Hypocrisy in the Church (Part I)
Galatians 2:11-14

Perhaps one of the most famous confrontations in Christian history is that between the prominent apostles Paul and Peter as recorded in these verses. Paul’s charge: hypocrisy

1. Hypocrisy is condemned (2:11)
2. Hypocrisy is based on fear (2:12)
3. Hypocrisy is contagious (2:13)
4. Hypocrisy is confusing (2:14a)
5. Hypocrisy is correctable (2:13b)

There seems to be a point of confusion among Christians of exactly where does faith meet patriotism. Sometimes it looks as if it’s one and the same -- if you’re a Christian, you’re a Republican or a military person or something like that, as though they are inextricably blended.

In my mind, we have to start where the Bible is in this or anything else. The Bible is so clear that it is God who raises up nations and who brings them down. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” is in the Book.

When we celebrate our nation, whether it’s at this time of year or any other, we need to remember what we are really celebrating is a God of grace and truth and kindness and patience. Please know that basic human virtue never won God’s favor. It’s all grace because He can’t be impressed by us.

He gives us grace and we bless Him for that. He gives us a nation with the resources to keep world evangelization alive, a nation wherein we are free to do exactly as we are doing today. We have an abundance and we are responsible as stewards before God for that abundance. It comes back to Him. We can love our country but we must love our God more.

Sometimes with historical figures we have a tendency to make them bigger than life. I’ll read a few excerpts regarding not only the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, but the times in which he lived. As you know, he is also the author of our Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson is known for many things, perhaps most well known for his ability to use words. His tombstone is inscribed this way:

"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom and father of the University of Virginia."

I read now from the last book written by Stephen Ambrose, perhaps in our day the most well known author of American history. It’s his final work. He passed away a year or two ago.  The title is “To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian,” where he makes what to me were some remarkable statements about history. Here is one of them, speaking of Thomas Jefferson:

“Jefferson’s range of knowledge was astonishing. Science in general, flora and fauna specifically, which is why Meriwether Lewis went to such lengths to document the naturalistic findings of the Corps of Discovery, the Lewis & Clark expedition.

“He was born rich and well educated. He understood geography, fossils, the classics, modern literature, languages, politicians of all types, politics, state by state, county by county, international affairs. He was an intense partisan. He loved music and playing the violin. He wrote countless letters about his philosophy, observations of people and places. He composed powerful essays, not always about politics. His “Head and Heart” essay is perhaps the best known.

“In his official correspondence, Jefferson maintained a level of eloquence not since equaled. I have spent much of my professional life studying presidents and generals, reading their letters, examining their letters to subordinates, making an attempt to judge them. None match Jefferson.”

Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, therein underscoring that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. But Jefferson held slaves and would not free them -- really a blemish on his historical record. Bigger than life? No. Brilliant? Yes. Eloquent? No doubt. Visionary? Absolutely. Consistent? Not particularly so.

One historian wrote, “How is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?” Interesting. Inconsistency in character. There were nine U.S. presidents who owned slaves. Only one freed his. Only George Washington, whose character is praised universally by all historians as character that was absolutely sterling, a man who believed and lived out his convictions.

In the book of Galatians we come up against another inconsistency, a serious one. Paul is recounting an encounter he had with the apostle known to all as first among equals, Peter. Peter was in error. Paul charged him with a very serious transgression -- hypocrisy. Paul was right.

We’re going to discuss these intense verses from Galatians chapter 2. They are very enlightening to me, this whole notion of hypocrisy in Galatians 2. I was enlightened, maybe even a little surprised, perhaps even slightly relieved about what I discovered the Bible says about hypocrisy.

Galatians 2

¹¹ But when Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹² For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.

¹³ The rest of the Jews jointed him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. ¹⁴ But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all. “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Hypocrisy is condemned

Paul says that when Peter came to Antioch, “I opposed him to his face.” We will back off and remember in a broader sense what Paul is doing. This is still in the historical portion of Galatians and his fifth point here is to demonstrate to his readers that he is nobody’s lap dog, that he was not appointed an apostle by anybody else. He got that directly from Jesus.

Later on he said, “When I went to Jerusalem and told them my gospel that I preach, they could add nothing to it. So I do stand apart from them. We’re saying the same thing, but I’m not dependent upon them. Not only was I not appointed an apostle by any human agency, not only could they add nothing to the gospel I preach, but I even opposed the one who is first among equals. I stood opposed to him, to his face, because he was self condemned.”

Hypocrisy -- a rare word in Scripture. It’s also a very strong term in Scripture. The word itself, in its very beginnings, came from the ancient Greek theater where an actor would have masks in his hands and would swap the happy face to the sad face depending on the role he was playing. It’s another word, in a sense, for play acting. It’s hard to discern what’s reality because there is so much play acting going on and lots of swapping of the masks.

In a nice way -- deception. By the time Paul began to use the word, he used it the same way Jesus used it and Jesus used it plenty and used it powerfully. It came to mean beyond play acting. Hypocrisy -- this is the Bible’s use of the term, not the way it’s generally used in our culture. Love, for instance,  means one thing in the Bible, something quite another in our culture. Hypocrisy, biblically, is deliberately misrepresenting the gospel, deliberately misrepresenting God’s position by one who should know better, which leads to confusion about God, confusion about issues of eternity.

Jesus used the word always of the Pharisees, never of His disciples. He accused the Pharisees of loading down people with burdens that they themselves would not bother to bear. He accused the Pharisees of leading people astray, making them “twice the sons of Gehenna as yourselves,” not a compliment. The Pharisees, to Jesus, were the hypocrites. They were the ones misleading people. They were the ones authoring the confusion about God and eternal issues. They were the ones deliberately engaged in the act of religion and creating confusion.

The disciples were never called that. Hypocrisy does not apply to inconsistent living. Hypocrisy, in the Bible, applies to deceptive living.

In I Timothy chapter 4, the apostle Paul again will develop the idea of hypocrisy. He uses the word here, the same word as in Galatians, in a very enlightening passage.

I Timothy 4:1-5

¹ But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrine of demons, ² by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, ³ men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. ⁴ For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude. ⁵ For it is sanctified by the means of the word of God and prayer.

Those who are deceiving are those who add things. For instance, forbidding marriage, advocating abstaining from foods, adding rules to the simple gospel. Is that not exactly where Paul is in Galatians? The Judaisers are adding rules. “Yes, salvation is great, coming to Jesus is great, but you must also add this.” Paul is saying, “That is hypocrisy. That is deception. That leads to confusion.

The world would say otherwise. The world would say something like, “The church is so full of hypocrites.” If that means the church is full of people who have inconsistencies in their lives, OK. The church isn’t the only place. There is no one perfect. If by that, a person means the church is full of people who aren’t perfect, I would say most of us are among that number.

But the world is wrong in the way the world uses words and applies them to Christians. We need to understand that there are a couple of other occasions where the world is wrong. The world is wrong, by the way, about judging. There is something horrific now in our culture about “judge not.” You see someone stealing someone’s car:

“Hey, that’s not your car.”

“You shouldn’t judge other people.”

It’s as though any time a moral evaluation is levied, it’s wrong because in this age of tolerance there shouldn’t be anything wrong. So the world misses the point completely on judging. The Bible indeed calls people to judge one another, to say on the authority of the Word of God, “This is right,” and “This is wrong.” If that’s being done to prejudge a person, that’s not legitimate. If we just walk around with a condemning attitude, putting everything down, that may not be legitimate either. But rendering moral evaluations based on the truth of Scripture, that better be ok. It’s found throughout the Bible.

Another point in which the world is wrong -- and we need to be careful that we don’t buy into this sort of thing -- is, “You Christians are so self righteous.” That is so wrong. For anyone to say, “You Christians are so self righteous,” as though we create our own righteousness, is so out in left field that it ought not even be entertained.

Self righteous -- that expression means that I have created my own goodness and any Christian knows he or she doesn’t have any goodness. The Bible says our righteousness is as filthy rags.; The only righteousness I have doesn’t come from myself. It comes from the only One who is righteous. If He didn’t loan me some of His, I would have no prayer in glory.

Self righteous? That’s a ridiculous statement. We may be guilty of other things but born-again Christians cannot be self righteous. Ours is borrowed.

“The church is full of hypocrites.“ I don’t think so. I think the church is full of imperfect people. I think the church is full of growing people, but I don’t think the church is full of hypocrites. There are some among us, but Paul would liken a hypocrite to one who is deliberately misrepresenting the gospel for one reason or another.

I hope you see the distinction.  Paul is really being tough on Peter. Can you see why? “I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.”   When Peter had heard with his own ears the Lord Jesus on this earth referring to the Pharisees as hypocrites, realizing that they truly are the arch foes of our faith, to have that label assigned to him by Paul must have rocked Peter to his toes. “Like the Pharisees?” “Yes, Peter, you’re confusing the people.”

Why is he so tough? What’s the problem? In the margin of my Bible it says “I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.”  It says that word “stood condemned” could mean “self condemned.” Peter has basically condemned himself. He has claimed to represent God and then had taken an alternative route to represent Him.

There can be no hypocrisy where God is concerned because God is absolutely genuine. God is totally honest, totally truthful, utterly unpretentious. He is building that character in you and me by the presence of His Spirit and the activity of His Word in our hearts. He is changing us to be more like Him, but what Peter has done is to step outside of that and his character has been misrepresenting the character of the God of the Bible. Paul says “You have condemned yourself, You have marked yourself as an apostle, now you have not lived as one.” He stood condemned.

Hypocrisy is based on fear (2:12)

I would add this   For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles,  That’s what he did; that was his way. It’s not that he sat next to one at McDonald’s on a Saturday afternoon long ago; it’s what he did. But when these guys showed up, he backed off. The imagery that is given in the text is that he drew a line, stepped across it and said, “Gentiles, over there; me, over here.” Because, it says, he was fearing the party of the circumcision.

There are certain facts we need to put in. Peter got his start as an apostle when he preached that tremendous sermon on the day of Pentecost. Then he ends up (Acts 9) on the coast in the city of Joppa, which today is Haifa, staying in the home of a man named Simon, whose occupation was a tanner. A tanner handled dead stuff for a living. That is not kosher, and yet Peter is staying in his house. Beginning as early as Acts 9, God is leading him to realize what is unclean and what isn’t.

He is on the roof of the man’s house and has a vision of a large sheet being lowered by its four corners. The sheet is full of all kinds of critters that were considered unclean to eat, religiously. The Jews weren’t supposed to eat this, but the voice said, “Arise Peter, kill and eat.”

“Oh, Lord, I can’t do that. I don’t eat that sort of stuff.”

“Arise Peter, kill and eat.”

This happened three times and Peter came to the settled conviction that the line is gone. Those things are OK; God has declared all foods clean. That’s his conviction and there’s a sense in which what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus that revolutionized his life (that’s an understatement) is similar to what happened to Peter on the rooftop in Joppa.

The lights came on and he saw. He no longer wakened from his trance than these Gentiles showed up from Caesarea, further down the coast, saying, “We serve a guy, this Roman fellow, he’s a Gentile and he wants to know about the gospel. Peter, would you come with us.” So Peter leaves the house of Simon the tanner and goes into the Gentile world – something unheard of in those days. I don’t think we can appreciate it unless we’ve lived cross-culturally where this sort of thing is a reality.

For Peter to cross the threshold of Cornelius the centurion’s house in Caesarea was just unheard of . . .  but he did it. He preached the gospel to them; the Holy Spirit fell on them. The same symptoms of Pentecost in Jerusalem were evident in Caesarea in a Gentile home.

Yes, he used to eat with the Gentiles. He even went back to Jerusalem and defended it. Yes, he ate with the Gentiles. That’s what he did.

There grew up in the early years of the church, two schools of thought, if you will, a Jewish one in Jerusalem and a Gentile one north in Syria, in Antioch. There were lots of Gentiles in Antioch, not as many in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem church was the mother church. Those people stayed pretty Jewish. They had more scrupples, they had more rules, they were slower to leave the old ways. They were Christians but they continued to practice much of the Jewish side of their religion.

Their leader was James. He was Jesus’ half brother. He was an honorable and godly man. Peter was at Antioch where there were more Gentiles. The Jews in Jerusalem were hearing that the Gentiles weren’t keeping the rules. It was disrupting things in Jerusalem. Some were saying this and some were saying that. This may well have led to James sending these fellows down to Antioch to see Peter.

He sees them coming, knowing who they are, where they are from, who sent them, and the instability of their church in Jerusalem. No doubt Peter thinks, “I’ll be Jewish now.” and he separated himself from the Gentiles.

Peter play-acted. Now here is, maybe, the twist. He was being real with the Gentiles. He was play-acting with the Jews. So you’re from Jerusalem, you’re among this number, you’re coming from Jerusalem to Antioch expecting to get things cleared up and instead you hear about Mr. First Among Equals eating with the Gentiles. That’s what he has supposedly done, that’s what he had defended doing in Jerusalem and now he is not!

That creates confusion so the Jews are thinking, “Do we do the dietary stuff or not?” If he’s eating with the Gentiles, that means he’s eating their food, not the kosher food. This is wrong to the Jews. Now this isn’t a circumcision issue. Are the Jewish Christians supposed to eat differently? The Gentiles don’t care. They can eat what they want. But it’s a big deal to the Jews. Now they are confused

The Gentile believers are thinking, “What are you doing, Peter? Are we OK? Now you’re eating with the Jews again. Are we second class? Do we need to change our menu? What is it? Are we not the Christians we thought we were?” Peter was right in the middle of a real mess.

There was confusion. He had done this sort of thing before. It’s almost like a personality thing. Remember in the 16^th chapter of Matthew, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter said, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus said, “Bingo, Peter. God gave you that. But when Christ started telling him about the cross, Peter did a turnabout, saying   “No Lord, you shouldn’t go to the cross.” Jesus replied,  “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

Peter seemed to be able to do that. He did it again the in Garden of Gethsemane, prior to the trial and crucifixion, “Lord, if everyone else leaves you, I won’t, I’ll be here, I’ll defend you. I’ll die for you.” The bad guys show up and Peter not only left, but then denied Jesus. There was an impetuous side to him that hadn’t yet changed. The Spirit of God is still working on Peter. Bigger than life? No. How about human? How about born again and working on it? How about a lot like you and me? That’s where he was.

Have you ever been in a situation like Peter? “Well if I do this, these people are going to think one thing; and If I do that, those people are going to think the other.” Who do I go with? Who do I fear most? That’s why we have a Bible. What Peter should have done is the same thing you and I should do-- stick to the principal of biblical truth and trust God with what happens with other people.

We can’t control other people’s responses or say what the Spirit of God might do in the heart of another person when we stand on the truth of Scripture. Let the chips fall where they may. Please understand God controls those chips.

When we’re on the horns of a dilemma and we’re not sure, go with biblical principal and the circumstances will be handled by the God of heaven who honors the obedience of His people. That can be a tough one, but that’s what He calls us to do.