Peter was an Apostle-the Apostle of the circumcision; he was also a most fervent disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ; one dear to the whole church in his day, as one able to exhort the elders, himself an elder, to feed the flock of GOD-not as being lords over the heritage, but as being ensamples to the flock.
Paul-he, too, was an Apostle-the Apostle of the Uncircumcision. What a character of his discipleship and service do we find in the Second Epistle to Corinth.
While the Spirit was walked in, by both, and the truth of the gospel (Gal. 2:1414But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? (Galatians 2:14)) honored-though each of them might have a line and a measure peculiar to himself-there was no conflict between them. But what if either of them put his apostleship, and the personal influence which attended God's grace and gifts in him, to a use, which neither grace nor righteousness, even in the feeblest saint, could justify-and even turned all that attached to himself, as an individual, against God, the Lord, and the Spirit-so destroying the foundation on which poor sinners (saved by grace alone) were resting? What then? "Impossible," many would say: alas! it was possible then, and similar things must therefore be possible now. Peter did so at Antioch, and Paul withstood him. Faith must act as God acts in such eases; and disavow the acts and oppose the course: such a conflict may fairly be said to be one between God and Satan. Yet I may remark, that though the real question was really one of PRINCIPLES, and not of persons, then, as at every time when the flock of God is in danger, principles are exhibited in and illustrated by men: and so Paul became at Antioch, through grace, the vindicator of grace against the human righteousness, which another lent the sanction of his name to. The question always is, " Where is God, and Christ, and the Spirit in this controversy?"