Justified in Christ (Galatians 2:17-18)

Today’s sermon audio can be found on Castbox at 171 “Justified in Christ” Galatians 2:17-18. Our first reading for August 9^th was Romans 5:20-6:15. I wanted to read Romans 5:20-6:15 because it gives us two examples of Paul’s use of the phrase ‘By no means!’. Romans 6 also helps us understand Galatians 2. In Romans 6 and Galatians 2 Paul objects emphatically to spiritually dangerous misunderstandings of his doctrine with the phrase ‘By no means!’. Our text for August 9^th is Galatians 2:17-18. We will read Galatians2:17-21 for context.

Today's Text

^17aBut if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, ^17bwe too were found to be sinners, ^17cis Christ then a servant of sin? ^17dCertainly not! ^18aFor if I rebuild what I tore down, ^18bI prove myself to be a transgressor. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. ²⁰I 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. ²¹I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Galatians 2:17-21, ESV

Sermon Outline

"Justified in Christ" Galatians 2:17-18

Overview
Our Endeavor to Be Justified (17a)
Found to Be Sinners (17b)
A Servant of Sin? (17c-d)
What I Tore Down (18a-b)
Conclusion

Scripture References: Romans 6:1-15; Galatians 2:17-18; Philippians 3:2-11; Hebrews 11:1-7;

1. Overview

^17aBut if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, ^17bwe too were found to be sinners, ^17cis Christ then a servant of sin? ^17dCertainly not! ^18aFor if I rebuild what I tore down, ^18bI prove myself to be a transgressor. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. ²⁰I 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. ²¹I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Galatians 2:17-21, ESV

We do not know exactly what caused Paul to write these words in Galatians 2:17-18. We have to mirror-read what Paul wrote to try to understand what his opponents said about him and/or his gospel. In this case that kind of analysis is quite difficult because there are multiple plausible explanations for why Paul wrote these two verses. By plausible I mean that the explanations do not contradict the doctrines taught in the Bible and fit with what we do know about the letter to the Galatians and what we know about Paul. One of the best of our modern commentators on Galatians¹ writes that ‘it is impossible to identify’ any specific incidents or criticisms that would cause Paul to write these two verses. But even if we do not know the specific reasons for Paul to have written these two verses we can still benefit from them greatly.

First we should consider the logical structure of these two verses. Verse 17 is what is called a conditional statement. These kinds of statements are used in logic to evaluate assertions. Verse 17 has an if clause (17a-b) which contains two conditions. It also has a then clause (17c) which is the consequence of the conditions. As a statement of logic we might express 17a-c as follows:
IF (17a AND 17b) THEN 17c

Paul uses the conditional statement as a question:
Is it true that IF (17a AND 17b are true) THEN so also 17c is true?
He gives his answer to his question in 17d. Then in verse 18 he starts to tells us why he answered as he did.

2. Our Endeavor to Be Justified (17a)

¹What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Romans 6:1-5, ESV

It seems very reasonable to suppose that this conditional statement (17a-c) has been used against Paul’s gospel message. So Paul has taken a compound assertion made by his opponents and turned it into a question in order to refute it. It seems likely to have been the opponents at Antioch (Galatians 2:11-14) who put forward this statement but we cannot be sure. These opponents might have said something like the following to Peter and/or Paul:

^17aSince you have sought to be declared righteous before God by following Christ instead of by following the law ^17byou are sinners just like the Gentiles who do not even have the law. ^17cTherefore, Christ has caused you to sin.

Paul, of course, vigorously disagreed.

‘^17aBut if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ,’.
Verse 17a contains the first of two conditions in the conditional statement Paul is refuting. This condition is certainly valid. As Paul expresses the first condition he assuredly would have agreed with it. All true believers seek ‘to be justified in Christ’. We should recall that by ‘justified’ Paul means ‘declared righteous’, not ‘~~made intrinsically righteous~~’.

The words in our endeavor (ESV) could have been translated while seeking (NAS95). So Paul is writing about our pursuit of being declared righteous before God by God Himself. The way Paul wrote this clause seems to be indicative of our initial conversion. But many competent scholars think Paul is writing about a post-conversion condition. However, a post-conversion condition seems unwarranted here to me.

For the first time in all of Paul’s letters we find the important phrase ‘in Christ’. Paul often uses this phrase to allude to union with Christ. Where do we find salvation? Only in Christ. Paul expands this theme of union with Christ in our first reading for today (Romans 6:1-15). When we are born again we are given faith by God (Ephesians 2:8-10). We are also ‘baptized into Christ’ (Romans 6:3). Note the language of Romans 6:5. ‘⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.’

3. Found to Be Sinners (17b)

^17aBut if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, ^17bwe too were found to be sinners, ^17cis Christ then a servant of sin? ^17dCertainly not! ^18aFor if I rebuild what I tore down, ^18bI prove myself to be a transgressor. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. ²⁰I 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. ²¹I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Galatians 2:17-21, ESV

‘^17bwe too were found to be sinners,’.
Verse 17b contains the second of two conditions in the conditional statement Paul is refuting. Paul might well agree with this assertion given certain qualifications. His opponents may well have thought that if you did not follow all of the commands in the Old Testament you were in fact a Gentile sinner. But Paul would assert that unless you admit that you are a sinner, that you are totally unrighteous, that you have no righteousness of your own, Jesus cannot save you. So Paul might respond that ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God’ rather than just those who didn’t obey the Law of Moses. In fact all who claim to obey the Law of Moses are also sinners. Every human being who has ever lived, excepting Christ Jesus Himself, are hopelessly lost sinners.

Note that if we go by the likely viewpoint of the opponents their assertion has failed because they are wrong to believe that one can save oneself or keep oneself from being a sinner by following the commandments. So Paul has already shown the origin of the error in the assertion.

As with much of what Paul has written in this letter there is certainly controversy regarding the details. I attribute some of the differences of interpretation to competing attempts to mirror-read the letter. I want to focus on what we know to be true by comparing Scripture with Scripture.

I see irony in this second condition. Assuredly Paul’s opponents thought that to be ‘found to be [a] sinner’ was a deeply spiritually damaging situation to be in. But Paul thought it was essential to one’s spiritual well-being to know that one was a sinner who needed to be saved by grace through faith in Christ. Without such insight one cannot be saved.

4. A Servant of Sin? (17c-d)

^17aBut if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, ^17bwe too were found to be sinners, ^17cis Christ then a servant of sin? ^17dCertainly not! ^18aFor if I rebuild what I tore down, ^18bI prove myself to be a transgressor. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. ²⁰I 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. ²¹I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Galatians 2:17-21, ESV

‘^17cis Christ then a servant of sin?’.
Now we come to the consequence of the two prior conditions according to the opponents. We have suggested that the opponents might have said something like the following:

The consequence of the condition that the opponents assert is certainly a very serious theological error. This assertion claims that Christ promotes sin, recommends sin, causes sin, or some such.

‘^17dCertainly not!’.
Paul very emphatically rejects such a claim. Paul’s opponents misunderstood the law and the gospel. The law shows us that we are in fact sinners. It has done so since Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments. In fact, we were created with a sense of right and wrong that reflects the Ten Commandments. So we can say that even Adam and Eve were found to be sinners not because of the Protoevangelium (Genesis 3:15) but because of the commandments (Genesis 3:1-7). First came the law written in their hearts, then came the gospel. So Paul emphatically rejects the opponents assertion.

5. What I Tore Down (18a-b)

^17aBut if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, ^17bwe too were found to be sinners, ^17cis Christ then a servant of sin? ^17dCertainly not! ^18aFor if I rebuild what I tore down, ^18bI prove myself to be a transgressor.

Galatians 2:17-18, ESV

²Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. ³For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— ⁴though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ¹⁰that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:2-11, ESV

Paul now begins to explain his rejection of the opponents’ assertion that Christ promotes sin. We need to understand what was torn down so that it could be rebuilt. The most logical focus of verse 18 would be something to do with the Law of Moses. What could Paul say that he had torn down with respect to the Law of Moses?

‘^18aFor if I rebuild what I tore down,’.
If we look at Paul’s testimony in Philippians we can see something of what Paul was writing about here in Galatians. Paul tore down ‘confidence in the flesh’ (3), circumcision (5), being Jewish (5), Pharisaically keeping the Law (5), persecuting the church (6), ‘righteousness under the law’. In short, Paul tore down Second Temple Judaism as it was practiced with exceeding self-righteousness by many of the Pharisees. Paul did not want to go back to the types and shadows. Paul did not want to go back to ‘a righteousness of my own that comes from the law’.

‘^18bI prove myself to be a transgressor.’.
Paul called the law-righteousness enemies of the gospel ‘the dogs’ and ‘the evil doers’ in Philippians 3:2. He did not want to go back to that state of being ‘a transgressor’.

6. Conclusion

^17aBut if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, ^17bwe too were found to be sinners, ^17cis Christ then a servant of sin? ^17dCertainly not! ¹⁸For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. ²⁰I 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. ²¹I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Galatians 2:17-21, ESV

¹Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ²For by it the people of old received their commendation. ³By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. ⁴By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. ⁵By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. ⁶And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. ⁷By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

Hebrews 11:1-7, ESV

There is a tendency to emphasize the new era of salvation history inaugurated by Christ Jesus at His first coming. We do not disagree with this emphasis. We are very thankful for our Savior. We are very thankful to live in the Era of the Holy Spirit.

But there have always been two types of people in the world, no matter what era we are in: the self-righteous and the Christ-righteous. Hebrews 11:1-7 shows us that long before Moses and long before Abraham there were Christ-righteous people such as Abel, Enoch, and Noah. The passage also shows that there were self-righteous people in the very beginning of human history (Cain).

The difference between the self-righteous and the Christ-righteous has always been faith (KAT) versus works. As Warfield would say ‘Christ saves us through faith’. It is not our faith that saves us; it is Christ who saves us. God has given all true believers this saving faith to receive and rest in our great salvation in Christ.

Footnotes

F. F. Bruce, Galatians, NIGTC, kp 268. ↩