But when Peter came to Antioch, I withstood him to [the] face, because he was to be condemned
At Antioch, Jewish and Gentile believers ate at the same table. Then Cephas — Peter, the most respected of the twelve apostles — withdrew and broke that table apart. Paul confronted him in the open, and later wrote the whole episode into a letter. Why was one shared meal worth a clash between two apostles?
Peter did not teach the error. He had already learned the truth he now dropped in practice, and he had defended it in the open.
Some from Judea had taught the believers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." Peter had been taught the folly of this in a remarkable way (see Acts 10:9-16). For a while he learned his lesson. He said to Cornelius, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean." After Peter had returned to Jerusalem, he defended his conduct in eating with uncircumcised people. When he went to Antioch he at first ate with the Gentiles. But when certain men came from James, "he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party."
Sitting down to eat with someone was not a neutral act. It said something publicly, and everyone watching understood the message.
Before certain men came from James, "he ate with the Gentiles." That was a mark of fellowship with them. Even now, and everywhere, it is the well-known sign of the same thing... In ordinary life, sharing a meal is the token of friendly feeling. With Christians it ought to be so all the more, for their calling is to walk in everything with godly sincerity.
So the withdrawal itself taught something, whatever Peter meant by it. Follow what it implies.
If Peter had the mind of the Lord in separating himself from the Gentile believers at Antioch, then something else was needed. For why did he now refuse to eat with them? Only because they were uncircumcised. If Peter was right, circumcision still counted for something, since it gave the Jew an advantage. In other words, faith in Christ needed a work of the law added to it for justification. Someone might argue that this was a small thing. Give up that one point, and Jewish and Gentile believers would have peace. But this "small thing" undermined the whole truth of grace, and cast a slur on the work of Christ.
One old translation softened the word Paul used. Peter's high standing made his act worse, not easier to excuse.
His cowardice was all the more shameful now, because he had confronted the strict Pharisee-minded believers in Jerusalem once (Acts 11) and again (Acts 15). It was worse still because he was so honoured and influential. But the apostle to the Gentiles was faithful and resisted him to the face, because he was "condemned" — not merely "blameworthy," which is how the Latin version wrongly softens it.
Peter's withdrawal did not stop with Peter. His example pulled in the other Jewish believers, and then Paul's own colleague.
No wonder the other Jews followed their leader. But what can we say when we see even Paul's own fellow-worker led astray!... It is a great test for the saints when such men go astray. Satan knows how to mislead lovely characters, so that he may the better achieve his unworthy ends. Their personal qualities and their past faithful service have won such men a place in the hearts of the saints. All of this puts the unwary off their guard, and so traps their souls. It is not safe to follow even "a good man." In such times the eye must be off men and fixed on the Lord, to reach a sound judgment.
Rank did not silence Paul. Peter was honoured and senior, yet the gospel was in Paul's care.
To Paul, Peter was not a superior before whom juniors must keep a respectful silence. God had worked powerfully in Peter. Even so, his fellow apostle stayed faithful to the One who had called him. He could not let anyone falsify the gospel, which the Lord Himself had entrusted to his care. Eager as he was, poor Peter always cared too much about the opinion of others.
Peter's own later writing shows how he took the rebuke.
Notice how Peter writes of Paul, the man who once had to withstand and rebuke him at Antioch. There is not a trace of bitterness, nor a trace of the law-keeping spirit Paul had to withstand. Martyrdom was approaching for both of them, and it is "our beloved brother Paul." Delightful, is it not? Here is the freest flow of Christian affection. Here is the fullest acknowledgement of the grace and gift given to another man rather than to himself.
- Fear — Peter knew better and had defended the truth before. At Antioch no new teaching moved him. Fear of the circumcision party did.
- Fellowship — eating together was the known sign of fellowship. Peter's withdrawal preached louder than any sermon.
- Fault — the word is stronger than "blameworthy". Peter stood condemned. His honoured place made the cowardice worse, not lighter.
- Follow — the failure spread to the other Jews and even to Barnabas. It is not safe to follow even a good man. The eye must be off men and on the Lord.
- Faithfulness — the open rebuke kept the gospel safe, and Peter took it without bitterness. He later called Paul "our beloved brother".
for before that certain came from James, he ate with [those of] the nations; but when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing those of [the] circumcision;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and the rest of the Jews also played the same dissembling part with him; so that even Barnabas was carried away too by their dissimulation.
At Antioch, Jewish and Gentile believers ate at the same table. Then that table emptied. Peter pulled back first, the other Jewish believers followed, and even Barnabas went with them. How does a group of sincere people end up acting against what they know is true?
Paul does not accuse anyone of changing their mind. He accuses them of behaving against a conviction they still held.
"Dissimulation," that is, hypocrisy, is Paul's word for it, because they were acting straight against their own conscientious convictions. Truly, "the fear of man lays a snare" — even on apostles of Christ!
That distinction explains how the failure spread. No argument had changed anyone's mind.
Peter withdrew and separated himself. He did not do it because he was convinced he had done wrong. He simply gave way to the opposition he feared, where Paul had not given way. Such an example in such a place soon did great harm. The other Jews put on the same act with him. Again, it was not conviction, but a backward move made despite their convictions.
Reputation works in two directions. It makes a man give way, and it makes others copy him.
What a poor thing man is! We are weak in proportion to our importance before men. When we are nothing, we can do all things, as far as human opinion is concerned. At the same time, we have a bad influence on others in the same measure that they influence us. And they influence us in the measure that we give in to the desire to keep our reputation with them. Even the respect people rightly give us becomes a means of evil.
Paul names Barnabas last, and with surprise. Of all people, he had the most credentials and the least excuse.
That the other Jews should follow their leader may not be surprising. But what can we say when we see even Paul's own fellow-worker led astray! He had worked with Paul in the gospel. He had joined him in planting Gentile churches everywhere. He had served with such acceptance and blessing in this very church. He of all people should have been proof against such a thing. The Spirit describes him elsewhere as "a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith." ... It is not safe to follow even "a good man," as many in our own day can sadly testify. In such crises, the eye must be off men and fixed on the Lord, to reach a sound judgment.
This looked like table manners. It was the gospel. The old dispute had come back in new clothes. The argument sounded reasonable.
If they could not make Gentile converts live like Jews, then those who had been Jews should certainly keep apart from them. So the dividing wall would go back up in practice... True, no word of God imposed the law of Moses on the Gentiles. But the word of God had clearly imposed the law on the children of Israel. Must not all such still keep it? If so, they must then separate socially from other Christians. Paul and Barnabas had defended the stronghold of Christian truth with success. Now it seemed about to surrender without conditions.
With Barnabas gone, Paul had no one left beside him.
He had once been the strictest of Pharisees, full of zeal for the law. Yet by grace he held his ground. He stepped into the gap and preserved the truth for the whole Church of God. At that moment he was, you could say, the one strand of the rope that kept the whole from breaking.
The rebuke was public and humiliating. What it left behind in Peter is the surprise.
Peter forgot how Paul had opposed him to his face at Antioch, and had to shame him in front of them all. This is what grace can do. Grace is a fine thing, and this is a fine touch of it, as the curtain falls on the Apostle Peter. Whatever the scene at Antioch had stirred up in his heart was settled forever. He simply loved Paul, and loved him all the more because of his faithfulness.
- Fear starts it. Peter did not change his convictions; he gave way to opposition he feared. The snare is the fear of man, not bad doctrine.
- Reputation spreads it. The bigger our name, the weaker we are. The respect others give us becomes the channel our failure travels along.
- "Even Barnabas" measures it. Even a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, went along with it. No name is safe to follow with the eye off the Lord.
- The gospel pays for it. What looked like a question of who eats with whom was the old wall between Jew and Gentile going back up, and the truth of the gospel surrendered in practice.
- One man can hold it. Paul stood alone, the one strand that kept the rope from breaking. The friendship survived too, because grace outlasts a rebuke.
But when I saw that they do not walk straightforwardly, according to the truth of the glad tidings, I said to Peter before all, If *thou*, being a Jew, livest as the nations and not as the Jews, how dost thou compel the nations to Judaize?
At Antioch, Jewish and Gentile believers ate at one table, and Peter — Cephas in this verse — ate freely with them until visitors came from Jerusalem. Then he pulled back, and Paul rebuked him in front of everyone — so why did a change of seat count as a break with the truth of the gospel?
Paul's words describe the shape of a walk. Peter had not turned back, but he had bent off the straight road.
This walk was not "straightforward," they were not going in a straight path. We need to walk straight. Peter was deviating, he made a detour. Sometimes we have to make a detour because the road is blocked. This detour was not allowed, because it compromised the truth of the gospel. This great truth and the unity of the company were at stake, and by the grace of God, Paul's action preserved them. Why was the rebuke public? The mistake had happened in public, so it needed a public correction. And the man who made it was a leader.
Peter had not changed his mind about the gospel. Something else moved him.
The root of Peter's failure, as so often with us, was the vanity of the flesh that wanted to look good in other people's eyes. He feared that he would lose his reputation with those "of the circumcision." This fear led him to pretend and take a crooked path. He no longer walked straight according to the truth of the gospel. By his act he ignored the unity of the Spirit, denied the truth of the gospel, and brought in division among the saints.
Nothing Peter said was wrong. What he did said something his preaching denied.
Peter at Antioch was clearly inconsistent with the truth of the Gospel. He does not appear to have at all denied it in his teaching. In theory he admitted its truth, but his action in withdrawing from the Gentile believers, and no longer eating with them, was disobedience to the truth. In practice it built again the "dividing wall" which the Cross had pulled down. It implied that believing Jews still lived in the life of Judaism, and believing Gentiles in the life of the Gentiles, instead of both now being in the life of Christ.
Ordinary decisions carry more weight than we assume:
In some simple matter of everyday life there may be, in effect, an abandonment of Christ and the truth of the gospel, a lie against His grace… We tend to make light of what concerns God, and to treat what affects ourselves as very important… So the truth of the gospel hung on a dinner. The simple act of eating or not eating with the Gentiles reveals a person's heart on the question of deliverance from the law.
Peter never made a rule. Yet his example set the terms for accepting Gentiles.
Why then would Peter force the Gentiles to keep Jewish custom before they could be given full Christian fellowship? It was a complete reversal of behavior. The principle in it was that of leaving Christianity and going back to Judaism.
The sting of Paul's question lies in Peter's own freedom from the law:
What had Peter been doing? He had never held the law as a rule for the Jewish believers. Why, then, did he yield to an act which implied it among the Gentiles? If it was not so in Jerusalem, where God had long ago bound it on their conscience, what a turning away from the truth! A man who knew his own deliverance was now insisting on it in practice at Antioch.
Peter's honoured place made the damage worse, not the rebuke improper.
The more a man is honoured, the greater the stumbling-block to others if he fails — and in this case there was true ground for respect. That is what happened here. All the Jews, and even Barnabas, joined Peter in the pretence, and no longer dared to walk with the Gentiles. The unity of the Spirit was lost, as also the truth of the gospel. Paul could not let this pass. When he saw that Peter was not walking straight, he rebuked him in front of everyone. Authority cannot make evil good nor good evil.
The clash did not end in a rift. Both men had a part in what came out of it.
It was faithfulness to God that gave the rebuke, and grace that enabled Peter to profit by it. The result was that the gospel of Christ was preserved.
- Straight — the standard is a straight walk. Peter took a detour, and it compromised the truth of the gospel.
- Fear — the detour began in wanting to look good to others. Fear of losing his reputation bent his conduct.
- Practice — his teaching stayed right. His conduct rebuilt the wall the Cross had pulled down.
- Spread — one honoured man's example pulled the other Jews, and even Barnabas, after him. The fault was public, so the correction was public.
- Preserved — faithfulness gave the rebuke, grace received it, and the gospel came through intact.
We, Jews by nature, and not sinners of [the] nations,
Paul's public correction of Peter does not stop at a question. It moves on to a statement Peter could not deny. It starts from the one advantage Peter was leaning on — Jewish birth. The verse grants that advantage in the Jews' own words, and that concession is what springs Paul's argument.
The phrase is not just an insult. It reflects how Scripture speaks of those outside Israel. God never gave the nations the law of Moses, so they could not break it as Israel could. Scripture uses a different word for them. (Older translations read "sinners of the Gentiles," and that is the wording the writers below quote.)
The Jew had a claim of righteousness, because he was under law. But if he sinned, he carried extra guilt. He had broken a law he knew, and that law was the law of God. So he was a "transgressor." The Gentile could not be one. As a rule the Gentile knew nothing about the law, and most of them had not even heard of it. So it is quite wrong to use that word of the Gentiles, as if they were transgressors. Scripture never speaks that way, but calls them lawless or sinners; as for instance Galatians 2:15 says, "sinners of the Gentiles."
It was also the everyday label Jews used for outsiders. Paul puts it back in front of Peter.
"Sinners from the nations" was the way the Jews looked at the Gentiles. The Jews believed they were better than the Gentiles. Paul uses those old words back to Peter — words that showed the natural pride of heart which refused to admit "there is no difference." Peter knew this was true. He knew well that there was "no difference" — not in sin before God, and not in salvation by grace alone, without works.
The distinction Paul names was real. It came by birth, not by anything a Jew chose or believed.
"We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles." This again is a hard saying. No one is a Christian by nature. He may be born to Christian parents, brought up under Christian discipline, and keep to Christian ordinances. But unless he is born of God, all such outward privileges are worth nothing to him. Here is the real point: how few ask themselves — Am I in Christ? Now the Jew had natural hereditary privileges. He was born a Jew.
The label lands on the reader too.
It is good for us believers from among the Gentiles to keep fresh in our memory the healthy though humbling fact that, apart from a living faith in Christ, "sinners of the Gentiles" is our natural and true description. It is a title of dishonour, which faith exchanges for a new and lasting name of praise.
Notice the pronoun. Paul does not say "you" to Peter. He says "we," and puts them both inside one confession.
In verses 15 and 16 we have the apostle's assertion which followed his question. In this assertion Paul could link Peter with himself, and Peter could not deny it. "WE," he says. "We, who are Jews by nature" have recognised that justification does not come by "the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ." So we turned from law to Christ, and He justified us.
The privilege taught these men a lesson outsiders never had to learn. The law left its own people bankrupt.
These Jews by nature were not sinners of the Gentiles. But God had taught them a much deeper truth. They came to see that under the law they were helpless, hopeless debtors to the Lord. They also saw that outward Jewish privilege was completely empty and misleading... What should have been their crown of honour had become their yoke of degradation.
Paul starts with the best case for Jewish standing. Then he gives it no weight in justification, and nothing is left for anyone to stand on.
He speaks of something they might have boasted about, since he was a Jew himself. But they had come to see that no person is justified on the principle of works of law. This took the whole foundation from under the feet of those who made the Law their support. It completely destroys confidence in the flesh. It brings all people down to one level of spiritual helplessness and nothingness.
- Birth. Being a Jew by birth was a real inherited privilege. But it was birth, not new birth, and outward privilege saves no one.
- Label. Scripture calls the nations sinners, not transgressors, because they were never under the law. The label was true, but it fed Jewish pride.
- "We." Paul joins himself to Peter in the sentence. The argument becomes a shared confession Peter could not deny.
- Bankrupt. Those with the greatest advantage learned first that they were helpless debtors. Their crown of honour had become a yoke.
- Level ground. Once the best human standing counts for nothing in justification, everyone stands on the same ground. Faith in Christ is the only footing left.
but knowing that a man is not justified on the principle of works of law [nor] but by the faith of Jesus Christ, *we* also have believed on Christ Jesus, that we might be justified on the principle of [the] faith of Christ; and not of works of law; because on the principle of works of law no flesh shall be justified.
Paul rebuked Peter in public at Antioch over a shared meal, and out of that clash came this verse. It sets works of the law against faith in Christ, and says only one of them can justify anyone.
The dispute looked small — a question of who could share a meal. Paul read it differently.
Refusing to share a table with fellow believers who were not circumcised looked like a small thing. Yet Paul saw the truth of the gospel at stake. A straw is enough to show which way a stream flows, and Paul judged this the same way... Paul reminded his Jewish brother of the ground on which they all stood before God. Had they ever found justification by law? Had the law ever done anything for them but condemn them?
Paul begins with the people who had the most to boast about. Then he takes their ground away.
He speaks of what might have been an occasion for boasting, since he himself was a Jew. But God had given them light to know that no person is justified on the principle of works of law. This took the whole foundation out from under the feet of those who made the Law their support. It destroys confidence in the flesh completely. It brings all people down to the same level of spiritual helplessness and nothingness.
So what counts as a work of the law? The answer reaches wider than the law of Moses.
Bear in mind that when the apostle Paul dwells on law, he does not limit his remarks to the Jewish law, but argues on the principle itself. He says, and means, not just that you cannot be justified by the works of the law, but by no law at all. If there were a law that could justify, it would have to be the law of God given through Moses. But Paul goes further: by works of law you cannot be justified. The law principle is opposed to justification instead of being the means of it.
The same principle appears wherever people expect God to meet their own effort halfway.
What is it to be "justified by the law"? Does the person who holds that "man must do his part and God will do His" come near that ground, or not? Law works are not bad works. Its first and great commandment is, "You shall love the Lord your God." The second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself"... Yet those who are of the works of the law — standing on that ground before God — are under the curse.
So what does justified mean? It is a courtroom word, and it means more than being let off.
Justification is judicial righteousness. In other words, God counts us righteous before Himself... It means that God accounts us judicially righteous, in His own presence. That is the believer's standing: positive, absolute and unchanging, now and forever. It is not just pardon or forgiveness, which is negative in character. It is a positive state of settled and permanent righteousness in Christ before God.
Three small Greek words stand behind this verse. Each says something different about faith.
The Greek New Testament uses three prepositions with the verb to justify. All three occur in two verses in Galatians (2:16-17). We are said to be justified by, or on the principle of (ek), faith, in contrast to works. Justification flows from faith, not from works. Then we are said to be justified instrumentally by, or through (dia), faith. We are also said to be justified by, or in (en), Christ, in contrast to being justified by, or in (en), the law.
Paul's final clause is not a new ruling. Peter had read it long before.
Peter and Paul themselves have no hope of being justified by works... Whether Paul or Peter, Jew or Gentile, Galatians or Chinese, there is no difference. We all have sinned. The only hope for every one of us is Christ Jesus, and only faith in Him. Why then, Peter, are you adding your own works?... Do you not remember your own Old Testament, where Psalm 143:2 says, "No man living shall be justified"?
(Willis quotes an older rendering of Psalm 143:2; the ESV reads, "no one living is righteous before you.")
- Stakes — a straw shows which way a stream flows. One small compromise at a meal showed the gospel drifting, so Paul rebuked Peter in front of everyone.
- Level — the argument starts with the people who had the most to boast about. It leaves them on the same level as everyone else.
- Law — no law at all can justify, not only the law of Moses. The works law asks for are good works, so it is easy to lean on them.
- Faith — justification flows from faith, comes through faith, and rests in Christ, not in law.
- Verdict — not a pardon on probation, but a settled standing of righteousness. Their own Scriptures had already said no one could reach it any other way.
Now if in seeking to be justified in Christ we also have been found sinners, then [is] Christ minister of sin? Far be the thought.
Paul is still answering Peter, who had eaten with Gentile believers and then refused to. Paul makes that small step a test of the whole gospel. If we must add law-keeping to Christ, then Christ Himself led us into sin.
Kelly traces the logic backwards, from Peter's act to the gospel that had taught him to eat with Gentiles.
But then he goes further. He says, "But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin?" This is what Peter's conduct would have led to. Had Peter been right, it was clear that the gospel had put Peter in the wrong. The gospel had led Peter to treat Jews and Gentiles all alike. In his ways and words, the gospel had led him to approve the tearing down of the dividing wall. If Peter was acting rightly now, all this had been a mistake, and so the gospel — and, solemn to say, Christ Himself — would be a minister of sin.
One small word carries the argument. Some translations read "while we seek to be justified"; Darby says that is wrong.
"While" is all wrong; it should be "if, in seeking to be" — then Christ is a minister of sin.
The phrase "justified in Christ" is often misread. It names the cause of justification, not a place we must first stand in.
Justified in Christ is always used in contrast to being justified in the law. Does justified in the law mean justified by being in the law? Of course not, everyone will say. No more, then, does justified in Christ mean justified by being in Christ. The phrase justified in tells of the cause of justification. It shows that we are justified on the ground of the thing named — whether the law, Christ, or His blood.
Bringing back the law after Christ does not lift a person. It fixes him in the very condition he came to Christ to escape.
If you profess faith in the Lord Jesus and then go back to the law, the effect must be to leave you a sinner… The law never gives deliverance from sin. As the apostle says elsewhere, "The power of sin is the law."… The soul that has to do with the law never knows deliverance from sin. The law only detects the evil; it does not lift the soul above it. So it leaves the man powerless, miserable and condemned.
Paul puts to Peter the exact opposite of what Christ is. Older translations read "minister of sin"; the ESV has "servant of sin".
Peter's action seemed to suggest that we need something more to complete our justification, even when we stand in all the value of Christ's work — law-keeping, or the keeping of Jewish customs. If that were true, is Christ not then discredited? Paul states it in the strongest words: is Christ not even "the Minister of sin" instead of the Minister of justification? To ask such a question is to answer it. It is impossible!
Follow Peter's logic and it ends in a charge no believer would ever speak aloud.
Peter was a Jew like the rest. When he refused to eat with the Gentiles, he was building the system of the law again… But he had given up that way of justification to believe on Christ, so that he might be justified by faith in Christ. Now, by building the system of the law again, he made himself a transgressor for having left it. Yet it was Christ who had led him to leave it. Christ then was the minister of sin! This could not be.
The principle reaches past Jewish customs. It touches any system that starts the believer over again each week as an unforgiven person.
Suppose you can start again fresh as a Christian every Sunday, and yet still need a priest to declare you forgiven. That leaves room for the heart to be false to the Lord all the rest of the week. It also denies, in practice, that His work is effective… While the law is kept up, there is no deliverance from the condition of a sinner. Christian worship is impossible in such a case.
- Back. Peter went back to Jewish separation after Christ had led him out of it. Paul treated that small step as an attack on the gospel.
- Guilt. Rebuild what you tore down, and you were either wrong then or wrong now. Either way you stand condemned.
- Blame. Christ led you out of the law. If the law was right all along, the blame lands on Him — He becomes a servant of sin instead of the Minister of justification.
- Impossible. Paul's answer is an instant refusal: "Certainly not!" To ask the question is to answer it.
- Forward. Justification rests on Christ, not on law. A system that resets you every week as an unforgiven sinner denies that His work is effective, and it makes worship impossible.
For if the things I have thrown down, these I build again, I constitute myself a transgressor.
Paul has just rebuked Peter in public for pulling back from Gentile believers. Now he turns that rebuke into an argument anyone can test. The verse asks a simple question: if a man tears something down and then puts it back up, which act was the mistake?
The "things" Paul speaks of are not vague. Peter himself had torn down the barrier between Jew and Gentile. One writer walks through that history step by step.
It was Peter himself who had first opened the door of the good news to the Gentiles. It was Peter himself who had first eaten with them. It was Peter himself who defended what he did when "the circumcision party criticized him" (Acts 11:2) about it. It was Peter himself who had begun building. Now Peter reverses his whole course. He had been tearing down the ceremonies of the Jewish law. He had been tearing down the wall that divided Jew from Gentile. Now he is building that wall up again, and tearing down the freedom of Christ. So if he is right now, he shows everybody that he was wrong before. He shows himself to be a transgressor.
Both actions cannot be right. One of them has to be the transgression.
If I was not a transgressor in destroying, then I am certainly a transgressor in rebuilding. If one was not a transgressor in giving up Judaism for Christ, then how can he ever dare to go back to Judaism again?
Push the reasoning one step further. It was Christ who led Paul away from the law in the first place.
Now I have left the law, argues the apostle, to come to Christ. If I set it up again, then I was wrong to destroy it. But Christ led me to do it. So He has brought me into what is wrong. That is what you do when you set up the law again: you make Christ a servant of sin.
Paul does not say he makes himself a sinner. He says transgressor, and that word belongs to people who have a law.
So we never hear the Gentiles called "transgressors" in their guilt, because they were not under the law as the Jews were. We read of "Gentile sinners" (Gal. 2:15), because they were sinful men, of course, though they were not under the law. (Rom. 2:14) On the other hand, when we have in view either Adam, who had a law (Rom. 5:14), or the Jews, who had the law (Hosea 6:7; Gal. 2:18), the word "transgressors" fits and carries its full force.
Anyone who tries to hold Christ and the law together is caught from both sides. One writer sets out the trap in Paul's own voice.
If I agree, as a Christian, to distinctions in the flesh, I make nonsense of my own confession. I make myself a transgressor twice over, and hopelessly so. For if the law's claims on a believer's conscience still hold, then I transgressed it when I stopped doing legal works so that I could be justified by faith. But suppose the law's rule over me ended when I received and confessed the Son of God. To treat Jewish ceremonies as still valid is to revive the hostility that Christ has killed. That would make me a transgressor of the new covenant as well as the old. If that is the case, I have no sure footing. If Christ is enough, I dishonour Him by going back to the law.
The principle outlives Peter's mistake. It turns into a question any reader can answer.
If God brings souls out from under law, it is transgression to go back to it in any form. But if God does not set them free like that, then it is transgression to leave it. Let the Galatians settle the question before God. Was He leading them there, or was it the enemy?
Commentators differ on who the "I" stands for. Some read it as still aimed at Peter. Others take Paul to be putting the case in his own person, for the Galatians to weigh.
- Pull down — Peter had already torn down the wall of ceremony and eaten with Gentiles.
- Build again — refusing that table put the wall back up, and one man cannot be right in both acts.
- Verdict — rebuilding does not just repeat an old mistake. It condemns the tearing down and names the builder a transgressor.
- Christ accused — Christ led him out of the law. So setting it up again would make Christ the author of his wrong, which cannot be.
- Today's test — ask who is leading: if God brought you out from under law, going back in any form is the transgression.
For *I*, through law, have died to law, that I may live to God.
Paul now speaks for himself and tells the story of his own release. The law he had lived by was the very thing that ended his bond with it. And the aim of that ending was not freedom to do as he pleased. It was life toward God.
Paul does not say he escaped the law or ignored it. He says the law did its full work on him, and what it produced was a corpse.
He had been under law as a Jew. What was the effect when God applied law to his own conscience? It made him feel himself a dead man. Romans 7 reasons it out: the law came, and he died... The law is never life to the dead; it kills morally those who seem alive... The Spirit of God can use it to make a man feel that everything is over with him. But He goes further in grace. By that very law He brings the man in dead to the law, and not merely condemned.
The man writing this had been the leading expert in the system he now says he died to.
God Himself, by His strong hand, taught the greatest expert under the law that all the law could do for him was to kill him... He had boasted in the law. He had thought, wrongly, that it gave him righteousness. But what were they worth now that he knew the law in its spiritual reach — now that "the commandment came" to his conscience in its true light? It was a "ministry of death." The very law he looked to for life struck him dead as to all expectations from it. Until that law was out of the way, he could not live to God.
The law loses its grip on a dead man. But who died — the law, or the man? Commentators are clear it was not the law.
Now the law has power over a man only as long as he lives. In bringing out the effect of this truth, the apostle uses the example of the law of marriage... In this illustration, the husband died. But when we apply it to ourselves, the law does not lose its force and its rights by dying. It loses them by our dying. The law does not die — for in that case sin would be free — but we, by the body of Christ, are dead to the law.
So where was the sentence of death actually carried out?
The law had pronounced the sentence of death and condemnation on him, and through the law he had died to the law. But the sentence of the law fell on him in the person of Christ. Christ took the curse of the law, the condemnation, on Himself. Believing in Christ, he had died as to the old man. The law had slain him, but Christ had died in his place.
"That I might live to God" is not an afterthought. It rules out the idea that being outside law means being outside control.
Paul did not count himself dead to the law so that he could live to himself and his own will. That would be pure lawlessness. He counted himself dead so that he might live with God Himself as the End and Object of his life. Previously the law had controlled him, or rather had failed to control him. Now God really did control him... Now He is fully revealed in His Son. So we pass from the control of law to the control of the One who gave it. That control is far higher, and it works on the opposite principle: grace.
Living to God and standing under law cannot happen at once. The reason lies in the conscience.
The teaching in both passages makes the same point. Neither life nor fruit to God can go together with a legal conscience. The reason is that such a conscience is in every case an evil conscience.
So where does the new life come from?
There was no striving, as we often see these days, to keep the law in a spiritual way now that he was converted... The law never produced life in a single soul: it kills. Whereas here you find Paul dead to the law, but alive to God on a totally different principle... What is the spring of the new life? Not the law, but Christ.
- Killed — The law's work on Paul was to convict and slay, not to give life; it makes a man feel that everything is over with him.
- Died — Death ends the law's claim, not the law's disappearance. The law does not die; we die. That death took place in Christ, who bore its sentence for us.
- Freed — The law has power over a man only while he lives. A dead man is out of its reach.
- Living — The aim is positive. Not release into self-will, but life with God Himself as the object, under grace instead of law.
- Sourced — The spring of that life is Christ, never the law. A legal conscience is an evil conscience, and it can bear no fruit to God.
I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, *I*, but Christ lives in me; but [in] that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the [faith] of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me.
Paul has just told Peter in public that keeping the law puts no one right with God. Now he turns that argument on himself, and raises the question every reader feels at once: how can a man be dead and alive at the same time?
The law's verdict on a lawbreaker is death. This verse says God carried that verdict out. He did not set it aside. One writer traces the logic step by step:
For the one who believes in Jesus, Christ our Substitute has already taken that death sentence in His own death. His death was the death of our old man — the man under judgment. So the believer can say, "I have been crucified with Christ." We passed through death in the death of our Substitute, so we are free from the law. The law can condemn a man to death for the life he has led. But once the man is dead, he no longer lives the life the law applied to. The law can have nothing to say to a dead man.
This crucifixion happened with Christ. So it is not a work the believer does to himself:
The word of God treats the believer's crucifixion with Christ as a finished act that will never happen again. He died once, and we were then, and there, and forever identified with Him... God never tells the believer to crucify himself or his flesh. He counts it as already done.
This does not mean the struggle is over. The same writer adds a balance. The call to put sin to death in daily life is given to people who can already say they were crucified with Christ.
The verse holds two things together that look like opposites:
All this involves a paradox, which the apostle states in verse 20. He has been crucified, he says, and still he lives. Crucifixion has reached me, yet it has left me a living man. It has reached me because I am joined to Christ. Its effect is to push self, the old "I," out of the way and put Christ in its place. He now lives in us by His Spirit, so that His character can be seen in us.
The man who wrote this was the same person he had always been. What changed was the life that came out of him:
Though crucified we live. We are still living people on earth, yet we no longer live the old character of life. We live a life of a new order, a life whose character, summed up in one word, is CHRIST. Saul of Tarsus had been crucified with Christ. Yet the individual known as Saul of Tarsus was still living. Still living, yet in an entirely different character... he did not keep his old name. Soon after his conversion he became known as Paul, which means "Little one." He must be little if Christ is to live in him.
Once self is displaced, something has to take its place as the aim of living:
Self, wretched self, which is the end and object of the natural man in everything he does, is gone... Christ enters and takes the place of self. "For to me to live is Christ" — that is, to have Christ, not self, as my end and object. Christ, not self, is the spring now.
The second half of the verse shows what keeps this new life going day by day:
This new life, like all life in the creature, has and must have an object to sustain it. If the Lord Jesus is our life, He is also personally the object of that life... Faith sees Christ, looks to Him, trusts Him, feeds on Him, and rests in His love. It knows with joy that He is for us, in all the depth of the love that led Him to give Himself for us.
Living by faith will not last forever. One day something better takes its place. When life in our mortal bodies is over, "we shall live by the sight of the Son of God. Meanwhile we live by faith in Him" (F. B. Hole).
The verse ends in the singular — "me." One writer says that is deliberate:
"He loved me and gave Himself for me." It is impossible to find language more individual. It is more than the general truth that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." The soul that now believes can claim the love of Christ as its own.
Taking it personally is not going too far. It is the ordinary work of faith: "Faith takes for itself what grace reveals... It never deals in generalities" (Andrew Miller).
- Died. Christ took the law's death sentence, so the law has nothing left to say to a man who has already died.
- Done. Crucifixion with Christ is a finished act to believe, not a self-punishment to attempt.
- Displaced. The old "I" is set aside so Christ's character, not self, becomes the spring of everyday life.
- Focused. The new life keeps going by looking to Christ — faith now, sight later.
- Owned. The love that did all this is stated in the singular, and faith is meant to say "me."
I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness [is] by law, then Christ has died for nothing.
Paul ends this chapter by answering a charge: who is really setting God's grace aside? Everything turns on whether righteousness can be earned — because if it can, Christ died for nothing.
Paul is defending himself. He had just confronted Peter, and here the stress falls on one word: "I."
Peter's turning aside from the truth of the gospel in this practical way might look like a small thing, but it had a very serious side, and Paul makes this clear in the last verse of the chapter. Paul had defined his own position, which agreed exactly with the truth of the gospel, and then said: "I do not frustrate the grace of God." The emphasis clearly falls on the "I" — "It is not I who am setting aside the grace of God." He implies that Peter, and those influenced by him, were the ones committing themselves to this sorry work. The grace of God had brought Jews and Gentiles together in this new and high privilege, and they were frustrating that in practice by separating them! What is more, they were in principle going back to law. If you go back to it at all, you go back to it for all. To go back to it for righteousness means that Christ has died "for no purpose."
Older translations say "frustrate" where the ESV says "nullify." Both mean to cancel. And if righteousness could be earned, two things fall at once.
If a person can gain righteousness by works, by a self-made character, or by keeping religious ceremonies, then Christ's death was unnecessary, and that sets aside the grace of God.
So how can anyone be righteous? There are only two possible ways.
Righteousness can be shown in only two ways: by law or by the grace of God. By the first, man stands, if he can stand at all, on the footing of his own obedience. He is righteous as a doer of the will of God. By the second, man takes a new name in place of the one he was born with. He stands on the merit of a righteousness that has proved and glorified itself apart from him, and that righteousness freely makes itself his own. Because Another is righteous, he is justified by faith in Him.
Some teach that Christ kept the law for us, so that His obedience counts as ours. Commentators reject that idea, and they answer it from this verse.
Suppose someone else could have kept the law for the offender — though that was impossible. In that case no one would ever have paid the law's penalty for breaking it. People could break the law with no punishment, and no sacrifice would be needed. If such a substitute obedience had been possible, His life, not His death, would have met the need.
The apostle's own way of putting it is a question no one can answer: why would He die at all?
Now here Christ's death and righteousness by law are contrasted. We are told pardon comes by death, righteousness by law, with Christ fulfilling it. But the apostle declares that it does not come by law; and that if it did, Christ is dead in vain. Indeed, why should He die, if I was righteous without it?
There is more at stake than an argument. A righteousness you earned would change what you could ever know of God.
Suppose a righteous man could knock at the door of heaven and claim to enter by right on the ground of his own works. Such a person would never know God; love would not have brought him there, and God is love. It would have been the wages of his own work; he would have deserved to enter. But it is not love when you pay a workman the wages he has earned. You may pay him politely, but it is always a debt — there can be no love in it. It is love that has saved me.
The trap is not only in how a person is first accepted, but in how they try to stay accepted.
Law could never produce righteousness. Grace alone has done this by the cross. Suppose I dare to suggest some other cure for my unrighteousness than the cross of Christ. Suppose I dare to think I can gain or keep a righteous standing before God by law-keeping. Then I am saying in effect that it was useless for Christ to have died! Yet this is exactly what many professing Christians are guilty of, although they don't realise it. If it is not Christ alone that a person clings to for safety, how dangerous is the ground!
- Nullify. To go back to law for righteousness is to cancel the grace of God — Paul insists the charge belongs to others, not to him.
- Two roads. Righteousness comes either by your own obedience or by Another's, received through faith. There is no third way.
- Death, not life. If law-keeping could produce righteousness — yours or a substitute's — His life would have been enough. He had to die instead.
- Gift, not wages. A righteousness earned would be a debt paid, and there is no love in a debt paid. Grace alone lets you know God as love.
- Daily. The same rule holds for keeping your standing, not just gaining it. Cling to anything but Christ, and you say His death was pointless.