THE DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL Part 2
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Please take your Bible and turn with me to . Today we will be looking at the Defense of the Gospel Part 2. Last week, as we looked at Part 1 we saw that this scene arose because Peter’s action were not consistent with the truth of the gospel.
If you will recall, Peter had spent some time with the church in Antioch, which was an experimental church comprised of both Jewish believers and Gentiles believers. When he first came to town he had open fellowship with these people who were first called Christians. One of the key things about this church was that they did not recognize any sort of racial distinction because they were all one in Christ. Therefore Peter would eat with them when they shared their love feasts, without regards to ethnicity. Paul went so far as to say that Peter actually lived like a Gentile. But when certain men came down from Jerusalem, in fear of what they would think, Peter began to withdraw from fellowship with the Gentiles, eventually only eating with the Jews. His actions provoked the rest of the Jewish community within that congregation to do the same thing.
When Paul realized what was happening he confronted Peter to his face. Today we will pick up where we left off last week, with verse 15 and following. There are a lot of really important doctrinal things that are mentioned in this passage and we will look at each in turn.
Let’s read the passage together, understanding that we are picking things up in the midst of Paul’s address to Peter.
SINNERS & SAINTS
SINNERS & SAINTS
PRACTICAL SINNERS
All human beings are practical sinners, and therefore under the condemnation of death (; )
POSITIONAL SINNERS
Those who are outside of the Covenant Community are Positional Sinners (, )
and the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated.’
Let sinners be consumed from the earth And let the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord!
These are sinners because they are outside of Christ
In the Jewish mindset all Gentiles were sinners. But the fact of the matter is that even some within the Jewish community were sinners.
Notice verses 17-18 as it relates to sinners. “While seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves [Jewish believers] have also been found sinners.” In other words we have come to the realization that our personal sin has separated us from God. That we are not automatically included in the blessings of Abraham just because we are his descendants. We need a personal Savior who will deliver us from our sin. A person who is not lost cannot be found. Christ came to call sinners to repentance.
Notice that Paul asked if Christ is a minister of sin. The term for minister is the same term from which we get the word deacon. Literally Paul is asking if Christ is a deacon of sin. According to Thayer, a deacon is “one who executes the commands of another, especially of a master, a servant, attendant.” Joshua was a deacon of Moses — an attendant — one who served at Moses bidding.
What Paul is asking is this: if the truth of the gospel exposes us as sinners, then is Christ a servant of sin? Of course Paul says in very strong language: “May it never be!” Or God forbid in the KJV. It is an absurd thought. He goes on in verse 18 to say that those who try to reestablish the Law as a means of becoming righteous before God are the servants of sin. The Judaizers as well as those who practice any other form of legalism have become transgressors of the gospel by trying to force others into following their false teaching and practice.
PRACTICAL SAINTS
If sainthood is dependent on the righteous works of human beings, from a practical standpoint there would be only one true saint — Jesus Christ
POSITIONAL SAINTS
Those within the Covenant Community (; , , , , )
He said, “The Lord came from Sinai, And dawned on them from Seir; He shone forth from Mount Paran, And He came from the midst of ten thousand holy ones; At His right hand there was flashing lightning for them. “Indeed, He loves the people; All Your holy ones are in Your hand, And they followed in Your steps; Everyone receives of Your words.
Sing praise to the Lord, you His godly ones, And give thanks to His holy name.
O love the Lord, all you His godly ones! The Lord preserves the faithful And fully recompenses the proud doer.
O fear the Lord, you His saints; For to those who fear Him there is no want.
For the Lord loves justice And does not forsake His godly ones; They are preserved forever, But the descendants of the wicked will be cut off.
“Gather My godly ones to Me, Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”
Saints are those who are in Christ
JUSTIFICATION & RIGHTEOUSNESS
JUSTIFICATION & RIGHTEOUSNESS
Justification by faith could be referred to as the bedrock of the Protestant Reformation. More so, it is the bedrock of the Gospel of the cross and the empty tomb. Martin Luther wrote:
Live in Liberty: The Spiritual Message of Galatians Chapter 6: Justified by Faith (Galatians 2:15–21)
Luther put it this way: “If the doctrine of justification is lost, the whole of Christian doctrine is lost.”
Live in Liberty: The Spiritual Message of Galatians Chapter 6: Justified by Faith (Galatians 2:15–21)
“If the doctrine of justification is lost, the whole of Christian doctrine is lost.”
THE RELATIONSHIP
Justify is a verb
It means to be declared righteous, vindicated, or innocent
The verb justified is used four times in verses 16-17
Righteousness is a noun
It means to be in a state or condition of being acceptable to God
The noun righteousness is used once in our text, in verse 21
PRACTICAL RIGHTEOUSNESS
From a practical standpoint there is only one human who ever completely fulfilled the righteous requirements of God — Jesus Christ
as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;
POSITIONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS
Positional righteousness (or forensic righteousness) is Christ’s righteousness that is applied to the believer’s account
DEATH TO THE LAW
DEATH TO THE LAW
It is based on the believer’s union with Christ
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 10: Romans through Galatians 4. Justification by Faith Alone (2:15–21)
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). But in Christ, God declares all righteous who believe, imputing divine righteousness to them. In this sense, justification does not express an ethical change or influence (though ethical changes follow); rather, it expresses the judicial action of God apart from human merit according to which the guilty are pardoned, acquitted, and then reinstated as God’s children and as fellow heirs with Jesus Christ.
In the context of the letter to the Galatians, Paul is opposing those who were leading his beloved churches into error. These false brethren were teaching a different gospel which was really no gospel at all; for there is no other gospel than the one true gospel. It was this one true gospel that Paul and Barnabas had preached among the Galatians, and had also presented in Jerusalem. But the false brethren were adding further demands to the gospel — faith plus works.
No one in their right mind will argue that believers are not supposed to do good works. We were saved for that very purpose (). But we do the good works as the result of our salvation and not to earn our salvation. Eternal life is a free gift (). In the last half of verse 16 of our text Paul states: “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.” That is the thesis that Paul will develop through Galatians chapter 3-4.
Daniel Bush & Noel Due, in their commentary on Galatians wrote:
Live in Liberty: The Spiritual Message of Galatians The Meaning of Justification
The gospel speaks a different language—there’s never any justification in the law, never any forgiveness, never release from guilt. The law never says a good thing about you. It’s your worst nightmare, steadfastly pointing out failure, transgression, and sin. The law slays
There is something that has arisen in recent years called a new perspective on Paul. This seems to me to be a very dangerous method of interpretation. I listened to a message by someone (Not sure where) and the speaker said that he had read over 1,000 pages written by a scholar named N.T. Wright (the leading scholar of this new perspective), and he still couldn’t figure out what the dude believed! But he could tell us what Wright did not believe: he did not believe in justification by faith alone. The scholars in this group of have retranslated the phrase: “by faith in Christ” as “by Christ’s faith (or faithfulness), or by the faith of Christ.” In other words, because Christ believed in Himself, we are justified.
Certainly Christ’s faithfulness led Him to the cross as our substitute. It led Him to always do what pleases the Father. It has been rightly stated that we are saved by works — by the work of Christ on our behalf. But not by our own works. But we are saved through the means of faith in the person and work of Christ. As one commentator put it: “You’re justified through faith, not because of it.”
UNION WITH CHRIST
UNION WITH CHRIST
DEATH TO THE LAW
DEATH TO THE LAW
A life guard is taught to wait until a drowning person has stopped struggling to save themselves, to rescue them. Otherwise their futile efforts will interfere with your effort to save them. In the spiritual realm, as long as a person is attempting to save themselves, they cannot be saved by Christ.
Look at verse 19. Notice in that Paul didn’t state that the law died to him. Rather Paul, and every other believer has died to the law. But what does that mean? John Calvin wrote:
“To die to the law is to renounce it and to be freed from its dominion, so that we have no confidence in it and it does not hold us captive under the yoke of slavery.”
Philip Ryken wrote:
“A man can be executed only once, and once he had been executed, the law has no further claim on him.”
Notice again in verses 19-20 that Paul indicates when he died to the law. He died when Christ died on the cross. Philip Ryken points out that at least four things were nailed to the cross of Calvary.
Four Things Nailed to the Cross
Jesus Himself
The Public announcement: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”
The debt of our sin
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Believers in Jesus Christ
Puritan William Perkins taught that as believers we need to recognize that Christ was crucified for us. And further we are to “Spread ourselves on the cross of Christ, believing and ... beholding ourselves crucified with Him.”
The believer’s crucifixion with Christ rests in our union with Christ. We died with Christ. We are raised with Christ. Christ lives in us.
Writing about our union with Christ, Martin Luther said:
“By faith you are so cemented to Christ that He and you are as one person, which cannot be separated but remains attached to Him forever.”
John Calvin wrote:
“We must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from Him, all that He has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.”
All of these thoughts on our union with Christ fly in the face of modern and post-modern thought. “Self-esteem, self-improvement, self-fulfillment, self-indulgence — whatever you want, as long as it begins with your “self.””
THE LOVE OF CHRIST
THE LOVE OF CHRIST
Notice that in verse 20 Paul states that 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.
Christ died on the cross because it was the will of the Father. But He also died because it was His will as well. His death was voluntary, and it was motivated because of His love for His people. Greater love has never been known. Both the Father and the Son demonstrate their loves for us at the cross of Christ! And because of this love, we who are believers in Christ are compelled to live in a manner that is pleasing to Him. And a huge part of pleasing Him is to share the message of the cross and the empty tomb with those who have not yet come to know Christ in a personal way.
Isaac Watts said it so well:
Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were a present far too small
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all
THE NULLIFICATION OF GRACE
THE NULLIFICATION OF GRACE
Notice verse 21. Paul is saying that if justification could be earned through any sort of a work, then there was absolutely no need for Christ to die on the cross.
Let’s put this in perspective of the context of this passage. Peter, while in Antioch, did something that Paul found to be inconsistent with the truth of the gospel. Which is that Jews and Gentiles are both justified by faith in Jesus Christ and no other way. In Paul’s perspective, Peter’s actions in effect nullified the grace of God by adding something to the gospel message. Therefore Paul confronted Peter in a public format. In effect Paul claimed that Peter’s actions were affecting others. The Jewish believers in Antioch had followed Peter in withdrawing from fellowshiping with the Gentile believers. And the Gentile believers were coming to the conclusion that they would have to become Jews in order to fellowship with the Jewish believers.
Though Peter perhaps saw the issue as incidental and in regards to fellowship and not salvation, Paul saw it has relating to the truth of the gospel — in other words it was related to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone.
Our righteous standing before God is based on our union with Christ. Writing to the Philippians Paul said:
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
We are united with Christ in His death. We are united with Christ in His resurrection. And we are united with Christ in the life which [we] now live in the flesh by faith.
Does our life reflect the life of Christ? Is there some inconsistency in our life that seeks to nullify God’s marvelous grace? Is the direction of our life having a negative impact on others?
Our passage does not tell us how Peter responded to Paul’s public rebuke. Some say that the silence is very loud. In other words, there may well have been tension between these two apostles for a period of time. However, in time that was certainly resolved since at the end of his life Peter, in his second epistle referred to Paul as “Our beloved Paul.” He even went on to endorse Paul’s writings ( including the account of his own failure) as Scripture. He placed Paul among the holy men of God who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
How do we respond when we see a spiritual leader doing something that is inconsistent with the truth of the gospel? Do we lovingly correct them as Paul did? It is not just an apostolic function to correct one who has gone astray. It for all of us who have the Holy Spirit residing in us. Turn quickly to .
How do we respond when someone comes to us seeking to lovingly correct us when we have erred? Do we get defensive? Or do we humbly accept the confrontation as an act of love?
Let’s pray.
Closing Song: No. 558 — I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST