Sermon Tone Analysis

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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

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 (, )

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 (; , , , , )

Saints are those who are in Christ

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:

Luther put it this way: “If the doctrine of justification is lost, the whole of Christian doctrine is lost.”

“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

POSITIONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS

Positional righteousness (or forensic righteousness) is Christ’s righteousness that is applied to the believer’s account

DEATH TO THE LAW

It is based on the believer’s union with Christ

“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:

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

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.