Galatians 2.17-21
“But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”
Paul’s critics argued that the gospel of grace was dangerous because it was an invitation to sin. They claimed it undermined a person’s motivation to obey God. If people are accepted by God simply through trusting in Christ without any requirement to do good works, aren’t you encouraging them to act irresponsibly and with impunity and do whatever they want? To put it another way, if God justifies bad people on the basis of grace and not good works, what is the point of being good? Can’t we do as we like and live as we please?
This argument displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how God saves, as well as how God works in the life of the Christian as a result of salvation.
- To repeat, doing good works cannot save because no person can do enough good works to meet God’s standards of righteousness. We cannot save ourselves. If we are to be redeemed, then God must do the redeeming, and that is precisely what he has done through Christ. Our responsibility is to repent and trust in Christ.
- Salvation by grace does not undermine the authority of God’s commandments, nor does it demotivate us to live according to the Lord’s moral standards. The commandments of God matter and the standards of the law are important. The “do’s and don’ts” of scripture are vital. Jesus commands us to obey. However, God’s commandments provide guidance for how to live, not instructions for how to get saved. When he says “through the law I died to the law,” he is emphasizing that the law’s demand of death was satisfied in the death of Christ.
- When we trust in Christ, our status before God is changed and we are declared righteous by God. Our character is also changed. This is critically important, and it is Paul’s main point. When we are saved we are “justified in Christ.” We are united to Christ by faith. John Stott writes this: “Our justification takes place when we are united to Christ by faith. And someone who is united to Christ is never the same person again. Instead, he is changed. It is not just his standing before God which has changed; it is he himself—radically, permanently changed. To talk of his going back to the old life, and even sinning as he pleases, is frankly impossible. He has become a new creation and begun a new life.”
Paul wrote this very thing to the Corinthians: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5.17).
In Galatians, Paul describes the Christian life in terms of death and resurrection. Twice he speaks of dying and rising to life again, thus identifying us with Christ. As believers in Christ, we are united with him in his death and resurrection. Our old life (which was separated from God) was crucified with Christ, and we have resurrected to a new life which we live in union with Christ. Indeed, Jesus indwells us through his Spirit and lives in us.
Because of the new life we have with Christ, and because he lives within us, everything is changed. The Lord transforms us and gives us a desire for obedience. It is not that we cannot sin again, it is that the new life within us wants to live according to God’s standards. As we will see later in chapter 5, the old life still desires to sin, and it opposes the new life of the Spirit. This is a constant battle we must fight.
A key point here. Salvation by grace does not mean that we are exempt or excused from hard work. Indeed, there is a great deal of work to be done after we are saved. Paul made this point in Ephesians: “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. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them“ (Ephesians 2.8-10).
However, Paul makes the point here in Galatians 2.20 that the work we do after salvation is faith-driven and empowered by grace. It is not work done in order to be saved; neither is it work done in order to stay saved. Rather, it is work done because we are saved, and it is by faith in Christ. “And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” Paul writes.
