Skip to content
mannafest.faith
Read
Galatians

Galatianschapter 2

21 verses · BSBGalatians book hub →

Speaks with:Galatians 2×5Galatians 5×31 John 3×3Romans 6×3Acts 10×3Galatians 4×2

Summary

Chapter summary

Fourteen years after, Paul went to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus, to communicate the gospel privately to those of reputation. Titus was not compelled to be circumcised. False brethren came in privily to spy out liberty. Paul withstood Peter to his face at Antioch when Peter withdrew from Gentile fellowship. If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Henry reads the chapter as the apostolic charter of Jew-Gentile oneness.

Context

Epistle · Paul — Galatians overview

  • A. 1–10 Fourteen Years Later: Titus and the Right Hand of Fellowship
  • B. 11–14 Paul Withstands Peter to His Face
  • C. 15–21 I Have Been Crucified With Christ

The outline

  1. A.Fourteen Years Later: Titus and the Right Hand of Fellowshipvv. 1 to 10

    Read vv. 1 to 10 →

  2. B.Paul Withstands Peter to His Facevv. 11 to 14

    Read vv. 11 to 14 →

  3. C.I Have Been Crucified With Christvv. 15 to 21

    Read vv. 15 to 21 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

Crucified with Christ

Pattern

Galatians strikes the cross four times as the believer's own history: I am crucified with Christ, Christ set forth crucified before your eyes, they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, and the world crucified unto me.

The four beats carry the letter's whole argument. Liberty from law-keeping does not come by loosening the standard but by a death and a new life, Christ living in the believer.

  1. Galatians 2:20 you are here

    I am crucified with Christ

    Union stated in the first person: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

  2. Galatians 3:1

    Set forth crucified before your eyes

    The preaching the Galatians first believed placed the crucified Christ evidently before them.

  3. Galatians 5:24

    They have crucified the flesh

    They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

  4. Galatians 6:14

    The world crucified unto me

    Paul's only glory is the cross, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

The world behind this chapter

Galatians 2
When
Recounting the Jerusalem meeting and the clash at Antioch · events c. AD 46–49; the letter itself c. AD 48–49 or later
Where
Jerusalem, where Titus was not compelled to be circumcised, and Antioch, where Peter stopped eating with Gentiles.
Who first heard it
Galatian believers being told that Jerusalem's leaders backed the very requirement Paul rejected.

The history

Titus is the test case because he was a Greek. If the Jerusalem leaders had required his circumcision, the principle would have been settled against Paul on the spot. He reports that they did not, and that the pillars — James, Peter, and John — gave him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship.

How this meeting relates to the council of Acts 15 is one of the standard cruxes of New Testament study. Some identify the two; others take Galatians 2 as the earlier famine-relief visit of Acts 11, which would let the letter predate the council entirely. The traditional harmonization treats them as the same events told from different angles.

The Antioch incident turns on table fellowship, which was the practical form the whole controversy took. Peter had been eating with Gentile believers until men came from James, and then he drew back, and even Barnabas followed. In a culture where sharing a meal defined who belonged, withdrawing was a public verdict on the Gentiles' standing.

Paul opposed him to his face and says so in a letter meant to be read aloud in churches. Publicly naming a senior apostle's error was itself a claim about how serious the issue was.

What it meant to them

The Galatians learned that the men whose authority was being used against Paul had in fact endorsed him — and that when one of them acted inconsistently, the gospel, not the man's rank, decided the matter.

The chapter ends with the sentence the rest of the letter unpacks: a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And Paul adds the personal edge — if righteousness came through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

Sources cited

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Galatians 2. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

← Back: Galatians 1Continue: Galatians 3 →