Galatians 2:11-21 - No Way Back

Galatians 2:11-21

No Return to the Law

11 Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; 12 for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. 13 And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? 15 We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, 16 knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

17 “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19 For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which 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 set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

Once one finds the grace of God in the work of Christ who sacrificed Himself on the cross in our place to fulfill the Law of works, that one can never go back to the impossible attempts to earn salvation by his or her own works.  Peter had tried this by playing the hypocrite as he followed the Law to not associate with non-Jews when eating with fellow Israelites.  Paul confronted him to his face to expose this as a futile return to following the Law to earn God’s favor when he fully knew that he had been accepted by grace and no old laws could add to that acceptance in Christ alone by grace alone.  This hypocrisy gave a bad example to others who followed suit with Peter in their partiality of favoritism which God had abolished in the unity of Christ (Ephesians 2:14-16) for all whom He calls.  The apostle corrected Peter’s error with a question about how he could live as a Gentile believer yet still try to demand the Gentiles live as a Jew in keeping the Law of works instead of the covenant of grace where Jesus fulfilled the Law for us on our behalf (Galatians 3:24-25, 4:4-5) and freed us from the impossible bondage to rules no man can ever completely (James 2:10) keep.  This truth rings out though time to us still that nobody can be justified to God by the works of the Law but only through believing in and receiving Christ Jesus.  We are justified in Christ alone through faith in His work (John 6:29) alone and not in anything we can do to vainly attempt to justify ourselves or be good enough to earn deliverance from judgment because of our sin which stains every soul born of Adam (Romans 5:12, 1 Corinthians 15:22) from the time we enter this world.  As it is written, “by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.”  To try to add the requirement of good works and circumcision to justify ourselves makes us sinners in not trusting God’s work by faith for us which alone can make us right and reconciled to the Father through His Son who did it all.  We are to take Him at His word and not add to it or change the simplicity of the gospel (1 Corinthians 1:18, 21, 2 Corinthians 11:3) or we are effectively saying that Christ ministers sin in our disbelief of the gospel’s truth.  We who are in Christ have died to the Law as a way to be saved from sin’s just penalty and are enabled in that grace to live to God in this freedom from the bondage to works as an impossible avenue of salvation in our futile efforts to be good enough for heaven.  Since we instead are crucified with Christ as we die to our old self and are given life as new creations, we find Him living and working in us to do the good works of the moral law of God found in the Ten Commandments as a response to live acceptable lives and not to earn wages of salvation.  We find these now written on hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19-20, 36:26-27, 2 Corinthians 3:3) and not cold stone of the Old Testament Law which required works as the means for salvation.  We now are called to live by faith in the work of Jesus Christ and not out own works because He gave His life sacrificially to cover our sin once and for all (Hebrews 9:12, 10:10) out of the Father’s love for those who He calls to Himself by grace.  Our righteousness does not come through the Law of our works but by the work of Christ by grace through His death and resurrection to life as reborn and recreated sons and daughters by faith as promised to Abraham (Romans 4:13, 16, 22-25, Galatians 3:6-9) in whom we are now found righteous in His righteousness, the just one and justifier (Romans 3:25-26) of our souls.  There is no way back to attempting favor with God by our works to fulfill the Law, but by the grace and righteousness of Jesus Christ who works His laws in our hearts to do out of our loving and thankful response.