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Galatians
Chapter 5 - Paul’s Defense of Justification by Faith
Galatians 2:15-21
There is a story told of the legendary football coach, Bear Bryant, concerning a duck hunting trip he had taken with friends. Coach Bryant was boastfully confident in his prowess as a hunter, so his friends found a certain delight in teasing him when he shot at and missed a duck that had flown over his head. They pummeled him with questions like: “Bear, I thought you could knock the tick off a squirrel’s behind at 100 paces? What happened to the duck you just shot at?” Bear is alleged to have responded, “Gentlemen, the explanation is easy…there flies a dead duck!” Some of what we are going to talk about in verses 15-21 is going to sound an awful lot like…there flies a dead duck theology. Before making his case for grace-based sanctification Paul begins by making a case for grace-based justification.
Galatians 2:15-16
We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
Verse 15, "We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners,' is undoubtedly the slogan of the Judaizers, revealing the arrogance and prejudice that were at the root of the refusal of the men “from James” to eat with the Gentiles. Some felt that by their very nature as Jews, bestowed upon them by birth, they were endowed with a spiritual superiority.
In their minds, the typical Jew simply by nature of birth was pious, while the typical Gentile, by nature of birth, was sinful. For the Judaizers, this meant that the best way for the Gentiles to improve themselves was to insist that the Gentile converts adopt Judaism in addition to trusting in Christ.
Verse 16 corrects this fallacious reasoning, and Paul reminds Jewish Christians that they were not able to earn justification through law-keeping; rather, like the Gentile Christians, they were justified by faith in Christ.
Galatians 2:15-16 are particularly important verses. Please note that several words are repeated. Paul mentions “faith” three times, “justified” three times, and “law” three times. Whenever the Scriptures are repetitive, that is a clue to pay particular attention to what is written. The repetition indicates importance…here we see Paul makes only one point by repeating it three times. The word “justify” means to “declare righteous.” Paul says we are declared righteous under grace in Christ unrelated to good works of any kind. Justified sinners are thus acquitted, set free, and accepted by God as righteous. Any punishments we deserve are not delayed or reduced; they are removed! That is why Romans 8:1 says there is “no condemnation” for those who are in Christ Jesus.
This is a humbling doctrine because it forces us to come to terms with our impotence. The only ability we provide to the process is liability. Salvation only comes to those who stop trying and start trusting in Jesus Christ. In the remaining verses, Paul defends this doctrine he has just stated.
Galatians 2:17
17 If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!
Verse 17 is best understood from the mentality of the Judaizer. To the Judaizers, a gospel that repealed the law could only promote sin. The Judaizers believed by requiring law-keeping they were reducing sin. You see, the main fear of grace is the fear that if you promote grace, people will not recognize the seriousness of sin, and it feels as though Jesus is encouraging sin by providing grace. Paul is going to explain that the law does not reduce sin, and grace does not promote sin.
It is not a sin to stop seeking justification through our works. The Judaizers thought that Paul, by encouraging Jews to neglect the laws of God was causing pious Jews (e.g., Peter) to act like Gentile sinners, thus making Christ the agent of sin. In his response, Paul both admits and denies certain things.
He admits he is seeking justification only in Christ. He admits by doing this, he is free to engage in activities the Judaizers would label as sin, and he is found to be a "sinner" in this sense by them. He denies emphatically that this makes Christ an agent of sin. Why? Because it is not a sin to be a "sinner" in this sense because they are wrong about it being a sin in the first place. It is not a sin to free yourself from the ceremonial Jewish laws…it is not a sin to stop depending on works.
Galatians 2:18
18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker.
What was it that Paul destroyed by his teaching? Paul destroyed the idea that the law was a means of justification or sanctification. Why would Paul rebuild a theology he was attempting to destroy and that made him a lawbreaker? He would not return to the law, for he had died to it. Which is the point he makes next.
Galatians 2:19
19 For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.
How can one die to the law? Let us say a man is convicted of murder, but before his sentencing date, he dies…he is now dead to the law. The law holds no power over him anymore.
Paul says he died to the law through the law…so if a murderer died before sentencing, he would be dead to the law, but he would not be dead through the law. How does one die to the law through the law? Well, if the murderer, instead of dying before their execution date, made it to their execution date to be executed, they would now be both dead through the law and to the law.
What would happen if an executed man resurrected a few days later? What could the courts do? They would be unable to do anything because a legally pronounced sentence was lawfully carried out (to wit: their execution). The penalty has been paid; justice has been served. There is no provision in the law for cases of resurrection, so the murderer would now be free from the law…for he already died to it and through it. Paul says this is the experience of Christians. When did Paul die to the law through the law? The next verse explains when Paul died to the law through the law.
Galatians 2:20
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
When a person is saved by faith in Christ, he has also died in Christ to the law and through the law because God views us as having been crucified with Christ. Our faith in Christ connects us to and identifies us with Jesus. For God, this means that although on the day of Christ’s crucifixion, everyone there only saw one man being crucified, God saw every person who would ever accept His Son as their substitute and become connected to His Son by grace through faith.
Our co-crucifixion/death with Christ is also addressed in Colossians and Romans:
Colossians3:2 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 6:6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-
Romans 6:8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
Just as we are crucified with Jesus, we are also described as having been raised with Him in the resurrection.
Colossians 3:1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Romans 6: 5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
So, in the same way on that first resurrection morn, the people who saw Jesus only saw one man raised from the dead living a new life, God saw every person now connected with His Son by grace through faith. Whatever happened to Jesus happened to His followers. When Christ satisfied the law of sin and death, the law was satisfied for us as well. When Christ died to sin, we died to sin. When Christ arose in new life, we arose in new life. When Christ ascended, we ascended. Whatever happens to Christ happens to us because we are in Christ.
Christ now enables us to live righteously when we choose to depend upon His grace by faith in sanctification. Grace can not only save; it can sanctify. The law was never intended to do either. The reason the gospel of grace has repealed the law is that the law has completed its task. The law’s job was to show man his sin and reveal to him the necessity of salvation through the death, burial, and resurrection of a coming Savior, which would empower him to live the righteous life God intended.
That Savior was Jesus, and we are now able to live a new life by faith, not by works. For us to return to the law would be like the resurrected murderer we just spoke of, now dead to and through the law and now free from the law, going back to the law because he would rather be treated like a murderer than a free man.
Verse 20 introduces us to a new "I" that renounces self-reliance, self-confidence, and self-direction. The “I” who lives is the resurrected “I” who is a new creature in Christ. This “I” is the "I" of faith, which depends upon God’s grace and looks only to Christ for the motivation and courage to walk in righteousness.
Galatians 2:21
21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!
The conclusion of Paul’s argument is found in verse 21. There are only two choices in the final analysis, either of which is mutually exclusive of the other: you can depend on grace and live by faith in Christ, or you can strive to attain righteousness through merit-based acceptance efforts and forsake grace.
The reason the Judaizers were wrong in insisting that faith should be buttressed by law is that when you choose one, you must forsake the other. Remember, a supplemented Christ is a supplanted Christ. If the law is sufficient to save and to sanctify, the death of Christ becomes needless. Salvation by works robs God of His glory and renders the death of Christ meaningless.
Do we provide anything at all in our salvation? Well, yes, we do, in fact…the thing we provide in our salvation is the sin that made it necessary. Feel free to take all the credit you want for that!
Please go to Observations & Applications for Galatians 2:15-21 for further observations and applications
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.