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! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 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. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Galatians 2:17-21 ESV

R. C. Sproul says that “this portion of the letter to the Galatians is not an easy one to expound. In fact, it’s difficult and weighty, but nevertheless it is of extreme importance…” (45). I could not agree with Sproul more. As with the many of the writings of histories greatest intellects, it seems as though Paul’s mind certainly moved faster than his pen, which is likely to be especially true with Galatians since the apostle was clearly in great turmoil over their yielding to error. But while the precise flow of Paul’s logic requires a bit more concentration than usual in these verses, they are certainly worth the effort.

Todd Wilson notes:

These verses do not merely contain a bunch of interesting theological ideas; instead they offer a provocative description of a gospel-rooted way of life. What Paul describes here is the shape the gospel takes in his own life. And that shape is the shape of the cross: “I have been crucified with Christ” (2:20). Thus, at the heart of gospel-rooted living is cruciformity. Life in Christ is all about being crucified with Christ. (83)

IS CHRIST THE SERVANT OF SIN? // VERSES 17-18

As we noted last week, these final verses of the chapter are seen by some as the continuation of Paul’s rebuke of Peter and by others as Paul simply speaking to the Galatians once more. It is impossible to say for certain which is correct, but again the larger point is that Paul’s words apply to both situations. Recounting Peter’s hypocrisy was a transitional narrative within this letter to the Galatians because it displayed his authority as an apostle through his public rebuke of another apostle and it also springs Paul forward into the controversy that the Galatians were enmeshed within. Peter was guilty of separating himself from the Gentiles, implying by his actions that the Gentiles needed to act like Jews in order to share table-fellowship with them, which represented being a part of the church. The Galatians, as Gentiles, were in danger of doing just that, of observing circumcision and the rest of the ceremonial law. They were believing that they needed to live like Jews in order to truly be Christians.

We ended our previously passage with Paul explaining in verses 15-16 that Jews cannot be counted righteous through works of the law but only through faith in Jesus Christ. Yes, Jews had an advantage over the Gentiles in that they were born with access to the Scriptures and into a community of believers; however, that advantage did not and could not offer salvation. Jews and Gentiles alike are sinners in need of a Savior. Now Paul continues his argument:

But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin?

Geoffrey Wilson rephrases Paul’s wording by saying, “But if we Jews, in seeking to be justified in Christ apart from the works of the law, thus turn out to be no better than ‘Gentile sinners’ [verse 15], is Christ then a minister of sin” (519)? Here Paul is raising the question that salvation by grace alone through faith alone often raises. By saving sinners through pure grace and not through their works at all, doesn’t Christ become a promoter of sin? As Christians, Jews like Peter were setting aside dietary laws and eating both alongside and like Gentiles. Didn’t Paul’s teaching of justification through faith naturally lead to a licentious and sinful lifestyle?

That was the argument that Catholics leveled against the Reformers in the 16^th Century. As Sproul is careful to note, Catholics do not deny that justification is through faith in Christ. The point of contention is the word alone. Are we justified by faith alone in Christ? The Reformers said yes; Catholics said no. In the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church anathematized all who say “that the impious is justified by faith alone—if this means that nothing else is required by way of co-operation in the acquisition of the grace of justification, and that it is in no way necessary for a man to be prepared and disposed by the motion of his own will” (Session VI, C, 9). Our good works must cooperate alongside faith. After all, isn’t that a living faith (see James 2)? If we deny that faith and works work together for our justification, then won’t sin abound?

First, we do not deny that James teaches us the importance of works as the fruit of having a living faith in Christ. But those fruitful works are the necessary effect of the gospel in our lives. They are not the root cause of our justification. Second, as the charge that Christ’s liberation from the law through faith alone, Paul answers: By no means! This is the same answer that Paul gave to a similar question in Romans 6:1-2:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

It is nothing short of blasphemous to say that Christ promotes and fosters the very thing that He came into the world to defeat. Indeed, as Paul goes on to argue, it is not justification by faith that encourages sinful behavior but the attempt to be justified through the law. Philip Ryken notes:

Paul shows this by using his opponents’ argument against them: “For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor” (Gal. 2:18). As we shall see, when Paul spoke of rebuilding what he tore down, he was referring to the Old Testament law that he tore down by the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So what would happen if someone tried to rebuild the law? This was exactly what Peter was trying to do in Antioch. At first, he had destroyed the law by welcoming Gentiles into the church as full-fledged Christians. But then he allowed himself to be pressured into separating himself from them. In effect, Peter was rebuilding with one hand what he had destroyed with the other. First he told the Gentiles that they were saved by faith, not by works, but then he made the works of the law a test of Christian fellowship.

Of course, this is also exactly what the Galatians were in danger of doing. By making circumcision and any other practices of the Old Testament law essential alongside faith in Christ for salvation, they were deserting the true gospel and erecting for themselves a counterfeit gospel. Thus, in an attempt to uphold the law, they are actually breaking the law. In their war against licentiousness, they were blaspheming Christ by treating faith in Him as insufficient alone for salvation. This is similar to what Paul would later write in Colossians 2:20-23 about asceticism:

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Legalism is fundamentally worldly wisdom, for it turns to law-keeping as the antidote for sin. The gospel is true wisdom. It teaches that the law only awakens in us deeper awareness of our sin. Only the grace of Christ can truly break sins total infection of our hearts, and both the passages of Romans 6 and Colossians 2 hint at how exactly that happens: through our death.

IT IS NOT LONGER I WHO LIVE // VERSES 19-20

Rather than being under the tyranny of the law, Paul continues: For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. By dying to the law, Calvin notes that Paul “may either mean that we renounce it, and are delivered from its dominion, so that we have no confidence in it, and, on the other hand, that it does not hold us captives under the yoke of slavery” (73).

It is important to note that Paul’s usage of the word I is emphatic. It is the first word of verse 19 in Greek text. It is emphatic because it does not need to be there or there. The word I (εγὼ) is unnecessary at all in the sentence, and Paul could have also placed it anywhere in the sentence. The point is that Paul is making the discussion personal. By bringing himself into the picture, Paul is declaring that he is not arguing about obscure points of theology that would only be of interest to doctoral candidates. No! He is essentially setting forth himself as an example. The man who once considered himself blameless in regard to righteousness by law (Philippians 3:6) is now declaring himself dead to the very law that he once so desperately attempted to uphold.

But notice too how exactly Paul died to the law: through the law. Perhaps Paul is speaking here of the condemnation that sin heaped up upon him through the law. As he says in Romans 7:9-11:

I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

The law does certainly reveal the true nature of our sin and, therefore, reveals the greatness of our condemnation. However, Ryken argues that Paul considered himself dead to the law because the consequence of the law had already been dealt out against him. After giving the law to Israel, Moses said: “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil” (Deuteronomy 30:15), explaining that obedience to God’s law would bring life but disobedience would yield death. And that is precisely the problem, we have all broken God’s law and earned the curse of death that such disobedience brings. We have each rebelled against the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, and death is necessary consequence. Furthermore, God cannot simply overlook our defiance while still remaining just. Being good and righteous, God must judge the guilty. We must die as a consequence of our sins. That is God’s law.

Here is Paul’s brief description of his death through the law: I have been crucified with Christ. In 3:13, the apostle says that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…” While dying upon the cross, Jesus became our substitute, paying the deadly debt that we accumulated for ourselves through our sin. Amen! Yet also notice:

Here Paul also speaks of his relationship to Christ’s death as more than simply rescue from the law’s curse by means of Christ’s substitutionary atonement. In some sense he died with Christ on the cross…

In the Gospels, the same word that Paul uses here for crucified with (συσταυρόω) is used for the two thieves who were crucified with Christ. Indeed, Paul describes the significance of being crucified with Christ in Romans 6:6, where he says, “We know that our old self was crucified with [Christ] in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” As we discussed earlier this year, that is the truth that baptism proclaims. Baptism itself does not crucify us alongside Christ, but it is a beautiful and tangible picture of the death of our old selves in Christ.

There is also great beauty in the particular grammar that Paul chose here. The word which is translated I have been crucified with is in the perfect tense. Bill Mounce defines this as “an action that was brought to completion and whose effects are felt in the present” (276). Jesus’ last words before dying are one of the greatest examples: “It is finished” (John 19:30). “Because Jesus fully completed his task, the ongoing effects are that you and I are offered the free gift of salvation so that we can be with him forever” (275). Here Paul likewise speaks of his death to the law, through the law, by being crucified with Christ as a fixed event that occurred in the past, but one that continues to define and shape his present reality.

Of course, that is precisely what the apostle goes on to describe for the rest of verse 20. Having been crucified with Christ, Paul says:

It is no longer I who live, but Christ 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.

The doctrine expressed in this verse is the saints’ union with Christ. It is one of the most beautiful of all teachings in Scripture to meditate upon, and this verse particularly is a jewel of incalculable loveliness and value. John Brown gives beautiful words on this verse:

Christ died, and in him I died; Christ revived, and in him I revived. I am a dead man with regard to the law, but I am a living man in regard to Christ. The law has killed me, and by doing so, it has set me free from itself. I have no more to do with the law. The life I have now, is not the life of a man under the law, but the life of a man delivered from the law; having died and risen again with Christ Jesus, Christ’s righteousness justifies me, Christ’s Spirit animates me. My relations to God are his relations. The influences under which I live are the influences under which he lives. Christ’s views are my views; Christ’s feelings my feelings. He is the soul of my soul, the life of my life. My state, my sentiments, my feelings, my conduct, are all Christian. “And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” “The life I live in the flesh” is the life I live in this mortal body, this embodied state. The belief of the truth is the regulating principle of my conduct. It is as it were the soul of the new creature. I no longer think, or feel, or act like a Jew—or like a man born merely after the flesh. All my opinions, sentiments, and habits, are subject to the truth about him “who loved me and gave himself for me;” and I live devoted to him who died devoted for me.’

The force of these last words plainly is,—’It is but right that it should be so. It is but right that I should be entirely devoted to him who devoted himself entirely for me.’

Every Christian says the same. The eternal cry of the saints is “Jesus paid it all; all to Him I owe!” But while this is a universal principle for all Christians, do not lose sight of how intimately personal Paul makes this statement. Yes, we all confess John 3:16 as the nutshell of the gospel: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Amen! But here Paul basks in the wonder that God not only loved the world but him personally. And Jesus not only gave Himself for the world in general but for me.

Indeed, by faith, Paul’s words become our own. All who believe in Christ for salvation can say, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ 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.” Praise the Lord salvation in Christ is offered to all people, but praise Him that, as the Heidelberg Catechism says, it is “not only to others but to me also.” Do you believe this?

If we do believe this, let us surrender ourselves to Christ. Let Christ truly be the governor of our lives. As Brown said, let there be no aspect of our lives, however great nor however small, that we do not submit to Christ’s lordship. Although the actual resurrection of our bodies still awaits and our life here in the flesh is still at war against sin, let nevertheless live by faith in the Son of God, speaking, doing, eating, and drinking for the glory of God.

NULLIFYING THE GRACE OF GOD // VERSE 21

Wouldn’t it be pleasant if Paul ended the passage there? Although we would find it more enjoyable for the apostle to conclude this section of thought with such a poignant reflection on his own salvation in Christ, that is not the purpose of his letter to the Galatians. He is contending literarily for the gospel and for their souls. Thus, he ends by pulling back down into the present fight of faith:

I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

After recalling again with wonder the greatness of God’s grace in rescuing him, Paul states simply that he does not nullify or render obsolete the grace of God. The apostle was all too aware of his status as the “chief of sinners” and a persecutor of the church, and that made him continuously awestruck by God’s grace toward him. But how might Paul have hypothetically nullified God’s grace? F. F. Bruce gives two suggestions:

For there are two ways of nullifying God’s grace, or receiving it ‘in vain’: one, by receiving it and then going on as though it made no difference by continuing to live ‘under law’ (cf. 5:4), and the other, by receiving it and then going as though it made no difference, by continuing to sin ‘that grace may abound’ (Rom. 6:1). In neither way does Paul nullify the grace of God: he refuses to return to legal bondage but at the same time he repudiates the suggestion that freedom from law means freedom to sin—μὴ γένοιτο (Rom. 6:15)!

Of course, in the present context, the first way of nullifying God’s grace seems most in Paul’s mind. To place oneself under the yoke of maintaining the very law that Christ liberated us from is a mockery to the grace that Christ grants to us. That is why Paul concludes by saying, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. If it were possible for a person to be justified or to obtain righteousness through obedience to the law, then Christ’s death was utterly meaningless.

Again, this is not to say that the law itself is evil or that we should not strive to live lives that are pleasing to God. The law displays to us what true righteousness is and, therefore, how far we fall short of it. Now that we are in Christ, we have God’s law written on our hearts, and we ought to desire to please our heavenly Father in all our thoughts, words, and deeds. Yes and amen!

But if, for even a moment, we look to our good works as being the cause of our righteousness before God, we are in danger of nullifying the grace of God. Any attempt to justify ourselves through works is an act of holding Christ’s death in contempt. Why? The eternal Son of God willingly became flesh and laid down His life specifically because we make ourselves righteous in the sight of God. He gave Himself for us because we had no hope of being able to pay the eternal debt of our sins and be restored to communion with God on our own. That is both the beauty and the scandal of the gospel. You and I are not good enough to earn God’s shining favor upon us. Christ alone is able to make us righteous through His works, not our own.

As we come to the Table of our King, do not nullify God’s grace by thinking that you are able to take of this bread and cup through your own righteousness. Have you sinned this week? Have you sinned this morning? That is the very reason that Christ died for you. As you come to take the bread and cup as symbols of Christ’s body and blood, leave yours sins and leave any notion of your own righteousness behind. Come again to Christ. As your baptism testified, you have been crucified with Christ, and you have also been raised to new life in Him. Now let us eat together in table-fellowship with our King.