Galatians 2:17-21 Don’t Set Aside the Grace of God WC McCarter
Introduction
We have seen
that things were tense between Paul and the Galatians from the beginning of
this letter. Last week we saw that things had gotten heated on one occasion
between Paul and Peter. If there is anything we have learned thus far, although
I believe that we have learned a lot, it is that Paul is not afraid to stand up
for the truth of the Gospel. Today, we really get at the heart of that Gospel
truth once again. Remember what we are accomplishing by going through these
passage in Galatians: We are warning and reminding ourselves that turning away
from what we know about Christ is devastating. We have put our complete trust
in Christ for salvation, and we want to stay in it!
READ Scripture- This is the Word of God
Found Sinners (17-18)
The “we”
refers to both Peter and Paul (and possibly extends to all other Jewish
Christians). Apparently there was an allegation coming from the Judaizers that
Paul was swaying Jews away from the Mosiac Law and thus making them “sinners.”
They would have been sinners in the sense that they were doomed apart from the
law. So, this was not talking about particular sins, but it was a category (see
the way that he uses the term in v15). For the Jews, all Gentiles were sinners
because they did not live by God’s law. Jews found their identity in the OT Law
and considered everyone else “sinners” because they were not associated with
the Law. The Judaizers were apparently saying that Paul was preaching a Christ
who was a “minister of sin” in the sense that He was drawing people away from
the Law.
Yet, Peter,
Paul, and other Jewish Christians had abandoned the Law as a means of
justification (remember what that term means, at the moment of your conversion, God reckons your sins forgiven
because of Christ’s righteousness and He says that you are Not Guilty). If
they are no longer looking to the law to be right in God’s eyes, then the
legalistic Jews are going to consider them “sinners.” But, Paul does not care
about that. He is not here to please men, but God as he said in chapter one.
The apostle Paul often poses a conditional question (“if”) and answers it with
a strong negation (“certainly not!”). He does that very thing here when he says
that Christ is certainly not a minister of sin.
As we go
into verse 18 the question becomes, What is it that Paul has destroyed? Through
his preaching of the Gospel, Paul has destroyed (torn down) the idea that the
Law can make someone righteous in God’s sight. He says, If I build it again, that is, if
I return to the Law as a means of justification, then I make myself a transgressor. For those who were once under the Law
and then turned to faith in Christ for justification, enjoying the benefits of
it such as communing with Gentiles, abandoning food regulations, and such, if
they turned back to the Law for justification they have proven themselves transgressors.
They were the ones who broke the parts of the law about segregation of Jews
from Gentiles (Moo, 167). If a Jewish Christian, who had torn down the law,
rebuilt the law as a means of justification, then he made himself to be a
transgressor of that law.
Live By Faith (19-20)
Paul has a
new relationship to the law that can only be explained in the dramatic terms of
death and life (Moo, 167). Paul’s break with the law is decisive that it is
like dying and being reborn (Moo, 168). The law no longer has any power over
him, no authority whatsoever. Therefore, as one commentator says, “The question
of transgressing the law does not arise for one who has died in relation to the
law (Bruce, 142). How is it that Paul died to the law through the law? The law demands a curse and death for the sinner.
Christ has become our curse by being hung upon the tree, and He has died in our
place to free us from the law and freely make us right before God. As the hymn
says, “In my place condemned He stood.” Of course, Paul follows this death with
the life that we now live. In Christian theology, after death comes life. We
die to the law and are raised to live unto God. The apostle teaches that the
death and resurrection we experience actually enables us to live unto God.
Under the law, you cannot live unto God, but you are crushed by the weight of
the law’s demands. How is it that we have died and been raised to a new life?
It is in our union with Christ! We have been crucified with Christ. When we are united with Christ, God considers us to
have hung on the cross with Christ.
This is the
Gospel message: Christ has died, and you are able to die with Him. You see, so
many people do not want to hear that message. From a worldly point of view,
that does not sound like Good News, that you have to die. No one wants to die.
No one wants to throw themselves at the mercy of God. People fear giving up
their identity. But what happens when we are crucified with Christ is that the
old “I” is put to death. The old “I” enslaved to sin and the law is done away
with, to be replaced by a new “I” whose existence is determined by the
indwelling of Christ (Moo, 171).
The last
part of verse 20 explains what is said in the first part. We still have a life
to physically live here on the earth during this age. We must live it by faith.
These words should dominate our lives. We should meditate on them day and
night. We should rejoice in these words, give thanks, and constantly let them
dictate what kind of life we are going to now live. What words am I referring
to? “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
As another apostle says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” And as Paul
says in another place, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” These two things, Christ
loving us and giving Himself for us, cannot be divorced. They are so closely
related that they are basically one in the same. You cannot speak of Christ
loving you without speaking of His death and vice-versa. This is the Gospel and
our life.
Don’t Set Aside the Grace of God (21)
When Paul
gets to verse 21, he wants to return to what he said in verse 18 and sum it up
with a punch. For a Christian to leave justification by faith in Christ alone
and go to the law as a means of right standing with God, he/she is nullifying
the grace of God and the cross of Christ. Paul says, “I do not set aside the
grace of God.” What can be worse than utterly rejecting the great work of God
that is done in our behalf?
I have known
folks, and even a minister or two, who have had no clue what the grace of
Christ truly is. They attended church services and activities their entire
lives, even preached hundreds of sermons and did not know the grace of Christ.
You see, the apostle’s point here is very simple. If you lean on yourself, that
is, your obedience to the Law, or tradition, or any kind of religious
performance, you are setting aside the grace of God.
The
Galatians are faced with the option of setting aside the grace of God. Paul
gets very personal in these last few words of the chapter. He says, “I do not
set aside the grace of God.” He had made up his mind. He had been there and
back with the issue of righteousness through the law and wanted no part in it.
He was going to live and die by faith in Christ’s death. He would hope, boast,
and glory in the righteousness that is only found in the Son of God, who loved
Paul and gave Himself for Paul.
The one
question that saved me from legalism was, Why
did Christ die? This is the verse that saved me. If righteousness and
salvation still depends on me, then Christ died for no reason. If I have to add
to what Christ has done, then His death really means very little to nothing.
Conclusion and Christian Application
(1) “True (humility) is to accept what
God offers. One must either receive God’s offer of salvation or insult Him”
(Boice). The latter is a dangerous position!
(2) This life that you live here and now
must be lived by faith in the Son of God. Let that dominate your life. Maybe
you should commit this verse to memory. It is short, simple, and unbelievably
central to who we are as Christians.
(3) Have you abandoned the law, or
tradition, or your own personal do-good-ism as a means of justification before
God? Are you still trying to make yourself right before God by religious
performance? If you have not, let me urge you to abandon every form of
justification by works and turn to Christ. Repent of your sins, confess Christ
as Lord and Savior, trust Him for salvation, and be united with Him in baptism.
This is the Word of God. This is the way of salvation.