Ver. 1. Then fourteen years after.—From Paul’s conversion inclusive. I went again to Jerusalem.—The same visit referred to in Acts xv., when the council of the apostles and Church decided that Gentile Christians need not be circumcised.
Ver. 2. I went up by revelation.—Quite consistent with the fact that he was sent as a deputy from the Church at Antioch (Acts xv. 2). The revelation suggested to him that this deputation was the wisest course. Communicated privately to them which were of reputation.—It was necessary that the Jerusalem apostles should know beforehand that the Gospel Paul preached to the Gentiles was the same as theirs, and had received Divine confirmation in the results it wrought on the Gentile converts.
Ver. 3. Neither Titus [not even Titus], being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.—The apostles, constrained by the firmness of Paul and Barnabas, did not compel or insist on his being circumcised. Thus they virtually sanctioned Paul’s course among the Gentiles, and admitted his independence as an apostle. To have insisted on Jewish usages for Gentile converts would have been to make them essential parts of Christianity.
Ver. 4. False brethren unawares [in an underhand manner] brought in privily to spy out.—As foes in the guise of friends, wishing to destroy and rob us of our liberty—from the yoke of the ceremonial law.
Ver. 5. To whom we gave place by subjection not for an hour.—We would willingly have yielded for love, if no principle was at issue, but not in the way of subjection. Truth precise, unaccommodating, abandons nothing that belongs to itself, admits nothing that is inconsistent with it (Bengel).
Ver. 6. They in conference added nothing to me.—As I did not by conference impart to them aught at my conversion, so they now did not impart aught additional to me above what I already knew. Another evidence of the independence of his apostleship.
Ver. 9. They gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship.—Recognising me as a colleague in the apostleship, and that the Gospel I preached to the Gentiles by special revelation was the same as theirs.
Ver. 10. Remember the poor.—Of the Jewish Christians in Judea then distressed. Paul’s past care for their poor prompted this request. His subsequent zeal in the same cause was the answer to their appeal (Acts. xi. 29, 30; Rom. xv. 26, 27; 1 Cor. xvi. 3; 2 Cor. ix. 1; Acts xxiv. 17).
Ver. 11. When Peter was come to Antioch I withstood him to the face.—The strongest proof of the independence of his apostleship in relation to the other apostles, and an unanswerable argument against the Romish dogma of the supremacy of St. Peter.
Ver. 13. The other Jews dissembled likewise with him.—The question was not whether Gentiles were admissible to the Christian covenant without becoming circumcised, but whether the Gentile Christians were to be admitted to social intercourse with the Jewish Christians without conforming to the Jewish institution. It was not a question of liberty and of bearing with others’ infirmities, but one affecting the essence of the Gospel, whether the Gentiles are to be virtually compelled to live as do the Jews in order to be justified.