through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.