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."