HIS DEFENSE
But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the Law I died to the Law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and 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 delivered Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” (2:17–21)
By their behavior, Peter and the other Jewish Christians at Antioch had given approval to the Judaizers’ idea that it was necessary for a Gentile to keep the Jewish rituals before he could become a Christian. Paul’s defense of justification by faith in verses 17–21 continues his contradiction of this Judaistic legalism to which Peter and the others had succumbed.
It is crucial to understand that, as in the previous two verses, we refers to Jewish Christians. But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves, as Jewish Christians, have also been found sinners, Paul asks rhetorically, is Christ then a minister of sin?
His first point was to show that, if the Judaizers were correct in their doctrine that believers are saved in part by keeping the ceremonial law of Moses and continue to be bound by that law to maintain their salvation, then, even before the Judaizers arrived in Antioch, Peter, Barnabas, and all the other Jewish believers, including Paul, had fallen back into the category of sinners by having freely eaten and fellowshiped with Gentile Christians.
Paul’s second point was even more devastating. “If you became sinners because of fellowshiping with your Gentile brothers,” he implies, “then Christ Himself became a minister of sin, did he not?” How? Jesus had clearly taught that no food can spiritually contaminate a person, because food cannot affect the heart (Mark 7:19). Through the vision of the unclean animals and the dramatic conversion and anointing of Cornelius, the Lord had given Peter direct evidence that Gentile believers are in every way equal to Jewish believers (Acts 10). On many other occasions and in many other ways Jesus had taught that all those who belong to Him are one with Him and therefore one with each other. Shortly before His arrest, trial, and crucifixion, Jesus earnestly and repeatedly prayed to His Father that those who believed in Him “may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us … that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity” (John 17:21–23).
But if the Judaizers were right, Paul pointed out, Jesus was wrong; if they taught the truth, He had taught falsehood and was thereby a minister of sin! Such an accusation must have shaken Peter to his bones. To be called a hypocrite stung enough, but to be called a sinner was unthinkable, and to be accused of making Jesus a minister of sin was shocking and repulsive. Yet the logic of Paul’s argument was inescapable. By his actions, Peter had in effect condemned Jesus Christ. He therefore had to forsake his Judaistic sympathies or continue to make His Lord a liar.
To his own question Paul immediately responded, May it never be! It must have been painful to Paul to suggest even hypothetically that Christ could participate in, much less promote, sin. But the drastic danger of Judaistic legalism demanded such drastic logic. He knew of no other way to bring Peter and the others to their senses.
By using the term we in the previous verses, Paul had graciously identified himself with the compromisers to a certain extent. Now he even more graciously and lovingly softens the blow to his friends by using himself as a hypothetical example. For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, he said, I prove myself to be a transgressor. In other words, if anyone, including myself, tries to rebuild a system of legalism after he has once destroyed it by believing and preaching the gospel of God’s powerful grace and man’s sinful helplessness, he proves himself, not Christ, to be a transgressor. He proves himself to be a hypocrite and a sinner by abandoning grace for law.
“I could never do such a thing,” Paul asserts, “for through the Law I died to the Law, that I might live to God. The idea of legalism clashes with God’s clearest truth and my own deepest convictions. Now that I have accepted grace and died to the Law, I could never go back to its system of rituals and ordinances. Otherwise I could not live to God.” The law is not the believer’s master; God is. It is not his relation to the law that saves him, but his relation to God.
“Do you not know, brethren,” Paul asked the believers at Rome, “that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.… Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead that we might bear fruit for God” (Rom. 7:1–2, 4).
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. (Rom. 6:1–14)
In both Romans and Galatians, Paul is referring to the fact that when a person exercises faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, he is placed in transcendent spiritual union with Christ in the historical event of His death and resurrection, in which the penalty of sin was paid in full.
If a man is convicted of a capital crime and is put to death, the law obviously has no more claim on him. He has paid his debt to society. Therefore, even if he were to rise from the dead, he would still be guiltless before the law, which would have no claim on his new life. So it is with the believer who dies in Christ to rise in new life. He is free forever from any claim of the law on him. He paid the law’s demand when he died in Christ. His physical death is no punishment, only a release to glory provided in his union with Christ.
Legalism’s most destructive effect is that it cancels the effect of the cross. I have been crucified with Christ, Paul testifies, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. To go back under the law would be to cancel one’s union with Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and therefore to go back under sin.
I died to the Law, Paul explains, because I was crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live. The old man, the old self, is dead, crucified with Christ, and the new man lives (cf. Col. 3:9–10). Now I … live to God, because Christ lives in me (cf. Rom. 8:9). The life I received by faith I now also live by faith. The Greek verb behind live is in the perfect tense, indicating a past completed action that has continuing results. When a believer trusts in Christ for salvation he spiritually participates with the Lord in His crucifixion and in His victory over sin and death.
That is why, the apostle continues, the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God. The true Christian life is not so much a believer’s living for Christ as Christ’s living through the believer. Because in Christ “all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9), the fulness of God also dwells in every believer, as “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4).
I do not have such a divine life and the magnanimous privilege of being indwelt with the living, powerful Son of God because of anything I have done or merited, but only because He loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.
The surpassing motive, therefore, for all spiritual devotion and obedience is gratitude to the sovereign, gracious Lord. The statement who loved me refers to the motive behind God’s saving grace. The New Testament is replete with teaching on this great truth (see, e.g., John 3:16; Rom. 5:8; Eph. 2:5). The gift of love was not taken from Christ, but He delivered Himself up for me, says the apostle. This is reminiscent of our Lord’s words in John 10:17–18, “I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down of My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”
All of this saving work is the gift of God’s sovereign grace. Consequently, Paul concludes, I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly. In effect he was saying to Peter, “By withdrawing from fellowship with your Gentile brothers you take your stand with the Judaizers and against Christ. You nullify the grace of God by denying the need for Christ’s death, just as you did when you rebuked the Lord for declaring it was necessary for Him to suffer, be killed, and raised on the third day (see Matt. 16:21–22).
The two pillars of the gospel are the grace of God and the death of Christ, and those are the two pillars that, by its very nature, legalism destroys. The person who insists that he can earn salvation by his own efforts undermines the very foundation of Christianity and nullifies the precious death of Christ on his behalf.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1983). Galatians (pp. 57–60). Moody Press.
20 This same point Paul now repeats in greater detail, with the name of Christ prominent. He has died to law so that he might live for God, but this is true only because he has been joined to the Lord Jesus Christ by God the Father. Jesus died; so did Paul. Jesus rose again; so did Paul. The resurrection life he is now living he is living through the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ within him. There are different ways in which Paul’s references to having died and come to life in Christ may be taken; he himself uses the images in different ways. He may be referring to the participation of Christians in the benefits of Christ’s experiences, as Burton notes (in loc.). This would mean that Christians experience death and new life because Jesus experienced death and new life for them. He may be referring to Christian experiences analogous to those that Christ endured. Philippians 3:10 and Romans 8:17 would be examples of this usage. Finally, he may be referring to an actual participation of the believer in Christ’s death and resurrection conceived on the basis of the mystical union of the believer with the Lord (cf. Rom 6:4–8; Col 2:12–14, 20; 3:1–4). This last view is the hardest to understand, but it is the one involved here.
What does it mean to be “in Christ”? It means to be so united to Christ that all the experiences of Christ become the Christian’s experiences. Thus, his death for sin was the believer’s death; his resurrection was (in one sense) the believer’s resurrection; his ascension was the believer’s ascension, so that the believer is (again in one sense) seated with Christ “in the heavenly realms” (so Eph 2:6). This thought is particularly evident in Paul’s use of the perfect tense in speaking of his having been crucified with Christ. The perfect refers to something that has happened in the past but whose influence continues into the present. Therefore, Paul cannot be speaking of a present experience of Christ’s crucifixion, in whatever sense it may be conceived, but rather to Christ’s death itself. He died with Christ; that is, his “old man” died with Christ. This was arranged by God so that Christ, rather than the old Paul, might live in him.
In one sense, Paul is still living. But he adds that the life he lives now is lived “by faith.” It is a different life from the life in which he was striving to be justified by law. In another sense, it is not Paul who is living at all, but rather Christ who lives in him.
Boice, J. M. (1976). Galatians. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Romans through Galatians (Vol. 10, pp. 451–452). Zondervan Publishing House.
20, 21. Paul has shown that if he were to rebuild the very things—namely, salvation by law-works and everything connected with it—which he had torn down, he would prove himself a transgressor, because he would be doing something that would clash with his deepest convictions based on past experience (verses 18, 19). To this he now (in verses 20, 21) adds that such action would also destroy the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross. In his own experience faith in Christ Crucified has thoroughly replaced confidence in whatever he might have been able to accomplish by means of law-works. That is the connection between verses 20, 21 and the immediately preceding context. Since the closing passage of the chapter has rightly endeared itself to believers of every age, I shall treat it in the manner in which similar most precious texts have been presented in this series of Commentaries, namely, in the form of a theme and a brief outline or summary:
The Riddle of Having Been Crucified with Christ
(1). The Riddle Propounded
Paul starts out by saying: I have been crucified with Christ. What a startling assertion! Here is the great apostle to the Gentiles at this love-feast of the Antiochian church. He is addressing an audience the bulk of which consisted of believers both of Gentile and Jewish origin. Peter and Barnabas are in this audience. Undoubtedly some of the men who had come from Jerusalem and who, though nominally confessing Jesus as their Savior, were always making trouble by stressing salvation by obedience to law far more than salvation by grace through faith, had also tarried in Antioch long enough to cause their presence at this particular meeting to be felt.
Now in this meeting-place that day there was a situation which at many a get-together would be considered improper, but which without any doubt is highly objectionable in a church, and most emphatically at a love-feast, a religious-social meeting characterized by all or most of the following elements: prayers, sacred songs, the reading and brief exposition of Scripture, eating and drinking together, and partaking of the Lord’s Supper. That deplorable condition was this, that the church-members were cliquing. Segregation was being practiced, yes, right here in the church meeting: Jews eating exclusively with Jews, leaving the Gentile believers no other choice than to eat with other Gentiles. This violation of the principle of the oneness of all believers “in Christ” occurred because undue respect was being accorded to the Judaizers. Peter, who previously had been freely eating with the Gentile believers, had allowed himself to be scared into withdrawing himself from them. He was now seen sitting or reclining in the company of Jews; Barnabas, ditto; and the same was true with respect to the rest of the Jews, as if the cross of Christ had been of no avail in taking down the barrier that had divided Jews and Gentiles!
It is under such circumstances that Paul arises and points to the significance which Christ Crucified had come to assume in his own life. Having first shown that “a man is not justified by law-works”—for example, by rigidly adhering to traditional regulations regarding eating and drinking—, but only through faith in Jesus Christ, the apostle closes his stirring address with the passage which starts out with these ringing words: “I have been crucified with Christ.” Something marvelous had happened to Paul in the past, with abiding significance for the present and for all future time.
But what can he mean by this? Must this saying be taken literally? Cases of survival after crucifixion have occurred, but certainly the present context, marked by use of words in an other-than-literal sense (for example, Paul also affirms that he is no longer alive!), cannot be interpreted literally. Are the words to be understood emotionally, perhaps (after the manner in which some explain Phil. 3:10)? Is it Paul’s intention to convey the thought that with mind and heart he had been contemplating the story of Christ’s great love for sinners, shown in his entire sojourn on earth but especially at Calvary, until he (Paul) had at last tearfully arrived at the point of identifying himself with the Great Sufferer, that is, of feeling, in some small degree, what he had felt and undergoing what he had experienced? But though such sharing in Christ’s sufferings, when applied to the heart by the Holy Spirit, so that its boundaries are not overstepped, and its implications as to the sinner’s guilt and his pardon are sanctified to the heart, can be very beneficial, this explanation would fail to do justice to the concrete situation that occasioned this famous testimony. Is it then to be explained forensically, that is, in terms of the law-court? Does Paul mean that he, too, along with all of God’s children, had been declared “Guilty and exposed to the sentence of eternal death,” but that at Calvary, due to Christ’s redemptive suffering as our Substitute and Representative, this sentence had been changed into its very opposite, namely, “Righteous and an heir of eternal life”? Certainly, in such a case the apostle would have had the perfect right to say that he had been crucified along with Christ and also that with Christ he had arisen from the dead. Moreover, this forensic explanation would bring the passage into line with many others (for example, Isa. 53:4–6, 8, 12; Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45; John 1:29; Gal. 1:4; 3:13; Eph. 2:1, 3, 5, 6; Col. 2:12–14, 20; 3:1; 1 Tim. 3:6). But even though this meaning may well have been included, does it exhaust the contents of Paul’s remarkable affirmation? Does it solve the riddle, and does it do justice to the present historical, as well as literary, context?
No doubt the best procedure is to let Paul be his own interpreter. Accordingly, we proceed to:
(2). The Riddle Partly Clarified but Also Partly Intensified
Paul continues: and it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. This at least shows that when the apostle said, “I have been crucified with Christ” (literally, according to word order: “With Christ I have been crucified”), he meant that the process of crucifixion had been carried to its conclusion: he had been crucified, abidingly experiences the effects of this crucifixion, and, therefore, he is now no longer alive! But in what sense has he been crucified and is he no longer alive? The answer that suits the present context is this, that Paul is saying: “As a self-righteous Pharisee, who based his hope for eternity on strict obedience to law, I, as a direct result of Christ’s crucifixion, have been crucified and am no longer alive.” That, after all, was exactly the issue here at Antioch! “In order to be saved, is it necessary that, in addition to believing in Christ, we observe the old traditions; particularly, that we adhere to the laws concerning eating and drinking, and that we accordingly separate ourselves from the Gentiles?” That was the question. It is as if the apostle were saying, “I used to be of that persuasion myself. I was ‘as to law a Pharisee, as to legal righteousness blameless’ (Phil. 3:5, 6). But when, by God’s marvelous grace, I was rescued from my sinful folly, then, ‘such things as once were gains to me, these I counted loss for Christ.’ And now I rejoice in no longer having ‘a righteousness of my own, legal righteousness, but that which is through faith in Christ’ (Phil. 3:9). Therefore ‘it is Christ who now lives in me’: it is from him that I receive all my strength. In him I trust completely. On his righteousness, imputed to me, I base my hope for eternity. ‘On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.’ ”
For those in the audience who were used to interpreting everything literally (and there are such people, now as well as then!), the riddle may not as yet have been cleared up, however. They may have said to themselves, “But how can Paul say that he is no longer alive? If he were no longer alive, how could he be addressing us?” For them, accordingly, the riddle propounded by the man who was addressing them may have been intensified instead of solved. The apostle does not ignore them. He clears up this point also, for in the next line we see:
(3). The Riddle Fully Explained
Paul had not been trying to say that in no sense whatever was he still alive. He had not fallen into the error of those mystics who, on the basis of the present passage and of other passages, proclaim the doctrine of the merging of the believers’ personality with that of Christ, in such a way that in reality only one personality can be said to exist, namely, that of Christ. The apostle fully clears up this point by stating: and that (life) which I now live in flesh I live in faith, (the faith) which is in the Son of God. Paul has not been deprived of his life “in flesh,” that is, earthly existence. It is still Paul, the individual, who thinks, exhorts, bears witness, rejoices. Nevertheless, the bond between himself and his Lord is a very close one, for it is the bond of faith. Humble trust in Christ is the channel through which Paul receives the strength he needs to meet every challenge (Phil. 4:13). By means of this unshakable confidence in his Redeemer he surrenders all to him and expects all from him. This faith, moreover, is very personal, and this both as to subject and object. First, as to subject. Note the constant use of the pronoun I. In verses 19–21 it is twice spelled out fully as a separate pronoun (first at the beginning of verse 19: “For I—ego—through law died to law,” and then in verse 20, at the end of the clause which A.V. renders literally, “nevertheless I live; yet not I—ego—”). In addition “I” occurs no less than seven times as part of a verbal form. Finally, there are the three occurrences of this same pronoun in a case other than nominative, translated me in each instance (verse 20). That makes no less than twelve “I’s” in all in just three verses! It shows that salvation is, indeed, a very personal affair: each individual must make his own decision, and each believer experiences his own fellowship with Christ, relying upon him with all the confidence of his own heart. Then also this faith is personal as to its object: Christ, not something pertaining to Christ but Christ himself. When Paul, who had been a bitter persecutor, reflects on the manner in which his Lord and Savior had taken pity on him, unworthy one, he, perhaps in order to emphasize the greatness of Christ’s condescending love, reminds us of the fact that the One who so loved him was no less than “the Son of God,” hence, himself God! (“the faith which is in the Son of God”). He adds: who loved me and gave himself up for me. Note: not just gave, but gave up. In that act of giving himself up to shame, condemnation, scourging, the crown of thorns, mockery, crucifixion and abandonment by his Father, death, and burial, the love of the Son of God for his people—“for me”—had become most gloriously manifest. How, then, would it ever be possible for Paul to minimize in any way the significance of the cross? This leads to the conclusion:
(4). The Riddle Applied to the Present Concrete Situation
Paul writes: I do not set aside the grace of God. Of this simple line, too, there are several explanations, some of them without any reference to the present context. The simplest interpretation is surely this one: “I do not set aside—declare invalid, nullify—the grace of God, which I surely would be doing if I were attempting by means of law-works—for example, strict obedience to regulations concerning eating and drinking—to secure my acceptance with God, my state of righteousness before him.” In complete harmony with this thought the apostle adds: for if justification (were) through law, then Christ died in vain. Paul is saying, therefore, to Peter, to Barnabas, to all those present that day at this love-feast in Antioch, to the Galatians, who have allowed themselves to be influenced by the Judaizers, and certainly also to the modern man who imagines that by doing good and giving everyone his due he can be saved, that a definite choice must be made, namely, between salvation by grace and salvation by law-works, by Christ or by self.
We are firmly convinced that Peter knew in his heart—and was glad—that his “beloved brother Paul” (2 Peter 3:15) had rendered an incalculably valuable service to the cause of the unity of all believers in Christ, to the demands of Christian love, and to the doctrine of the all-sufficiency of Christ unto salvation. Barnabas and many of the others must have been similarly persuaded.
Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Galatians (Vol. 8, pp. 103–107). Baker Book House.
Truth2Freedom's Blog 