Welcome back to my study/review of The Epistle to the Galatians. If you missed the previous parts of this study, you can find them HERE.
Galatians 2:15-21
15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
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After explaining to his readers that he not only has authority to give them direction, but also that everyone else in authority agrees with him, Paul here starts the explanation for why he rejects the arguments of the Judaizers in Galatia.
Starting with verse 15, in Ellicott’s Bible Commentary:
Verse 15
Who are — It will be seen that these words are in italics, and have to be supplied in the Greek. The Received text, which is followed in our version, also I omits a connecting particle, found in the best MSS., at the beginning of Galatians 2:16. Restoring this, a better way of taking the whole passage appears to be to supply only the word “are” in the present verse, and make the next mark a certain opposition to it: “We are (indeed) by birth Jews . . . but” (or, and yet), “knowing as we did that the Law cannot justify any one, we believed on Christ.” The first clause is concessive: “We grant you that we were born Jews, and not Gentiles: members of the chosen race, and not sinners.” The next clause explains why it was that, with all these privileges, the Christian, though thus born a Jew, transferred his allegiance from the Law to Christ. The reason was that the Law failed in the one great object—to justify us or obtain our acquittal in the sight of God.
By nature — i.e., by birth. The privileges of the Jew belonged to all Jews alike, simply by the more fact that they were Jews.
Sinners — The word was almost a synonym for “heathen” in the mouth of a strict Jew. Hence there is a slight irony in its use by St. Paul. “I grant you that from our lofty position we can look down upon those poor Gentiles, sinners by virtue of mere descent.”
Of the Gentiles — ”Of” in the sense of natural descent: “Of Gentile parentage (and therefore) sinners.”
Paul’s first appeal is to the fact that he is also a Jew. AS he’s mentioned elsewhere, he was not just a Jew, but a Pharisee. The first century Church was mostly Jewish, at first, but the Gentile converts forced the young Church to develop a stance on what the expectations of Gentile converts should be.
Galatia was home to both Jews, as well as to the people who we might think of as Gauls or Celts today. However, this early on, this debate was primarily occurring between the Jewish apostolic leadership and early Jewish converts.
Continuing on:
Verse 16
Is not justified — Here the Apostle introduces, for the first time in the Epistle, the word which plays so prominent a part in the Epistle to the Romans—“pronounced just or righteous”—free from guilt, and therefore from punishment—in the sight of God. This condition could not be produced by works done in obedience to the Law.
But — The sense of the Greek is not clearly brought out by the Authorised version. A more strict translation would be except, which is made to refer only to the word “justified,” and not to the previous negation of works, as the cause of justification. “A man is not justified by works (nor is he justified at all), except by faith in Christ.”
By the faith of Jesus Christ — The preposition “by” occurs five times in this verse. In every case except the present it is represented by the same word in Greek. There is, however, no substantial difference of meaning; the only difference is that in the other cases stress is laid rather upon the cause, here rather upon the means. “Faith of Jesus Christ” means, as we are more accustomed to say, “faith in Jesus Christ.”
Even we — Rather, we too. Jews as we are, in spite of all our privileges.
Have believed — Rather, believed. This was the great motive of our conversion. We found that the Law could not justify us and that Christ could.
By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified — This is a quotation for which no exact equivalent is to be found in the Old Testament. The nearest appears to be Psalms 143:2 : “In thy sight shall no man living be justified.” This, as written under the dispensation of the Law, naturally applied to that dispensation, so that the Apostle was justified in adding “by the works of the Law.” The same quotation, in the same words, is made in Romans 3:20.
The inability of the Law to justify comes out in two ways. (1) The only way in which the Law could justify was through a complete obedience to its provisions. But it was impossible to render a complete obedience to it: and to offend in one point was “to be guilty of all;” so that practically, as a matter of fact, no one was justified by it. (2) Nor did it help men to justify themselves. It was something dead and lifeless—a mere written letter, possessing none of those “means of grace” which are offered by Christianity. Christ Himself, through faith in Him, is the great means.
We sought justification in Christ. But if, with all our seeking, something more was needed: viz., a rigid performance of the Law—that Law which we had abandoned—then there was still something wanting to our justification. We were sinners on a par with the Gentiles, and all that Christianity seemed to have done for us was to lead us deeper into sin. A profane thought!
By Christ — Strictly, in Christ—i.e., by the relation into which we are brought with Him. The reference is here, however, not exactly to the mystical union with Christ, which is regarded by the Apostle rather in connection with sanctification (the actual growth in holiness) than with justification (the judicial absolution from guilt). In the present instance the Apostle is speaking of justification; and when he says that “we are justified in Christ,” he means practically through faith in Him, or through that circle of forces within which we are brought by faith.
We ourselves also — We who were by our birth Jews, as well as the Gentiles.
Are found — Strictly, were found—i.e., at a time subsequent to our embracing Christianity, if the only result of our Christianity was that we were still sinners.
Sinners — Sinners actually, through our positive transgressions, and sinners theoretically or judicially (in the eyes of God), through the fact that we have lost the old Jewish justification through the fulfilment of the Law; while, according to this Judaising theory which St. Paul is combating, our new Christian justification is insufficient.
Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? — Our English version is probably right in making this a question. It is put ironically, and as a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the Judaising position. The Judaisers maintained the necessity of a strict fulfilment of the Mosaic law. They, however, still called themselves Christians; and here St. Paul had a hold upon them. “You call yourselves Christians,” he says, “and yet you insist upon the Mosaic law. You say that a man cannot be justified without it: it follows that we, who have exchanged the service of the Law for the service of Christ, are not justified. In other words, our relation to Christ has made us, not better, but worse—a thought which no Christian can entertain.”
No doubt St. Paul used some such argument as this in his controversy with St. Peter at Antioch, but it would probably be stated in a simpler and less speculative form: “If you still fall back upon the separatist Jewish observances, what is the good of being a Christian?” Here, in writing to the Galatians, the Apostle paraphrases what he had said in language more suited to a theological treatise and to the natural speculative bias of his own mind.
God forbid — The Judaising theory was quite sufficiently condemned by showing the consequences to which it would lead. It makes Christ Himself a minister of sin—a suggestion which the Apostle puts away with pious horror.
Verses 16 and 17 are perhaps the crux of the argument. Paul reminds everyone that being Jewish made no difference with respect to justification. Justification was through faith in Jesus Christ, not Judaism. Therefore it makes no sense to ask Gentiles to essentially convert to Judaism as part of their belief in Christ. This seems obvious but it is a statement that would have been difficult for a first century Jew to accept. Paul is arguing against the requirement that new converts take on the works associated with becoming Jewish (chief among those things male circumcision) because those things are not salvific.
The distinction gets more difficult, though, because it does lead to questions about where the Church should draw the line between works not necessary for salvation and works which are the fruit of faith.
Continuing:
Verse 18
But Christ is not a minister of sin. The thought is not to be tolerated. For, on the contrary, the sin is seen, not in leaving the Law for Christ, but in going back from Christ to the Law. The sin is seen doubly: for on one theory—the theory that the Law is valid—it was wrong to give it up; while on the other theory, that Christianity has taken its place, it is still more wrong to restore the fabric that has once been broken down.
For — The connection is with the words immediately preceding: “God forbid that Christ should be the minister of sin.” The idea is absurd as well as profane. For, instead of the Pauline Christian (who follows Christianity to its logical results) being the sinner, it is really the Judaising Christian who stands self-condemned—i.e., in returning to what he has forsaken.
If I build again — The first person is used out of delicate consideration for his opponents. The Apostle is going to put a supposed case, which really represents what they were doing; but in order to soften the directness of the reference he takes it, as it were, upon himself.
St. Paul is fond of metaphors taken from building. Comp. Romans 15:20 (building upon another man’s foundation), 1 Corinthians 3:10-14 (Christ the foundation), Ephesians 2:20-22 (the Church built on the foundation of Apostles and prophets), and the words “edify” and “edification” wherever they occur. The idea of “pulling down” or “destroying” is also frequently met with. So in Romans 14:20 (“for meat destroy not the work of God,” the same word as here used, in opposition to “edify,” immediately before); 2 Corinthians 5:1 (“if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved”—pulled down or destroyed); 2 Corinthians 10:4 (“mighty to the pulling down of strongholds”)—a different word in the Greek, but similar in meaning.
We may compare with the whole verse the well-known saying, “Burn what you have adored, and adore what you have burned.”
The things which I destroyed — i.e., the Mosaic law, the binding obligation of which had been done away in Christ.
Make myself — Show, or prove myself to be: the same word as that translated “commend” in Romans 3:5; Romans 5:8.
A transgressor — Hitherto the Apostle had kept up a sort of studied ambiguity in his use of the words “sin,” “sinner.” The Jews called the Gentiles “sinners,” simply from the fact of their being Gentiles. The Pauline Christian placed himself on the same footing with the Gentiles, so far as the Law was concerned, and therefore he, too, in the same phraseology, was a sinner. But now the Apostle uses a word that could not be mistaken. A sinner the Christian might be, in the Judaising sense of the word, but the Judaiser himself was the real sinner: it was he who offended against the immutable principles of right and wrong.
The note here helps us draw the distinction between a works-dependent salvation and works that follow from faith. The problem Paul is addressing is not following the law, it’s *relying* on the law. He does not want salvation through faith to be conditional on an adherence to the Torah. If it’s conditional in that way, it’s null. If you are saved through faith, then why would you need to be circumcised? This is not one of the things Christ told His followers to do.
The Great Commissions was to baptize, not to circumcise.
Continuing:
Verse 19
In the last verse the Apostle had been putting a supposed case, but by a not unnatural process of thought he gradually takes the “I” rather more in earnest, and appeals directly to his own personal experience. The “I” of Galatians 2:18 is really St. Peter or the Judaisers; the “I” of this verse is St. Paul himself. The object of his appeal is to make good his assertion that to restore the dethroned Law to its old position is positively sinful.
Once having done with the Law I had done with it for ever. The Law itself had prepared me for this. It was a stage which I could not but pass through, but which was in its very nature temporary. It carried with it the sentence of its own dissolution.
For . . — This assigns the reason for the use of the word “transgressor” in the verse before. It is a transgression to rebuild the demolished fabric of the Law, because the true Christian has done with the Law once for all.
Through the law am dead to the law — In what sense can this be said? The Apostle himself had got rid of his obligations to the Law—not, however, by simply evading them from the first, but by passing through a period of subjection to them. The road to freedom from the Law lay through the Law. The Law, on its prophetic side, pointed to Christ. The Law, on its moral side, held up an ideal to which its votaries could not attain. It did not help them to attain to it. It bore the stamp of its own insufficiency. Men broke its precepts, and its weakness seemed to lead up to a dispensation that should supersede its own. St. Paul would not have become a Christian if he had not first sat at the feet of Gamaliel. If we could trace the whole under-current of silent, and perhaps only half-conscious, preparation, which led to the Apostle’s conversion, we should see how large a part was played in it by the sense, gradually wrought in him, of the Law’s insufficiency. Thus the negative side was given by his own private meditation; the positive side, faith in Christ, was given by the vision on the road to Damascus.
That I might live unto God — We might not unnaturally expect here “unto Christ,” instead of “unto God.” But the Christian lives unto Christ in order that he may live unto God. The ultimate object of the Christian scheme is that he may be presented righteous before God. By the Law he could not obtain this righteousness. It is obtained in Christ.
Paul is explaining here the danger of restoring the Law as a requirement for salvation. This continues in the next verse, which is one of the most famous verses in the New Testament:
Verse 20
In the last verse the Apostle had spoken of himself as “dead to the Law, and living unto God.” The prominent idea in the first half of this clause had been the release from that burdensome ceremonial which the Judaising party wished to bind upon Christian consciences. By a natural transition, the Apostle’s thought had passed from what the Law could not do to what Christianity could do.
The Law could not make men righteous before God. In Christ they were made righteous. How? Here, too, there was death. The Christian died with Christ to something else besides the Law. With his eye fixed upon the cross, he died a spiritual death and rose to a new spiritual life. The “old man” in him, the self-seeking and sinful element in his nature, is slain, and for it is substituted a life of such close and intimate communion with Christ that it seems as if Christ Himself were dwelling in the soul. Living upon the earth in a body of human flesh, as he is, he is animated by an intense faith in the Saviour who has given him such proofs of self-sacrificing love.Here we come upon the same vein of mysticism that is developed in Romans 6. One main way of conceiving of the specially Christian life is through the idea of union with Christ. This idea, when ultimately pressed to precise logical definition, must necessarily contain a certain element of metaphor. Consciousness, rigorously examined, tells us that even in the most exalted souls there is no such thing as an actual union of the human and divine. At the same time, there is possible to man an influence from above so penetrating and so powerful that it would seem as if the figure of union could alone adequately express it. Nor ought this to be questioned or denied because the more common order of minds do not find themselves capable of it. (See the Notes on Romans 6, and Excursus G to that Epistle.)
I am crucified . . — The idea is something more than that of merely “dying with Christ”—i.e., imitating the death of Christ after a spiritual manner: it involves, besides, a special reference to the cross. It is through the power of the cross, through contemplating the cross and all that is associated with it, that the Christian is enabled to mortify the promptings of sin within him, and reduce them to a state of passiveness like that of death.
Nevertheless I live — This death unto sin, death upon one side of my nature, does not hinder me from having life upon another side. The fact is that I live in a truer sense than ever before.
Yet not I — It is, however, no longer the old natural man in me that lives: it is not that part of the human personality which has its root in matter, and is “of the earth, earthy,” but that part which is re-formed by the Spirit of Christ.
Now — In my present condition as a Christian opposed to the old condition prior to the conversion.
In the flesh — In this bodily human frame; man though I be. The Christian is outwardly the same as other men; it is his inner life which is “hid with Christ in God.”
By the faith — The article is better omitted: by faith. The Apostle does not quite go so far as to say that faith is the cause of his physical life, though we may see, by other passages, that he is at least prepared to look upon faith as the great pledge, and even cause, of the physical resurrection. Here he is speaking of faith rather as the element or atmosphere in which the Christian lives. He is, as it were, steeped in faith.
Of the Son of God — i.e., faith of which the Son of God is the object; faith in the Son of God.
There is a curious variation of reading here. Some ancient authorities (including the Codex Vaticanus) instead of “faith in the Son of God,” have “faith in God and Christ.” This might appear to have some internal probability, as the less obvious expression of the two; but it may be perhaps explained satisfactorily in another way. On the whole, it seems best to abide by the Received text, which is that of the majority of MSS.
Who loved me — Christ died for the whole world, but each individual Christian has a right to appropriate His death to himself. The death of Christ was prompted by love, not for the abstraction humanity, but for men as individuals.
The juxtaposition here is clear. If we are dead in the Law, and we are alive in Christ, then it’s foolish to try to put back on the yoke of the law after becoming alive in Christ.
Verse 21 is the final verse of Chapter 2. From Ellicott:
In thus attaching himself devotedly to Christ, the Christian escapes the charge of refusing and thwarting the free gift of justification which God has offered to him in His Son. He has made his choice of Christ, and not of the Law. On the other hand, if he had chosen the Law, and gone to it, and not to Christ, in his search for righteousness, he would have practically declared the death of Christ to be a useless and unnecessary sacrifice.
Frustrate — An exactly literal translation of the Greek word, which means “to render nugatory or ineffectual.” The grace of God goes forth with a certain mission to perform; but the Judaising party, by still clinging to the Law, prevented it from taking effect, and made it “return void” unto its Giver.
If righteousness come by the law — What all men seek is justification in the sight of God. This is given to the just or righteous. But there were two ways of becoming thus just or righteous. The Law professed to make righteous those who complied with its provisions. But this was only a profession, for no one could really keep the Law. The Christian, therefore, rightly falls back upon faith in Christ, which brings him both an imputed righteousness, and also, in part, at least, a real righteousness. A deep and genuine faith in Christ is allowed to atone for the many unavoidable breaches of the Law, and that faith by degrees operates a real and vital change in the character and life of the man.
Then Christ is dead in vain — If the Law had been enough to give actual righteousness to its votaries, and with righteousness the judicial declaration of freedom from guilt, then there would have been nothing for Christ to die for. His death would have had no object and been of no benefit to mankind.
Paul finishes the summary of the argument for Christ and the limitations of the law here. He goes into that case is more detail in Chapter 3, in the verses ahead.
