I am asked what I think of this idea--that when it was proposed to Paul in Antioch that he and Barnabas should go up to Jerusalem to the older apostles about the question of circumcising the Gentile converts, he reasoned with himself in this way: Shall I go, or shall I refuse to go? I am not infallible, and it may be possible that I have run or may run in vain; so I will go and obtain the judgment of those who were apostles before me.

      This is what I think of it; I think that the man who gave utterance to it is very ignorant of the Scriptures bearing on the subject. In the first place, he assumes what is the opposite of the truth, that Paul did not regard himself as infallible. On this point Paul says to the Corinthians: "If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him take knowledge of the things which I write unto you, that they are the commandments of the Lord" (1 Cor. 14:37). In the second place, the reason why Paul consented to go is expressly [247] given by himself. He says: "I went up by revelation" (Gal. 2:1, 2). It was a revelation, and therefore something infallible, and not a conclusion drawn from his want of infallibility, which caused him to go.

      I am not sure, however, that the author of the thought under discussion, would regard a revelation as something infallible. Perhaps, like Christian Baur, who discusses this matter, he looks upon a revelation as something which came to Paul as the result of his own deliberation. Baur explains Paul's movement thus:

      "It was therefore quite to be expected, from the nature of the case, that after a long interval the apostle should resolve on a fresh journey to Jerusalem, if only in the interest of his apostolic office among the Gentiles. That this resolution to go to Jerusalem was considered by him to be inspired by an apokalupsis, a special divine command summoning him thither (Gal. 2:2), does not in any way set aside the cause above assigned to the journey, but rather shows that this matter was then occupying his mind in a very vivid manner as a thing of pressing moment, and the reason of this must be sought in the position of affairs at that time" (Life of Paul, I. 112).

      With Baur, a revelation was nothing more than something which occupied the mind of the apostle in a very vivid manner. It is so with many others who have adopted, without knowing it, many of Baur's rationalistic notions.

[SEBC 247-248]