Galatians
Salvation by
grace! Justification by faith! Sanctification by faith!
Verse
11 - Chronology
The
famine visit – Acts 11:27-30
Private meeting (2:1-10) → Rebuke (2:1-21) → Jerusalem
Council (Acts 15)
The
Peter’s stand for the gospel
in Acts 15:10-11
“Now
therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples
a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been
able to
bear? But we believe that we are saved through
the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”
Verse
12 - “...certain men from James” Men
from the church in
“…fearing the party of the circumcision.” Peer-pressure caused Peter to drift into
legalism.
Verse
13 - Barnabas and the other Jewish believers joined Peter in his hypocrisy!
Verse
14 - “…the truth of the gospel…” The
gospel of grace is what allows us to walk straightforward! “…in the presence of all…” Why the
public
rebuke?
Matthew
I
Timothy
“…how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live
like Jews?”
Your lifestyle is inconsistent
with what you believe about justification!
Verses 15 – 21: Paul’s doctrine of justification in a
nutshell.
Verse 15 - “We are Jews by
nature…” Physical descends of Abraham and possessors of the Law and
covenants. Morally superior to Gentiles.
“…not sinners from among the Gentiles.” Gentiles did not observe or possess the Law
and therefore lacked the possibility of obtaining
righteousness through it.
Verse
16 – The insufficiency of law-works to justify
“…knowing” = “To know on the basis of facts.”
Threefold repetition of the doctrine of
justification:
1. Not justified by works of Law but through
faith in Christ Jesus.
2. We have believed and are justified by faith
in Christ Jesus and not by the works of the Law.
3.
By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.
The facts of justification:
1. To be justified is to be “declared
righteousness.”
2. Man cannot be justified before God by law-stimulated
good works.
3. Man is justified before God solely by faith
that has Jesus Christ as its object.
4. “Even we” -
Jews are justified by faith in Christ not by the law system.
5. The law system has never been the basis of justification.
Verse
17 – Improper conclusion to justification by faith.
“…have been found sinners…” - They
realized that they were sinners in the same sense of the Gentiles.
“…is Christ a minister of sin? - Did
Christ make us sinners when through His gospel we came to realize our sinful
condition? Absolutely Not!
“And why not say (as we are
slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say), ‘Let us do evil that
good may come’…” Romans 3:8
“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?”
Romans 6:1-2
Verses
18-19 - Reasons
why the grace-faith principle for salvation does not make Christ a ‘minister of
sin’.
Transgression always follows when a believer
makes the law the authority in their life.
“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is
the law.” I Corinthians 15:56
Paul
would also be a transgressor or violator of the gospel of grace.
“For through the Law I died to
the Law…” - Since the death of Christ for sinners was exacted by the Law (
participation
in Christ’s death can be said to be ‘through’ the Law. This means that the Law as a false way of
righteousness has been set
aside
and that the believer is free from the dominion of the Law.
Verse
20 – Dead to Law, alive to God! Four key
principles: (From Galatians by Ron Merrymay)
1.
The Death-Union Principle – I have been crucified with Christ
2. The
Life-Union Principle -
It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me
3. The Faith
Principle – The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of
God
4. The Substitutionary-Redemptive Principle – Who
loved me and delivered Himself up for me
Faith never has merit or
value of its own. The merit or value
of faith is always in its object!
Verse
20 – The Substitutionary-Redemptive Principle
The active, volitional involvement of
Jesus in the work of the cross is the stress of the Substitutionary-Redemptive
Principle. Jesus willingly, of
His own accord, gave Himself at
Verse 20 – The sufficiency of Christ’s death
This
verse is the deathblow to legalism! The
death of Christ alone is sufficient to provide absolute rightness with God for
the one who believes.
To teach that obedience must accompany grace
to make it sufficient is really to teach that obedience saves, not Christ.
The fact that Jesus died
in our place forms the ground for justification. The demands of the Law for death due to sin
are met. God can now justify, on a
righteous basis, those who believe.