Peter’s Withdrawal at Antioch

Some verses are quoted so often that they come with an explanation already attached. This is one of them:

Galatians 2:18 For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

The claim that usually goes with it runs like this. Paul once lived under the Torah, and when he met Messiah, he tore it down. So if any believer starts keeping the Torah again, he is rebuilding what Paul demolished, and he proves himself a transgressor.

It is easy to see why people read the verse this way. Paul was a Pharisee who became an apostle to the nations, and “what I have once destroyed” sounds like a man pointing back at his old life.

Yet the sentence does not say what was torn down, only that something was. To find out what, we must do what we would do with any sentence and read the ones around it.

The Rotten Beam and the Foundation

Imagine a contractor who, halfway through renovating an old house, tells the owner, “I’m not putting back what I tore out.” That sounds firm and sensible, but it means two entirely different things depending on what he tore out. If it was a rotten beam, all is well. If it was the foundation, the owner has every reason for alarm.

The key words in Galatians 2:18 are a builder’s words. The verb for “destroyed” is katalyo καταλύω kat-al-oo'-o, to tear down, take apart, or demolish. The verb for “rebuild” comes from oikodomeo οἰκοδομέω oy-kod-om-eh'-o, to build a house or put up a building. We need to walk into the house Paul was speaking of and see what was lying on the ground.

Antioch

The paragraph begins with a scene at Antioch. We looked at it in Chapter 24 for how Paul rebuked a brother; this time we look at it for the question it was about.

Galatians 2:12 For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the nations; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.

Peter had been eating with believers from the nations. When the men from James arrived, he pulled back, and others followed him, even Barnabas. Paul confronted him in front of everyone: “how is it that you compel the nations to live like Jews?” (Galatians 2:14).

The issue was not whether Peter kept the Torah. It was whether believers from the nations were acceptable at the table as they were, or whether they first had to become something else. Paul’s question names what Peter’s pulling away did to them: it compelled them “to live like Jews.”

Four Times Justified

Paul then explains why that was wrong:

Galatians 2:16-17 yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) but through the faith of Yeshua Messiah, even we have believed in Messiah Yeshua, so that we may be justified by the faith of Messiah and not by the works of nomos(law); since by the works of nomos(law) no sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) will be justified. But if, while seeking to be justified in Messiah, we ourselves have also been found to be sinners, is Messiah then a diakonos διάκονος dee-ak'-on-os(servant) of sin? May it never be!

In Chapter 5 we counted the word justified three times in the single sentence of verse 16. Verse 17 adds a fourth: “seeking to be justified in Messiah.” The verb is dikaioo δικαιόω dik-ah-yo'-o, to make or declare righteous.

The issue in this paragraph is not whether a believer should keep God’s commandments but how a person is justified. As we saw in Chapter 5, the phrase “works of nomos” in this letter points to the very thing the circumcision party was pressing: a work of the Torah held up as the condition of being counted righteous.

Verse 18 follows directly, and its opening word, “for,” ties it to what came just before. What Paul had torn down was the way of seeking to be made righteous by works. He had given up any hope of being justified by his own record and had believed in Messiah “so that we may be justified by the faith of Messiah.” If he now went back and rebuilt that way, by treating people of the nations as if they needed circumcision to be counted righteous, he would be putting up again the very building he had knocked down. That is what Peter was doing at the table in Antioch.

The word Paul uses for “transgressor” holds one more detail. It is parabates παραβάτης par-ab-at'-ace, one who steps across a line.

How the Paragraph Ends

The last verse of the paragraph says the same thing from the other side. We read it in Chapter 6: “if dikaiosyne δικαιοσύνη dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay(righteousness) comes through nomos(law), then Messiah died dorean δωρεάν do-reh-an'(needlessly)” (Galatians 2:21). Just before that, Paul says, “I do not nullify the charis χάρις khar'-ece(grace) of God.” The verb there is atheteo ἀθετέω ath-et-eh'-o, to set aside or reject. What Paul refuses to set aside is grace, and what he says would make Messiah’s death pointless is righteousness through the law. The beginning and the end of the paragraph agree: the building Paul tore down was righteousness by works.

Paul’s Own Testimony

Had Paul torn down the Torah itself, we would expect him to say so somewhere. Instead, he and the apostles in Jerusalem said the opposite, and more than once.

When the rumor reached Jerusalem that Paul was teaching Jews “to forsake Moses,” the elders asked him to purify himself with four men under a vow and to pay their expenses, so that “all will know that there is nothing to the things which they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the nomos(law)” (Acts 21:24). We read that verse in Chapter 19. “Nothing to the things” means that the rumor was empty, and Paul did as they asked.

Standing before the governor Felix, Paul said of himself, “I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the nomos(law) and that is written in the Prophets” (Acts 24:14). In Romans he put the question directly: “Do we then nullify the nomos(law) through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we uphold the nomos(law)” (Romans 3:31). We read that verse in Chapter 4.

One more echo is worth hearing. The verb in Galatians 2:18, katalyo, is the same verb Yeshua used on the mountain: “Do not think that I came to abolish the nomos(law) or the prophets — I did not come to abolish but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). Whatever Paul tore down, it was not what his Master said He had not come to abolish.

What Lies on the Ground

Go back into the house, then, and look at what lies on the ground. It is not the foundation. The foundation still stands: the God of the fathers, the Torah, the Prophets, and the commandments Paul kept and upheld. What lies in pieces is the rotten beam, the idea that a person can be counted righteous by his own works, or that believers from the nations must be circumcised before they can sit at the table.

Paul tore that down and would not rebuild it, and neither should we.

Galatians has one more passage that many readers take as the final proof that Sinai was set aside. In Galatians 4 Paul turns to “you who want to be under nomos(law)” and tells a story of two women and two covenants (Galatians 4:21-24).