Then, after an interval of fourteen years, once again I went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas; and Titus also accompanied me.✻

I went up in obedience to a revelation, and there I communicated to them (only in private, to men of repute) the gospel I always preach among the Gentiles; was it possible that the course I had taken and was taking was useless?

And it is not even true to say that they insisted on my companion Titus, who was a Greek, being circumcised;

we were only thinking of those false brethren who had insinuated themselves into our company so as to spy on the liberty which we enjoy in Christ Jesus, meaning to make slaves of us.

To these we did not give ground for a moment by way of obedience; we were resolved that the true principles of the gospel should remain undisturbed in your possession.✻

But as for what I owe to those who were of some repute—it matters little to me who or what they were, God makes no distinction between man and man—these men of repute, I say, had nothing to communicate to me.✻

On the contrary, those who were reputed to be the main support of the Church, James and Cephas and John, saw plainly that I was commissioned to preach to the uncircumcised, as Peter was to the circumcised;

he whose power had enabled Peter to become the apostle of the circumcised, had enabled me to become the apostle of the Gentiles.

And so, recognizing the grace God had given me, they joined their right hands in fellowship with Barnabas and myself; the Gentiles were to be our province, the circumcised theirs.

Only we were to remember the poor; which was the very thing I had set myself to do.✻

Afterwards, when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him openly; he stood self-condemned.

He had been eating with the Gentiles, until we were visited by certain delegates from James; but when these came, he began to draw back and hold himself aloof, overawed by the supporters of circumcision.

The rest of the Jews were no less false to their principles; Barnabas himself was carried away by their insincerity.

So, when I found that they were not following the true path of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, Since thou, who art a born Jew, dost follow the Gentile, not the Jewish way of life, by what right dost thou bind the Gentiles to live like Jews?

We are Jews by right of nature, we do not come from the guilty stock of the Gentiles;

yet we found out that it is through faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law, that a man is justified. We, like anyone else, had to learn to believe in Jesus Christ, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, not by observance of the law. Observance of the law cannot win acceptance for a single human creature.✻

By putting our hopes of justification in Christ, we took our rank as guilty creatures like the rest. Does that mean that Christ brings us guilt? That is not to be thought of;

do I put myself in the wrong, when I destroy and then rebuild?✻

Through the law, my old self has become dead to the law, so that I may live to God; with Christ I hang upon the cross,

and yet I am alive; or rather, not I; it is Christ that lives in me. True, I am living, here and now, this mortal life; but my real life is the faith I have in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

I do not spurn the grace of God. If we can be justified through the law, then Christ’s death was needless.