Galatians 2.15-16
“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
Justification means acceptance before God. The problem, of course, is that every person is born into a condition of sin, and therefore separated from God. The good news is that we sinners, guilty and under the judgment of God, may be pardoned and accepted by means of God’s free and unmerited favor (called “grace”), on the ground of his Son’s death and not for any works or merits of our own. The truth of the gospel is the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone.
In this passage, Paul writes as if he is speaking directly to Peter and other Jewish Christians. They were in agreement that God accepts people through faith in Christ. This is how salvation happens for all people. There is no distinction between Jew and Gentile in the fact of their sin; and there is no distinction between them in the means of their salvation.
Paul’s message to Peter (and the Judaizers) is this: If God justifies people through faith in Christ crucified and puts no difference between Jew and Gentile, who are we to withhold fellowship from Gentile believers? If God does not require works of the law (such as circumcision) before he accepts Gentiles, we have no right to impose a condition upon them which God does not impose. If God has accepted them, how can we reject them? If the Lord receives them into his fellowship, how can we deny them our fellowship? How can we withdraw from those whom God has justified and redeemed?
The principle is stated directly in Romans 15:9: “Welcome one another …, as Christ has welcomed you.” The church is the community of people connected and unified by faith in Jesus, not by ethnicity, nationality, or adherence to the law of Moses.
Now Paul emphasizes the core message of the letter to the Galatians: “We are justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” We will be examining this fundamental truth repeatedly and in-depth throughout our study of Galatians. Paul states it clearly and definitively because it is the basis of our relationship with God, and it is the basis of our relationship with other Christians.
Again, we are separated from God by sin, and in order to be reconciled to God our sin must be dealt with and we must be made righteous. Sin must be paid for according to the standards of God’s law, and the required payment is death. “The wages of sin is death,” we are told in Romans 6:23. For this reason, no person can make the required payment. No person can perform or behave or obey sufficiently to meet the necessary standards of righteousness. If we are to be reconciled to God, the Lord himself would have to make provision for us. The Lord would have to somehow make us righteous.
This is precisely what God has done in Christ. One of the most famous passages in the Bible declares the truth: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Pauls spells it out in 2 Corinthians 5.19: “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.”
And again in Ephesians 2.8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
And still again in 2 Cor 5.21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
The commandments of God matter. The standards of the law are important. The “do’s and don’ts” of scripture are vital. However, here is the crucial message about God’s commandments in scripture: They provide guidance for how to live and work, but they don’t provide the way of salvation. The Bible is exceptionally clear about how we are saved: It is not the result of effort on our part. It is not the result of works of righteousness or obedience to the law. Salvation is a gift. It is by God’s grace through the finished work of Christ which we accept by faith.
Does this mean, then, that once we are saved we are free to do anything we want? Since salvation is not the result of our effort or obedience, does how we behave really matter? We will address that question next week.
