Galatians 2 – 3
It sounds as if Paul and Peter had some rather public disagreements about proper conduct.
I should be careful how far I follow this thought but it occurs to me that one possible factor leading to the apostasy might be that even those who produced what became the original scriptures of Christianity never came to the same kind of matured understanding of the core doctrines that our church leaders have today. Its not that they have no differences of opinion but those differences are out of the public eye and revolve around peripheral gospel subjects rather than fundamental subjects. The way Paul talks of Peter here cracks open the possibility that they weren’t on the same page about some more basic things and that consequently the church first established by Christ had significant and lasting schisms before it ever achieved real unity of doctrine. Unity of Christian doctrine may not have been achieved until after the apostasy and thus wasn’t fundamentally correct on all points of the doctrine as finally established (the character of the Godhead as separate beings being an obvious example). Paul may, in fact, have spread some false beliefs in his epistles (not intentionally, of course) which have been perpetuated and canonized for millennia.
It’s interesting to think that the Jews follow the law of modes but claim Abraham to be their father although the law came centuries after Abraham. (430 years after according to Paul) th p The law was given because of transgression as a stopgap measure until Christ, the seed who was promised to Abraham as a blessing to humankind, should come. Those who take the name of Christ upon them by covenant are the heirs and seed of Abraham.
Leave a Reply