Galatians 2:15-21 (NRSV)
15 We ourselves are Jews
by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is
justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we
have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in
Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified
by the works of the law. 17 But if, in our effort to be justified in
Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of
sin? Certainly not! 18 But if I build up again the very things that
I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. 19 For
through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been
crucified with Christ; 20 and it is no longer I who live, but it is
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. 21 I do not
nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then
Christ died for nothing.
Galatians 2:15-21 is the conclusion of the
autobiographical section that became a narrative defense of the gospel he
preaches. The way to summarize his gospel is that both Jew and Gentile receive
justification in the presence of God through faith. He has stood firm for the
truth of the gospel, which this brief biography has shown. One way to read this
section is as a continuation of the argument of Paul with Peter. Betz suggests that verse 14b-21, which he views as a
speech by Paul to Peter, is a summary of the letter. However, in the context of
this letter, it reflects his concern with his opponents in Galatia. As part of
this defense of the gospel, he relates the theological fall out created by the
actions of Peter and the others in Antioch.
Despite their privileged position as Jews, Paul now declares that the
Law does not offer justification.
Nothing human beings can do, not even obeying the Law, can create this
rightness. Paul is stating that it is
impossible for him to turn back and accept again that it is possible for human
beings to have justification by means of the Law. The surprise here is that
Paul is using a legal term to subvert the importance of the Law and re-focus
his readers on the centrality of Christ. True, he must make a forceful
statement that his apostleship is equal to that of Peter, whereas his opponents
at least suggest the apostleship of Peter is inferior. Nowhere here does Paul
dismiss the Law as useless. He only
denies that it serves the purpose of making one righteous before God. True, God
gave the people of God, Israel, a Law that, if followed, would bring
righteousness. Given the revelation of God in Christ, however, Jew and Gentile
alike the saving work of God in the death and resurrection of offers the
sought-for rightness with God.
Maybe
it would be helpful to summarize the argument thus far. A lengthy biographical
monologue began in 1:11. In it, Paul recounts how God called him from his
former life as a persecutor of the church to his new role as an apostle and
evangelist within the church. Paul is especially interested in emphasizing the
fact that his status as an apostle is derived directly from God and not from
the Jerusalem apostles (see 1:1, 12-13). He relates that he did not go up to
those apostles in Jerusalem upon receiving his call, but rather went to Arabia
(1:17). He had a largely get acquainted meeting with Peter and James for 15
days. Fourteen years later, he went to Jerusalem for an official reason. When
he arrived with Titus, some opponents wanted Titus circumcised. Paul rejects
this, and so do the rest of the apostles. In fact, they extend to him the right
hand of Christian fellowship. However, after this decision, it seems Peter was
in Antioch. He and Paul, as Jews, had table fellowship with Gentiles. While
Jewish Law forbade (and forbids) observant Jews to eat Gentile meat, no
prohibition prevented shared meals, provided it observed basic Jewish Law of
clean and unclean foods. Paul accuses Cephas of hypocrisy in his vacillation
between strict separatism and a more accommodating stance toward Gentile table
fellowship, depending on who (and especially whether "the circumcision
faction," v. 12) was watching. Paul opposed Peter because in this case,
Peter sought to please some people who came from James rather than God. Such separation
at table fellowship was in accord with Jewish Law, but that Law was no longer
in effect because of the gospel. In Paul’s absence from Galatia, a group of
teachers had arrived and begun teaching that circumcision and other forms of
Torah observance (in Paul’s shorthand, “the Law”) were necessary for the
Christian life. They appealed to the authority of the original apostles in
Jerusalem, most of whom who were with Peter and James. The whole of the letter
to the Galatians has a focus on this issue; Paul is intensely concerned that
his flock return to the gospel that he had originally proclaimed to them, one
that emphasized freedom from such strictures as circumcision (for references to
freedom, see 2:4; 4:21-30; 5:1, 13). Thus, his argument is to defend his status
as an apostle, nor for his personal elevation, but to stress the truth of the
gospel he preached. In this text, he offers a concise statement of the gospel
he preached.
15 We ourselves, possibly referring to Paul and Peter. Paul may still narrate his
encounter with Peter. If so, the opening lines are part of a quotation Paul
inserted into his letter to the Galatians, extending from 2:14-16. The
quotation would then be part of Paul's response to Cephas (as Paul refers to
Peter throughout this letter, e.g., 1:18, 2:9, 11) challenging the necessity or
even suitability of observance of the Jewish Law as prerequisite to full
participation in the emerging Christian community (2:11-13). If so, after
having accused Peter of hypocrisy “before them all” (2:14), Paul reminds Peter
that they share a common bond in their Jewish heritage, clearly an attempt to
temper his harsh words. Paul continues, then, that he and Peter are Jews by birth.
In
characteristic fashion (see also Romans 9:3; II Corinthians 11:22), Paul
emphasizes his own Jewish identity in order to make the point that he came to
acceptance of Jesus as the promised Christ/Messiah from within the Jewish
tradition. The phrase may have been a self-definition of Jewish Christians.
This was how Paul began to distinguish early Christianity from Judaism.[1]
Paul contrasts Jews by birth with and not Gentile sinners. The phrase is harsh and
asymmetrical found only here in the entire Bible. The obvious rhetorical
balance for "Jews" would simply be "Gentiles" as Paul
writes in the preceding verse. Jews by birth and Gentiles sinners shows the
most basic insider/outsider distinction. It is unclear what point Paul is
seeking to drive home by lumping all non-Jews into this category, especially
since his audience in Galatia would have included a sizable number of people
whom the Judaizing action Paul is opposing would have Gentiles. This term was
how Paul began to distinguish between Jewish sinners and non-Jewish sinners.
Paul’s conciliatory gesture to Peter is not a precursor to compromise, as the
next verse will show. Indeed, Paul's journey to the cities of Galatia (e.g.,
Derbe, Lystra, Iconium) during his second missionary journey of ca 51 (Acts
16:6) introduced, probably for the first time, converts to Christianity
directly from the Gentile population who had no background in the religion of
biblical Israel.[2] It is possible that, to
reverse its impact, Paul is ironically adopting language that the Judaizing
party in the controversy may have used.
We find in verse 16 one of
the most succinct and dense statements about faith in Jesus Christ anywhere in
the letters of Paul. 16 Yet we know that a person is justified, or "reckoned as
righteous" is a prominent theme in Galatians. In fact, the theme is more
prominent than in any other book in the New Testament except Romans (see, e.g.,
in addition to this verse, 2:17; 3:8, 11, 24; 5:4). “We know" that one
does not have justification by
the works of the law. Paul draws on courtroom imagery to describe the status of the believer
before God. Yet, he does so in a curious way. Here and in other places in his
letters, Paul seems to envision God as a judge, while the believer is a
defendant who stands accused of a crime (i.e., exhibiting sinful behavior, or
in some cases simply possessing a sinful nature). The question, then, is the
way in which the defendant can gain an acquittal (i.e., receive “justification”).
Paul here asserts that Torah observance (“works of the Law”) is not sufficient
for such a verdict. The curious language here is that while he uses courtroom
language, that would focus upon whether one has observed the Law or not, he is
going to argue that the Law has nothing to do with righteousness before God. Rather,
“we know” that we have justification through faith in Jesus Christ pisteoV
iesou christou [or the faith of Jesus Christ]. The
gospel, which Paul has received through revelation, means that the Law no
longer has the power to make one righteous before God. The Law, a gift that
separated Jew from Gentile, is not consistent with the gospel that unites Jew
and Gentile through faith. God has awakened Paul to faith, to faith in this living One,
to the faith of Christ Jesus and therefore to the knowledge of the
justification of humanity, and therefore to a knowledge of the impossibility of
a justification according to the works of the Law. In every instance in
Galatians, Paul is contrasting the futile attempts of those who seek to have
justification by works of the Law (or, more exactly in Paul's theology, those
who seek to justify themselves through works of the Law), as opposed to God
justifying them by the graciousness of God through "faith in Jesus
Christ."[3]
Faith is the means of justification. The faith in which human beings experience
justification is only through this work of Christ, and not in doing the works
of Law. Why not? Not because faith as such is better than these works. In all
Galatians, there is not a single word of praise for faith or even disparaging
of works. Of the three factors, that of justification, faith, and Christ, the
controlling factor is Christ. Christ is the one who has done this redeeming us
from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse in verse 3:13. By doing this,
Christ has brought liberty. The point is not the weakness of the flesh that
cannot do these works, but the perfection with which Christ has done them.[4]
On this point, the Greek construction allows the translations "faith in
Jesus Christ" (an objective genitive ascribing saving efficacy to the
believer's trust in the work of Christ) and "faith of Jesus Christ"
(a subjective genitive denoting the saving faith displayed in Christ's obedient
death on the cross). The context here would suggest the latter. Therefore, if
we wish to avoid making Paul redundant, we should translate both phrases as
follows: “but rather [a person is
justified] through the faith of Christ Jesus, and we have believed in Christ
Jesus.” The common New Testament expression "to believe in,"
followed by a proper name or a pronoun, is an abbreviated form of "to believe
that," followed by a statement of the identity or saving work of God or
Christ.[5] To return to the courtroom
imagery, the faithfulness of Jesus (presumably in his death on the cross) is
the basis of the judge’s (God’s) verdict of “not guilty” that is handed down to
the defendant (believer). Such a notion would not work in the human court. In a
human court, either you have observed the law or you have not observed it. And we have come
to believe in Christ Jesus. Yet, the faith
Jesus exhibited does
not negate the significance of the “faith” of the believer in Jesus. The second
half of the verse is a basic restatement of what Paul has just said;
justification is possible only through the faith of Christ and not through the
Law. “’We” believe so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not
by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of
the law. Echoes Psalm 143:2, no one living is righteous before
the Lord, although Paul sets the phrase in an entirely different context here.
17 But if, in our
effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners,
is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! One way to define “sin” in the Old Testament is that of
transgression, just as you would “transgress” a human law. Thus, we find here the argument of those who
advocated that Gentiles must become Jews before they can become Christians. The
phrase “found to be sinners” suggests that the opponents of Paul were calling
Gentile Christians “sinners” because they have not come under the grace of
Torah. Paul’s argument was that God never called Gentiles to come under the
specific grace of Torah. They had to come under the general grace of God.
Therefore, the teaching of Paul does not lead to moral anarchy.[6]
18 But if I build
up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate
that I am a transgressor. In fact, to rebuild the edifice of Torah would itself be
sinful. For the apostle Paul, faith in Christ was a sinner's personal reaching
out in love to embrace the good news of God's reconciliation of the world
through Jesus' saving life and work. In so doing, a person receives
justification. God reckons such persons as righteous. Such action must from
God, for sin has naturally estranged humanity from God. Paul would then transgress into his former state of
captivity to the Law from which the faith of and in Christ has delivered him. In this context, Paul's
faith in Christ is his renunciation of the world, including its established
moral precepts.
19 For through the law I died, when by faith he united himself to Christ and therefore
to his death, to the law. Paul’s statement, though
puzzling, seems to assume that the very seeds of the gospel are contained in
the Law itself; this fact leads Paul to the paradoxical claim (Romans 6:10). The phrase could have two meanings. In either case, it seems like Paul
links this phrase to the death of Christ, by interpreting it as referring to
the fact that the believer participates in the death of Christ, is preferable.
The death he died to the Law was so that I might live to God. First, it could mean that
Christians are dead with Christ and thus to Mosaic Law, and so already share
the life of the risen Christ. Second, it could mean that Christians are dead to
the Law in order to obey a higher law of faith and the Spirit. This means that the Jewish people in
particular need to die to the Law in order to receive the freedom that God
offers in Christ. A change of lordship has occurred, and one cannot be under
Law and under Christ. To dramatize the difference, 4 Maccabees 16:24-25
contains an incident in which a mother persuaded and encouraged her sons to die
rather than violate the commandment of God. The promise was that those who die
for the sake of God live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. So complete is the break
between his former life under the Law and his current life under faith that he
is able to claim he has crucified that former life. Paul expresses his renunciation of the world in a graphic
way in an expression
he uses here and in Romans 6:6 to describe the utterly profound nature of his
conversion in baptism. The image of Christian conversion as a dying (and
rising) with Christ is used in a hymnic fragment in II Timothy 2:11, indicating
that the metaphor was in widespread use among early Christians to convey the
radical disjunction between the old life (as Law-constrained Jew or
superstitious Gentile) and the new life in Christ. Near the end of Paul's
impassioned epistle to the Galatians, the apostle returns to this image to
summarize the shattering experiences separating his former and current selves:
"[T]he world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (6:14). Paul has died to the Law, which amounts to making the error
of a justification of humanity by the fulfillment of another law than this, in
order that he may now live for God. In the crucifixion of Jesus, he himself
experiences crucifixion and therefore destroyed and done away, the man who
willed to justify himself in this impossible way. It has become impossible for
him to try to go further along this impossible way. Now, we might ask, in what
sense can we die to the law through the law?
First, its character was immediately present. Second, it reveals sin. The Law provides no remedy. Paul finds a valid use for the Law in v. 19,
but hardly one his opponents would expect.
If it was shocking for Paul's listeners to hear him declare that he had
died to the Law, it was even more startling to hear him claim he had also died
with Christ. Under the Law, a right
relationship with God was dependent upon how obediently Paul followed the works
of the Law. Paul specifies two
unmerited, unexpected acts of God's Son that makes commitment to Christ, not to
the Law, so easy. Because Christ loves
me and gave himself for me, Paul will not nullify the grace of God.[7]
Further, 20 it is no longer I who live, but it is 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. Paul now
focuses on the
one whose “faithfulness” is so effective for the believer that his life
animates the life of the believer. The focus shifts from the courtroom, where
we find no remedy to the human problem of sin, to the sacrificial love of God
shown to us in Christ and which we receive by faith. Since Paul continues to
live as an apostle, crucifixion did just mean death. It meant opening up the
possibility of resurrection to a new life. By faith, Christ becomes the
subject of all the living acts of a Christian.
Though Christians are still living in the flesh, they already have the
Spirit. In the previous verse, death was release from past obligations. In the present verse, it is annihilation of
old sins. Paul is tying together crucifying
and rising. The "now" is his
new life in Christ. Paul applies God's
love for the world personally here. Thus,
the life of Jesus Christ has become his. His life in the flesh has become an
opportunity for faith in Christ, the Son of God, who loved me and has given
himself for me. Paul has broken the bridge behind him. He has burned the boats
on which he might have set out on the way back. He has no basis for any other
life. Any such life that seeks justification by the Law would only mean that he
rejects the grace of God. This would mean that he thinks Christ might have died
in vain. Therefore, he transgresses the true law under which he stands. He
cannot do this. The revelation he has received prevents him. It only remains to
live in faith in Christ.[8]
Life in the faith of the Son of God has its basis in the fact that He has first
believed for me, and believed in a way that all that remains for me to do is to
let my eyes rest on him and to follow him. Following him is my faith. He has
already done the great work of faith.[9]
This statement is typical, in that they are the necessary self-declaration of
all Christians. To be a Christian is by definition to be in Christ. Paul
indicates the place of the community by this expression. The fact that they are
in Christ is the basis of all the instruction Paul gives his churches. They
live in the world, but Christ gave Himself for them.[10]
What Paul stresses in such language is that being a Christian relentlessly
brings us back to this specific place, characterized by the cross. The cross involves
hardship, anguish, grief, pain, and finally death. Those who set themselves in
this movement willingly undertake to bear this because it is essential to the
movement that it should finally be in this way. We are outside the movement if
we will not take up and bear our cross. The special fellowship that Christians
have with Christ involves the cross. Christians arise as witnesses to what God
has hidden for every human being.[11]
Just as Judas delivered up Jesus, so also here, God has delivered Jesus, and
also, Christ has delivered Himself.[12]
Jesus Christ will not be an obscure point of contact to the believer.
Anthropology and ontology, for Barth, take their norm in Christ. For him,
pietism represents a subjectivist philosophy that his theology can correct. He
grants that Christianity is an I-faith, taking place within the context of the
demythologizing of the I represented in this passage.[13]
One event has two different subjects in the love of the Father, from which
nothing will separate us in Romans 8:39, and in the love of Christ here. Their
fellowship finds expression in the unity of the event. What is striking is that
Paul does not subsume Christ within God, but names Christ along with God, who
works through Christ as the subject of this act of love. The whole sending of
the Son by the Father aims at the vicarious expiatory death on the cross. We
can only infer in this passage that giving himself “for me” is also “for sin”
in this passage. If a correct inference, it suggests a form of expiation as an
understanding of the cross. Yet, the notion of the Son involved in this loving
giving up to death introduces another complexity. Significantly, when we
reflect upon the action of Father and Son in the cross, Paul sees the love of
God in Romans 5:8 and the love of Christ in this verse, who also gave himself
up for us. In essence, in the cross we have one event, in which the Father and
the Son cooperate so fully that the work is that of God and that of Christ.
This orientation of the obedience and suffering of the Son toward the salvation
of many is also the will and work of the Father here.[14]
21 I do not nullify
the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died
for nothing. Paul ends his speech to Peter with a straightforward summary of what is
at stake.
Now while Paul originally addressed his words to Peter,
it is clear that he now directs his words at the teachers who have been
attempting to sway the Galatians. Just as Peter had compromised the gospel by
shunning the Gentiles in Antioch in deference to Jewish table regulations, so,
too, were the teachers threatening to undermine the gospel in their insistence
on circumcision and other Law observances. The letter to the Galatians is thus
a vigorous and sustained polemic against what Paul perceived to be serious
obstacles to the gospel that he had received from the Lord and handed on to the
Galatians.
We might
summarize the rhetorical strategy of this passage in the following way. Paul
recounts his version of the incident at Antioch in order to show how he stood
firmly for the "truth of the gospel." The concept "truth of the
gospel" is the focal point. He uses (his version of) the events in Antioch
as proof that at that time he already fought for the truth of the gospel
against attempts to falsify the gospel – the same truth that is under attack in
Galatia at this stage, thus implying that he is still fighting for the truth of
the gospel. One might break down the rhetorical strategy into four aspects.
First, Paul does not mention that he suffered a defeat in Antioch. Second, he
portrays his own behavior in Antioch as a defense of the truth of the gospel,
and so, again, he uses biography as proof. Third, he creates the impression
that his gospel is in accord with Christian tradition and Scripture, using both
as supporting his objective. Fourth, he places the events in Antioch into an
obvious application for the crisis in Galatia. He achieves this by gradually
shifting the focus from what happened in Antioch to the situation in Galatia.
In this process, he also highlights several key notions that form part of the
"truth of the gospel" – notions that were important in Antioch, but
more importantly, are crucial for the problems in Galatia.[15]
He enhances this dominant rhetorical strategy by means of
several supportive techniques, namely the vilification of his opponents;
repetition (including chiasm); two rhetorical questions; refutation of
criticism, and the effective use of metaphorical language.[16]
Paul concludes this portion
of his argument by casting in absolute terms the contrast between justification
through faith and justification through works: If the Law justifies, then it
nullifies the grace of God and "Christ died for nothing." The center
of Paul's theology of salvation by grace is the sacrificial death of Jesus as
an expression of God's gracious will. It is in acknowledging that act and
allowing its resultant sanctifying grace to transform his life that Paul is
able to say, as the ultimate affirmation of the new life in Christ, and without
hyperbole, "[I]t is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me."
Justification
through faith in Christ and not through works of the Law is, of course, a
fundamental and recurrent theme through all of Paul's writings (see, for
example, his discussions of and variations on this theme in Romans 3:9-20,
6:1-14, 8:9-17, 11:1-16; II Corinthians 5:14-21; Ephesians 2:1-10; Philippians
3:2-11.) It is not an exaggeration to say that justification through faith is
the center of Pauline theology, and increasingly became so as Paul sought to
spread the message of the gospel to an ever wider and more influential
audience. His problem with the righteousness of the Law is that it conflicts
with the righteousness of God and therefore becomes unrighteous. This is most
evident in his letter to the church at Rome, where the theme of justification
through faith finds its fullest and most mature expression (see the references
above). The letters to the Romans and to the Galatians share a number of
characteristics, such as justification through faith, a prominent role for
Abraham, and heavy reliance on Scripture. Yet, the contexts in which they
develop those ideas were quite divergent. Paul forged this text in the midst of
internal Christian controversy and not an unfettered introduction of the
Christian message to strangers.[17]
Justification has an important place in
theology. One obvious example is Luther. He stresses that with Paul “we”
absolutely deny the possibility of self-merit. God has never given to anyone
grace and eternal life as a reward for merit. For him, then, the true way of
salvation has its summary in two points. First, people need to realize that
they are sinners, unable to do any good thing. People who seek to earn grace by
their own efforts sins. The first step, then, is to repent. The second is that
God has sent the Son for remission of sins, righteousness, and eternal life.
God is the one who hands out such gifts. He explains the scholastic view of the
way of salvation in the following way. When a person happens to perform a good
deed, God accepts it and as a reward for the good deed, God pours charity into
that person. Thus, God “infuses” charity into them. It remains in the heart. As
he understands it, they claim that we are able to love God “by our own natural
strength.” As he sees it, this means that we “deserve” grace. Yet, since no one
can satisfy God with a literal performance of the Law, we still need a “formal
righteousness.” For him, in order to have faith one must paint a true portrait
of Christ. As he views it, the scholastics caricature Christ into a judge and
tormentor. For him, Christ is no lawgiver. He is the Lifegiver. He is the
Forgiver of sins. You must believe that Christ might have atoned for the sins
of the world with one single drop of His blood. Instead, He shed His blood
abundantly in order that He might give abundant satisfaction for our sins. For
Luther, we are so sinful that we needed “imputed righteousness” from Christ to
cover our sinfulness.
[1]
Betz
[2]
(see John Dow, "Galatians," The Abingdon Bible Commentary [New York:
Abingdon Press, 1929], 1207)
[3]
Barth (Church Dogmatics, IV.1 [61.4],
638, 639).
[4]
Barth (Church Dogmatics, IV.1 [61.4],
639).
[5]
(see Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, vol. 1 [New York:
Scribners, 1951], 89-90).
[7]
Barth (Church Dogmatics, IV.1 [61.5]
638).
[8]
Barth (Church Dogmatics, IV.1 [61.4]
638).
[9]
Barth, CD (II.2 [37.1], 559).
[10]
Barth, CD (IV.2, 277).
[11]
Barth, CD (IV.2 [66.6] 600 ff).
[12]
Barth, CD (II.2 [35.4] 488-489).
[13]
Barth, CD (IV.1 [63.1] 757).
[14]
Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Vol
I, 423, Vol II., 305, 438-9).
[17]
Barth, CD (IV.1 [61.2] 531),
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