Galatians, chapter 2, will begin reading at verse 11.

But when Cephes came to Antioch, I oppose him to his face because he stood condemned.

For before certain men came from James he ate with the Gentiles, but when they came he drew

back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.

And with him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely so that even Barnabas was carried

away by their insincerity.

But when I saw that they were not straightforward

about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas

before them all, if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew,

how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews.

Last week we saw from Galatians chapter 2 verses 4 and 5 that there were some professing Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who were trying to have Titus,

who was a Greek, compelled to be circumcised before he could be accepted in the church in Jerusalem.

Paul in verse 5 resisted that

the effort with all his might, and the reason that verse five gives is that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

If Paul had yielded to the desire of the circumcision Party in Jerusalem to have Titus circumcised, the gospel would have been torpedoed,

it would have been over. The Gentile mission would have come to an end, and we would still be in our sins under the wrath of

God. The gospel is the good news that when Jesus died on the cross he purchased fully our right standing with God.

And that the only way we can enjoy this right standing is through a life of faith in the

son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.

If you add any other requirements to being accepted with God in the act of justification, then you torpedo the gospel.

For if justification and sanctification are by anything but faith Christ died in vain according to chapter 2 verse 21.

Therefore Paul drove his stake in Jerusalem and refused to budge. Titus will not be

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