Bible Commentaries

3. On one occasion (in Antioch) he therefore asserted, and, with the independence of an Apostle, dared assert, even in opposition to a Peter, the principles of his Gentile Christian preaching

( Galatians 2:11-21.)

11But when Peter was come [Cephas¹⁹ came] to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed [was condemned]²⁰. 12For before that [omit that] certain [certain persons] came from James, he did eat [was eating together]²¹ with the Gentiles: but when they were come [Game]²² he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were [omit which were]²³ of the circumcision 13 And the other Jews²⁴ dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also [ὥστε καί, so that even Barnabas] was carried away with [by] their dissimulation 14 But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter [Cephas] before them [omit them] all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews,²⁵ why compellest thou [how²⁶ is it that thou art 15 compelling] the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We who are [we are]²⁷ Jews by 16 nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, Knowing [yet²⁸ knowing] that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but [ἐὰν μή, except or but only] by the faith of Jesus Christ,²⁹ even we [we too] have [omit have]³⁰ believed in Jesus Christ [Christ Jesus],³¹ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for³² by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified 17 But if, while we seek to be justified by [in] Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid [or Far from it]. 18For if I build again the things19[very things]³³ which I destroyed, I make [prove]³⁴ myself a transgressor. For I:20 through the law am dead [died] to the law, that I might live unto God. I am [or have been] crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; [omit;] yet not I, [it is, however, no longer I that live]³⁵ but Christ liveth in me: and [yea] the life which I now live in the flesh I live by [in] the faith of the Son of God,³⁶ who loved me, and gave himself for me 21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead [died] in vain [without cause]³⁷.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Galatians 2:11. I withstood him to the face, etc.—“To the face”=not behind his back, in his absence. [It does not mean “publicly‚” that is asserted below ( Galatians 2:4). Some of the fathers‚ “to salve the authority of Peter” introduced the gloss κατὰ σχῆμα, “in appearance,” because he had been condemned by others. This view is opposed nobly by Augustine. See Alford and Wordsworth, in loco.—R.]

Because he was or had been condemned: the reason why Paul opposed him. It was not therefore any attack on the part of Peter himself, that occasioned Paul’s taking a stand against him. Ἀνέστην, therefore not=I withstood him, but=I took a stand against him. [Yet Peter’s conduct was an attack on gospel liberty; and Paul “opposed” sufficiently to “withstand” him.—R.]—The reason was, the indignant feeling of the Christians of Antioch, the unfavorable judgment passed upon him by them. Moreover, the scandal which he had given, was notorious, and Paul was obliged to do what he did. But he certainly did not do it out of personal irritation or from arrogance or malice; his own words prevent such a charge. For himself he did it unwillingly, would have avoided rebuking Peter “before them all.” But a definite reason, viz, regard for the brethren, the Gentile Christian church, impelled him to it. And in this there was also a command, so that even regard for Peter on the other hand, was no ground for holding back. [It must be remarked that the Greek only states indefinitely that Peter “was condemned,” by whom is a matter to be inferred. Various answers are given: by God, by his own previous conduct, by Paul himself (Alford), by the church at Antioch. The last is most probably meant, else the rebuke would not have been public. It is not necessary to suppose that only the scandal at Antioch drove Paul to this course, for the conduct of Peter was in itself reprehensible. “Had been condemned” must be preferred, if it be referred to a definite condemnation on the part of the Gentile Christians at Antioch.—R.]

Galatians 2:12. For before certain persons came from James, he was eating together with the Gentiles, i. e., with the Gentile Christians. He designates them according to their nationality, because it is on this that the matter turns. Peter therefore neglected the limitations of the Levitical law of meats. This is the simple sense of this remark. “A Jew could not without Levitical defilement eat with Gentiles” (even if these adhered to the decrees of the apostolic council). “Peter, however, had through Divine revelation ( Acts 10.) been taught the untenableness of this isolation within the sphere of Christianity.” This Jewish law of meats he disregarded, that is he lived ἐθνικῶς καὶ οὐκ Ἰουδαϊκῶς, at all events here in Antioch.—“Before certain persona came from James.” “From James” is not to be connected with “certain persons” as if=“certain adherents of James” (for “James would then be marked out as the head of a party, something which it would be neither necessary nor wise to do here”), but with “came‚” either generally=“from James‚” that is, from his circle of helpers, or=“sent by James.” But at all events they were such as held like sentiments with James, i.e., Jewish Christians, who themselves still adhered strictly to the Mosaic law, lived Ἰουδαϊκῶς καὶ οὐκ ἐθνικῶς, and who because, they felt obliged thereto as born Jews, regarded this Ἰουδαϊκῶς ζῇν as necessary for all born Jews, and accordingly for all Jewish Christians, but by no means demanded any such thing as the ἰουδαΐζειν of the Gentile Christians in Antioch, as Wieseler, perverting the state of facts maintains. They stood, therefore, upon the platform of James. “Certain persons” is not therefore= such as without ground, appealed to the authority of James; neither were they of the “false brethren” ( Galatians 2:4), who occupied a very different position from James. What views they had respecting the Gentile Christians, is not stated, for these were not at all in question; it is therefore natural to assume, that their views were those of James, and that the latter, when he sent these people, still thought as he did not long before, at the council ( Galatians 2:9; Acts 15.). [Schaff:—“It would seem from this passage that, soon after the council, James sent, some esteemed brethren of his congregation to Antioch not for the purpose of imposing the yoke of ceremonialism upon Gentile Christians—for this would have been inconsistent with his speech—but for the purpose of reminding the Jewish Christians of their duty and recommending them to continue the observance of the divinely appointed and time-honored customs of their fathers, which were by no means overthrown by the compromise measure adopted at the council. It is unnecessary therefore to charge him with inconsistency. All we can say is that he stopped half-way and never ventured so far as Paul, or even as Peter, who broke through the ceremonial restrictions of their native religion. Confining his labors to Jerusalem and the Jews, James regarded it as his mission to adhere as closely as possible to the old dispensation, in the hope of bringing over the nation as a whole to the Christian faith.”³⁸—R.] But with Peter, as a Jewish Christian and an Apostle to the Jewish Christians, they found fault, undoubtedly on account of his eating with the Gentiles, that is, with his neglect of the Mosaic law of meats, his ἐθνικῶς ζῆν. Yet it is by no means expressly said that they reproached him with it, for “fearing them of the circumcision,” may merely mean, that he feared possible reproaches, such as those, Acts 11:3. But as he then justified himself in this, and the justification was accepted ( Acts 11:18), there is the more reason to doubt whether the Jewish Christians, who came from James, really made reproaches against Peter, or even whether they would have done it, and whether it was not an empty fear on Peter’s part, which was blamed the more on this account, as a causeless denying of the convictions which he then successfully vindicated, a retreat out of weakness, from the position he had then joyfully assumed and justified, supported as he was by the experience through which God had led him. Peter must of course have feared possible reproaches to this effect: that although his conduct at that time respecting Cornelius had afterwards been approved, it would be a different thing for him now, in the presence of Jewish Christians, to live ἐθνικῶς, and moreover that, in the absence of so definite an occasion as then, he would now be regarded as one also standing outside [i.e., with the Gentile Christians.—R.], his authority with the Jewish Christians might be diminished, etc. But even if such reproaches were really made to him, these persons nevertheless are not to be regarded as agreeing with the “false brethren” and standing upon an entirely different platform from James himself, for neither Acts 11:18, nor Acts 15. is to be regarded as unhistorical. Out of fear, therefore, he withdrew and separated himself.—The imperfects are adumbrative, cause the events to go on, as it were, before the eyes of the reader.—Meyer.—He ate no more with the Gentile Christians, and as appears to be intimated, discontinued this without giving any explanation: he again attached himself to the Jewish Christians, that is, he behaved himself all at once as if the Jewish law of meats were still sacred in his view, inasmuch as he began again to observe it. He did not therefore give up his freer convictions, his practice alone lost its freedom, and stood therefore in contradiction with his convictions. In the act itself, there was nothing different from that indulgent regard to the prejudices of those still weak, which Paul himself so often urges as a duty. But the motive of Peter’s conduct in this case was not anxiety to avoid a possible scandal to the faith—this was not to be feared here—but the fear of men, fear of reproaches, and most likely also of losing consequence and authority. [It must be noted that such a withdrawal was a withdrawal from the very frequent agapae and the frequent Lord’s Supper. Though the decree of the Apostolic council did not command or forbid the common participation of Jewish and Gentile Christians in these services, yet Peter had thus communed with the Gentile Christians; he ceased to do Song of Solomon, and of course made great scandal. While not violating the letter of the decree, he yet treated these brethren as unclean.—R.]

Galatians 2:13. Paul therefore fastens on the conduct of Peter (and of the other Jewish Christians who did likewise) the sharp censure of the term ὑπόκρισις, dissimulation, and he is the more severe, because along with the consideration for the Jewish Christians, begotten of fear, there was a non consideration for the Gentile Christians; and thus they were both scandalized and perplexed, since by the change of conduct in Peter they were tempted to the thought that the Mosaic law must after all be binding. It is of course entirely incorrect to find the “dissimulation” in the former association with the Gentile Christians, as if this had been a momentary unfaithfulness towards actual Judaistic convictions.

[Even Barnabas.—“My co-laborer in the work of heathen missions and fellow-champion of the liberty of the Gentile brethren.” Schaff.—Lightfoot: “It is not impossible that this incident, by producing a temporary feeling of distrust, may have prepared the way for the dissension between Paul and Barnabas, which shortly afterwards led to their separation ( Acts 15:39). From this time forward they never again appear associated together. Yet whenever St. Paul mentions Barnabas, his words imply sympathy and respect. This feeling underlies the language of his complaint here, ‘even Barnabas.’ ” Comp. 1 Corinthians 9:6, and also the mention of Mark, Colossians 4:10.—R.]

[The conduct of Peter must be judged by the facts here stated, not by a desire to advocate or deny the primacy claimed for him. The occurrence is indeed characteristic of that Peter whom the Gospels describe; “first to confess Christ, first to deny Him; first to recognize and defend the rights of the Gentiles, first to disown them practically. His strength and weakness, boldness and timidity are the two opposite manifestations of the same warm, impulsive and impressible temper” (Schaff). The fault was one of practice, not of doctrine. The receiving of the rebuke is a sign of Peter’s genuine piety. Whether he went out again and wept bitterly we know not. But there was no “sharp contention,” and Peter’s love for Paul remained. On the early discussions respecting this occurrence see Lightfoot, p127, sq, showing how much the church is indebted to Augustine for a correct view of it. Comp. Doctrinal Notes.—R.]

Galatians 2:14. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly, etc.—We are to supply from Galatians 2:11 : “And at the same time heard the Gentile Christians expressing themselves in condemnation of it.” [The necessity of supplying this makes it the more doubtful, whether the reference there is to the “condemnation” on the part of the Gentile Christians.—R.] Πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου hardly =“according to,” which would be κατά, but “in the direction of,” = in order to preserve uprightly and further the truth of the gospel.

The sense, therefore, is the same as in Galatians 2:5. This agrees with the context, for Paul, in the conduct of Peter and the other Jewish Christians, beheld an infringement of the “truth of the gospel,” especially of the principle of Christian freedom founded in the gospel, on account of its effect on the Gentile Christians: “How is it that thou art compelling the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” (Meyer).—[The force of πρός is open to discussion, especially as the word ὀρθοποδεῖν is not only ἄπαξ λεγόμενον, but very rare. Lightfoot says it denotes here “not the goal to be attained, but the line of direction to be observed. See Winer, p424.” And Ellicott in reply to Meyer, who claims that κατά would have been used to express the idea of rule or measure, observes that the instances he quotes are all after περιπατεῖν. If the line of direction be the meaning, the E. V. is correct, and the implication is that Peter did not deviate from the “truth of the gospel,” but from the line of conduct which the truth of the gospel marked out, hence the verb retains a semi-local meaning, “walk straight.”—R.]

Before all, “very probably = in an assembly of the Church, although not convened immediately for this purpose” (Meyer)—before Jewish and Gentile Christians.—If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles: means the accustomed practice of Peter, from which he only then receded.—How is it that thou art compelling the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?—Paul shows him the set-contradictoriness of his behavior, by a kind of ironical address. “Thou thyself a Jew, livest as a Gentile—and how comes it, then, that thou coustrainest Gentiles to live Jewishly? Is not that an utter contradiction?” It is true Peter does not constrain the Gentiles directly; it is a turn which sharpens the censure; in reality, it was only an indirect constraining through the authority of the example of Peter. The opinion is, therefore, quite unfounded, which supposes that the messengers of James had preached the principle of the necessity of the observance of the law—even for Gentile Christians—and that Peter had at least tacitly supported this principle. Thereby they would have directly oppugned the view of James himself ( Acts 15.), and Peter would have oppugned his own. His “dissimulation” at this time by no means authorizes the assumption that he had changed his view as to the indispensableness or dispensableness of the law itself.—But at all events the Gentile Christians in Antioch looked upon Peter as one who, previously not observing the Jewish law, all at once began to observe it. That it was mere “dissimulation,” and not an actual change of view respecting the law, they did not at first know; and, therefore, they might easily, even if no one attempted directly to impose the law upon them, feel constrained to regard it as something necessary, and also to guide themselves in practice according to it—at least, in this one point respecting meats. There was at all events the danger that such a moral compulsion might be exercised; and when once a single point was regarded as necessary, matters might go farther.—Against Wieseler’s explanation: “You so act that the Gentiles also must live as Jews, if they wish any longer to eat with you” (which is connected with his erroneous view respecting the journey of the Apostle narrated Galatians 2:1 sq.), let it be here remarked only: Had Peter, by his conduct, only imposed on the Gentile Christians of Antioch the necessity of again observing the decrees of the apostolic council, in order to be able to eat with the Jewish Christians, and had Paul himself so regarded it, Peter would certainly not have received this public rebuke from Paul. Peter’s conduct, his yielding from fear, would indeed have been censurable, yet the consequences of this for others could only have given occasion for a public rebuke, provided they endangered the life of faith; but on Wieseler’s supposition this could not have resulted.—’Ἰουδαΐζειν, is, without doubt, different from ’Ἰουδαϊκῶς ζῇν, and is not merely another expression for this, but it is with design that Ἰουδ. ζῇν is not repeated. With Peter, at that time, a relapse into Ἰουδ. ζῇν took place—at least in practice, and through it a misleading of the Gentile Christians into ἰουδαΐζειν was to be feared. Ἰουδαϊκῶς ζῇν was in the Jewish Christian something in itself quite irreprehensible, was only a maintenance of national usage; in the Gentile Christian a Ἰουδ. ζῇν became a ἰουδαΐζειν, that is, a Judaizing, being a Judaizer. [Hence, when Peter, who had been living ἐθνικῶς, occupying the position of the Gentile Christians, began again to live Ἰουδαϊκῶς his action was constructively ἰουδαϊζειν, and a moral compulsion put upon his late associates, the Gentile Christians, to do the same.—R.] The distinction is difficult to render in a translation; it is something like, “to live Jewishly,”—“to be Jewish.”

Galatians 2:15-21. That this is a continuation of the address to Peter, is self-evident to every unprejudiced reader, and the assumption that an address to the Galatians suddenly comes in here is so utterly at variance with the context that it is unnecessary to refute it. To mention no other reasons against it, let any one read the historical narrative, extending from as far back as Galatians 1:13, up to this point, and imagine now, all at once, without any transition, an address to the Galatians, beginning, “We are, by nature, ‘Jews.’ ” This view, it is true, has found again decided advocates in Wieseler, Von Hofmann. True, on our view also, the exposition is somewhat difficult, but it commends itself too distinctly to allow us to hesitate on account of the difficulties of the interpretation. And has not this difficulty, in part, its ground in this, that Paul only cites words, spoken on another occasion, and perhaps somewhat condensed also.—At all events the words are not to be regarded as merely addressed to Peter personally. Paul passes over into a more general exposition, for the instruction of the Gentile and Jewish Christians that were then present. “He makes out of the transaction, which then arose respecting the eating or not eating with the Gentiles, a locum communem (an article of doctrine), which extends much further than the transaction itself. He speaks of the works of the law generally.”—Roos. Paul cites with such detail his words then uttered for this very reason, that the substance of what he then said corresponds so well with the purpose of his letter, suits the case of the Galatians so precisely. Of course it cannot be affirmed that Paul cites the words that he then used, with literal exactness; his expressions may have been modified to a nearer correspondence with the particular purpose for which he here adduces them, although there is nowhere in the expressions themselves any necessity for such an opinion.

Galatians 2:15. We are by nature Jews, etc.

Galatians 2:15-17 give the ground of the censure in Galatians 2:14 : we, as Jews, have the law, which, of itself, exalts us above the Gentiles, who, as “without law,” are to be regarded as “sinners;” yet we have surrendered the preëminence which we had, and emancipated ourselves from the law in the knowledge that a man is not justified by it, but by faith in Christ,—how then can one of us wish to bring the Gentiles under the law, over whom it was never in force?—would be the very obvious conclusion, which Paul, at all events, compels the hearer to draw, but he himself makes the more general, but more pointed one: How then can any one of us press the observance of the law again, as though otherwise we fell into the category of Gentiles of sinners? One who does this makes Christ thereby a minister of sin—that is, he declares, by this reëstablishment of the law, that faith in Christ itself, as it involves the giving up of the law, brings men into the category of sinners ( Galatians 2:17).—Not sinners of the Gentiles.—Spoken from the national and theocratic point of view, on which Paul expressly places himself by the emphasizing of their Jewish descent. From that point of view, the Gentiles, as ἄνομοι, in contrast with the Jews, who are ἔννομοι, are, in themselves, ἀμαρτωλοί κατʼ ἐξοχήν, although it is, of course, certain that Paul, in another sense, enforces the truth that there is also an ἐν νόμῳἁμαρτ., Romans 2:12; and that, in a deeper sense, they also, as Jews (with the law), were ἁμαρτωλοί, is an essential thought of the following context, inasmuch as they found justification only through faith in Christ.

Galatians 2:16. Yet knowing that.—It is simplest to take εἰδότες δέ, “knowing that,” etc., as the protasis, so that the apodosis begins with καὶ ἡμεῖς, “we also,” and to supply ἐσμέν in Galatians 2:15. The objection of Meyer, that the statement of how Paul and Peter had come to the faith, would not be historically accurate, inasmuch as the conversion of neither had come to pass in the discursive way implied in εἰδότες … ἑπιστ., is whimsical. The foundation of their faith in Christ was the knowledge, or at least the feeling, that in this faith alone “justification” was found. Only in the measure in which they acquired this conviction, did their faith in Christ become a full, ripe faith.—A man is not justified, etc.—As Paul here is merely citing words spoken on another occasion, the doctrine of the justification of man not by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ appears here only as a doctrinal principle of the general Pauline theology. It is uttered in a very definite manner, is almost dogmatically formulated, yet strictly speaking it is not demonstrated, but presupposed as familiar. (Chap3. contains not so much an elucidation of the nature of justification as a demonstration that it results from “faith,” not from “the law,” instructive as this demonstration doubtless is for the apprehension of its nature.) Hence the philological investigation of the word δικαιοῦν belongs rather to the exposition of the Epistle to the Romans. On the doctrinal conception of justification, see Doctrinal Notes below.

Looking at the present context alone, we should be disposed to refer the expression, works of the law to merely ceremonial requirements of the law; but by thus doing we should miss entirely the Apostle’s meaning. The meaning of the phrase “not justified by the works of the law” is not to be gathered from the immediate context merely; it is, as intimated above, a proposition, elsewhere set forth in detail, and only cited here with the presupposition that it is familiar.—The idea ἔργα νόμου is to be taken in the universality implied in the expression. It denotes simply works prescribed by the law, whether of a more ritual character, or, in the stricter sense, moral injunctions. For a more particular consideration, see Doctrinal Notes below.

[The E. V. renders ἐὰν μή rather weakly, “but,” since the meaning is “except,” “but only,” sola fide (Luther, Meyer). The justification is not at all by works of the law; which is also the meaning of the formal, final clause of the verse.—Διὰ πίστεως, per fidem. Faith is the means by which justification is received. Hooker: “The only hand which putteth on Christ to justification.” The Apostle also uses ἐκ with πίστεως; that preposition may imply origin, but as it is used with πίστεως in this connection, that idea is forbidden; perhaps the reason of the change was merely to make the correspondence, ἐξ ἔργων—ἐκ πίστεως. It is here used in each case with ἔργων, where the thought of origin may be implied.—We believed in Christ Jesus.—Not “became believers in” (Lightfoot), but “have put our faith in.” The preposition (εἰς) retaining its proper force, and marking not the mere direction of the belief, but the ideas of union and incorporation with (Ellicott).—There seems to be some ground for the change from “Jesus Christ” to “Christ Jesus” here; it is more elevated than the usual form (Meyer), brings the Messiahship into prominence, as “we also” refers to Paul and Peter, who were Jews (Alford). Still this must not be insisted on.—The genitives Χριστοῦ and νόμου throughout are objective genitives (Meyer, Ellicott, Alford).—R.]

For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.—[Schaff: “Literally, ‘shall all flesh not be justified,’ ‘find no justification.’ For the negation attaches to the verb, and not to the noun.” This justifies the force of ἐὰν μή above. No justification at all from works, even in connection with faith.—R.] This is founded on Psalm 143. In the parallel passage, Romans 3:20, ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ, “in his sight,” is further added. Wieseler: “The words ἐξ ἔργων νόμου Paul has added entirely in the sense of the original passage; for when the Psalmist said, that before God no flesh shall be justified, he of course had in mind the works prescribed by the O. T. law. Since then this law prescribes not only outward works, but also holy dispositions, we must understand the latter also as included both by the Psalmist and Paul among the works of the law.”—“Shall be justified.”—“It remains undetermined whether the Apostle writes δικαιωθήσεται [future] in view of a final issue in the case of the individual or of mankind, but a final judgment is indicated by the future both here and in the original passage. Only thus, too, is there a progress of thought; otherwise the discourse would be intolerably indefinite. The entrance upon the way of faith (ἐπιστεύδαμεν) is explained from the knowledge that in the present it is the only means of becoming righteous, and the exclusion of the way of legal doing (καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων) has its ground in the unprofitableness of it, for appearing before God hereafter as righteous.” Von Hofmann.

Galatians 2:17. But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ.—“In Christ” not=through communion with Christ, ἐν Χρ. εἷναι, although of course faith brings us into inward union with Christ, but it “denotes Christ as the ground of our justification, as the causa meritoria in which it rests” (Wieseler). [The phrase ἐν Χριστῷ is a formula of such deep significance in Paul’s Epistles, that it is perhaps better always to find in it the idea of union, fellowship with Christ. Why not understand it thus: justified because in Christ by faith? See Ellicott, and compare Meyer in loco.—R.]

We ourselves also.—On our side also, so that we too came into the class of “sinners of the Gentiles.” If we came into this class in and through the effort to be justified in Christ, Christ would thus be a minister of sin, would make sinners and not “righteous,” and would therefore render a service to sin. On this interpretation of the protasis, the apodosis cannot be an interrogation (against Meyer); for from this apodosis it is now justly concluded that Christ would be the minister of sin.—God forbid negatives therefore the protasis on account of the consequence resulting therefrom—a consequence in fact utterly inadmissible. It is true, everywhere else in Paul’s writings, μὴ γένοιτο negatives a question. If it be thought on this account necessary to assume a question here, the protasis must be taken differently, somewhat, thus: “But if we, while we were seeking to be justified in Christ, were ourselves found sinners—because we would thereby declare, that the law has not availed us for justification, but that we were notwithstanding the law sinners, still needing justification—is Christ therefore a minister of sin?” Only we should then expect, as in Romans 3:3; Romans 3:5, μὴ Χριστὸς ἁμ. διάκονος; as Von Hofmann remarks. He therefore supplies εὑρέθημεν in the protasis, making it a complete sentence, and translates: “But if as those, who seek to be justified in Christ, sc., we are found, then are we also found sinners.” But this explanation is evidently forced. It must also be noted that, while Paul elsewhere only uses μὴ γένοιτο after an interrogation, he as constantly introduces that interrogation with οὖν. As a deviation from his usual practice must be admitted in any case, the further deviation, that μὴ χέν. is not preceded by an interrogation may well be conceded. But in any case the explanation is difficult. [Light foot fairly discusses the various explanations1. As an attack on the premises through a monstrous conclusion (as above). 2. An illogical conclusion deduced from premises in themselves correct. This view, which makes an interrogation in the last clause, is preferred by him, and by most English commentators. “ ‘Seeing that in order to be justified in Christ it was necessary to abandon our old ground of legal righteousness and to become sinners (i.e., to put ourselves in the position of the heathen) may it not be argued that Christ is thus made a minister of sin?’ This interpretation best develops the subtle irony of ἁμαρτωλοί: ‘We Jews look down upon the Gentiles as sinners; yet we have no help for it but to become sinners like them.’ It agrees with the indicative εὑρέθημεν and with Paul’s use of μὴ χένοιτο.” It paves the way for the words which follow: “I, through the law, am dead to the law.” Ἆρα, is to be preferred to ἄρα in this case. The former hesitates, the latter concludes.—R.]

Μὴ γένοιτο,³⁹ in no way whatever is Christ a “minister of sin,” for it is not the seeking justification in Him, that makes me a sinner, but I am found a sinner in an entirely opposite case. [Lightfoot: “Nay verily, for, so far from Christ being a minister of sin, there is no sin at all in abandoning the law; it is only converted into a sin by returning to the law again.”—R.]

Galatians 2:18. For if I build again the very things I destroyed.—In this opposite case, I represent myself as a sinner, but the blame does not rest on Christ. “Build up again,” etc. Thus Paul describes the conduct of Peter, “who previously, and even in Antioch had at first declared the Mosaic law not binding, as Christians had therefore, as it were, torn it down as a now useless building; but afterwards through his Judaizing conduct (even though it did not arise from conviction), represented it again as binding, and hence, as it were, built up the demolished edifice anew.”—“The first person veils what had taken place in concreto, under the milder form of a general statement” (Meyer).—Wieseler, according to his view of the whole section, gives the sense thus: “But if we also, who seek to be justified in Christ, are convicted as sinners, that is, should sin; Christ is not therefore a promoter of sin. For then I am myself to blame for the transgression, since what I have destroyed (namely, the dominion of sin!) this I build up again.” According to this, Paul is here laying stress upon the indissoluble connection between justification and sanctification. Certainly a striking example of dogmatizing exegesis.!—I prove myself a transgressor:—i.e., of the law. In what way? we must ask, for it might be the “destroying” itself in which the sin consisted, not the “building again.” The latter certainly; in Galatians 2:19 Paul tells us why.

[Bengel: “Summa ac medulla Christianismi.”—R.]

[The distinction made by Light-foot in his notes on this passage, must be regarded. The law is here spoken of, not as to its economical purpose (as Wordsworth who limits the meaning here to the law as a covenant), but rather in its moral effects.—R.] “I through the law died to the law” that is, the law itself caused me to die to it. But what now is the meaning of1. “I died to the law”? That thereby a becoming free from the law is affirmed is clear. But in the first place this “dying to the law” is not (with many expositors) to be construed as an activity bearing upon the law=it has come to this, that I have acquitted myself of dependence on the law, etc. The Apostle means to affirm something as having happened to him, not something as having been done by him, although of course this event has had a basis in his ethical nature. In the next place, however, the conception of dying, which is involved in the expression, is not to be at once transmuted into that of becoming free; or else justice is not done to the Apostle’s turn of thought, which here, as the sequel shows, revolves about the ideas of life and death. Compare the analogous expressions: ἀποθανε͂ιν ἁμα-ρτίᾳ, νεκρ. ἁμαρτίᾳ, Romans 6:2; Romans 6:10-11, where also the Apostle, as the connection in each passage shows, means an event coming to pass through dying, Galatians 2:10 in the physical, Galatians 2:2; Galatians 2:11, in the ethical sense. Still more closely analogous is Romans 7:1 sq. In Galatians 2:4 of that passage we have the analogous expression—only there it is passive, while here it is expressed by the neuter verb θανατωθῆναι τῷ νόμῳ and in Galatians 2:1 he gives us the key to the figure in the sentence; “the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth.” The becoming free from the law is therefore, of course, the result of the dying to the law, but not immediately this itself. “Died to the law” is=I have died with this effect, that the law has lost me, who had hitherto belonged to it, that is, that its dominion over me, its claims upon me ceased, so that it could no longer urge its requirements upon me, as heretofore. While “died” of itself already intimates the legitimacy of this acquittal from the law, the complete demonstration of this is contained in the fact that this dying “to the law” has come to pass “through the law” not by a power residing outside of it has this death to the law been effected, not in any antinomistic way, not in conflict with the law, so that this would have any ground of complaint. But now the question Isaiah 2. how has he “through the law” died to the law? how has the “law” itself brought about in him a state of death as regards the law, and therewith a release from its dominion? Thus much, that the law leads to death, Paul plainly declares, e g. Romans 7:5; Romans 7:10-11; Romans 7:13. The middle term there is, that it is the νόμος itself which excites sin into ἀναζῇν. This thought is of obvious application hero, The explanation would then be; by the fact that the “law” brought me death, its dominion over me reached, it is true, its culmination, but thereby also was broken and done away. For with him who has died, the dominion of the law ceases—according to the principle cited above. And deducing the reason from the passage itself, we might thus state it; for the law can no more come forward with the claims that I should keep it, in order to justification, when its effect is rather death. The objection that the Apostle could not well affirm this “dying” of himself, as something actual since by his conversion he had been preserved from this effect of the law, will not hold; for Paul, Romans 7:10 affirms this very thing himself. This explanation is, however, at variance with the fact that according to Galatians 3:24, the νὁμος, is, indeed παιδαγωγὸς εἰς Χριστόν, but of itself, without Christ, does not yet lead to man’s becoming free from it. Now it is true, that this passage reads as if Paul here refers the dying to the law directly to the law itself, but he then proceeds to give the elucidation of this, by giving the immediate cause of the dying, namely, “I have been crucified with Christ.” This statement therefore explains the former one. In the same way the dying unto sin, mentioned Romans 6 is by means of the “dying with Christ,” and in Romans 7 the death of Christ is made the cause of the becoming dead to the law. Thus much then is already clear, that the “law” in both cases is of course the same (Mosaic) law, but in each case it comes into view in a different relation; in νόμῳ in its requirements, in διὰ νόμου in its effect. This explains in a simple way the paradoxical expression, according to which the law appears as making free from itself. But since it is still the same law, Paul is entitled to say, that he who will nevertheless again live unto the law although “through the law he died unto the law” exhibits himself as a “transgressor” sc., of the law.

Let us now consider the first statement of the purpose of this dying namely: that I might live unto God, with the dying to the law the living to the law, has, as the very terms imply, come lo an end. As long as this existed, no living unto God was possible, but with the dying to the law every hinderance to this living unto God is removed. “Live unto God:” just as Romans 8:11. As the dying to the law may not be treated as immediately convertible into a being released from the law, obliterating the conception of dying; so on the other hand the realism of the Pauline expressions requires the like in the case of the antithetical expression: “live to God.” Paul wishes first to oppose to the being dead a being alive, therefore this means: that I might be living as regards God=with this effect, that God should have me, after the law has lost me. As from the being dead there resulted the dissolution of a connection—with the law—which had hitherto existed, so from the life there results the formation of a new connection, namely, with God. (Why precisely this results, appears first from what follows, for from the dying “to the law through the law” of itself, there would certainly not as yet result any new life at all, and especially a life for God.) Hence by “living unto God” as well as by “dying to the law” Paul wishes to express, chiefly, an event, not an activity, something which should be accomplished in him, not something which should be done by him in consequence of the dying to the law. Comp. the way in which Paul, Romans 6:11 sets forth the “living unto God” of Christians as something that actually comes to pass in their case, not as something which is as yet their task. According to this it would be about=εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι ὑμᾶς ἑτέρῳ, Romans 7:4; to belong to God, which involves both a being under God’s authority and a communion with God. So far it rather affirms the possession of a good, the attainment of a position, the gaining of a profit, than the proposal of a work. The next verse especially leads us to refer it to the full filial status in relation to God, as it appertains primarily to Christ. This filial status would then be opposed to the condition under the law. Comp. Galatians 3:23 sq. The fact that Paul here contrasts “God” and “law,” “living unto God” and “living to the law” would then be explained by the essential difference existing between the full filial position of God’s children and the state of bondage under the law. And the antithesis would be essentially the same which Paul sets forth, Romans 6:14, as an antithesis between being “under the law” and “under grace.” Life, however, is not merely a state, but essentially an activity also, actualizing itself and having permanence only as such. Hence “living to God” indicates, though not primarily, yet as immediately resulting, an activity and course of conduct with reference to God, and the more so indeed for the very reason, that by this “living to God” especially a good is gained; on which account also Paul, e.g., Romans 6:12-13, affirms as an obligation contained therein, the obligation “to yield one’s self to God.” Since he there derives this obligation from the “being alive unto God,” we should doubtless assume it here also, as a secondary idea implied in “that I might live unto God.” In the first place the expression ἵνα—statement of design—points to something, which even if it is on the one hand already given, yet on the other is also still to be looked for. And in the second place the connection points to this ethical interpretation, for Paul means to repel the allegation that by faith in Christ, by abandoning the position of the law, one be comes a sinner: and he cannot do this more emphatically than by describing the release from the law as the operation of the law itself, and as having for its purpose the living unto God. “Living unto God” then passes over into the meaning: to dedicate one’s life to God, the dative thus acquiring of course a yet fuller meaning, denoting not merely possession, but devotion, surrender to. The antithesis between “living unto God” and “living unto the law” is also to be explained as Romans 6. For the law leads “to sin” (and to death). The living to the law then in truth sunders from God. The “dying to the law” thus acquires the sense of dying unto sin ( Romans 6.), though of course it is not to be identified with it.

[Ellicott thus sums up the results; while his views do not differ materially from those given above, the statement is so succinct that the substance of it may well be inserted here: 1. Law in each case has the same meaning2. The Mosaic law is meant3. The law is regarded under the same aspect as in Romans 8:7; Romans 8:13, a passage in strictest analogy with the present4. It was not διὰ νόμον or κατὰ νόμον but διὰνόμου, through the instrumentality of the law, that the sinful principle worked within and brought death upon all5. “Died” is not merely “legi valedixi,” but expresses generally what is afterwards more specifically expressed by “I have been crucified with.” 6. The dative “to the law” is not merely “with reference to,” but a species of dative “commodi:” “I died not only as concerns the law, but as the law required.” He paraphrases thus “I through the law, owing to sin, was brought under its curse; but having undergone this, with, and in the person of Christ, I died to the law in the fullest and deepest sense—being both free from its claims and having satisfied its curse.” So Lightfoot: “The law is the strength of sin. At the same time it provides no remedy for the sinner. On the contrary it condemns him hopelessly, for no one can fulfil the requirements of the law. The law then exercises a double power over those subject to it; it makes them sinners and punishes them for being so. What can they do to escape? They have no choice but to throw off the bondage of the law, for the law itself has driven them to this. They find the deliverance, which they seek, in Christ. Thus then they pass through three stages1. Prior to the law—sinful, but ignorant of sin; 2. under the law—sinful, and conscious of sin, yearning after better things; 3. free from the law—free and justified in Christ. The second stage (‘through the law’) is a necessary preparation for the third (‘died to the law’).” So Meyer and many others, following Chrysostom in the main.—R.]

Galatians 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ.—Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι. “I have come into fellowship with Christ’s death on the cross, through faith, so that what happened to Christ has also happened to me.” The Apostle declares thereby in what way the dying to the law through the law has been effected. Christ died “through the law,” for in the crucifixion the curse of the law was fulfilled upon Him. Whoever therefore is “crucified with Christ,” has also died “through the law”=the curse of the law is fulfilled on him too. But Christ, dying through the law, died also to the law, i.e., His life of subjection to the law came to an end (comp. Galatians 4:4) even according to the principle, Romans 7:1, and the more so in His case, because it brought the curse undeservedly upon Him, and therefore forfeited its claim. As now the one “crucified with Christ” has died “through the law,” he has at the same time thereby also died “to the law”=he has, for the law, become a dead man, such an one as is no longer subject to the law, is free from it and its claims. The law over against him has no right of possession, having lost it. Comp. Romans 7:2 : “dead to the law through the body of Christ.” An equivalent sense is contained in Galatians 3:25 : “faith having come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” For “crucified with Christ” rests essentially upon “faith.” As “I have been crucified with Christ” was the proof of the precious declaration ( Galatians 2:19), go Galatians 2:20 first makes clear, why in consequence of the “dying to the law through the law,” he has attained to a “living unto God.” For as it is especially true of Christ that through the law, He died to the law, so it is also especially true of Him, that this came to pass that He might live unto God. Comp. Romans 6:10. For His death on the cross was for Him the departure from that life in which He also had been subject to the law ( Galatians 4:4), and through His resurrection it led in His case to the entrance into a life of another kind, into a life, in which He without any medium stood in immediate relation to God, in a pure filial relation, something which is most simply expressed by “living unto God.” Whoever now believes in Christ, participates, as in Christ’s death, so in Christ‘s new life; as he is crucified with Christ, so he lives with Christ ( Romans 6:8). But Paul does not stop with this thought; he is not satisfied with a “crucified Christ” that he might live with Christ—It is, however, no longer I that live.—In his case the being “crucified with” has indeed led to a life; but what now lives in him is no more his Ego; this his Ego did live, when he was still under the law, without knowledge of Christ; it is therefore an Ego essentially linked with the law, disappearing with the legal life, so that he after the revolution which has come to pass within him through faith in Christ and the release from the law, must regard it as altogether vanished out of existence. This whole Ego has died with Christ.—But Christ liveth in me.—Another life is it, on the contrary (δέ adversative), that is now in him, the life of another personality; and this personality is Christ, viz., as one who has Himself passed through death to life. And as such He is living unto God. Therefore although living with Christ has as its result, living unto God, this must needs become far more complete by a living of Christ Himself in the man.

Yea the life which now I live in the flesh.—But while Paul has declared of himself, that Christ Himself lives in him, Christ as the risen and glorified One, Hebrews, on the other hand, knows well that even yet there appertains to him as before, a life “in the flesh,” i.e., a life of terrestrial corporeality, and so far, therefore, a yet imperfect life, which of itself stands in conflict with the life of Christ in him (δέ in ὁ δέ adversative). [It is perhaps better to regard δέ as introducing an explanatory and partially concessive clause (Ellicott). “So far as I now live in the flesh; it is still a life in faith.” Lightfoot. To avoid the repetition of “but”—the word “yea” will convey the force of the connection—“Even though I do live a life in the flesh, Christ so lives in me, that yea this very life I live by the faith,” etc.—R.] “Flesh” here docs not of course affirm an ethical defect, for he affirms this life at this very moment of himself, but only so to speak, a physical life; the opposite idea is not: in the Spirit, but: in vision, in heaven. Paul does not, however, on this account, recall what he said before, but reconciles the life “in the flesh” with the life of christ in him by I live in the faith.—“Now” is in opposition to the past time before the “dying to the law.” Now, after he has died to thelaw, he lives, it is true, even yet “in the flesh,” but he lives “in the faith.” “In the faith” is of course opposed, first of all in a restricted way, to “in the flesh,” on which account also the two phrases are conjoined; but in fact it constitutes the antithesis to the previous “living to the law.” [Not “by faith,” but “in faith,” “the atmosphere as it were which he breathed in this his new spiritual life” (Lightfoot).—R.] Of the Son of God,—Christ, we may believe, is designedly distinguished by this exalted predicate, in order to characterize faith as something great, in that it lays hold on the Son of God Himself. As if to say: what matters it that I still live in the flesh? Even in the flesh I possess through faith the Son of God! At the same time also the preposterousness of the thought, that one can become a sinner, “seeking to be justified in Christ,” [or that “Christ is a minister of sin.”—R.] is intimated. Who loved me and gave himself for me.—“It is indeed natural that I should believe on Him, since Hebrews,” etc.—and on the other hand this is a more definite statement of what faith believes.

Galatians 2:21 is a simple conclusion from what immediately precedes. Men cannot now say, that I frustrate the grace of God, for this manifested itself in the atoning death of the Son of God. But precisely in this do I believe, yea, my whole life is a life in faith thereon. Exactly the reverse: if righteousness come through the law, then Christ died without cause, needlessly, and if I through the law sought justification, I should then declare the death of Christ to have taken place in vain, and should thus reject the grace of God: but now this latter is precisely what I did not do, and therefore not the former; I cannot be reproached with this. It is to be supposed, that some accused Paul, on account of his independence of the law in his course of conduct, of a contempt of the grace of God, not recognizing, in their confusion of thought, the truth that just this self-elevation of Christ was the chief manifestation of this grace, that therefore every disparagement of that self-devotion to death, by emphasizing the law, implied a contemning of this grace. This δωρεάν, is, in conclusion, a sharply trenchant word. [Meyer: “This death took place unnecessarily, if what it should effect, could be attained through the law. Erasmus is excellent: est autem ratiocinatio ab impossibili.”—R.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. “Controversy of Paul with Peter” is a frequent, but incorrect title of this section. It should rather be entitled: Peter’s weak yielding and Paul’s open rebuke of it. For there is not the slightest mention made of a controversy between the two, and especially none of any opposing reply provoked by Paul.

As regards the fault of Peter, the question, in what it consisted, has been answered in the main above. To express it generally, it was a practical denying of the freer, genuinely evangelical conviction, to which he had attained, and that too from an unworthy motive, namely the fear of man, a fear of the censure of legally-minded Christians (and thus at all events an ὑπόκρισς). This of itself gives an important hint as to how we are to show regard for “the weak,” and when we may, out of consideration for them, renounce some particulars of Christian freedom. It is right only when it proceeds not from the fear of men or their censure or in any other way from self-interest, but from indulgent care that scandal be not given, and conscience be not perplexed.—Peter’s conduct, however, was particularly indefensible on account of the special circumstances under which it took place; at a time when it was of moment to secure the principal of Christian liberty, “the truth of the gospel,” which through Peter’s behavior was put in jeopardy: for the Gentile Christians, who were witnesses of it, were thereby induced to suppose that the observing of the Mosaic law was something necessary for a Christian, were shaken in their previous Christian conviction. A further important hint as to this regard for the weak! it may be duty, it may also be forbidden, when the fundamental principle of evangelical freedom would thereby be rendered doubtful to any one (or when, on the other hand, it might be perverted so as to establish the legal position, and to support an attack upon evangelical liberty).

The nature of the fault determines also our judgment respecting it. It was a fault: and on this account Paul’s correction of it, and that in the Way in which it took place, i. e., publicly, before all, was warranted, nay, necessary: necessary, not so much on account of the fear of man betrayed in it, as on account of the perplexity of conscience among the Gentile Christians, which was to be apprehended. This was the reason why Paul took occasion to set forth with such distinctness the evangelical doctrine of justification by faith. That a Peter should be set right by Paul, ill accords with the Romish view of the primacy of Peter. The transaction in Antioch will therefore also be urged with propriety against the assumption of such a primacy. The narrative is also instructive for the just apprehension of the general personal characters of the Apostles, and constitutes a corrective against exaggerated notions of these, as though a shortcoming, and unwarranted step, or even a sin, were never possible in their case.—But on the other side, more must not be made of Peter’s fault than it really was. It must not be regarded as anything else than a sin of weakness. If even Peter’s denial of his Master, rightly judged, can only be regarded as such, much more, and with entire certainty must this case in Antioch be so regarded, and this case, although in some measures analogous to his denial, is much less scandalous as indeed, considering that meanwhile he had been endued with the Holy Ghost, might be expected. That he strove with the Spirit, is not even to be imagined, nam quo rectore apostoli utebantur, spiritus sanctus neque sublata illos omni virium humanarum efficientia neque ita modcratus Esther, ut labe quavis eximerentur vel castigationi fraternæ locus non esset (Elwert, p16), as little as that sins of weakness generally are impossible in those who have received the Holy Ghost. Moreover, as this lapse of Peter was a lapse in practical conduct, and not in teaching, it cannot be pretended that it overturns faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures. The apostolic dignity of Peter and of his teaching, Paul does not in the least assail, and does not speak of them as impaired; as indeed it is precisely in his teaching on this particular point that Peter here comes into view as occupying the right position, failing of faithfulness to it in his practical behavior only. But in any case, the uncertainty of the senior Apostles respecting the obligation of the law, the existence of which is plainly enough attested by the Acts, does not warrant us in drawing a conclusion as to the truth of apostolic teaching generally. There was in this matter a learning, a growth and advancement to clear knowledge of the evangelical truth: and just in this point the corrective is given and the genuine truth of the gospel shown to us by means of Paul, in whose calling we are not to see a chance, but the significant dispensation of the Head of the Church, who knew her needs. We need not therefore isolate one from the other, but as and because both are given together, they should also be taken together, and out of both together we should gain the full light of evangelical knowledge of the truth.—Least warranted of all is the misuse of this passage to maintain the existence of a standing difference and permanent ill-feeling between Paul and Peter. Their agreement of view appears in a way hardly to be expected in Peter, inasmuch as he too set forth the principle of evangelical freedom (from the law) by his eating in common with the Gentile Christians; and if in consequence of Peter’s weakness there arose a difference, nothing whatever points to anything permanent, to any deep division, but what took place in a single case was rebuked by Paul, and the unjustifiableness of this conduct openly demonstrated. The publicity of the rebuke, moreover, is by no means to be regarded merely as making it keener, but as showing no less the brotherly way in which the matter was handled, inasmuch as a reproach addressed to Peter in private would have been far more apt to make the impression of a personal strife, and had there been a deeply seated difference, it were inconceivable that Peter would have suffered himself to be thus publicly rebuked.—As it is important rightly to understand Peter’s fault, on the other hand Paul’s correction of it must not be misinterpreted; it was not an exaltation of himself, but flowed only from zeal for the “truth of the gospel,” for the confirmation of Christian consciences; and the decision with which Paul stood forth in behalf of this without fear of man, is instructive. Although, indeed, not every one is competent to such a procedure, but ordinarily only one who has a public standing, like Paul, yet the principle expressed in his procedure is important, namely, that in matters of faith, no human authorities, however high they stand, can give law, but that their acts remain always subject to the test, according to the norm of “the truth of the gospel.”—As the facts here testify against a primacy of Peter, so the

ground and warrant of the act of rebuke witness most strongly against the idea of the Papacy in general, and against everything that borders on it under the protection of the principle of authority.

[Schaff, Apost. Church, p258, gives the following resumé: “This event is full of instruction. We cannot, indeed, justly infer from it anything unfavorable to the inspiration and doctrine of Peter; for his fault was rather a practical denial of his real and true conviction. But it shows that the Apostles, even after the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, are not to be looked upon as perfect saints in such sense as to be liable to no sinful weakness whatever. We here discern still the workings of the old sanguine, impulsive nature of Peter, who could, one hour, with enthusiastic devotion, swear fidelity to his Master; and the next, deny him thrice. Paul, too, on his part, may have been too excited and sharp against the senior Apostle, without making due allowance for the delicacy of his position, and his regard for the scrupulosity of the Jewish converts; which certainly go far to excuse, though not to justify Peter. Then again from the conduct of Paul we learn not only the right and duty of combatting the errors even of the most distinguished servants of Christ, but also the equality of the Apostles, in opposition to an undue exaltation of Peter above his colleagues.” On the bearing of this passage against the Papal claim to infallibility, see Wordsworth, who makes the error of Peter to have been “imposing unjustifiable terms of communion.”—R.]

2. The Pauline doctrine of Justification.—We have in this section, in a short dogmatic form, the Pauline doctrine of Justification in the sentence: οὑ δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων ν́μουυ, ἐὰν μὴ διὰ πίστεως ̓Ιησοῦ Χρ., “a man is not justified by the works of the law, but [only] by the faith of Jesus Christ.”

a) The idea of “works of the law” is first to be determined. It does not, for instance, signify merely the observance of ritual prescriptions, and the reason why “a man is not justified by the works of the law,” is not that such ceremonial works are not sufficient. For then Paul would simply have directed attention from these works to others (better, or more difficult ones), and not, as he does, have diverted attention from works, altogether to something totally different, namely, “faith.” No, as the law itself contains not merely ritual prescriptions, but also precepts peculiarly ethical, undoubtedly the entirely general expression “works of the law,” also denotes works of either kind. More accurately—Paul does not divide the law, but takes the law as an integral whole, as a divine institute, which, with all its precepts, the ritual as well as the specially ethical, morally obliges man, and, as an expression of the Divine will, requires and expects obedience from him. (Therefore, even if only ritual observances were meant, yet in reality the ground of non-justification could not be found simply in the externality of these precepts; in them also God has expressed His will; their observance also is to be regarded as a moral service.) “Works of the law,” therefore, are generally all works that are done (and are) in conformity with the requisitions of the Divine law.—Yet this is only a preliminary and entirely general definition. For then the question immediately arises: But why then no justification by them? or (since the idea of “being justified” itself still awaits elucidation), why does Paul then point entirely away from them to something entirely different? for thus much at least is implied in it. The common answer is: If man only performed such “works of the law,” all would be well, he would then be justified thereby: but this he does not, and cannot do; therefore of course in this way there is no justification possible. But this answer of itself cannot satisfy; it reminds us too strongly of a lucus a non lucendo; the “works of the law” would then, strictly speaking, have their name from the fact that they are not performed, from their non-existence. On the other hand a man certainly can (even of himself) do “works of the law,” can fulfil moral demands of the law (nay, he can do that much easier than have faith). But what he thereby accomplishes, is only ἔργα, “works” (on which account Paul in the Romans instead of ἔργα νόμου uses also the abridged expression ἕργα), i.e., 1. They are only single, isolated acts of obedience, here an ἔργον, there an ἔργον, and therefore even if the particular act corresponds to the particular requirement, yet this never completely satisfies the idea of the law, as an integral whole, and all trust in these, therefore, as if one could by these isolated “works” really fulfil the will of God, is perverted trust. The whole law=God’s will, demands fulfilment. This presents the unsatisfactoriness of the works of the law more particularly as extensive. But2. it presents it also intensively: the works, even because they are works, are only external acts of obedience. But the law demands fulfilment by the whole man. “Works of the law” can never satisfy it; and confidence in them, therefore, as if one could endure God’s judgment on the ground of these, is always unfounded. The fulfilment of the law requires first and last a temper of mind answerable thereto. In the law God requires obedience to His will: to fulfil it, therefore, man must himself be filled with the spirit of this obedience, and that not a merely external, seeming obedience, but a genuine one, whose source is in love to God. But now the fulfilment, both of the former requirement and of this letter, is shipwrecked on the sinfulness of man, in consequence of which he cannot of himself rise above that want of unity and this externality of his moral Acts, in consequence of which he accomplishes only “works of the law,” and for that very reason does not attain to δικαίωσις. First of all then there would be held up before the man the duty of perfectly fulfilling the law extensively and intensively, in contrast with the mere “works of the law.” But this would really accomplish nothing, because the defect is grounded in the sinfulness of man. There is therefore either no δικαίωσις, or it must come in an entirely different way, and this way is “the faith of Jesus Christ.”

These “works of the law” Paul nowhere calls “good works:” he uses the term “good works” only in the full sense of the word, to denote works which are really good, as being works of faith; which is just what the “works of law” are not, else δικαίωσις would come from them, and Faith would be superfluous.—Far less than by these even is the name of “good works” deserved by those “works” which have come up within the Christian period and been imposed as conditions of salvation. These have been only a new form of the “works of the law,” and therefore Luther, as is well known, found in the Pauline declarations respecting these his most effective weapons against the Romish “works of the law” and the false confidence reposed in them. On the other hand, it is true, he urges most distinctly and forcibly that, as being mere human ordinances, the ecclesiastical “works of the law” do not even stand on an equality with the “works of the law” of the Jews, which at least were commanded by God, and that therefore it is so much the more perverse to trust in them. This is the Roman Catholic form of the “works of the law.” But they are perpetually undergoing new transformations, and coming up again with the old pretensions (less and less justified as these continually are), agreeably to the natural leaning of man to a righteousness of works. Especially does he find it easy (to say nothing of observances essentially and from the beginning serving this perverse end) to turn even well intended usages and institutions, in themselves salutary, into a “law,” and then to set his trust upon the observance of these. Nay, even the exercises which are meant to further the life of faith as opposed to the legal life, are themselves too often turned again into “works of the law.”

b) Signification of δικαίωσις. Passing now to δικαίωσις, the term of chief import, we ask what is the signification of this?

This question is most easily answered, if we start from Paul’s denial: “not by the works of the law.” The Jew believes that he ἐξ ἕργ. ν. δικαιοῦται. What does this mean, what is expected by the man who believes this? Evidently this belief does not imply his making to himself the ethical statement: if I do the “works of the law,” I shall be—made righteous (justus reddor), that is, by God. For certainly he who does the works of the law, does not expect a subsequent justum reddi by God; his doing the works of the law in itself constitutes him and proves him (according to the supposition) a justus. He is not therefore expecting, as necessary to this, that God shall first translate him into the moral conditions of a justus. No: the thought “justified by the works of the law” conveyed to the Jew the idea of a judgment of God pronounced upon him, as being one who accomplished the “works of the law:” and nothing can therefore be better established than the forensic, declaratory signification of δικαιοῦν: taken, in the first instance, in its most general sense. As to the precise nature of the judgment, it was primarily, simply the sentence: Thou art a δίκαιος [righteous, just man.—R.]. This was what the man needed to render complete his living “after the law,” and thus δικαίως, what he needed to make his claim before the law perfect: namely, the Divine judgment that he was thereby δίκαιος; even had he wished to derive from it nothing else than the certainty that he was δίκαιος. With this he would then have had the lofty, ennobling, and blessed consciousness of God’s taking pleasure in him, of God’s gracious dispositions towards him. But the judgment of God, we know, is never, so to speak, a mere judgment in words, but is also a judgment in deeds, that is, the favor of God to any one shows itself in actual blessing. To this, to the obtaining of the blessing of God, and averting of His curse, the expectation of him, who occupied himself with the works of the law, was directed, agreeably to the Divine promises. This blessing was, as is known, primarily a temporal one, temporal good fortune and prosperity, the dwelling in the promised land.

If we apply this to the position which the gospel, denying δικαίωσις ἐξ ἔργ. ν. assumes: “a man is justified by the faith of Christ,” the sense naturally is: the judgment is uttered respecting him who believes on Jesus Christ, that he is δικαιος. (How this is brought about, so that the sentence: Thou art δίκαιος, is itself δίκαιος, righteous, by reason of the sacrificial death of Christ, is in this passage only intimated, Galatians 2:19-21, and is elsewhere more explicitly established by Paul.) The main point is first the fact [das “dass”] of this judgment, namely that the Divine complacency and satisfaction is attested thereby: but then, as intimated above all, the whole weight falls upon the manifestation of this in Acts, upon the effect of this judgment, and hence, upon the certainty of Divine Blessing (instead of curse). This blessing then, it is understood, comprehends a sum of manifestations, partly internal, and enjoyed even in the earthly life, but in part such as are only realized in eternity, and make up the fruition of the heavenly “inheritance.” This elucidation makes it clear that δίκαίωσις is not to be taken as immediately identical with the forgiveness of sins; for the theory of a δικαιοῦσθαι ἐξ ἕργ. ν. implies the expectation of a δικαίωσις not connected with forgiveness of sins; since the claim is here to a justification founded on a doing of the works of the law, and not on a transgression of the law. In this justifying “by the faith of Christ” then, which becomes necessary for the very reason that, on account of our sinfulness being justified, is not possible “by the works of the law”—the forgiveness of sin, of the transgression of the law, is no doubt an integral, nay, more, the fundamental element of the δικαίωσις, it is in the full sense an Act of Pardon.—The elements into which the δικαίωσις resolves itself, or, if the phrase is preferred, the consequences which grow out of the δικαίωσις, are then found in detail (partially at least), in chap3, (and also in chap4), where the reference to the “Blessing,” in opposition to the “curse” (agreeably to our exposition), as well as to the “inheritance,” is instructive. And if at the beginning of chap 3 the receiving of the Holy Ghost is described as an effect of “faith” (as opposed to the works of the law), it is unwarrantable to urge this against the forensic, declaratory sense of justification, as if it signified an internal transformation, a translation from the flesh into the Spirit, etc. For the immediate reference here is to the receiving of the Spirit as a Divine blessing, the communication of a gracious benefit, as a sign and evidence of the Divine good will, an evidence of pardon. This gift of the Spirit, it is indisputably true, creates a new life, and it is given to this end, but this view is second in order.—Nay, this new life itself is also to be regarded as a Divine grace. Δικαιοῦν therefore is an effective act only in the above named sense, that God’s approving judgment is shown also in Acts, or that God’s judgment consists in real blessings. It is not an effective act in the sense that δικαιοῦν of itself signifies an infusio justitiæ of any sort, new life, or the like.—Unquestionably the “faith of Jesus Christ” leads not merely to δικαίωσις, but also to a new “living with Christ,” which is grounded upon a “dying with Christ” (of which there is a brief mention of this section Galatians 2:19-20). But this is not comprehended in δικαίωσις as Paul uses it; for this idea he has the entirely different turn of thought and expression quoted above. Therefore no one should confound what Paul expressly keeps apart (e.g., as he plainly does in the relation of Romans 6 to the preceding chapters). Δικαιωθῆναι is not identical with the origination of a new life. In this passage especially ( Galatians 2:19 sq.) Paul’s allusion to the new life that had arisen in him through faith in Jesus Christ, serves, strictly speaking, only as a reason why he no longer seeks δικαίωσις through the “works of the law,” but through faith in Christ. Through the crucifixion with Christ the man of the law has been slain in him, and a new man has arisen who lives in “faith in Christ.” The new man therefore is he who knows his δικαίωσις to be grounded on faith in Christ. It is a sign of the new man, it belongs to his nature to live “in the faith of Jesus Christ,” and to seek and find in that, instead of in the law, his δικαίωσις. But it does not follow from this that the δικαιωθῆναι means the same as to become a new man.

But, allowing that δικαίωσις is not to be identified with the origination of a new life, does not the latter precede the δικαίωσις, and is it not, not unfrequently, the material ground of it? This brings us

c) To the idea of “faith,” and its relation to justification. “The faith of Jesus Christ” leads to justification, and this alone does not the works of the law, is what Paul declares with such distinctness. But in what way? Has Faith this effect inasmuch as, according to what has been touched upon above, the believer appropriates to himself the death and the life of Christ = the old man is slain and a new one planted in him, so that God, with reference to this, even though the new life is only in its beginning, yet recognizing in the beginning the guarantee of the rest, acquits him of sin, and bestows upon him blessing and grace, that is justifies him in the forensic sense, and then implants in him still further such life, with the effective method of the justification? This must be denied decidedly: for this simple reason, that otherwise the ground of justification, in the mind of God, would consist in something else than that which the faith of the believer apprehends as its ground, and so his faith would really be an illusion. For1. “The believer believes on Christ,” is equivalent to saying that he recognizes in Christ, and particularly in Christ’s sacrificial death, the ground of his justification2. The believer, through his faith in Christ, undoubtedly comes to a new life, but this life is and abides, as our passage itself shows, essentially and above all a life in faith, and in faith on Christ’s death ( Galatians 2:20); in the conviction of being justified before God by this death, from which then follows a life according to God’s will in the special ethical sense, and transformation of the whole direction of the will. The real ground of justification, therefore, cannot consist in the believer’s new life itself, but in that in which he himself, renouncing the works of the law, seeks and continually finds it, namely, in Christ’s atoning death. Else were he entangled in a delusion. And faith justifies simply because it is, as it were, our unreserved assent to the reconciliation already effected in Christ. It needs only that, for through the atoning death of Christ, provided any one will not deny its value, the grace of God is already won for us all; therefore, there remains nothing on our part but to say Yes to it (manus apprehendens). Without this, that grace cannot become our own; through it, it does become our own, since an earning of it, or a making ourselves worthy of it, is no longer needful; but, on the contrary, every such thought derogates somewhat from the merit of Christ. Nothing further then is needed than just this “believing;” we need not fancy this too little when taken in its simple sense = “to trust,” “to place confidence in,” and we need not suppose we must first make its idea as it were more complete by taking in its effects, in order to be able to acknowledge faith as the condition⁴⁰ of justification. Were faith to be made more than the condition of justification, were it to be made its ground, we might intensify its idea as much as we would, it would still be too little. But now, as on the one hand, Faith utters its Amen to the reconciliation accomplished in Christ, and thus makes the man partaker of it,—that is, justifies him, so does it also lay hold of this death itself, which has wrought for it so great a benefit = the man who has heretofore lived, dies with Christ and through Christ, but there comes instead (not out of faith, but out of Christ, yet not without faith), a new man, who lives to God, but ever henceforth seeks the ground of God’s favor in nothing else than in Christ. This trust comes more and more completely into exercise with the new life that springs up, instead of being now superfluous. (This is the double hand of faith.)

By what is said above, the idea of faith is not in any way unduly weakened. Even though man can do nothing more than apprehendere what is in God and Christ, yet this very apprehendere is the greatest and especially the hardest thing that (sinful) man can do. For it implies nothing less than a giving of all honor to God, and not to one’s self, a willingness to renounce one’s own reason, one’s own merits, one’s own will. Hence, even this man cannot have of himself, but God must bring him thereto. And he does it by the pedagogy of the “law” “unto Christ.” On this, see the next chapter, although it is already intimated in Galatians 2:19 of this.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Galatians 2:11-13.—Starke:—The Apostles also had their faults, and sometimes committed great errors of conduct ( 1 John 1:8). What? Are ministers then, whose authority is so much less than that of the Apostles, to be expected not to err and sin? Therefore, follow them no further than they follow Christ.—Even though a thing be done with good intention, yet, so far as it is wrong in itself, or as any scandal arises thereby, it cannot be excused or defended by its good intention. When of two evils one must be chosen, it is better to let a scandal arise than to do anything that may prejudice evangelical truth.—Even children of God and great saints are capable of being very easily and suddenly surprised and overcome by the fear of man, when they do not sufficiently watch over themselves.—Hedinger:—When faults, scandals in doctrine and life are prevalent, it is not for us to be silent, to strike sail and run before the wind, but to stand fast in our place.—Quesnel:—The higher one stands, the more measured and guarded his conduct should be.

[Calvin:—How cautiously we ought to guard against giving way to the opinions of men, lest we turn aside from the right path! If this happened to Peter, how much more easily to us.—Luther:—Such examples are written for our consolation. If Peter fell, I may likewise fall. If he rose again, I may also rise again. This comfort they take away, who say, the saints do not sin.—This is a wonderful matter! God preserved the church, being yet young, and the gospel, by one person. Paul alone standeth to the truth, for he had lost Barnabas, his companion, and Peter was against him. So sometimes one man is able to do more in a council than the whole council besides.—R.]

[Burkitt:—Such as sin openly, must be reproved openly.—No bands of friendship must keep the ministers of God from reproving sin. A notorious fault must be reproved with much boldness and resolution. If such as are eminent in the church fall, they fall not alone; many do fall with them.—What a constraining power there is in the example of eminent persons. He is said to compel, in Scripture, not only who doth violently force, but who, being of authority, doth provoke by his example.—The errors of those that do rule, become rulers of error. Men sin through a kind of authority, through the sins of those who are in authority.—R.]

[How many rejoice at Paul’s defence of the liberty of the gospel against Peter’s weakness, who themselves will not receive rebuke as Peter did—nay, are very popes at heart. For there are popes in pews as well as in pulpits, besides the pope who openly claims to be such; Christian liberty suffers from them all.—The fear of man, of popular opinion often becomes to us as authoritative as decrees and Papal bulls to others.—Peter will not commune with Gentile Christians longer; so he might act if he would, as Peter, but as an Apostle, he thus made terms of communion against the truth of the gospel. He was condemned; do we never seek to bind the conscience not only “in meats and drinks,” but as respects communion with other Christians?—When such conduct ceases to be a private choice, and becomes public scandal, it should be rebuked by one set for the defence of the truth of the gospel.—The yet remaining power of narrow national and social and religious prejudices in those who profess Christ as “all and in all.” How strong in Peter; once so strong in Paul, but now crucified with Christ.—R.]

Galatians 2:14. Spener:—The whole life of Christians has, besides God’s glory, the end and aim that the truth of the gospel and pure doctrine may be established; those sins, therefore, are great above others, whereby any may be misled as to the truth of the gospel.—Starke:—So soon as it is taught by words or deeds that anything more is necessary to salvation than the grace of God and faith, so soon is the truth of the gospel wounded.—In the matter of scandals, one who either maliciously or heedlessly causes them, has justly reckoned against him and imputed by God, what thereafter arises out of them, and thus the sin may become more grievous through its consequences.—Rieger:—O God! if I ever err, give me a frankspoken Paul to warn me and make me on the spot or afterwards as mild in yielding, as Peter !—Heubner:—Things that trouble peace may arise even among children and messengers of God. In Acts 13:13; Acts 15:31, similar things are mentioned. Behold the imperfection of the earthly life! only above is harmony forever undisturbed. The kingdom of Christ, nevertheless, advances even through weak instruments.

Public rebuke: 1. admissible, yes, necessary, when anything has been done that perplexes consciences; 2. how shall it be conducted? Undoubtedly by free exposition of its evil consequences, but then chiefly by renewed and more thorough assertion of the truth of the Gospel: not with personal reproaches; and above all, in brotherly love; 3. difficult; therefore examine thyself well, whether thou be called or at all events fitted therefor, that thou destroy not more good than thou restorest; and if thou perceivest thyself not skilled, leave it: for after all it is not thou that rebukest and God knows well enough how to choose His own instruments. In all cases do it not without earnest looking up to God, that in the discharge of it He will keep thee as from the fear of man, so none the less from vanity, haughtiness and a loveless temper.

Galatians 2:15. Starke:—The preëminence which we who are born of Christian ancestry have above others, must not be misused to the prejudice of divine grace: we must be none the less certain that the grace of Christ alone, not our descent from Christian parents, can save us.

Galatians 2:16. Luther:—Understand we this article rightly and purely? Then have we the true heavenly sun. But if we lose it, we have nothing else than a hellish darkness.—A troubled, wretched conscience should keep no thought or remembrance of the law, nor should oppose to the anger and judgment of God anything else than the sweet comforting word of Christ, which is a word of grace, of forgiveness of sins, of everlasting life and blessedness. But to do this is especially hard. For the fearfulness of the conscience keeps us from well apprehending Christ, and temps us often to let Him go, and to fall back upon the thought of law and sin.—As a Jew, through the works which he does after God’s law, cannot be justified, how then should a monk be justified, by his order, a priest by his authority, a philosopher by his skill and Wisdom of Solomon, a sophistical theologian by his sophistry? Wise, pious, and righteous as men may become on earth through their reason and God’s law, yet they are by all their works, merits, masses, and by the best of all their righteousness and acts of worship, not righteous before God.—Rieger:—What thou art by nature and canst boast concerning thy good bringing up, thy refined education, thy works of the law, distinguish thee doubtless above many others. Thou art not bidden to throw that entirely away. What of quiet days, and advantage to thy health, and the like this secures to thee, enjoy. But into the secret chamber of judgment, where God and the conscience have to do with one another concerning the forgiveness of sins, this is not to intrude. Through no work of the law shall we ever bring it to pass that God will justify us, forgive our sins, bestow on us access to His grace, and the hope of future glory; that we learn alone from God’s word and promise in Christ.

Galatians 2:17. Rieger:—If I would suffer this thing again to become uncertain to me, namely, that I, leaving all works behind, should be justified through Christ alone; if I would be mistrustful about that, as if I had brought myself into sin by such a disparagement of works; if I fell back again upon works, as chanced to Peter, I should make Christ a minister of sin.—Luther:—Every one who teaches that faith in Christ doth not justify, unless a man also keep the law, such a one makes Christ a minister of sin, i.e. he makes out of him a law-teacher, who teaches just that, and nothing else that Moses teaches. So can Christ then be no Saviour and grace-giver, but would be only a cruel tyrant, who required of us merely impossible things, not one of which any man can fulfil. [For the other view of this passage see Exeg. Notes.—Burkitt:—The Apostle rejects the inference of the adversaries of the doctrine of justification by faith with the greatest abhorrence and detestation. It is no new prejudice, though a very unjust one, against this doctrine of justification by faith alone, that it opens a door to licentiousness and makes Christ the minister of sin.—R.]

Galatians 2:18. Starke:—Teachers should take good care, that what they tear down with one hand, that they may not build up again with the other.

Galatians 2:19. Rieger.—I have not run away from the law like an escaped rogue. It has cost a death, I have made trial of the law before, and learnt well, how far the law carries us, and what is impossible to it. But now, as in the case of a marriage dissolved by death, I am lawfully divorced from the law. I have no desire to knit this bond again.—Luther:—St. Paul could have said nothing of mightier force against the righteousness that is supposed to come through the law, than just what he here saith: I have died to the law, I have nothing at all more to do with it, it concerns me nothing, nor can it justify me.—These words are most full of comfort, and let them come in mind to any one in time of temptations and afflictions, and be in his heart rightly and thoroughly understood. Such a one would without doubt be well able to stand against all danger and dread of death, against all manner of terrors of conscience and of sin, though they fell as vehemently upon him as ever they could.—Happy he who, when his conscience falls into distress and temptation, that is, when sin assails and the law accuses him, then can say: What matters that to me; for I have died to thee. But if thou wilt ever dispute with me concerning sins, go, bury thyself with the flesh and its members, my servants pass then in review, plague and crucify them as thou wilt; but me, the conscience, it is for thee to leave, in peace as queen. For thou hast no concern with me since I have died to thee and live now to Christ.—It is a strange, curious, and unheard of speech, that to live to the law is as much as to die to God, and to die to the law as much as to live to God. These two sentences are completely and entirely athwart the reason, therefore also no sophist as law teacher can understand them. But do thou give diligence that thou learn well to understand them, namely thus, that who now will live to the law, that is, practise himself in its works, and keep the same, in order that he may thereby be justified, such a one is a sinner and abides a sinner, and therefore condemned to everlasting death and damnation. For the law can make him neither righteous nor blessed, but if it begins to accuse him in right earnest, it only kills him. Therefore to live to the law is, in truth, nothing else than to die to God, and to die to the law is nothing else than to live to God; now to live to God, this is to become righteous through grace and faith on Christ, without any works or law.—Starke:—The end of our freedom from the law is not, that we may live to ourselves, but that we may live to God and Christ.

Galatians 2:20. In Starke:—Christ on His cross was to be regarded as the surety and head of the whole human race; therefore, in His person the whole human race was also crucified. Especially have believers part in the death of Christ, because faith brings with it a perfect union and fellowship between Christ and the faithful.—Berlenb. Bible:—Faith binds us to the cross of Christ, and there nothing of the old man will remain and be spared. Faith and the cross are to one another very near. Therefore, worldly wisdom turns its back on faith. Many with their faith will even separate the cross from itself; they make of faith a cross before the cross, and say of the other, away, away with it!—This is the method of stepping over from the law to the gospel, only through the death of the old Adam, and his peculiar life. It makes a huge corpse. “I live.”—No more after my own willing and working, but in another spirit. We must lose ourselves. A man lives then most blessedly, when he lives not to himself. There must be in the heart another I. The old I must lose itself. But what says the self-love and selfishness that would gladly keep its life, and seek in everything what pleases it, that will not hate its own soul, affections, desires, dispositions, and sensual cravings Its word is: That am I! that is from me! that is in me! therefore, that is mine! that befits me! that pleases me! that is so with me! It demands, therefore, from God and man rest, life, love, honor, obedience, trust, help, assistance, comfort, and enjoyment. O what a heavy stone of stumbling is self-love in Christ’s way!—[Bunyan:—They only have benefit by Christ to eternal life, who die by His example, as well as live by His blood; for in His death was both merit and example; and they are like to miss in the first, that are not concerned in the second.—R.]

Luther:—The very life that I live is Christ Himself, and therefore Christ and I are in this matter altogether one thing. None the less, it is true, there remains outwardly cleaving to me the old man that is under the law, but so far as concerns this matter, namely, that I be justified before God, Christ and I cannot but be bound in the closest wise together, so that He lives in me and I again in Him.—Christ and my conscience should become one body, so that I should keep nothing else before my eyes than Jesus Christ. But if I turn my countenance away from Christ, and look alone upon myself, it is at once all over with me. For then straightway flashes into my mind: Christ is above in heaven, and thou here below on earth, how wilt thou now find the way up to Him? Then the reason quickly answers: I will lead a holy life, and do what the law bids me, and so enter into life. But when I thus look upon myself, and consider only what I Amos, or what I ought to be, and what I am bound to do, I lose Christ forthwith out of my sight, who yet alone is my righteousness and life; but when I have lost Him, there is no longer either help or counsel, but at the last desperation and eternal damnation must needs follow.—Berlenb. Bible:—Christ is life not for Himself alone, but a benefit that willingly and freely communicates itself. Where now it finds a man who hates and forsakes his own life, and lives no longer in his own self-love, in him Christ lives.—Rieger:—If a man should hear of the fellowship of the cross of Christ alone, a man might form to himself too joyless an image of my religion; but it is also a fellowship with His life. And my life in the flesh, my tarrying upon this battlefield of sin and grace, is given me for a proof how the Son of God once made a journey through the world, and remained constant to His Heavenly Father.

[John Brown:—Paul here declares his experience. The law has no more to do with me, and I have no more to do with it in the matter of justification.—Christ died and in Him I died; Christ revived and in Him I revived. The law has killed me, and by doing Song of Solomon, it has set me free from itself. The life I now have, is not the life of a man under the law, but the life of a man delivered from the law.—Christ’s relations to God are my relations. His views are my views; His feelings my feelings. He is the soul of my soul, the life of my life. My state, my sentiments, my conduct are all Christian.—“It is but right that I should be entirely devoted to Him who devoted Himself entirely for me.”—R.]

Luther:—It is very true that I still live in the flesh, but be it now what life it may, that is still in me, I count it yet for no life at all; for it is, if one will view it aright, indeed no life, but rather a mask, under which another lives, namely Christ, who is truly my life, that thou canst not see, but hearest it alone. I live, to be sure, in the flesh; but I live not from the flesh or after the flesh, but in faith, from faith, and according to faith.—“Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” With these words Paul describes in most comforting wise Christ’s office and priesthood. This now is His office, that He should reconcile us with God, give Himself up for our sins, &c. Therefore, thou must not make of Him a new law-giver that does away the old law and establishes a new in its place. Christ is no Moses, no taskmaster and lawgiver, but a grace-giver and compassionate Saviour. He is nothing else than a purely measureless and overflowing compassion, that suffers itself to be bestowed upon us, and also bestows itself. Setting forth Christ after such a way, thou rightly depictest Him. But if thou suffer Him to be portrayed to thee in other guise, thou mayest, in the time of temptation, be easily and quickly overthrown.—These words of Paul are an excellent example of a genuine and assured faith.—Accustom thyself to this, that thou apprehend this brief word, “me,” with certain faith, and doubtest not thereof, that thou also art in the number of those who are named with this little word “me.” For, as we cannot deny that we are one and all sinners, so can we also not deny that Christ died for our sins, that He might justify us through His death. For surely He has not died for this, that He should justify those that were righteous before, but that He should help poor sinners. Because then I feel and confess that I am a sinner, why should I not, on the other hand, also say that I am righteous because of Christ’s righteousness, especially because I hear that He has loved ME and given Himself for ME. St. Paul believed it steadfastly and assuredly, and, therefore, also does he speak of it so freely and confidently. But may He who hath loved us and given Himself for us, bestow on us grace, that we may be able, if only in part, to do the like and speak thus concerning ourselves.—[Lightfoot:—Paul appropriates to himself, as Chrysostom observes, the love which belongs equally to the whole world. For Christ is, indeed, the personal friend of each man individually; and is as much to him as if He had died for him alone.—R.]

Galatians 2:21. Starke:—The rejection of the grace of God, may take place: 1. by a denial of the perfect satisfaction of Christ; 2. by setting along side of it our own merits, worthiness and righteousness, as Popery does in doctrine, and many even in our churches do in fact; 3. by abusing this grace to favor presumption, and to supersede sanctification; 4. when even sincere souls, in the feeling of their unworthiness, are much too timorous to appropriate grace to themselves, and think they must first have arrived at this or that degree of holiness, before grace can avail them any thing; 5. when tempted ones from a lack of feeling conclude that they have fallen out of grace again.

Luther:—The righteousness that comes from the law is nothing else than mere contempt and rejection of God’s grace, whereby the death of Christ becomes unworthy and unavailing. Who is, indeed, so eloquent that he can sufficiently portray and bring to light, what it is to reject the grace of God? or to make out that Christ has died in vain? It is hard to have to talk of any useless dying; but to say that Christ has died in vain, that is too much, that is quite too villanous a word, for it is nothing less than to say that Christ is wholly unprofitable, is nothing worth.—If any one will make out Christ’s death an unprofitable thing, he must also make His resurrection, His glorious triumph over sin, death, etc., His kingdom, heaven, earth, God Himself, God’s majesty and glory, and in brief all things together contemptible and useless.—These great, mighty, and terrible thunderclaps, which St. Paul in his writings brings down from heaven against our own righteousness, that comes from the law, ought, by good right, to terrify us from it.—When the world hears such a charge, it will not at all believe that it is true; for it does not allow that a man’s heart could be so wicked that he should reject the grace of God, and count Christ’s death a despicable thing, and yet for all that, this sin is of all in the world the most common. Whoever will be righteous outside of faith in Christ, such a one casts away God’s grace, and despises the death of Christ, though in words he speak as highly and honorably thereof, as ever he knows how to speak.

Galatians 2:19-21. To live to God, our end; 1. What is thereby required? 2. Condition of accomplishing it; the way thereto is dying—to the law: this again is possible only through being crucified with Christ.—To be crucified with Christ: 1. something difficult, requires nothing less than that we place ourselves under God’s sentence of condemnation; 2. indispensably necessary: else there can be no life to God.—To die with Christ—to live to God; this is the pregnant definition of true Christianity.—I live, yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me: a bold expression; but so must it be in the case of a Christian; one’s own Ego must vanish, and in place of it Christ must rule in us.—Christ lives in me: 1. can we say Song of Solomon, when even yet there is much sin in us? 2. When can we say so? when at least it is Hebrews, in whom alone we seek our righteousness? The Christian’s life a double life: a. Proof: 1. the joyful attestation: Christ lives in me; 2. he must humbly acknowledge and in manifold ways experience; I yet live in the flesh. b. What is to be done, that Hebrews, so long as he lives and whatever his life in the flesh, may not live to the flesh, but to Him who, etc.—Living in faith on the Son of God, who loved us, and gave Himself for us: 1. the blessed prerogative, 2. the sacred duty of the Christian.—In Lisco:—The life in the faith of the Son of God: 1. what it presupposes in us. Galatians 2:19 : the death of the old natural life—the being crucified with Christ; 2. wherein it essentially consists? Galatians 2:20 : in entire self-surrender to the Son of God, in being filled and permeated with His love, which to the true Christian is the one moving spring of all his actions; 3. what value has it? Galatians 2:21, it serves to the glory of the grace of God, and the praise of the death of Christ.

To say Christ has also loved me, and given Himself for me, is the height of faith’s achievements, simple as it appears.—Reject not the grace of God! an admonition as earnest as needful.—To reject God’s grace the greatest of all sins. When is this done? (see above.)—Christ died in vain? 1. that cannot be; such a deed of love must have a high end; 2. and yet for how many has He died in vain!—Christ would have died in vain! the severest condemnation possible of every kind of righteousness of works.—To seek righteousness from works; as foolish (for Christ cannot have died in vain), as simple (it rejects that which was God’s own most glorious work of Love). [“Then Christ died without cause.” Did such a person die. Then while we may account for His life by other theories, there is no sufficient reason for His death, save that which Paul preached: Full pardon, entire salvation, to every one who by faith lays hold of Christ as dying for him. Any other view is inconsistent with God’s Wisdom of Solomon, frustrates God’s grace as well.—Self-salvation must ever deny a sufficient purpose in that death.—R.]

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