Galatians 2:2

By revelation. — Revelations seem to have been vouchsafed to the Apostle in various ways — most frequently in dreams or nocturnal visions (Acts 16:9; Acts 18:9; Acts 23:11; Acts 27:23), but also in a state of trance (Acts 22:17), and through other undefined modes of intimation (Acts 16:6; Acts 20:22). By what particular form of revelation he was guided in this instance does not appear. It would seem that this inward spiritual guidance granted privately to the Apostle coincided with a formal commission from the Church at Antioch (Acts 15:2), which, as the external and apparent side of the transaction, is naturally related by the historian, while it is just as naturally omitted by the Apostle, whose thoughts are directed rather to his own personal conduct and motives.

Communicated unto them — i.e., the Church at Jerusalem. A distinction appears to be drawn between what the Apostle said in his public intercourse with the Church and the more detailed conference or conferences into which he entered privately with the Apostles.

Which I preach. — The present tense is noticeable. The gospel which the Apostle had been preaching up to the time of the Council of Jerusalem was the same as that which he still preached at the time of his writing to the Galatians. It had undergone no change in its essential features, especially in the one doctrine which he was most anxious to impress upon the Galatians — the doctrine of justification by faith.

Privately to them which were of reputation. — Better, more simply, to them of repute. The present tense is again used, the Apostle hinting, not only at the position which the Judaic Apostles held at the time of the Council, but also at the way in which their authority was appealed to by the Judaising partisans in Galatia. There is a slight shade of irony in the expression. It is not so much “those which were of reputation” in the gathering at Jerusalem as “those who are still held to be the only authorities now.”

Who are meant by “them of repute” appears more distinctly from Galatians 2:9, where James, Peter, and John are mentioned by name.

Lest by any means. — The Apostle did not really want confidence in his own teaching. And yet he was aware that it rested solely upon his own individual conviction, and upon the interpretation that he had put upon the intimation to him of the divine will. There was, therefore, still a certain element of uncertainty and room for confirmation, which the Apostle desired to receive. His character hits the happy mean between confidence in his cause (self-confidence, or self-reliance, as it would be called if dealing with a lower sphere), without which no great mission can be accomplished, and opinionatedness or obstinacy. He, therefore, wished to “make assurance doubly sure,” and it is this confirmed and ratified certainty which animates his whole language in writing to the Galatians. Something of it, perhaps, is reflected back upon his account of the earlier stages in the process through which his opinions had gone, given in the last chapter.

I should run, or had run. — St. Paul here introduces his favourite metaphor from the foot-races, such as he might see in the Isthmian games at Corinth. (Comp. especially, for a similar reference to his own career, Philippians 2:16; 2 Timothy 4:7.)