Beloved, I am glad to share with you today the above theme from Gal 2:1 and following. Indeed, Paul’s account of the circumstances of his apostolate completes what we know from the book of Acts. While the Lord had entrusted Peter with the proclamation of the gospel to the Jews, Paul had been chosen to preach the same gospel to the nations (Gal 2:8). His encounter with the other apostles could not, therefore, invalidate a call received from the Lord. On the other hand, he took their recommendation to remember the poor so much to heart that it must have been indirectly the cause of his imprisonment in Jerusalem (Acts 24:14-18). What do these relationships of the apostles teach us with each other? That we must value the service of others, and be careful not to go beyond our own, but to accomplish it without failure and without “having regard to the appearance of man.” (Gal 2:6)
The book of Acts confirms how difficult it was for the first Christians of Jewish origin to detach themselves from ordinances: circumcision and observance of the Law. A conference was held in Jerusalem to settle these questions (Acts 15:1-21). But Satan does not willingly give up a weapon that he has already used with some success. In turn, the Galatians, although not Jews, had fallen into this trap and Paul endeavours to show the terrible danger. Why was this return to the Act so serious? Why does Paul take him so much to heart that he went so far as to publicly blame Peter for his equivocal attitude (Gal 2:11-14)? Because encouraging believers to Judaize and do works was tantamount to saying that Jesus’ work was not enough. This is what countless Christians still seem to value. They recognize in principle the atoning value of Christ’s sacrifice. But at the same time they base their salvation on their works and on the practice of their religion. They “do what they can,” and rely on God for the rest. Let us answer them with verse 16 “that man is not justified on the basis of works… nor other than by faith in Jesus Christ”. Such a simple way? Yes, but provided by such a tall person. It is the Son of God “who loved me and gave himself up for me” (Gal 2:20). What is my part in this work? The one that a dead person can have, that is, none. Being crucified with Christ, I am delivered from the Law, “and I no longer live, me, but Christ lives in me…” Beloved of the Lord Jesus, these triumphant statements, can you take them to your own account in all truth?
Here we enter into the very heart of the question about the Gospel. Does it entail, as the apostle tells the Galatians, a complete break with the principles once admitted in the law of Moses? Or was it not rather necessary to recognize, as the false teachers claimed, that these principles could be accepted provided that they did not contradict the truths brought about by the Gospel? That was the question. Note that the one raised in Antioch was not apparently a major issue. Could we not rather associate ourselves, in the meals taken together, with brothers whose way of seeing we shared in a more complete way? Should we not be sparing each other and support each other?
If he had not been openly condemned by his act, Paul would not have been able to act in public towards him as he did, but to do otherwise was to fall back into the hidden way of acting of the false brothers. Here there was no need to be mistaken. Peter himself, after walking in the freedom of the Gospel, returned, for fear of opinion and what will be said of jews, to the slavery of the law. What a motive for an apostle! Had he not, as a deeply humiliating memory, once acted in the same way towards Christ in the court of the high priest? And hadn’t this fear of opinion led him to deny the Lord Himself? In short, an act so simple and of so little consequence that the choice of his guests had results that led to denying the Gospel: fear of man, return to the yoke whose grace had delivered the Christian, concealment erected as a system among the brothers, lack of righteousness in the march, trap and scandal placed before the feet of the brothers and leading to Barnabas, Paul’s companion, apostle on so many occasions of Christian freedom, were in Satan’s hands the causes and fruits of an act so seemingly untimely important. Do we not ourselves have to watch over our actions in this respect? If we are less in danger than before of falling back under the yoke of the law, under which, in fact, we have never been, would we not be much more in danger than before of returning to the world from which God’s grace had completely freed us? This danger, the epistle to the Galatians will give us later the opportunity to return to it.
“Seeing that they did not walk straight according to the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas, in the presence of all: If you who are a Jew, you live in the manner of the Gentiles and not in the manner of the Jews, why do you force the Gentiles to Judaize? We are Jews by birth, not sinners among the Gentiles. Nevertheless, knowing that it is not by the works of the law that man is justified, but by faith in Jesus Christ, we too have believed in Jesus Christ, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law. But, as we seek to be justified by Christ, if we ourselves were also found sinners, would Christ be a minister of sin? Far from it! For if I rebuild the things I have destroyed, I constitute myself a transgressor” (Gal 2:14-18).
Paul gives us here the summary of his talk. Coming to Antioch, Peter had lived as the nations and not as the Jews; by abandoning this march on the arrival of the Jews from James, he forced the nations to Judaize, restored the system of legal distinctions and consequently that of works of law on the principle of which no flesh could be justified. But worse than that, by virtue of the trust shown to him by the nations, by virtue of the keys entrusted to him by the Lord to open the kingdom of heaven to them, they would allow themselves to be brought back by him to a system of justification on the principle of works of law, instead of the principle of faith in Christ and the remission of sins by that faith (Acts 10:43).
“For I, by the law, died to the law, that I may live to God. I am crucified with Christ; and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me; — and what I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. I do not cancel God’s grace; for if righteousness is by law, then Christ died for nothing.” (Gal 2:19-21)
In stark contrast to the ministry of the law, Paul will, in verses 19 to 21, describe to us his own ministry and the treasures he found there for himself. Two things distinguish the Christian: 1° an entirely new life and 2° the possession of the HolySpirit. Note that here everything is personal. These are not abstract principles, but things that were lived and realized by the apostle. “I, by the law, died to the law,” he said, “so that I may live to God.” Paul had met Christ after His resurrection; he had learned there that the law absolutely condemned him. He, the righteous man under the law, had rejected Christ who came into grace. The law therefore sentenced him to death. This sentence had been executed, but not on himself who, otherwise, would be lost forever. She had been executed on another, on Christ. This was the secret of his deliverance. The law had condemned Christ to death. Having exercised her office which was to kill Paul, but in the person of another, she could no longer do anything to him. He is freed from the law by death (Gal 2:19-20); he is likewise freed from sin by death, since death is its absolute and definitive condemnation; finally, it is through death that he is freed, as we will see later from the flesh (Gal 5:24) and the world (Gal 6:14).
For a whole new man came out of there. By the judgment He made and suffered in my place, Christ finished with all these things and He finished for me. Now he no longer lives to these things, he left them by death, so did I. He lives to God, but it is so that I may live to God. A life of resurrection began for me. This life has God as its object; it is mainly the law that we are talking about here. The law killed Christ, for it says, “Cursed is whoever is hanged from the wood” (Gal 3:13). Certainly it found nothing to condemn in him, any cause of curse; it has found only absolute perfection; but only one fact is that apart from any other cause the curse was pronounced by the Word on him who occupied this place on a cursed wood (Dt 21:23).
But this is where He took our place in all His horror. All the causes of curse pronounced against us, he carried them in grace by making them his own. The law has not omitted any of them; she listed them all. “I, by the law, am dead,” but dead to the law. She can no longer do anything to me, any more than she can do anything to Christ. “By the law I died to the law.” So I have death behind me, but why? “That I may live to God.” The one who took my place is dead. Where is mine? In his death. But Christ is no longer in death. Where is he? Risen, in heaven and in glory. He lives to God. I, likewise, live to God waiting to occupy the same place as Christ, for I am still on earth, but dead as to my old life and living a new life, a life of resurrection. This life is in me: Christ lives in me. From now on my life can never be separated from his.
This life does not fall under the senses; you see it in its effects. In front of her, you often think you are dealing with the old life and we will see later why. But it’s a whole new life. A whole new element puts it into action, faith. Previously, without faith, I had a semblance of life, but only an appearance, because this life was death for God. Now it is a great reality. It is a life of faith attached to the Son of God and no longer to the first Adam. It is a life of love, of a love that He has pushed for me to the sacrifice of Himself. By dying by the law, I died by the law. By living in faith it is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me. No doubt I live in the flesh and I will do so as long as I am in this world, for the flesh is not dead, but I can stand for death to the flesh as I stand for dead to the law, for the flesh is no longer the determining motive of my life. This important truth will come back to our eyes later.
It was through love that I came to know the Son of God. He gave himself up for me. What compelled him to do so, if not love? He died in my place: he is the victim who bears on the cross all my condition, all my misdeeds and their infinite consequences, all the curse attached to it, everything that is summed up in this word: “He was made sin”.
Certainly, in speaking in this way, Paul was not cancelling out God’s grace. Is it not she who has won us justice? (Rom 3:22). If it were the law that acquired it from us, Christ would have died for nothing. His death would have no purpose.
To conclude, let us summarize in a few words what these teachings have taught us about the law: The law does not give deliverance, neither life, nor power, nor an object as the motive for our walk; it cannot exonerate the guilty; it cannot be a help to him. The only thing she can do is condemn and kill him. But he who, by faith, has received life, lives to God. He no longer lives for himself. “Christ lives in me,” says the apostle. He is in me a source of life, communion, divine joy, holy affections, light and strength. Only I still live in the flesh, I am still in the body, but with the faculty of surrendering myself entirely “to God as from among the dead, being made alive, and my members to God as instruments of righteousness” (Rom 6:13). For my conduct in this world, I live in faith in the Son of God and I find in Him a supreme motive to live like this: “He loved me.”
The following verses have been compiled for your edification and grouped together for your better understanding.
Call of Paul and the other apostles
- Spiritual sport, the Christian life compared to a race
-Fight to win the prize 1 Co 9.24 Don’t you know that those who run in the stadium all run, but only one wins the prize? Run in such a way as to win it. Gal 2:2 and it was according to a revelation that I went up there. I explained to them the gospel that I preach among the Pagans, I exposed it especially to those who are most regarded, so as not to run or have run in vain.
-Obstacles encountered by the runner Ga 5.7 You were running well: who stopped you, to prevent you from obeying the truth? Phil 2:16 bearing the word of life; and I will be able to boast, in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain or worked in vain.
-Running towards the goal Ph 3:14 I run towards the goal, to win the prize for the heavenly vocation of God in Jesus Christ.
-To prepare for the competition Hb 12.1 competition, therefore, we too, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, reject all burdens, and the sin that envelops us so easily, and run with perseverance in the career that is open to us,
-A beautiful end 2 Tim 4:7-8 I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith. 8 From now on the crown of righteousness is reserved for me; the Lord, the just judge, will give it to me in that day, and not only to me, but also to all those who have loved his coming.
- Part of the Abolished Law: Ritual law abolished in Christ
Eph 2:15 having annihilated by his flesh the law of ordinances in his prescriptions, in order to create in himself with the two one new man, establishing peace; Col 2:14 he erased the act whose ordinances condemned us and which remained against us, and he destroyed it by nailing it to the cross; He 7:18 There is thus abolition of an earlier ordinance, because of its impotence and uselessness; Heb 8:13 Saying: a new covenant, he declared the first old; now, what is old, what has aged, is about to disappear. He 10.1
Indeed, the law, which possesses a shadow of the goods to come, and not the exact representation of things, can never, by the same sacrifices that are offered perpetually every year, bring the assistants to perfection. He 12:27 These words: Once again, indicate the change of things shaken, as being made for a time, so that the unshakable things may remain.
- Bad influence of unfaithful Christians
Rom 14:15 But if your brother is saddened for a food, you no longer walk according to love: do not cause, by your food, the loss of the one for whom Christ died. 1 Co 5.6 You are mistakenly glorified. Don’t you know that a little sourdough makes the whole dough rise? 1 Co 8:10 For if anyone sees you, you who have knowledge, sitting at the table in a temple of idols, will not his conscience, which is weak, lead him to eat meat sacrificed to idols? Gal 5.9 A little sourdough makes the whole dough rise.
- Salvation by grace
Acts 15:11 But it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we believe we are saved, in the same way as they are. Rom 3:24 and they are gratuitously justified by His grace, by the means of redemption that is in Jesus Christ. Rom 11:6 Now, if it is by grace, it is no longer by works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. And if it is by works, it is no longer a grace; otherwise the work is no longer a work. Eph 2:5 we who had died by our trespasses, gave us back to life with Christ (it is by grace that you are saved); Tit 2:11 For the grace of God, the source of salvation for all men, has been manifested. Tit 3:7 that, justified by His grace, we may become, in hope, heirs of eternal life.
From all the above, we note that theChristian therefore died to the law (Gal 2:19), to sin (Rom. 6:11), to the world (Gal 6:14), to the elements of the world (Col 2:19, 20). If we seek the complete description of a Christian freed from the law, we see that he is in Christ; that Christ is in him, alive (Gal 2:20) and revealed (Gal 1:16); that Christ is before him, as his Object. It is then that affections are at stake: “He loved me and gave himself up for me.” Finally,let us notice the purpose of our beloved Savior in dying for us: 1) He gave Himself for our sins, so that He would take us out of this evil century (Gal 1:4; 1 Co 15:3). 2) He loved me and gave himself up for me (Gal 2:20). God sees His love for Us in that when we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). 3) He died to redeem us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (Gal 3:13). 4) He died for all, so that we would no longer live for ourselves, in selfishness, but for Him (2 Co 5:15). 5) He suffered once for sins so that He would bring us to God (1 John 3:18; Ex 19.4). 6) He died, not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the scattered children of God (Jn 11:52). 7) He Himself bore our sins in His body on the wood, that as we died to sins, we might live in righteousness (1 John 2:24). 8) He has given Himself for us, that He may redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for Himself an acquired people, zealous for good works (Titus 2:14). 9) Christ loved the Assembly and gave himself up for it, that he would sanctify it by purifying it by washing water by the word; that he may present the Assembly to Himself, glorious, having no blemish, wrinkle, or anything like it, but that it may be holy and blameless (Eph 5:25-28). Our prayers support you all in the walk with the Lord Jesus.
PRAYER OF ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS LORD AND PERSONAL SAVIOR
I now invite every person who wants to become a new creation by walking in the truth, to pray with me the following prayer:
Lord Jesus, I have long walked in the lusts of the world ignoring your love for humans. I admit to having sinned against you and ask your forgiveness for all my sins, because today I have decided to give you my life by taking you as Lord and personal Savior. I recognize that you died on the cross of Calvary and rose from the dead for me.
I am now saved and born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lead me every day to the eternal life that you give to all who obey your Word. Reveal yourself to me and strengthen my heart and faith, so that your light may be shining in my life right now.
Thank you, Lord Jesus for accepting me into your divine family, so that I may also contemplate the wonders of your kingdom.
I will now choose a nearby watering point to baptize myself by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
All adoration, power and glory are yours, now and forever and ever. Amen!
I would be happy to react to any questions and comments you may have, before sharing with you tomorrow “justification is by faith and not by law.”
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.
David Feze, Servant of the Almighty God.