But when I saw that they walked not uprightly.
Moral shuffling
I. Its nature.
1. Literally--not to walk on straight feet, i.e., erect, or straightforwardly.
2. Morally.
(1) Thinking rightly and acting wrongly.
(2) Orthodoxy in creed, heterodoxy in conduct.
(3) All compromises when conscience is concerned.
II. Its relation to the gospel. It is “not according to its truth.”
1. In the letter.
2. In the spirit.
III. Its motives.
1. Aversion to unpleasantness.
2. Desire to be agreeable all round.
3. Hope by its means to get over a temporary difficulty.
IV. Its consequences.
1. It deceives the very elect, “even Barnabas.”
2. It involves others in deplorable inconsistencies.
V. Its inexcusableness (Galatians 2:15-16).
1. Knowledge and experience are against it.
2. Spiritual privileges render it unnecessary.
3. God’s Word has condemned the doing of evil that good may come.
VI. The duty of the truth-lover with reference to it. To rebuke it in--
1. The most eminent.
2. The most esteemed.
Straightforwardness
has been defined as a mixture of sincerity and simplicity, and is well illustrated by an anecdote of Bishop Atterbury. On one occasion he was asked why he would not suffer his servants to deny him when he did not care to see company. “It is not a lie for them to say that you are not at home, for it deceives no one; every one knows that it only means that your lordship is busy.” He replied, “If it is (which I doubt) consistent with sincerity, yet I am sure it is not consistent with that simplicity which becomes a bishop.” But the fine nervous Saxon word aptly explains the virtue for which it stands. It is rectitude in motion, movement in a right direction in spite of all inducements to swerve, movement on that straight line which in morals as in mathematics is the shortest distance between two points.
The grave question at issue
There was no question of charity here, but a question of principle. To eat with the Gentiles was either right or wrong. In the light of the gospel it was right; but to shilly-shally on the matter and to let it depend on the presence or absence of certain people was clearly wrong. It was monstrous that a Gentile convert should at one time be treated as a brother, and at another shunned as though he were a Pariah. (F. H. Farrar.)
Eating with the Gentiles
This involved concessions of the nature of which it is almost impossible for us at this distance to conceive. It was to the Jew what the breaking of caste is to the Hindoo, as startling, in some respects, as though in our own country peers and working men were found to be working daily on the most friendly terms, (S. Pearson, M. A.)
Law versus gospel
Many have the gospel, but not the truth of the gospel. So Paul saith here, that Peter, Barnabas, and other of the Jews, had the gospel, but walked not uprightly according to the gospel. For, albeit they preached the gospel, yet, through their dissimulation (which could not stand with the truth of the gospel) they established the law; but the establishing of the law is the abolishing of the gospel. Whoso then can rightly judge between the law and the gospel, let him thank God, and know that he is a right divine. Now the way to discern the one from the other, is to place the gospel in heaven, and the law on earth; to call the righteousness of the gospel heavenly, and that of the law earthly; and to put as great difference between the righteousness of the gospel and of the law as God hath made between heaven and earth, light and darkness, day and night. Wherefore, if the question be concerning the matter of faith or conscience, let us utterly exclude the law, and leave it on the earth; but, if we have to do with works, then let us lighten the lantern of works and of the righteousness of the law. Wherefore, if thy conscience be terrified with the sense and feeling of sin, think thus with thyself: Thou art now remaining upon earth; there let the ass labour and travail; there let him serve and carry the burden that is laid upon him; that is to say, let the body with his members be subject to the law. But when thou mountest up into heaven, then leave the ass with his burden on the earth; for the conscience hath nothing to do with the law, or works, or with the earthly righteousness. So doth the ass remain in the valley, but the conscience ascendeth with Isaac into the mountain, knowing nothing at all of the law or works thereof, but only looking to the remission of sins and pure righteousness offered and freely given unto us in Christ. (Luther.)
Unswerving integrity
Bishop Hooper was condemned to be burned at Gloucester, in Queen Mary’s reign. A gentleman, with the view of inducing him to recant, said to him, “Life is sweet, and death is bitter.” Hooper replied, “The death to come is more bitter, and the life to come more sweet. I am come hither to end this life, and suffer death, because I will not gainsay the truth I have here formerly taught you.” When brought to the stake, a box, with a pardon from the queen in it, was set before him. The determined martyr cried out, “If you love my soul, away with it! if you love my soul, away with it!” (Foster.)
Fidelity
A man gave his two infant children in charge of a negro slave, to be by him cared for, and taken to a distant port. The ship was wrecked, and had to be abandoned. The boats were nearly full. The slave had his choice to leave the children, or himself be left. He kissed them; bade the sailors take good care of them, and tell his master of his faithfulness; and soon went bravely down with the foundering ship. (Foster.)
Swerving from the truth
1. The multitude of those who swerve from truth should not make truth seem less lovely to others, or damp their ardour in defending it against error. Though truth should be deserted by all except one only, yet is it worthy to be owned, stood to, and defended by that one, against all who oppose it.
2. It is the duty of all professors to walk so, both in the matter of opinion and practice, as is suitable to, and well agreeing with, the sincere truth of God held out in the gospel; holding nothing which is even indirectly contrary to it, and practising nothing which may reflect upon it. When they halt, or walk not with a straight foot in either of those, they are blameworthy.
3. When many are guilty of one and the same sin, the minister of Jesus Christ ought to reprove wisely and without respect of persons; making the weight of the reproof light upon them, as they have been more or less accessory to the sin.
4. Though private sins, which have not broken forth to a public scandal of many, are to be rebuked in private (Matthew 18:15), yet public sins are to receive public rebukes, that hereby the public scandal may be removed, and others may be scared from taking encouragement to do the like (1 Timothy 5:20).
5. Though the binding power of the ceremonial law was abrogated at Christ’s death, and the practice thereof, in some things at least, left as a thing lawful and in itself indifferent unto all for a time after that, yet the observance thereof, even for that time, was dispensed with more for the Jews’ sake, and was more tolerable in them who were born and educated under the binding power of that yoke, than in the Gentiles, to whom that law was never given, and so were to observe it, or any part of it, only in ease of scandalising the weak Jews by their neglect of it (Romans 14:20-21).
6. A minister must not take liberty of practice to himself in things which he condemns in others.
7. It is no small sin for superiors to bind where the Lord has left free, by urging upon their inferiors the observing of a thing, in its own nature indifferent, as necessary; except it be in those cases wherein the Lord, by those circumstances which accompany it, points it out as necessary; e.g., cases of scandal (Acts 15:28-29), and contempt (1 Corinthians 14:40).
8. In the primitive times of the Christian Church, the people of God did wonderfully subject themselves to the ministry of the Word in the head of His servants, and much more than people now do; for if the actions of the apostles compelled men to do this or that, as Peter’s action did compel the Gentiles, what then did their doctrine and heavenly exhortations? (James Fergusson.)
Inconsistency reproved
I. That the gospel supplies the rule of life.
II. To depart from the rule of gospel truth is to become inconsistent in the Christian life.
III. Such inconsistency calls for reproof.
1. That reproofs are sometimes necessary. An earthly life is ever an imperfect one, and the best men may in unguarded moments fall into grievous errors.
2. They should be given with faithfulness, yet in love. No ties of private friendship should prevent sin being reproved, and where the sin has been committed openly, it should be reproved openly--Burkitt. Yet there should be no personal reproaches, but the manifestations of brotherly love. (R. Nicholls.)