Dual Panel1Fourteen years later, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and we took Titus with us.
2I went in response to a revelation from God; I explained, at a private interview with those of repute, the gospel which I preach to the Gentiles, to make sure that the race I had run and was running should not be in vain.
3Not even my companion Titus, Greek though he is, was compelled to be circumcised.
4That course was urged only as a concession to certain sham Christians, intruders who had sneaked in to spy on the liberty we enjoy in the fellowship of Christ Jesus. These men wanted to bring us into bondage,
5but not for one moment did I yield to their dictation; I was determined that the full truth of the gospel should be maintained for you.
6As for those reputed to be something (not that their importance matters to me: God does not recognize these personal distinctions) -- these men of repute, I say, imparted nothing further to me.
7On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted to take the gospel to the Gentiles as surely as Peter had been entrusted to take it to the Jews;
8for the same God who was at work in Peter's mission to the Jews was also at work in mine to the Gentiles.
9Recognizing, then, the privilege bestowed on me, those who are reputed to be pillars of the community, James, Cephas, and John, accepted Barnabas and myself as partners and shook hands on it: the agreement was that we should go to the Gentiles, while they went to the Jews.
10All they asked was that we should keep in mind the poor, the very thing I have always made it my business to do.
11But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.
12For until some messengers came from James, he was taking his meals with gentile Christians; but after they came he drew back and began to hold aloof, because he was afraid of the Jews.
13The other Jewish Christians showed the same lack of principle; even Barnabas was carried away and played false like the rest.
14But when I saw that their conduct did not square with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of the whole congregation, “If you, a Jew born and bred, live like a Gentile, and not like a Jew, how can you insist that Gentiles must live like Jews?”
15We ourselves are Jews by birth, not gentile sinners;
16yet we know that no one is ever justified by doing what the law requires, but only through faith in Christ Jesus. So we too have put our faith in Jesus Christ, in order that we might be justified through this faith, and not through actions dictated by law; for no human being can be justified by keeping the law.
17If then, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves no less than the Gentiles turn out to be sinners, does that mean that Christ is a promoter of sin? Of course not!
18On the contrary, it is only if I start building up again all I have pulled down that I prove to be one who breaks the law.
19For through the law I died to law -- to live for God.
20I have been crucified with Christ: the life I now live is not my life, but the life which Christ lives in me; and my present mortal life is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.
21I will not nullify the grace of God; if righteousness comes by law, then Christ died for nothing.