Gal. 2 Gal. 2:1–2 Paul showeth for what purpose after many years he went to Jerusalem. Gal. 2:3–5 That Titus, who went with him, was not circumcised, and that on purpose to assert the freedom of the Gentile converts from the bondage of the law. Gal.

Fourteen years after; either fourteen years after the three years before mentioned, and the fifteen days; or fourteen years after the conversion of Paul, or fourteen years after the death of Christ.

And I went up by revelation; revelation signifieth God’s immediate declaration of his will to him, that he would have him take this journey; which is not at all contradicted by Luke, saying, Acts 15:2–3, that their journey was determined by the Christians at Antioch.

The apostle brings this as an instance of the apostles at Jerusalem agreeing with him in his doctrine, as to the non-necessity of circumcision; for though Titus was with him, who was a native Gentile, being a Greek, and a minister of the gospel, (and possibly Paul carried him with him for an…

He gives the reason why circumcision was not urged upon Titus, viz. because there were some got into that meeting, where Paul debated these things with the apostles that were at Jerusalem, who, though they had embraced the Christian religion, (and upon that account were brethren), yet were soured…

To these Judaizing Christians the apostle did not think fit to yield one jot, not for the least time, nor in so much as one precedent; having a desire that these Gentile churches might not be perverted. Or, (as others think), to which men of reputation we yielded not in the least.

But of those who seemed to be somewhat: the word translated seemed, is the same with that in Gal. 2:2, which we there translate of reputation. The apostle means the same persons that were of the greatest reputation, and so the following words, to be somewhat, do import, Acts 5:36, Acts 8:9.

But contrariwise, when they saw; they were so far from contradicting any thing that I had preached, that when they understood from me, and Barnabas, (who Acts 15:12, declared in the council what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them} that the gospel of the uncircumcision,…

As Paul’s call was equal to that of Peter both of them being Divine, so, saith the apostle, my ability and success was equal; as God wrought effectually in and by Peter in the discharge of his apostleship in the province intrusted to him, (which was preaching to the Jews), so he wrought effectually…

James, (called, the less), the son of Alpheus, before called the Lord’s brother, as is thought, because he was the son of the virgin Mary’s sister; whose naming here in the first place spoileth the papists’ argument for Peter’s primacy, because in some other places he is first named.

These pillars and apostles, which have among you the greatest reputation, added no new doctrine to us, gave us nothing new in charge; they only desired us that we would be careful, wheresoever we went, to make collection for the poor Christians in Judea, who either by selling all they had to…

Of this motion of Peter’s to Antioch the Scripture saying nothing, hath left interpreters at liberty to guess variously as to the time; solne judging it was before, some after, the council held at Jerusalem, of which we read, Acts 15.

It should seem that Peter had been at Antioch some time; while he was there, there came down certain Jews from James, who was at Jerusalem: before they came Peter had communion with those Christians at Antioch, which were by birth Gentiles, and at meals eat as they eat, making no difference of…

The fact was the worse, because those Christians which were of the church of Antioch, having been native Jews, followed his example, and made a separate party with him.

Uprightly, here, is opposed to halting. Peter halted between two opinions, (as Elijah sometime told the Israelites), when he was with the Gentiles alone, he did as they did, using the liberty of the gospel; but when the Jews came from Jerusalem, he left the Gentile church, and joined with the Jews;…

Jews by nature; born Jews, not only proselyted to the Jewish religion, (and so under an obligation to the observation of the Jewish law), but of the seed of Abraham, and so under the covenant made with him and his seed, as he was the father of the Jewish nation.

Knowing that a man is not justified; we knowing that a man is not absolved from the guilt of sin, and declared righteous in the sight of God; by the works of the law; by any kind of works done in obedience to the law of Moses, whether ceremonial or moral.

Some interpreters think, that the apostle here begins his discourse to the Galatians upon the main argument of his Epistle, viz. justification by faith in Christ; though others think it began, Gal. 2:15.

By the things which he destroyed, some understand the state of sin; and from hence conclude the mutability of a state of justification: but there is no need of that, it may as well be understood of a constant course and voluntary acts of sin.

Through the law of Christ, as some say; or rather, through the law of Moses, of which he had been before speaking: that is, say some, through the death of the law; the law itself being dead, as a covenant of works, Rom. 7:6.

This Epistle is much of the same nature with that to the Romans, and the substance of what the apostle saith in the latter part of this chapter, agreeth much with Rom. 6; where we find an expression much like to this, Gal.

I do not frustrate the grace of God; I do not despise, reject, make void, (for by all these words the word here used is translated, Mark 7:9, John 12:48, John 3:15, Heb.