Anti-Catholics attack the papacy by trying to undermine Peter’s role in the early Church. They often do this by turning to the first two chapters of Galatians, where Paul mentions Peter. They suggest that Paul disparaged and belittled Peter, something that would be inconceivable if Peter were the chief of all apostles. But a careful reading shows that Paul in no way belittled Peter. On the contrary! He used Peter as an example precisely because Peter was the chief apostle.
Paul had a personal relationship with the Galatians and had converted many of them himself (4:12-16). He felt it as a personal betrayal when some of his converts abandoned his gospel of justification through faith in Christ and began embracing a false gospel that said Christians must embrace the Mosaic Law to be saved. As a result, he wrote to them almost in a fury of holy anger.
He omitted his customary thanksgiving over his readers and began the body of the letter by saying, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ” (1:6). Later, he refers to the Galatians as “mindless” (3:1). This contrasted the tone he took in Romans. The same heresy appeared in the capital of the Empire, but, since Paul did not have the same kind of relationship with the Romans, whom he had not yet visited (Rom. 1:8-15), he took a winsome tone instead.
Particularly stinging to Paul was the charge, by some in Galatia, that his gospel of justification by faith in Christ was a watered-down version of the “true gospel,” which supposedly also required the observance of the Mosaic Law. Paul had watered down his gospel, the charge went, to please men by not making strong demands of them. His was a “human” gospel. Paul responded to this charge by pronouncing an anathema on anyone who preached a gospel different from his, and, after this fiery condemnation, he sarcastically added, “Am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men?” (1:10).
He then turned to a defense of his gospel, to show that it was not of human origin (1:11) but was revealed to him by God (1:12). Paul pointed out that he, of all people, was zealous for the Mosaic Law before his conversion to Christianity (1:13-14) and declared that, when Christ appeared to him (Acts 9), he did not confer with other men about the content of the gospel (1:15-16). He did not even visit with the other apostles (1:17).
Only after three years did Paul go up to Jerusalem and spend a fortnight with Peter (1:18-24). While he was there he happened to see James the Just, but nobody else (1:19). Paul even assured his readers that he was not lying about this (1:20), for they might have thought, “How could one go to Jerusalem and not try to meet as many apostles as one could?” But Paul wasn’t interested in meeting the others, only Peter, whom he went to see. Why? Because Peter was the one to see. He was the head apostle, and so Paul wanted to confer with him.
Fourteen years after his conversion, Paul made another visit, in which he did see the other apostles (2:1-10). He stressed that he did not curry the favor of others, saying that the reputations of the most important apostles did not matter to him, for God judges impartially (2:6a). But Paul did have regard for the teaching of the Jerusalem apostles, who also had been instructed by Christ. His gospel had to agree with theirs, so he explained it to them privately, “lest somehow I should be running or had run in vain” (2:2). He thus submitted his gospel to the Jerusalem apostles.
The fact that God judges impartiality does not do away with offices in the Church; it means that God will judge the officeholders impartially. Paul singled out Peter as one who had a special office, above James and John, as the one God entrusted with leading the mission to the Jews (2:7-8). This made Peter a perfect test case to show the transcendent importance of the gospel. It is more important than any person, so Paul used Peter, the most important person in the early Church, to show this.
He recounted an incident in which Peter visited the Church in Antioch (2:11-17). Peter had been the one who first admitted Gentiles to the Church (Acts 10), though doing so subjected him to criticism (Acts 11). When Peter visited Antioch, he kept his usual practice of holding table fellowship with Gentile Christians, but drew back when some Jewish Christians arrived (2:12). Paul rebuked Peter since this action could be misunderstood as implying that Jews should not sit at table with Gentiles and that the Mosaic Law is binding (2:14-16). (We should also note that Paul himself later did something similar, and it led to his arrest [Acts 21:17-33]).
Peter knew that keeping the Mosaic Law was not necessary, and Paul reminded him of this fact (2:15-16). Peter’s understanding of the gospel was correct. The problem was with his behavior, not his teaching (making this totally irrelevant to the issue of papal infallibility, especially since Peter was not trying to define solemnly a dogma of the faith). Nor did Paul’s rebuke impugn Peter’s authority. If a pope’s behavior causes scandal, he should be rebuked by someone. Catherine of Sienna rebuked the pope in her day, and she is regarded as a doctor of the Church. In fact, it is precisely because Peter is so important-because he is the chief apostle-that he provides such a useful illustration for Paul’s exposition of the gospel’s supreme importance.