6. Justification by faith alone
An important word occurs for the first time in Galatians in these verses. It is central to the message of the epistle, central to the gospel preached by Paul, and indeed central to Christianity itself. Nobody has understood Christianity who does not understand this word. It is the word ‘justified’. The verb comes three times in verse 16 and once in verse 17, while the noun ‘justification’ (translated by niv as ‘righteousness’) occurs in verse 21.
In this paragraph, then, Paul unfolds the great doctrine of justification by faith. It is the good news that sinful men and women may be brought into acceptance with God, not because of their works, but through a simple act of trust in Jesus Christ. Of this doctrine Martin Luther writes:
This is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.
In other places he refers to it as the ‘chief’, the ‘chiefest’ and ‘the most principal and special article of Christian doctrine’, for it is this doctrine ‘which maketh true Christians indeed’. He adds: ‘if the article of justification be once lost, then is all true Christian doctrine lost’.
If the doctrine of justification is central to the Christian religion, it is vital that we understand it. What does it mean? ‘Justification’ is a legal term, borrowed from the law courts. It is the exact opposite of ‘condemnation’. ‘To condemn’ is to declare somebody guilty; ‘to justify’ is to declare somebody not guilty, innocent or righteous. In the Bible it refers to God’s act of unmerited favour by which he puts sinners right with himself, not only pardoning or acquitting them, but accepting them and treating them as righteous.
Many people find Paul’s language alien to their vocabulary, and his argument intricate and complex. But is Paul not writing about a universal human need, as pressing today as it was two thousand years ago? For there are at least two basic things which we know for certain. The first is that God is righteous; the second is that we are not. And if we put these two truths together, they explain our human predicament, of which our conscience and experience have already told us, namely that something is wrong between us and God. Instead of harmony there is friction. We are under the judgment, the just sentence, of God. We are alienated from his fellowship and banished from his presence, for ‘what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?’ (2 Cor. 6:14).
This being so, the most urgent question facing us is the one which Bildad the Shuhite asked centuries ago, ‘How then can a mortal be righteous before God?’ (Job 25:4). Or, as Paul would put it, ‘How can a condemned sinner be justified?’ His answer to these crucial questions is in this paragraph. First, he explains the doctrine of justification through faith (15–16). Then he argues it (17–21), dealing with the commonest objection to it and demonstrating the utter impossibility of any alternative.
1. Exposition (2:15–16)
What he writes takes the form of a contrast between the Judaizers’ doctrine of justification by works of the law and the apostles’ doctrine of justification through faith. He rejects the former and enforces the latter.
a. Justification by works of the law
By the law is meant the sum total of God’s commandments, and by works of the law, acts done in obedience to it. The Jews supposed they could be justified by this means. So did the Judaizers, who professed to believe in Jesus, but wanted everybody to follow Moses as well. Their position was this: ‘The only way to be justified is sheer hard work. You have to toil at it. The “work” you have to do is the “works of the law”. That is, you must do everything the law commands and refrain from everything the law forbids.’ ‘Supremely,’ the Jews and the Judaizers would go on, ‘this means that you must keep the Ten Commandments. You must love and serve the living God, and have no other gods or god-substitutes. You must reverence his name and his day, and honour your parents. You must avoid adultery, murder and theft. You must never bear false witness against your neighbour or covet anything that belongs to your neighbour.’ But still they have not finished. ‘In addition to the moral law, there is the ceremonial law which you must observe. You must be circumcised and join the Jewish church. You must take your religion seriously, searching the Scriptures in private and attending services in public. You must fast and pray and give alms. And if you do all these things, and do not fail in any particular, you will make the grade. God will accept you. You will be justified by “the works of the law”.’
This was the position of the Jew and the Judaizer. Paul describes them as seeking ‘to establish their own . . . righteousness’ (Rom. 10:3). It has been the religion of the ordinary people both before and since. Indeed, it is the fundamental principle of every religious and moral system in the world except New Testament Christianity. It is popular because it is flattering. It tells us that if we will only try a bit harder, we will succeed in winning our own salvation.
But it is all a fearful delusion. It is the biggest lie of the biggest liar the world has ever known, the devil, whom Jesus called ‘the father of lies’ (John 8:44). Nobody has ever been justified by the works of the law, for the simple reason that nobody has ever perfectly kept the law. The works of the law, a strict adherence to its demands, are beyond us. We may keep some of the law’s requirements outwardly, but no-one except Jesus Christ has ever kept them all. Indeed, if we look into our hearts, read our thoughts and examine our motives, we find that we have broken all God’s laws. For Jesus said that murderous thoughts make us murderers, and adulterous thoughts make us adulterers. No wonder the Scripture tells us: by the works of the law no one will be justified (16, alluding to Ps. 143:2). The astonishing thing is that people have ever imagined they could get to God and to heaven that way.
b. Justification through faith
The second alternative Paul calls by faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came into the world to live and to die. In his life his obedience to the law was perfect. In his death he suffered for our disobedience. On earth he lived the only life of sinless obedience to the law which has ever been lived. On the cross he died for our lawbreaking, since the penalty for disobedience to the law was death. All that is required of us to be justified, therefore, is to acknowledge our sin and helplessness, to repent of our years of self-assertion and self-righteousness, and to put our whole trust and confidence in Jesus Christ to save us.
‘Faith in Jesus Christ’, then, is not only intellectual conviction, but personal commitment. The expression in the middle of verse 16 is (literally) ‘we have believed into [eis] Christ Jesus’. It is an act of commitment: not just agreeing with the fact that Jesus lived and died, but running to him for protection and calling on him for mercy.
These, then, are theoretically the two alternative means of justification: ‘by the works of the law’ and ‘by faith in Jesus Christ’. And Paul tells us three times over that God’s way is the second, not the first. His emphatic triple statement in verse 16 is intended to leave us in no doubt about this matter. Not that the repetition is exact and monotonous, however, for there is an ascending scale of emphasis – first general, then personal, and finally universal.
The first statement is general (16a). We know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Paul has nobody specially in mind here; he is deliberately vague. Just ‘a person’, any man, any woman. Further, he says, ‘We know’. He does not offer a tentative opinion, but a dogmatic assertion. He has spent much of the first two chapters of the epistle defending his apostolic authority; now he lends the full weight of his authority to this statement. He has dared to claim that his gospel was ‘not of human origin’ (1:11). This being the case, his exposition of the gospel in verse 16 is not human but divine. Moreover, the plural ‘we know’ means in the context that the apostles Peter and Paul both know it, that they are united in their conviction about the nature of the gospel.
The second statement is personal (16b). Not only do ‘we know’, but we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith. That is, our certainty about the gospel is more than intellectual; we have proved it personally in our own experience. This is an important addition. It shows that Paul is setting out a doctrine which he has himself put to the test. ‘We know it,’ he says, ‘and we have ourselves believed in Christ, in order to prove it.’
The third statement is universal (16c). The theological principle and the personal experience are now confirmed by Scripture. The apostle quotes the clear-cut statement of Psalm 143:2 (as he does again in Rom. 3:20): because by the works of the law no one will be justified. The Greek expression is even more striking than the English. It refers to humanity without exception. Whatever our religious upbringing, educational background, social status or racial origin, the way of salvation is the same. No-one can be justified by the works of the law; everyone must be justified through faith in Christ.
It would be hard to find a more forceful statement of the doctrine of justification than this. It is insisted upon by the two leading apostles (‘we know’), confirmed from their own experience (‘we have put our faith in’) and endorsed by the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament (‘by the works of the law no one will be justified’). With this threefold guarantee we should accept the biblical doctrine of justification and not let our natural self-righteousness keep us from faith in Christ.
2. Argument (2:17–21)
Plain and powerful as Paul’s exposition is, it was challenged in his day, and it is still being challenged today. So he turns in these verses from exposition to argument. He tells us both the argument which his critics used to try to overthrow his doctrine, and the argument which he used to overthrow their doctrine and to establish his. We hear them arguing with one another, as it were.
a. The critics’ argument against Paul (2:17–20)
But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a law-breaker (17–18). These verses are not easy, and have been understood in different ways. Of the two main interpretations, I have chosen that which seems the more consistent with Paul’s writing elsewhere, and in particular with the parallel teaching in the epistle to the Romans.
Paul’s critics argued like this: ‘Your doctrine of justification through faith in Christ alone, apart from the works of the law, is a highly dangerous doctrine. It fatally weakens a person’s sense of moral responsibility. If someone can be accepted through trusting in Christ, without any necessity to do good works, you are actually encouraging that person to break the law, which is the shameful heresy of “antinomianism”.’ People still argue like this today: ‘If God justifies bad people, what is the point of being good? Can’t we do as we like and live as we please?’
Paul’s first response to his critics is to deny their suggestion with hot indignation: Absolutely not! he says (17). He especially denies the added allegation that he was guilty of making Christ the agent or author of people’s sins. On the contrary, he goes on, ‘I make myself a transgressor’ (18, av). In other words, ‘if after my justification I am still a sinner, it is my fault and not Christ’s. I have only myself to blame; no-one can blame Christ.’
Paul now proceeds to refute his critics’ argument. Their charge that justification by faith encouraged a continuance in sin was ludicrous. They grossly misunderstood the gospel of justification. Justification is not a legal fiction, in which our status is changed while our character is left untouched. We are ‘justified in Christ’ (17). That is, our justification takes place when we are united to Christ by faith. And those who are united to Christ are never the same again. Instead, they are changed. It is not just their standing before God which has changed; it is they themselves – radically, permanently changed. To talk of going back to the old life, and even sinning as they please, is frankly impossible. They have become a new creation and begun a new life.
This amazing change, which comes over those who are justified in Christ, Paul now unfolds. He describes it in terms of a death and a resurrection. Twice in verses 19 and 20 he speaks of this dying and this rising to life again. Both take place through union with Christ. It is Christ’s death and resurrection in which we share: For through the law I died to the law [the law’s demand of death was satisfied in the death of Christ] so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ [that is, being united to Christ in his sin-bearing death, my sinful past has been blotted out] and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (19–20).
Perhaps now it is becoming clearer why a Christian who is ‘justified in Christ’ is not free to sin. In Christ ‘the old has gone’ and ‘the new is here’ (2 Cor. 5:17). This is because the death and resurrection of Christ are not only historical events (he ‘gave himself’ and now ‘lives’), but events in which through faith-union with him his people have come to share (‘I have been crucified with Christ’ and now ‘I live’). Once we have been united to Christ in his death, our old life is finished; it is ridiculous to suggest that we could ever go back to it. Besides, we have risen to a new life. In one sense, we live this new life through faith in Christ. In another sense, it is not we who live it at all, but Christ who lives it in us. And, living in us, he gives us new desires for holiness, for God, for heaven. It is not that we cannot sin again; we can. But we do not want to. The whole tenor of our life has changed. Everything is different now, because we ourselves are different. See how daringly personal Paul makes it: Christ ‘gave himself for me’. ‘Christ . . . lives in me.’ No Christian who has grasped these truths could ever seriously contemplate turning back to the old life.
b. Paul’s argument against his critics (2:21)
We have seen how Paul counters his critics’ attempt to overthrow his doctrine; we must now consider how he sets about overthrowing theirs. I do not [neb ‘will not’] set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness [‘justification’] could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing (21). We must try to feel the force of this argument. The two foundation planks of the Christian religion are the grace of God and the death of Christ. The Christian gospel is the gospel of the grace of God. The Christian faith is the faith of Christ crucified. So if anybody insists that justification is by works, and that we can earn salvation by our own efforts, such a person is undermining the foundations of the Christian religion. He or she is nullifying the grace of God (because if salvation is by works, it is not by grace) and making Christ’s death superfluous (because if salvation is our own work, then Christ’s work was unnecessary).
Yet there are large numbers of people who, like the Judaizers, are making these very mistakes. They are seeking to commend themselves to God by their own works. They think it noble to try to win their way to God and to heaven. But it is not noble; it is dreadfully ignoble. For, in effect, it is to deny both the nature of God and the mission of Christ. It is to refuse to let God be gracious. It is to tell Christ that he need not have bothered to die. For both the grace of God and the death of Christ become redundant if we are in charge of our own destiny and can save ourselves.
3. Conclusion
Four Christian truths seem to stand out from this paragraph.
First, our greatest need is justification, or acceptance with God. In comparison with this, all other human needs pale into insignificance. How can we be put right with God, so that we spend time and eternity in his favour and service?
Second, justification is not by works of the law, but through faith in Christ.
Third, not to trust in Jesus Christ, because of self-trust, is an insult both to the grace of God and to the cross of Christ, for it declares both to be unnecessary.
Fourth, to trust in Jesus Christ, and thus to become united to him, is to begin an altogether new life. If we are ‘in Christ’, we are more than justified; we find that we have actually died and risen with him. So we are able to say with Paul:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
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