§7 Paul Stands Firm and the Truth of His Gospel Is Recognized (Gal. 2:3–6)
2:3 / Proof of the truth of his gospel is that at the Jerusalem meeting not even Titus, who was with him, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. The word “compel” (anagkazō) conveys the sense that there were high stakes surrounding whether or not Titus would or should be circumcised. In light of how much pressure there was to circumcise Titus, the fact that in the end he was not circumcised reflects well on Paul’s gospel. Paul emphasizes that Titus was an uncircumcised Greek so as to stress an identification between Titus and the Galatian readers—just as Titus is an uncircumcised Greek, so are they. Since Titus was not compelled to be circumcised, the Jerusalem church clearly does not consider circumcision intrinsic to faith in Christ. From this it follows that those who are troubling the Galatians by telling them that faith in Christ requires following the law are out of sync with the opinion of the leaders in Jerusalem. Paul explicitly includes the Galatians in his telling of this story when he says that the freedom that he protected at that meeting in Jerusalem was freedom that the Galatians and he now have in Christ Jesus. Paul’s unswerving conviction saved the Galatians from enslavement.
2:4–5 / While he was with the Jerusalem Christians Paul says that false brothers … infiltrated. The Greek reads as if these believers acted with the help of some in the gathering who let them in (tous pareisaktous) and on their own agency (pareisēlthon). The theme of hypocrisy is strong throughout this chapter and plays against the opposite theme of truth. Paul defends and preserves the truth of the gospel in the face of the falsehood of the brothers at Jerusalem and what he identifies as the hypocrisy of Peter and the rest of the Jews (2:13) at Antioch. Paul charges that at Jerusalem particular Christians (the false believers) were allowed in for the purpose of spying on the freedom that they had in Christ Jesus. Of course, the “false brothers” charged that Paul was hypocritical and false. Paul defends himself against such charges throughout the letter: he is the one who clings to the truth of the gospel; he is the one who acts with the courage of his convictions and sticks to his principles.
In defending himself Paul caricatures his opponents as false. Paul also presents the goals of these “false brothers” as seeking to make … slaves of the supporters of the Gentile mission. This, of course, would not be how the false brothers themselves understand their motives. They believed that since Jesus is the Messiah, believers in him should be obedient Jews; this is not bondage but a privilege. Paul, however, regards their conviction as sinister and aggressive. He obviously feels threatened by their actions but asserts that he and his cohorts did not give in to them for a moment.
Paul wants the Galatians to know that despite the overwhelming and intimidating opposition he experienced during that assembly at Jerusalem, he did not allow himself to be put in the position of a subordinate. He did this for the sake of the truth of the gospel, so that it might remain for the Galatians. Paul presents himself as the real defender of the gospel.
For Paul the truth of the gospel is what he has already given the Galatians (1:9) and what he will reiterate during the course of the letter—that “a man is justified not by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ” (2:16). Whether Paul’s presentation of the rival evangelists’ position is fair or not, it is clear that Paul was willing to go to almost any lengths to defend the Gentiles’ right to be believers in Jesus Christ without having to adopt the Jewish law.
2:6 / Paul is not overawed by the Jerusalem church leaders. Paul describes the leaders as “those who seemed to be important.” Implying that whereas others might be intimidated by their current eminence in the Jerusalem church and perhaps their past association with Jesus, Paul writes: whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance. In a situation where the external—circumcision—is being advocated as essential, this statement is also an implicit criticism of his opponents’ position.
Paul asserts that the influential Christian leaders, unlike the rival evangelists, added nothing to his message. The gospel that was preached to the Galatians came directly from God, and it was recognized as complete by the Jerusalem leaders.
2:3–5 / Even Titus: The Greek is ambiguous. Does this phrase refer to Paul’s reason for bringing Titus to the Jerusalem meeting: because he was a Greek? Or does the phrase relate to the effect of Titus’ presence at the Jerusalem meeting: even though he was a Greek circumcision was not required of him?
The words not … compelled to be circumcised take on a different meaning depending on how one reads 2:5. A number of manuscripts, including one Western text and Marcion, omit the words “to them [we] did not.” The reading of 2:5 in these texts is that Paul did yield to the “false brothers” with the result that Timothy was circumcised. Thus 2:3 would mean that Timothy was not compelled to be circumcised by the real leaders of the church in Jerusalem but only by the false ones. While there are other places where Paul recognizes situations in which it is appropriate to curtail one’s freedom (e.g., 1 Cor. 9), he stresses that this is to be done for the sake of weaker members of the church.
At Jerusalem, as Paul presents the scenario, those who insist on circumcision are not weak but false. Nevertheless, it may be possible to understand the variant reading as being in sync with Paul’s willingness to limit freedom for the sake of others. If we were to accept the variant reading, we might construe a situation in which the Galatians know that Titus was circumcised and in which this is being used by the rival evangelists as evidence for the Jerusalem church’s stance on law observance. Paul here is putting his own spin on the incident: while Titus was circumcised this did not occur at the insistence of the leaders but rather of the false brothers. While Paul, Titus, and some others submitted to the demands of the false brothers, it was only for a moment, and it was for the greater good. In fact, their submission to the false brothers was sacrificial—for the sake of the gospel and future converts, that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. In this understanding of the event, circumcision for Titus was neither a requirement on the part of the Jerusalem leaders nor a lapse in principle on Paul’s part but an acquiescence to the demand of false brothers for a greater purpose.
The variant reading of 2:5 could also be read to accord with Paul’s statement in 5:11, “if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?” This verse suggests that one of the pieces in the opponents’ platform is that Paul is a hypocrite, telling the Galatians that they do not need to be circumcised and yet preaching or agreeing to circumcision elsewhere.
Yet despite some good reasons for seriously considering the variant reading, the majority reading, in which Paul denies that he and Barnabas and Titus yielded to the demand for Titus’s circumcision, seems the most likely. Beyond the fact that most manuscripts attest to this reading, it is hard to imagine how at the same meeting James, Peter, and John could agree to the validity of a Gentile mission (2:9) and yet be party to compelling a Greek to be circumcised. Furthermore, if Paul had proven himself open to circumcising a Greek, the energetic concern of Jewish Christians to get Paul’s converts to be circumcised is hard to explain.