Paul Rebukes Peter at Antioch

 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood self-condemned, for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. Gal. 2:11–13 

 But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. Gal. 2:18  

What Peter has first pulled down is the wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles. With his yielding to the party of James he is now building this up again and characterizing his previous attitude as παράβασις transgression, and himself as παραβάτης transgressor, violator. 

The contrast between “destroy” (καταλύω, katalyō) and “rebuild” (πάλιν οἰκοδομέω, palin oikodomeō) refers most naturally to the law: if Peter, as a Jewish Christian, should try to reinstitute the law as an absolute authority for conduct (as his actions at Antioch suggested he was doing),

 then he would, in effect, be rebuilding that which, in coming to Christ alone for justification, he had earlier torn down

While using different imagery and directed to a slightly different (but related) issue, the language of Eph. 2:14–15 moves in a similar direction:

 “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.” 

The verbs καταλύω and οἰκοδομέω are directly contrasted elsewhere in Scripture only in the Synoptic passages about “tearing down” and “rebuilding” the temple (Matt. 26:61//Mark 14:58; Matt. 27:40//Mark 15:29).

When “I” as a Jewish Christian “rebuild” the law as my authority, I “prove myself to be a transgressor” . The verb συνίστημι (synistēmi) has the sense “to cause something to be known by action” In Peter’s case, his action of withdrawing from meals with Gentiles would be to brand himself, in relationship to his previous eating with them and in many other infringements of torah or its contemporary application, a “transgressor” of that law.

 The lesson would not be lost on the Galatian Gentiles: if they, after coming to Christ for justification, should erect the law as their authority, they, too, would be branded as transgressors

When Paul therefore claims that he has “died to the law,” he means that he has been released from the binding authority of the law of Moses. How foolish, then, for Peter, or any other Jewish Christian, to “rebuild” that authority again (Gal. 2:18)!

 “The question of transgressing the law does not arise for one who has died in relation to the law” (Bruce 1982b: 142). And how wrong for Jewish Christians, and by extension Gentile Christians such as the Galatians, to try to be justified in terms of the law (Gal. 2: 16).

Douglas J. Moo, Galatians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 168–169.

If God representatively on the cross judged and condemned sin in the fleshly sphere, the Spirit is for the apostle the power which sets us under the cross and under the judgment executed there.

In so doing he rescues us from our autonomy and illusions and manifests the Crucified as the end of our own possibilities 

 In so doing he rescues us from our autonomy and illusions and manifests the Crucified as the end of our own possibilities and the beginning of the wonderful divine possibilities by which we shall henceforth live the life of grace.

 He does not do this by continuing the religiosity and morality which are demanded by the letter, and which are possible even in the old aeon.

 He does it by fashioning a new creature under the sign of the fulfilment of the divine will.

Only the Spirit gives freedom from the powers of sin and death. Since the Torah has been perverted by the flesh it cannot enable us to fulfil God’s will, without which that freedom does not exist.

 As he releases us from the dominion of the powers, the Spirit evokes the new obedience and thus establishes the rights of the divine will which had been originally manifested in the law.

 The Christological interpolation, however, stands in the way of the natural assumption that the Spirit is simply the law correctly understood by illumination and restored to its original meaning, and thus the principle of Christian life and morality.

 The Spirit is the supernatural power of grace which is based on the act of salvation and constantly directs us to it. God alone fulfils what he demands.

 He does it paradoxically on the cross with the sending of his Son as a sin-offering, and therefore apart from and even in opposition to our cooperation If this interpretation is correct, the motif of the justification of the ungodly, as in Rom.4:17ff., is taken up in and maintained by that of the fashioning of a new creature.

 There can be no talk of mystical relations, which is usually associated with the common but obscure and dangerous idea that union with Christ is the true work of the Spirit.

 The Spirit points us back to the cross of Christ as the place of salvation.

 He thus continually actualizes justification, sets us unceasingly in the sphere of power of the Crucified, and is the earthly presence of the exalted Lord. If the motif of union is to be used at all, it must be precisely understood as incorporation into the lordship of the Crucified.

Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans, ed. and trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, First edition (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 218,219. 

Nonetheless, to argue that ἔργα νόμου-works of the law” focuses on “identity markers” or “badges” that separated Jews from Gentiles is unconvincing (Cranfield 1991; Stuhlmacher 1992: 264; Thielman 1994a: 178).  Romans 3:19–20 functions as the conclusion for all of Rom.1:18–3:18. In chapter Rom.2: Paul criticizes the Jews for thinking that the law and circumcision will protect them from wrath.

 But Paul never says that the reason they will be judged is because they wanted to impose circumcision or food laws on Gentiles. Instead, the consistent thesis throughout chapter 2 (cf. Rom.2:1–3, 8–9, 12, 21–24, 25, 27) is that the Jews will be judged for failing to keep the law.

 The same theme is pounded home in Rom.3:9–18: it is the sin of the Jews (and Gentiles) that makes them liable to judgment.

 Thus verse Rom.3:20 should be understood to say that righteousness by works of law is excluded because no one is able to keep the law. I have already noted that this explains most naturally the relationship between the two clauses in verse Rom.3:20

Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, vol. 6, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 171–172.

For those who teach that Paul in this contends for freedom of ceremonies alone are absurd interpreters, as can be proved from the passages adduced in the argument. Such passages are these: That Christ “became a curse for us” to “redeem us from the curse of the law” [Gal. 3:13]. 

Likewise: “Stand fast in the freedom wherewith Christ has set you free, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. Now I, Paul, say … that if you receive circumcision, Christ will become of no advantage to you.… And every man who receives circumcision is a debtor to the whole law. For any of you who are justified by the law, Christ has become of no advantage; you have fallen away from grace” [Gal. 5:1–4].

These passages surely contain something loftier than freedom of ceremonies!  

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 835.

Mention of the incident at Antioch leads Paul on to assert plainly that Jews and Gentiles alike are justified by faith in Christ and not by legal works.

 It is preposterous, he adds, for those who by faith have received the Spirit to go back to reliance on keeping the law.

The gospel proclaims the fulfilment of the promise made by God to Abraham. All the nations were to be blessed with him, and since it was by faith that he received the blessing, so it is with them. The law, far from conveying a blessing, pronounces a curse on the lawbreaker. 

From this curse Christ has redeemed his people by absorbing it in himself through his death by crucifixion. Thus, they receive the blessing promised to Abraham—that is, they receive the Spirit through faith.

The superiority of the gospel over the law is shown also in the fact that Abraham received the promise centuries before the law was given. A testamentary disposition, once validated, cannot be invalidated by any subsequent provision; so, the promise, confirmed by God, cannot be set aside by the law.

 The law was given not to impart life but to increase the sum-total of sin; the promise, with the righteousness and life which it secures, is obtained not through keeping the law but through faith in Christ.

The law, in fact, is like a slave-attendant placed in charge of a freeborn child until he attains his majority. The people of God have attained their majority through faith in Christ; in him they have entered a new order of existence, in which distinctions of the old order become irrelevant.

 Until the child comes of age, although he is potentially heir to a rich estate, he is not given his liberty but is treated like a slave. So, we remained under the control of the law until the coming of Christ. 

He has redeemed us from legal bondage and given us a new status as mature and responsible sons and daughters of God. It is sons and daughters, not slaves, who receive the Spirit and are enabled by him to call God ‘Abba, Father’, as Jesus himself did. How can one who has come of age desire to be restricted all over again by the leading strings of infancy?

Paul then appeals to the Galatians to give him the same confidence and affection as they did when first he came to them. They are indeed his dear children, but they have been misled by troublemakers who simply wish to swell the number of their personal followers.

He next recalls the Genesis story of the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael in favour of Sarah and Isaac, to show that it is those who enjoy the freedom of the Spirit, not those who are enslaved to the law, that are trueborn children of God. The Galatians have been set free by Christ: let them not turn back the clock and submit to bondage again.

F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1982), 135–136.