3202. “It Pleased God.”

A Sermon Published On Thursday, June 16, 1910.

It pleased God. {Ga 1:15}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 656, “Prevenient Grace” 647}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3202, “‘It Pleased God’” 3203}

   Exposition on Ga 1:11-2:21 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3202, “‘It Pleased God’” 3203 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ga 1 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2594, “Offence of the Cross, The” 2595 @@ "Exposition"}

1. We will read the whole verse from which our text is taken: “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace.” You will perceive, I think, in these words, that the divine plan of salvation is very clearly laid down. It begins, you see, in the will and pleasure of God: “when it pleased God.” The foundation of salvation is not laid in the will of man. “It is not by him who wills, nor by him who runs, but by God who shows mercy.” It does not begin with man’s obedience, and then proceed onward to the purpose of God, but here is its beginning, here the fountain-head from which the living waters flow: “It pleased God.” Next to the sovereign will and good pleasure of God comes the act of separation, commonly known by the name of election. This act is said, in the text, to take place even in the mother’s womb, by which we are taught that it took place before our birth when as yet we could have done nothing whatever to win it or to merit it. God separated us from the earliest part and time of our being; and, indeed, long before that, when as yet the mountains and hills were not created, and the oceans were not formed by his creative power, he had, in his eternal purpose, set us apart for himself. Then, after this act of separation, came the effectual calling: “and called me by his grace.” The calling does not cause the election; but the election, springing from the divine purpose, causes the calling. The calling comes as a result of the divine purpose and the divine separation, and you will notice how the obedience follows the calling. The apostle does not begin to be a preacher, according to the purpose and will of God, until first of all the Spirit of God has called him out of his state of nature into a state of grace. So the whole process runs like this,—first the sacred, sovereign purpose of God, then the distinct and definite election or separation, then the effectual and irresistible calling, and then afterwards the obedience to life, and the sweet fruits of the Spirit which spring from it. They err, not knowing the Scriptures, who put any of these processes before the others, out of the scriptural order. Those who put man’s will first do not know what they are saying, nor what they are affirming; for it is not by the will of man, says the apostle in the most peremptory and positive manner; the salvation of any soul is a display of the eternal purpose and sovereign will of God.

2. And, beloved, by this test we may know the certainty of our election, if we have obediently yielded to the call of God. If the divine calling has produced in us the fruit of obedience, then we may assuredly believe that we were separated to God before time began, and that this separation was according to the eternal purpose and will of God. Like golden links of a chain, any one of these will draw on the others. Am I justified? Then I was called by God’s grace. Am I called? Then I was predestined to be called; and, on the other hand, if I was predestined, then I shall be called; being called, I shall be justified; being justified, I shall be glorified. I think I have used this illustration before. On that bank of the great river of time is the massive pillar of divine foreknowledge and predestination, and on the other side of the river is the equally massive pillar of glorification. How are we to bridge these two? Both of these pillars are in the mists and clouds of eternity, but these stupendous chains stretch right across the intervening chasm: “Whom he foreknew he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestinated, those he also called: and whom he called, those he also justified: and whom he justified, those he also glorified.” If I want to know what my relationship is to predestination away back there in the past, I think of my calling, for I have been called, and so I am linked with the past; and if I want to know whether I shall be glorified, I know that also by the fact that I am justified today. So, as I stand here, I am linked with both the past and the future,—linked so firmly that neither time, nor life, nor death, nor hell shall ever be able to break the bonds that bind me equally to the predestination in the past and the glorification in the future.

3. You see then, dear friends, that from this verse, as a whole, we learn the divine plan of salvation, and by it we may judge concerning our own interest in it. But now, leaving the rest of the verse, let us consider the three words that form our text: “It pleased God.”

4. I. First, we have here THE FOUNDATION OF DIVINE GRACE.

5. The reason why Paul was saved was this, “It pleased God”; and the only reason why you or I will ever enter heaven must be this, “It pleased God.” You can clearly perceive, in the apostle’s case, that there could be no other reason. It could not be because of any merit of his that he was saved, for what was he? A blasphemer, he says, and a persecutor; so thirsty for the blood of saints that, even in his younger days, he guarded the clothes of the murderers who stoned Stephen. Afterwards, he hated men and women, and committed them to prison, and compelled them to blaspheme; “and being”—to use his own expressive words,—“extremely mad against them,” he “persecuted them even to foreign cities.” There could be nothing in that persecuting Jew, whose very breath was full of threatenings, and whose heart was like a furnace of fury against the saints,—there could be nothing in him which could be a reason why God should save him; if saved, it must be because “it pleased God.”

6. And, most decidedly, there was no coercion of the apostle’s will tending to his conversion. You remember the scene. I see him there, on his proud charger, riding onward towards Damascus; he has in his possession letters which he treasures more than gold, for they give him the permission of the high priest to seize the saints at Damascus, and carry them bound to Jerusalem. He rides on proudly, over there is the city glittering in the sun, and he is meditating on the deeds of blood and fury he will perform there: who can stop that man? But at midday God arrests him; “a light from heaven, greater than the brightness of the sun,” shines on him; the men who are with him see the light, but they do not know what it is. He falls to the ground, and a voice cries to him from heaven, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He enquires, “Who are you, Lord?” The answer comes, “I am Jesus whom you persecute: it is hard for you to kick against the pricks,” like an ox kicking against the sharp goad. He rises blind, yet seeing more than he ever saw before; he goes into Damascus, not to hunt Christ’s disciples, but to learn from Ananias the good news that Christ’s pardon may be given even to him. In three days’ time, he is converted, baptized in the name of Christ, comes out to tell the little church at Damascus what God has done for his soul, and in the synagogues preaches that Christ is the Son of God. What reason can there be why this persecutor of the saints should have been saved but this, “It pleased God”?

7. Do not imagine that this is an exceptional experience; on the contrary, such cases occur every day. Many come into this place of worship as sceptics, and go out sincere believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. I have known some who have come here only to laugh and scoff, but they have remained to pray. No thought was further from their mind than that they should ever become the followers of the Lamb; but the divine power, which was not necessarily connected with the preacher, carried the Word into their hearts, arrested them on the spot, changed their natures, made them new creatures in Christ Jesus, and sent them on their way rejoicing in their newly-found Saviour; and I am sure that all such people will bear their willing witness that they can see no reason except this for the grace which was bestowed on them, “it pleased God.”

8. There are some, whose lives have proved how sinful their nature was, for their sin has taken the form of open and gross vice. They are like that woman in the city, who was a sinner; and since they resemble her in their sin, I trust that they will also resemble her in their love, and be ready to wash the Saviour’s feet with their tears, and wipe them with the hairs of their head. There may be some, who are now truly converted, who have sinned as deeply as Saul of Tarsus ever did; then let them acknowledge, as he did, that their conversion was due to the undeserved favour of God. John Bradford’s saying has often been quoted, but it will bear repeating again and again. He lived in a house past which people used to be taken on the way to Tyburn {a} to be hanged, and in those cruel times there were many poor wretches hurried out of existence, some of them for crimes which are far more leniently punished now. As the honest preacher saw them pass by his house, he said, “There goes John Bradford but for the grace of God.” He felt that he was, by nature, capable of doing just what they had done, and that only grace had made him to differ from them; and when I hear or read of some atrocious sinner, I say to myself, “That man is what I might have been if God had left me to take my own course; for, by nature, I am no better than he is. I might not have fallen into his special form of sin, for the bent of my constitution may not be in that particular direction; but I might have committed some other sin which would have been quite as bad as his.” One vessel may leak at the bow, and another may leak at the stern, but it does not much matter where the leak is, in either case the vessel will sink.

9. And those of you who have been converted as the result of a regular attendance at the house of prayer, when you come to remember how many others, who are still unregenerate, have been sitting beside you, you can only say, as you think who caused you to differ from them, “It pleased God.” How often one is taken and the other left! Two women come up to worship at the same time, and sit under the sound of the same message; one retires impenitent, the other’s heart is broken. As we notice the contrast between them, we can only stand, and, holding up our hands in wonder, say, “What is the reason for this difference, Lord? There can be none except that so it seemed good in your sight.”

10. I know that there are many who, the moment they hear this doctrine proclaimed, begin to criticize it and quarrel with it. They do not think that God should do as he pleases in the work of salvation, but let me tell them that it is because they do not care for God that they feel as they do in this matter. Opposition to divine sovereignty is essentially atheism. Men have no objection to a god who is really no God; I mean by this, a god who shall be the subject of their caprice, who shall be a lackey to their will, who shall be under their control,—they have no objection to such a being as that; but a God who speaks, and it is done who commands, and it stands firm, a God who shows no partiality, but does as he wishes among the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of this lower world, such a God as this they cannot endure. And yet, is it not essential to the very being of God that he should be absolute and supreme? Certainly, to the scriptural conception of God, sovereignty is an absolute necessity.

11. Let me say, then, to those who quarrel with the Lord for doing as he pleases in the conversion of sinners that, first, he has the right to do so through his own inherent sovereignty. He made men, and he has the right to do with them just as he pleases. “Has not the potter power over the clay, from the same lump, to make one vessel for honour, and another for dishonour?” If any man says to God, “Why have you made me like this?” the only answer is, “No but, oh man, who are you who replies against God?” Dread, mysterious, and profound as the doctrine of divine sovereignty is, yet it certainly must be acknowledged that he who is God has an absolute and inherent right to do as he wishes with all those whom he himself has created.

   Mortals, be dumb; what creature dares

      Dispute his awful will?

   Ask no account of his affairs,

      But tremble, and be still.

12. But some of your animosity to this doctrine may perhaps be melted if you remember that God’s sovereignty is never displayed apart from his righteousness. To entrust a man with absolute power would be most dangerous, for he is fallible; but to entrust absolute holiness and righteousness with absolute power is the safest way of governing the whole universe. God cannot do an unrighteous thing, therefore let him do whatever he wishes; who would wish to limit One whose acts must be, from the very character that is essential to his being, just and true? No man who is lost will ever be able to blame God’s sovereignty for it. The man who perishes shall justly perish because of his sins; and in hell, this shall be for him the pang of pangs, that he cannot reproach God, but that his damnation lies at his own door since he incensed the justice of God, which must punish him for his sin. And, in the same way, the saints in heaven, though saved as the result of divine sovereignty, may boast that that sovereignty never violated justice, for, before God would bring one of them to heaven, he gave his Son to bleed and die so that the demands of justice might be fully met before the sinner was saved.

13. I will venture to go even further than this, and to say that the sovereignty of God is never exercised apart from his mercy and his benevolence. We know that “God is love,” and who would limit love? Since “God is love,” let him be absolute, for he will assuredly do what, on the whole, is the best for all his creatures, as well as most for the glory of his own perfect character. Then, since this is the case, how ought we to delight to think that God is free, and bound by no law but his own will, which is the fountain of all law, and constrained by no necessity but the carrying out of his own eternal purposes of love and mercy!

14. I feel sure that much of the opposition to the doctrine of divine sovereignty springs from a misunderstanding of God. I know that some misrepresent this truth as though God were an almighty tyrant, but Scripture gives no warrant for such a caricature; and I again enter, as I have already often entered, my earnest protest against such an insult to my God. When any man perishes, do not lay his blood at God’s door. If any man is lost, his ruin is caused by himself, and not to be laid to the charge of our ever-gracious God. Yet remember, at the same time, that if anyone is saved, the glory of their salvation must be ascribed to God. I am often asked, “How do you make those two statements consistent with each other?” But that question does not perplex me, for I do not see how they are inconsistent with each other. Someone says, “But I do not understand this doctrine.” Perhaps not, but remember that, while we are bound to tell you the truth, we are not bound to give you the power to understand it; and, besides, this is not a subject for understanding, it is a matter for believing because it is revealed in the Word of God. It is one of the axioms of theology that, if a man is lost, God must not be blamed for it; and it is also an axiom of theology that, if a man is saved, God must have all the glory for it. That “salvation is from the Lord” is as plainly revealed in Scripture as anything that we see in nature; and that destruction is by man is equally plain, both from the nature of things and from the teaching of Scripture. Hold the two truths; do not try to run to the extreme either of the Hyper-Calvinist or of the ultra-Arminian. There is some truth in Calvinism and some in Arminianism, and he who would hold all the truth must neither be cramped by the one system nor bound by the other, but take truth wherever he can find it in the Bible, and leave it to the God of truth to show him, when he gets into another world, anything that is beyond his comprehension now. In any case, I have laid this down very plainly, and I think every converted person must agree with it, that, if any of us are saved, the explanation for our conversion is the same as the explanation for Paul’s, “it pleased God.”

15. II. Now, secondly, I shall use the text in another way. We have here REASONS FOR HUMILITY.

16. Paul was a preacher; but why was he a preacher? Because “it pleased God.” You are a deacon, or you are an elder, or you are a minister; is there any reason for boasting here? Who made you what you are? “It pleased God.” That is the only possible explanation. Had God willed it, you might have been sweeping a crossing, you might have been at this moment in some tavern grovelling in drunkenness, you might have been a miserable wretch in prison. Any honourable office that you hold in the church is the result, not of your meriting it, but of God’s graciousness towards you in having put you where you are. The angels in heaven are humble because they remember who made them and kept them angels, for they would have been demons in hell if God had not preserved them in their first state. In the same way, an office in the church is a reason for humility, not for boasting; for if we are favoured like this, it is because “it pleased God.”

17. The apostle was also a great labourer; he could truthfully say, “I laboured more abundantly than all of them.” What then, was that a reason for boasting? By no means, for he added, “yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” Are you passionately zealous for the conversion of men? Do you labour both by night and by day to propagate the truth of God, and to bring sinners to the cross of Christ? Then, continue in your noble employment, but do not plume yourself on this as though you deserved some praise from God for it, but remember that every virtue you possess, everything about you that is pure, and lovely, and of good report, has come to you because “it pleased God.”

18. Paul was, moreover, a most successful preacher. Thousands acknowledged him as their spiritual father; through a great part of Asia, through Greece and Italy, probably onward through Spain, and perhaps even in Great Britain, there were found traces of the victorious march of this great soldier of the cross. Wherever he went, he confounded the reasoner, put to silence the boaster, made the heathen feel that one had come among them who would hurl their idols from their pedestals. He came, like John the Baptist, casting down the high hills, and filling up the valleys, to make straight a highway for his God; yet I never find him boasting of all this, but, laying all his honours at Jehovah’s feet, he said, “By the grace of God I am what I am”; or, in the words of our text, “It pleased God.”

19. There are some people in the world who are constantly warning some of us against pride, and we are duly thankful for their warnings; they are, no doubt, greatly needed, and it is very generous on their part to bestow them on us, especially as some of them greatly need the warnings themselves. I remember, some time ago, receiving a warning against pride from a Christian woman, who told me that she should pray that I might be kept humble. I thanked her, and told her that I would do the same for her, whereupon she said that she did not require it, for she had no temptation to be proud, she had nothing to be proud of, and therefore she was quite sure she never would be proud. Then I told her, gently but decidedly, that I thought she was proud already, or else she would not have uttered such a speech as that. I added that God had his own way of keeping humble those whom he called to stand in conspicuous places, and his usual way was by chastening them in private when their people knew nothing about it; and I also said that it was quite as easy to be proud and to do nothing as to be proud and to do much. Oh, dear, the lazy ministers that I have seen, who seemed to have had their backs made of cast iron, idle preachers who would scarcely bring one soul to Christ in a century; yet they were so dignified, and maintained “the dignity of their profession” with such vigour that there seemed to be every reason to expect that they would die of dignity one of these days, like the Spanish monarch, who perished because, his chair being too near the fire, it was not according to court etiquette that he should move it himself, or that he should ring the bell for anyone else to do it, and therefore he sat still until he brought on a fever by which he afterwards lost his life. If we have nothing, we should be humble because of our poverty; and if we have much, we ought to be humble because we are so much in debt to God. A man who owes £10,000 has no reason to crow over his fellow debtor who owes far less than he does. He would be foolish if he said, “I have more to be proud of than you have, for I owe £10,000, but you only owe £100.” Why, that should be the reason why he should hang his head down even lower; and it should be so with the man whom God greatly honours. This should be the reason for keeping himself very humble, because he knows, and God will make him remember it too, that, if there is any difference between him and other men, it is only because “it pleased God.”

20. III. Now I am going to use our text in a third way as A REASON FOR COURAGE.

21. I should like to see more of this virtue than we do see now-a-days. We live in an age which needs to have a large infusion of the heroic martyr spirit which enabled our forefathers to go boldly to the block or to the stake for Christ’s sake. We may well blush as we see how many professors are ashamed of the religion which they are supposed to have received. If they are called to do some work for Christ, how often do they stop, and parley, and question, and hesitate; and, at last, when they have summoned up enough courage to come forward, it is only with an apology on their lips for daring to do something for Jesus. I heard one say of a certain preacher, “I greatly admired him, for he began his sermon by saying, ‘Permit a young man to address you.’” I said, “That is not the way God’s servants ought to talk; if God has given them anything to say for him, they do not have to ask anyone’s permission to say it, nor should they apologize to anyone for saying it as God enables them to say it.” Apologies are out of place in the pulpit. The man whom God sends to speak for him is God’s ambassador, and he has no right to apologize for delivering his Lord’s message. He who professes to be sent by God either is or is not God’s ambassador. If he is not, let him get out of the pulpit at once; if he is his Master’s accredited representative, he needs no excuse, and should make none.

22. I think it will make us courageous, and help us to do exploits for God, if we can feel that we do our work because it pleases God. I have never approved of the warfare of the old Commonwealth days. I do not believe that, after all, England gained much by fighting. Under Cromwell, she gained liberty for a time, but it was soon lost again, as liberty always must be if it is only won by the sword. But notice that, I must say this, what made Cromwell so mighty was the firm conviction that “it pleased God” to make him the leader of the Ironsides, and what made his soldiers victorious on so many hard-fought fields was that they also felt that “it pleased God.” For them, it was not a question concerning whether it was lawful to fight, they had made up their minds about that matter. Taking out their little soldiers’ Bible, they read some fiery Psalm, and having read it, their blood boiled, and as the old Crusaders cried, “Deus vult,”—“God wills it,”—they shouted their battle-cry, “The Lord of hosts,” and dashed into the fight, and they were victorious because they felt that “it pleased God.” And now today, battling inch by inch, and contending hour by hour against the beleaguered hosts of sin, you and I can never be mighty if we only stand in our own strength, and question our call to be soldiers of the cross. But if we felt that each blow that we strike pleases God, and if in every advance we make into the enemy’s territory we can say, “It pleases God,” and if our war-cry as we dash to the conflict is, “It pleases God,” then we shall feel the earth shake again beneath the tramp of the heroes’ feet, and we shall see the Church of God as she should be, “fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.” Why, even the power of the Crusaders arose from the fact that they thought the Crusades “pleased God”; and the fury of the old Mohammedans, as they tore across continents, stormed mighty cities, and drove the hosts of Christendom before them, largely came from the conviction that “it pleased God” and the man they were taught to call “the prophet of God.”

23. Brothers and sisters, we must get back this old enthusiasm if our land is ever to be swept clear of Popery. If Europe is ever to become free with God’s freedom, if Africa is ever to have the light of truth driving away her dense darkness, if Asia, and America, and Australia are ever to be won for the Lord Jesus Christ, those whom God has called to the conflict must fight because it pleases God. Surely none of you, who profess to be Christ’s, will be content unless you do something to help towards this great end because it pleases God. As you come to the communion table, realize that God is within you, making your body his throne, and enabling you to carry out your great life purpose of glorifying God in your body and in your spirit which are his. Do all that you do because it pleases God. If his Spirit shall help you to feel and act like this, it shall be blessed both for the Church and for the world.

24. IV. My time has gone, yet I have not nearly finished, so I must give you the rest in brief. Here is AN ARGUMENT FOR PATIENCE: “It pleased God.” The cup is bitter, the knife is sharp, the bit is hard, the bereavement is severe; but, since it pleases God, we kiss the rod, and patiently bow to our Father’s will.

25. V. Then, next, we have here A SUGGESTION FOR HOPE.

26. If it pleased God to save Saul of Tarsus, and if the only reason why he should save him was because he was pleased to do it, then why can he not save you? Have you been a drunkard? Have you dived into the foul slough of lust? Have you defiled yourself by dishonesty? Still, if it pleases God, he can save you. Now I know it pleases God to save everyone who trusts in Christ. Then, if you trust in Christ, you are saved. Awake, oh man, awake, oh woman, and let this be your language now, “I the chief of sinners am, but it pleased God to save another who called himself the chief of sinners, so—

   I’ll to the gracious King approach,

      Whose sceptre pardon gives;

   Perhaps he may command my touch,

      And then the supplicant lives.”

27. If you will cast yourself like this on the sovereign mercy of God in Christ Jesus, it will please God, and you shall be saved.

28. VI. And then, last of all, our text is A MOTIVE FOR HOLINESS AND ZEAL.

29. If “it pleased God,” and therefore he saved me when there was no reason in me why I should be saved, if he loved me when I was black, now that I have been washed I would be black no more, and in holiness I will seek to show my gratitude to him. If he loved me when I was dead, now that he has made me alive I will not be lifeless and cold, but full of zeal and fire for him. I do not know how to press this last point unless I get back to the one I was urging on you just now. If you feel that God has willed that you should be saved, and that God wills that you should be the means of saving others, that God wills that you should become a spiritual father or mother in Israel, then I know that your heart will boil over with holy zeal, and that you will go out as a conqueror who has the certainty of victory already in his heart, God shall be with you, and you shall go on conquering and to conquer. May the Lord add his blessing, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

{a} Tyburn was used for centuries as the primary location of the execution of London criminals; the Old Bailey was the main criminal court of London. Editor.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ga 1:11-2:21}

1:11-17. But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel that was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my conduct in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: and profited in the Jews’ religion more than many of my equals in my own nation, being more extremely zealous for the traditions of my forefathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I did not confer with flesh and blood: neither did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

Paul was intensely desirous that the Galatian Christians should understand that he was no mere repeater of other men’s doctrines, but that what he taught he had received directly from God by supernatural revelation. They knew that he had been a most determined opposer of the gospel. Indeed, he was a man of such great determination that, whatever he did, he did with all his might; so, no sooner did God reveal Christ to him, so that he knew Jesus to be the Messiah, than he earnestly sought to learn even more of the truth, not by going up to the apostles at Jerusalem, to borrow from them, but by getting alone in the waste places of Arabia, there, by thought and meditation on the Word, and by communion with God, to learn even more concerning the divine mysteries.

18-24. Then after three years I went to Jerusalem to see Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days. But I did not see any other of the apostles, except James the Lord’s brother. Now the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie. Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; and was unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ: but they had heard only that he who persecuted us in times past now preaches the faith which he once destroyed. And they glorified God in me.

2:1, 2. Then fourteen years later I again went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also. And I went up by revelation,—

He was sent by the church at Antioch, but the church there was guided by revelation, so that Paul is correct in saying, “I went up by revelation,”—

2-4. And communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain. But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised: but this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in, who came by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into bondage:

There were always some among the Jewish converts who insisted that the Gentiles should come under the seal of the old covenant if they were to be partakers of the blessings of the gospel, but to this Paul would never consent:—

6. To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; so that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

It is impossible for us to estimate how much we owe to the apostle Paul; of all who have ever lived, we who are Gentiles owe more to him than to any other man. See how he fought our battles for us. When our Jewish brethren would have excluded us because we were not of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, how bravely did he contend that, if we were partakers of the same faith, Abraham is the father of all the faithful, that he was loved by God, and the covenant was made with him, not in circumcision, but before he was circumcised, and that we are partakers of that covenant.

6-10. But of these who seemed to be something, (whatever they were, it does not matter to me: God shows no personal favouritism:) for those who seemed to be something in conference added nothing to me: but on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to me, as the gospel of the circumcision was to Peter; (for he who worked effectively in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, also worked effectively in me towards the Gentiles:) and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision. Only they wished that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was eager to do. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 99, “The Duty of Remembering the Poor” 94}

One of the first things he did, when there was a famine in Judea, was to take a collection for the saints in other places, so that he might aid the poor Christians.

11-14. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before certain came from James, he ate with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the other Jews played the hypocrite with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they did not walk uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live according to the ways of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do?

It must have been very painful to Paul’s feelings to come into conflict with Peter, whom he greatly esteemed; but yet, for the truth’s sake, he knew no people, and he had to withstand even a beloved brother when he saw that he was likely to pervert the simplicity of the gospel, and rob the Gentiles of their Christian liberty. For this, we ought to be very grateful to our gracious God who raised up this brave champion, this beloved apostle of the Gentiles.

15, 16. We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

No mere man can keep the law; no mere man has ever done so. We have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God; and since an absolutely perfect obedience is demanded by the law, which knows nothing about mercy, we flee from the law to obtain salvation by the grace of God in Christ Jesus

17. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.

That would not be caused by the gospel, but by our disregard for it.

18, 19. For I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live for God.

“Through my sight of the law, which I have seen to be so stern that all it can do is to condemn me for my shortcomings, I am driven away from it, and led to come and live in Christ Jesus, under the rule of grace, and not under the law of Moses.”

20, 21. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain.” {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 781, “Christus et Ego” 772} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2370, “Christ First, Me Last: Nothing Between But Love” 2371} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1534, “Salvation by Works, a Criminal Doctrine” 1534}

C. H. Spurgeon’s Useful Books at Reduced Prices.

Christ in the Old Testament. Sermons on the Foreshadowings of our Lord in Old Testament History, Ceremony and Prophecy. By C. H. Spurgeon. Cloth guilt. Published at 7s., offered at 3s. 6d.