Dwell in the Word: Galatians 2:15-21

Think on these questions as you dwell in Galatians 2:15-21:

1. What does Paul emphasize about justification and how it relates to faith in his discussion in Galatians, and why does he argue against relying on works or rituals for righteousness?

2. How does Paul's statement about being "crucified with Christ" and living by faith in the Son of God relate to his understanding of righteousness and salvation?

3. How does Paul's argument against relying on personal works for salvation apply to contemporary beliefs about earning righteousness through religious rituals or good deeds in the present day?

Transcript:
Paul continues to get deeper into the heart of the matter here, doesn't he? His big point here is we see the heading from our ESV text, Justified by Faith, tells us what he believes the crux of the issue is here. He believes that we are justified for faith. This is what he is telling us. Now, what does he mean to be justified? To be justified means to be declared righteous. And the idea is this is how we are able to stand before God as sinners, not by our works, not by our following of the law, not by rituals that we do in the case of what's happening in Galatia, not by having foreskin removed, not by having ourselves be circumcised, but by faith in Christ. That is what makes us righteous. And notice what Paul says, Because by works of the law, no one will be justified. By what we do, no one is declared righteous. No one is able to stand for God on their own because we are sinners. And so, this is why Paul gets to this point where he says in verse 20, I have been crucified for Christ no longer.

 I who lived, Christ who lives at me. In other words, he is saying that in order for him to be righteous, in order for him to be able to stand before God, he claims Christ. It is Christ who is now able to make him live this life before God in a justified way. It's called righteous. And the life that he lives in the flesh, he lives by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. It is the work of Jesus Christ. He is making Paul able to have targets for God, not the things that he has done. Remember, we could talk a long time about all the good stuff, all the rituals that Paul had followed. He was a pharisee. He was from the right lineage genetically, right? But is he claiming any of that? Notice what he said, We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. By birth, he should be able to say, Hey, I'm bitter, but I'm not justified by works of the law. I'm not justified by my bloodline. I'm justified by faith in Christ. And so, he is drawing out here that if we could earn our own salvation, if we could earn righteousness before God, if we could go before him on our own, then what did Jesus die for?

 Why did he come and suffer and die? Why did he live this perfect life? He live and suffer on our behalf. If I could make myself righteous by following a rule, make myself righteous by doing certain. If I could make myself righteous by being circumcised, and what do I need to use? That's an important question for us. Now, for us, it is, in fact, different. The question being asked here in Galatians is specifically about super-disease and the rituals of the Jewish faith and those type of works. But for us, we believe somehow, some way, we have to whether the ritual is maybe going to church, we believe somehow we're earning points with God. Hopefully, we don't think that way, but that has been known to happen, right? Maybe by our keeping of rules, maybe our doing certain things, we believe that we are meriting righteousness for God. That's not what we believe. We believe we're justified by the Holy Spirit, faith, made righteous not because of what we do, because of what Christ has done. That is where our confidence lies. And that's a really good thing, because if I could build up enough work to save myself, I'd mess it up.

 If I could do that, we know that we would get it wrong. But if we could do it, then why do we need Jesus? And we know we have been convicted of our sin. We have to know that we have received the gift of God's grace by faith. And so, we know that Jesus didn't die for no purpose. He died for a purpose, and that was to save His people, to create people for Himself, for our own salvation. And this is the old news. May we remember this? This is our application, right? We need to remember this every day that we are not meriting righteousness for our sons. We trust His righteousness. His enough grace. It's the perfect righteousness of Christ that we claim. Because of that, we can have confidence that our sins are forgiven and we have it.