"Then through fourteen years again I went up unto Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking with also Titus...But I went up according to a revelation and I set before them the good news - the [one] I am preaching in the nations, but [I did] according to private to [those] being reputed, not somehow unto emptiness I may be running or did run...But rather not even Titus the [one] with me, being Greek, was compelled to be circumcised...But because of false brothers brought in secretly, who entered to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, in order that we should be enslaved...to whom not even toward an hour did we permit the obedience, in order that the truth of the Good News should continue toward you all.’
-We come to Paul’s second post-conversion visit to Jerusalem. Again, his point is that the Message he preached to the Gentiles had not been affected by anyone in Jerusalem in any way. Not at any time had he been influenced by anyone there to teach that circumcision was required for salvation. He only went Jerusalem twice in 17 years, the first time only for 15 days, and this second time only because God told him to go.
-The occasion was the so-called Jerusalem Council (Acts 15.2ff), a private meeting between this delegation from Antioch and the Apostles and Elders in Jerusalem, to whom Paul refers here as ‘those of reputation’. This was actually the great watershed moment for a growing church which was now rapidly expanding beyond the borders of Judea (Judaism) yet still heavily dominated by those who had been raised to think that they were the people God chose, and that the traditional Jewish approach of circumcision and keeping the law of Moses was the only way to approach God, and they were slow to jettison that notion, even in Christ (Acts 15.1, 15.5). These were the same ones had been extremely hesitant to believe at first that other nations (non-Jews) were actually included in God’s plan of salvation through Jesus (Acts 11.1-3, 11.17-18), much less that it was even okay to associate with them. Now, once and for all, the church desperately needed to affirm that the God who ultimately made no distinction between Jew and Gentile (Acts 15.8-9) had in fact fully and finally freed all who trust in Christ from the unbearable yoke (Acts 15.10) and trouble (Acts 15.19) of the law. Which is precisely what they did.
-In Acts it says Paul and Barnabas went up from Antioch ‘with others’ - here Paul mentions only Titus, but to the point, Titus was both Greek and uncircumcised, thus he would have been an ideal case-in-point for this debate, the perfect poster child for the Way, this new and one true way to approach God in Christ (and in fact the only way, if you want to actually succeed in doing so), which was through faith alone, with no strings attached (and no skin detached). When presented face-to-face with a real live, in-the-flesh, bona fide uncircumcised Gentile believer, one whose life had no doubt been transformed and who could give firm testimony of faith in Messiah (perhaps even with evidence of sign gifting?), those Jerusalem leaders would have been forced to officially affirm the truth that circumcision was in fact not necessary in the least.
-Interesting to note that this was in fact a private meeting, just Paul and his entourage together with the Apostles and Elders of the Jerusalem assembly. Paul here admits to a(n albeit temporary) level of uncertainty as to whether or not the message he WAS preaching was on target. But in the end, not only was his message affirmed but what we really have is the final step in the journey of the Way to escape the confines of Judaism. We had the baby step as God forced Peter to go witness to Gentiles (Acts 10.34-35)(a development to which the Jerusalem leaders were likewise forced to accede - Acts 11.2, 11.18), then large numbers of Greeks coming to Christ in Antioch (Acts 11.20-21), where Barnabas and then Paul were teaching and where the disciples began to be called Christians (Acts 11.26). Antioch was a real catalyst, for it was here that the debate about circumcision for new Gentile believers in Jesus reached its tipping point, which is what then had prompted that assembly (with the Lord’s guidance) to send Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem in the first place. That’s what Paul says, that some false brothers snuck into the Antioch assembly and were trying to force new Gentile believers in Jesus to receive circumcision. No doubt Paul let them have it with both barrels, and God made it clear that this issue needed to be settled once and for all. Paul not only did not yield to these guys and what they were saying, he fought back against what they were saying. And once at the council with those Jewish leaders, again, they did not ask that his message - the truth of the Gospel as he had received it from the Lord - be modified in any way. No strings attached.
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