The Triumph of Grace
“Found Innocent”
June 18, 2000
This Morning’s Text – Galatians 2:15-21
“We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, 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; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
Good works sometimes get a bad rap! Paul’s emphasis in Galatians is upon the fact that we are saved, not by the works of the law, but by faith alone. I want to quickly give you three senses of the term “good works”; find a spot on note sheet and jot these down.
1. Good works done to attempt to achieve salvation – Ask ole’ Pagan Joe next door if he thinks he might make it to heaven someday, and he might say “yes” regardless of any exterior appearance of religion. When you ask “why?”, his response might likely be something like this: “Well, I try to live a decent moral life; I do this and that; etc.” He is attempting to justify himself before God on the basis of his own good works. Of course, he has no understanding of God’s holiness and his accountability.
2. The Works of the Law – This is what Paul is talking about in Galatians. People were trying to add the strict observance of Jewish law to simple faith in Christ as the means of salvation.
3. Good works which are fitting for Christians – Ephesians 2:8-9 is a passage often quoted; we often leave off verse 10, which talks about these appropriate good works which God has recreated us in Christ Jesus to do!
A fair question which Paul is answering is, “what is the place of the O.T. law in the life of the believer?” I worked for a time, as many of you know, for Little Debbie. This right hand has shaken the hand of the little girl on the cookie box! The plant is located in a small Tennessee town which is the home of a SDA school; thus, many of the workers there are SDA. There is in that particular group a strong and, I believe, misplaced adherence to the O.T. law. I remember conversations I had with some SDA friends. One accepted me as a fellow-believer in Christ but was pretty certain that, when I reached full sanctification, I would start worshipping on the Sabbath. Over the course of the next couple of months, I hope that we can more fully answer that question.
There are no quotation marks in the Greek language. We know that verse 14 contains a quote from Paul to Peter as Paul confronts him over his vacillation. What we don’t know is whether that quotation continues, nor for how far. It is possible that the rest of the chapter represents verbatim Paul’s continuing words to Peter; it is possible that this is a summary of his words to Peter; it is possible that he is moving to a more general statement to all Galatian believers. Frankly, it doesn’t matter a whole lot for our purposes! Let’s read it!
PRAYER
I. The Fact of their Conversion - :15-16
Isn’t national pride just a basic human instinct? We speak of the pride we have as Americans, of the greatness of our country, of our national heritage, of the courage of our founding fathers. I believe that, objectively, there are a number of reasons why the USA might be said to be the greatest nation on earth. I also believe, objectively, that there are a lot of factors in which we clearly do not measure up so well! On balance, I am very thankful to be an American. But I believe that if you went to many nations of the earth today, even nations wracked with poverty and disease, you’d find a similar national or cultural pride.
Jews prided themselves on the Law. Moses was their father. But they had a further advantage: they were the chosen people of Yahweh! God had given to them—and not to any other people—the law of God. In the minds of Jews, Gentiles were lawless sinners, because they did not have—much less live by—the law of God. But in verse 16, Paul says that both alike need more than simply the law to produce righteousness! If you can read verse 16 and come away with any other conclusion, then you’ve got a different Bible than I!
A. “We know it”
“knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus”
To be justified, remember, is a judicial term indicating the declaration that a person has been found innocent before the judge. Man has this need not because of what he does, but because of who he is. I am born a sinner; I sin because that is who I am by nature. I am not born and then somehow become a sinner. And because of my sin, I will be judged. There is an objective standard: in Romans 3:23, it is clear: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Interestingly, I think that if you believe for one minute that those who teach Darwinism do so on purely scientific grounds, you are sadly mistaken. The evidence just isn’t there. But if you see in man’s desire to explain his origins without taking God into account a deep-seated desire to escape accountability for his actions, you have hit the nail right on the head. Truth is that you are a sinner by birth, and if God does not take some action to save you, you will split hell wide open! But the miracle is that you, ole’ sinful you, can stand before God just as if you had never sinned, and Paul says we know that this takes place through faith in Christ.
B. “We’ve done it”
“even we have believed in Christ Jesus”
Paul says, “since we know this is true, we’ve done it—we’ve put our trust in Christ.” Justification is the free and gracious act of God on the basis of Christ’s work on the cross and through nothing on our part but simple trust in the Person and work of Christ. Now, there is a bit of confusion as to the nature of saving faith. Some would make it almost the equivalent of intellectual knowledge. Problem? Even the demons have this! No, when the New Testament speaks of “believing in Christ”, this is more than a mental assent to some theological facts. It is the placing of one’s trust in Christ—and as Paul has argued, in Christ alone—for salvation from sin. Faith is not blind, speculative, nor impractical; rather, it begins with knowledge, builds on facts, and stakes its life on the outcome!
Commenting on this faith, Scot McKnight says
“We delude ourselves if we think we can live immoral lives, shack up with partners who are not our spouses, defraud others of their money, take no action to alleviate social ills in our world, and live in constant tension with our children and family members—…and pretend we are at peace with God and enjoy His Son’s justifying work. Those who have been justified live justly. Those who have been made holy in Christ, live holy lives; those who have experienced God’s forgiveness forgive others; those who have been called from the world no longer live in the world; those who have died to the flesh live in the Spirit.”
C. The Result
“so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the Law”
We’ve done it understanding full well why—in order that God might account us righteous the only possible way—through Christ and not through the law. Why?
D. The Reason
“since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified”
If the problem with us is not so much what we do but who we are, then no amount of outward doing will change our inward being! The law is not that which can make us right; it always shows us to be wrong! The law is like a mirror; it reveals our sin, but does not remove it.
Martin Luther said, “If the article of justification by faith is lost, all Christian doctrine is lost.”
II. The Implications of their Conversion - :17-21
Verses 17-18 are somewhat difficult to piece together as to the exact meaning Paul is trying to convey. I am going to go with John MacArthur’s reasoning on this; if you don’t like what I have to say here, take it up with Johnny Mac. His understanding of these verses goes something like this:
If the Judaizers are right, then in seeking to be justified through Christ alone and paying no attention to the O.T. law, I am a sinner. If I eat with Gentiles; if I eat whatever they deign to be on the menu, then I am a sinner, since I am ignoring the law of Moses and acting as a lawless Gentile.
If I have become thus a sinner, who then is to blame? Is it not Christ? And do you want to suggest that Christ is a minister of sin?
Assuming that He is not such a sinner, then if I try to rebuild a system of legalism as the correct approach to God, I myself am clearly a sinner!
A. Contrary to the legalists’ claim, life in the Spirit is not lawless living.
Paul is anticipating a natural objection to the teaching of grace: “Doesn’t eliminating the law as you do, Paul, not also eliminate a man’s sense of moral responsibility?” Why be good, in other words, if I am not saved by being good (nor, for that matter, lost by doing bad!). This may or may not strike us as a particularly pertinent question, but it certainly was in Paul’s day. Remember, this gospel cut across the grain of man’s understanding of what it meant to be in a right relationship to God.
Not that it should have, I would be quick to argue. In our men’s group a week back, we talked about this very question: why didn’t the Jews get it? Paul quotes their own Scripture to them—Galatians 3:6 says that Abraham was righteous before God on the basis of his faith—and the law wasn’t in existence yet! Couldn’t they have understood that it was not through the keeping of the law that they were right before God? Yes—but they did what is so naturally human to do. I think this is true on a couple of counts. Let me explain.
We live in a “get what you pay for” world. In other words, we teach our kids, and rightfully so, that if they want to accomplish things in life, they have to learn the value of hard work. “No one owes you a living”; “what goes around comes around”; “you make your bed, and you’ll have to lie in it”; etc. And in so many realms of life, this is true! It would seem a natural thing to apply this to our relationship with God—because we don’t understand grace naturally! When it comes to Christianity, you made your bed—but Christ laid in it! And so we have this natural “you’ll get what’s coming to you and no more” bent.
Second, it is easy to make a subtle shift in the object of our faith. James tells us that we demonstrate the reality of our faith by the works which we do—remember a few weeks ago when I talked about the importance of the change as opposed to merely the experience? James says, to the man who says, “I had this ‘faith experience’”, “okay, you show me your faith without your works—without the change—and I’ll show you my faith by my works—i.e., I’ll show you the reality of the faith I claim to have by how that faith has changed my life.” With me so far? Real faith shows itself in righteous works. And so the pious Jews are living out the law as a response of obedience to God that indicates their inner faith. It is a subtle but deadly shift to then transfer faith to the doing of those works as that which makes them acceptable to God!
So, if you have shifted your orientation to the point where you believe it is the doing of certain works which save you instead of doing those same works as evidence of the inner faith that saves you, you might reach the conclusion that the Judaizers were reaching. You might suggest that, if works aren’t necessary for salvation, what’s the point of doing good?
But Christ is not the minister of sin, which He would be if His teaching led naturally to sin. Think about it; if it were a wrong thing to jettison the law in our relationship with God—and if that is the gospel that Paul got directly from Jesus Christ—then Christ would be in the place of encouraging sin—transgression against God! Now, no one would have likely said this, not even the Judaizers; Paul uses this awful suggestion for shock value. No way!
It is one thing—and a true enough thing—to acknowledge that Christians can and sometimes do sin. It is quite another to lay that blame at the feet of Christ!
B. We can never hold to a legalistic conception of God’s acceptance or guidance.
It is ridiculous to try to rebuild a system which offers no hope. Peter was effectively trying to do just this—albeit probably subconsciously—when he turned away from his Gentile brothers. Paul says, “I’ve died to the law”. Trying to keep it fully is impossible; it is a cruel taskmaster. Ridderbos says, “The law has whipped him to death by its ethical demands”. He is through with it, dead to it, as a dead servant would be to his master. The law cannot deliver life; it can only demand, forbid, judge, and condemn. Paul had sought for a long time to gain his right standing before God on the basis of the law, but now he saw it as something which could not produce, and he was through with it. It does not produce God’s acceptance; it does not deliver God’s guidance. It is not therefore useless at all, but it is not what saves us nor what is given for our living today—we have the Holy Spirit for that!
And here’s a word for us—just as we are not saved by law-keeping, let’s not attempt to live by legalistic expressions. We can turn just about anything into a legalism. Should I as a believer have a quiet time of reading the Word, praying, meditating upon God’s truth, praising Him? Absolutely! But we can turn that into a legalism very easily! We can assume that when we have performed that particular agenda item for the day, we are pleasing in God’s sight on that basis! Conversely, we can set for ourselves some standard of time in the Word each day—and then if we fail to meet that time, assume that we have fallen short. Our Christian living can become a legalism! Another example: tithing. I firmly and fully believe that it is a sin for many people to tithe! Why and how? For many people, giving 10% is nothing! It’s no big deal! Then can give it and not miss it; they can give 10% legalistically and still live better than most others, still lavish upon themselves a lot of goodies and stuff. For others, giving might measure up to some O.T. 10% standard, but their heart is not in their giving; there is no joy, no peace, no excitement for the joy of giving. Rather, there is fear and resentment and… Does that honor God? No! Legalism never does!
C. In our conversion to Christ, we find life through death in that we have been
crucified with Christ and now He grants His life to us and lives through us.
The cross of Christ comes around again as central to our faith. We have nothing without the cross! Paul says, in verse 21, that the cross is superfluous if salvation can be gained through law-keeping. Why would Jesus have had to die? It all comes back to the cross, and Paul says that we are vitally identified with the Christ of the cross in His death! To be “in Christ” is to be so vitally identified with Christ that His very experiences become mine—and if you are a Christian, that is true of you! James Boice speaks of the “actual participation of the believer in Christ’s death and resurrection conceived on the basis of the mystical union of Christ and the believer.” “I have been crucified with Christ” is what Paul says—and he means this literally!
At the same time, I am still living—physically, but differently! It is Christ Who now lives in and through me. Now, that ought to serve as a challenge, as a sobering reality, as a spur to holiness. I have the power of Christ indwelling me for the purpose of holy living. Christian living is not a mere matter of “better behavior” governed by certain rules. The gospel of Christ is not about making good people; it is about making people ready for Jesus to take up residence in them and live through them. E.F. Harrison said, “for the art of living, we must cultivate the consciousness that we have died.” We need to yield ourselves to Christ, Who wants to accomplish His purpose through our lives.
Look at Romans 6 for a moment. In a few weeks, we will celebrate baptism. We each do this once in our lives as an expression of the reality that, upon placing our trust in Christ, our old life is over and we are risen to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4). But today we come to the Lord’s table, which we do often, reminding us of our need for continual conformity to the death of Christ as a matter of course in our daily living (Romans 6:11).
