In Galatians 2:15-21, Paul defends justification by faith over justification by faith and works. Paul writes that because we have been co-crucified with Christ we are now dead to the law through the law. If the law is necessary for salvation, then Christ died for nothing. Much of this section seems contradictory to us because Paul is speaking of...
Dying to Live
Galatians 2, Romans 6, and Colossians 3 all say the same thing…that we died but our problem is often we do not feel dead. We feel very much alive…and so what do we do since we still feel like the old nature is still alive? Typically, we search for ways to try to feel dead. Some preach about the importance of dying to self. They suggest there is a thing we can do to die to ourselves, and when we do it, then we will feel dead. Now let us reread Colossians 3 and Romans 6 slowly.
Colossians 3:2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
Romans 6: 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
Dead people do not need to die, and they cannot be any more dead than dead. One person is never deader than another…all dead people are equally dead. The Bible does not tell us to die…it tells us that we are dead. The problem is we do not look at it that way which is why Paul writes…
Romans 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
“Count” is a business term. It means to calculate or to consider something as a fact. We are not talking about a matter of pretending. We are not playing possum pretending to be dead to sin…we are dead to sin. Paul is saying that sin does not have to have any effect on you if you count yourself as dead to it. Counting yourselves as dead means just taking it for granted, that we are dead...by faith. In the same way - by faith - believe that Christ lives in the new and improved resurrected us, and He will live the life He wants through us. This is all very counterintuitive, but the more we try to die to sin, the more alive we make it seem.
One of Satan’s strategies is to get us to do what Christ has already done. For example, Satan wants us to try to figure out how to die to ourselves, so we never accept the fact we are already dead. In that way, we will also never discover how Jesus can live his life through us. Satan wants us to waste a lot of time and energy trying to feel dead. Again, the more effort we pour into becoming dead, the less dead we will feel.
Some of us will never count ourselves as dead, and we will continue to try to die to ourselves. We will never fully trust that Jesus is our life (How can He be our life if we are not dead yet?). It is difficult for us to accept that the old self is dead. The problem results from our refusal to believe by faith something God has said is true because it does not feel true. We are more comfortable letting our feelings tell us what is true than we are with God telling us what is true.
This is Satan’s great advantage. For us, many times, Satan’s lies feel more like the truth, and God’s truth feels more like lies. God says we are dead, but we do not feel dead. Satan says we are alive to sin because the old self still exists, and we feel the old self is alive, so we act like we are alive to it.
Well, it is apparent from all these verses that something died, is it not? What is it that died, and is it dead or not? If it was not our old self, what was it? Did only a part of our old self die? Which part was that? We must come to terms with the fact that something died. Many Christians unnecessarily spend a lot of time and energy trying to die. The fact is you cannot die if you are already dead.
What Paul is exhorting us to do is stop living as though that old self is still operative and alive. We must stop acting like we are still alive in Adam. The only way to stop living as though the old self is alive is to come to terms with the fact that the old self is dead. According to Paul, our trouble is that we do not realize who we are, and we go on living as though we are the same old self, so we continue to try to do things in the same old ways getting the same old results. If you are a Christian, the person you were in Adam lives no more, and you have been set free from sin.
Does not James 2 make the same point as the Judaizers’?
Legalists today often use the book of James to make a similar point about the necessity of works.
James 2:20 You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. 24 You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.
Since God had already declared Abraham righteous in Genesis 15, who do you think James has in mind when he asks the question about Abraham being considered (declared) justified when he offered up Isaac. James is not referring to when Abraham was justified before God, but when his faith expressed itself before men…one man in particular…Isaac! Some people get concerned because Paul and James use the same word when referencing Abraham being declared righteous. The way to understand the verse has nothing to do with the use of the same word for they do not have the same audience in mind for the declaration. Paul in Romans is looking at when Abraham was declared righteous by God. James in his book is looking to when Abraham was declared righteous by men.
When legalists today try to make use of James statement to get their point across about the importance of works, they are like the Judaizers…in fact modern day legalists have even more of an obstacle to overcome than the Judaizers for the Judaizers only fast forwarded 14 years to highlight a work of Abraham’s (circumcision in Genesis 17).Modern day legalists in referencing James fast forward 30 years to stress Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac.
Their argument breaks down for the same reason the Judaizers argument broke down…God had already declared Abraham righteous based on faith alone in Genesis 15:6! Abraham was between 75 to 85 years old at the time. If modern day legalists are right in their use of James’ reference to Genesis 22, they are in effect saying Abraham was not righteous until 30 years after he first believed God if it takes faith plus works!
I will tell you the type of person that James really has in mind…Lot. In 2nd Peter 2:7, Lot is called by Peter, a righteous man. The question is “Why?” You will not find one righteous thing that Lot ever did. Lot selfishly chose the more fertile part of the land when Abraham generously offered him first choice, even though Abraham as his uncle was entitled to force him to take whatever he chose to give him. Lot then moved his family closer and closer to Sodom until, he was living in that cesspool of a city. When the angelic messengers came to warn him of the pending destruction of the city Lot offered his two virgin daughters as substitute rape victims to a crowd of men and he later got drunk leading to incestuous relations with his two daughters. And apparently all this is how he came to be known as “Lot the Righteous.”
Again, how can Lot be righteous? The same way Abraham was righteous, at some point he believed God and God credited him with righteousness (by grace, so it was unmerited). Lot’s righteousness, like Abraham’s and ours, is given not earned. If works were essential to salvation as the Judaizers’ suggested Lot would be in deep yogurt. If someone were to try to determine if Lot were saved or not, they certainly would not be able to discern it from his works. Lot possessed true faith, but his practice of that faith was not helpful.
Which brings me back to James...
You see, James is not really contrasting true faith with false faith as many believe, rather he is contrasting useful faith (a faith that properly reveals itself in works and useless faith (a faith which stays hidden and no one ever observes any evidence of it but God). Abraham had a useful faith which was revealed by his trust of God in acts of obedience. Lot had a useless faith hidden by his acts of sin and selfishness.
So again, it is not faith or works or a faith that emerges from works but works that emerges from faith that justifies and saves.