Galatians 2:21

2:20,21 Here, in his own person, the apostle describes the spiritual or hidden life of a believer. The old man is crucified, Ro 6:6, but the new man is living; sin is mortified, and grace is quickened. He has the comforts and the triumphs of grace; yet that grace is not from himself, but from another. Believers see themselves living in a state of dependence on Christ. Hence it is, that though he lives in the flesh, yet he does not live after the flesh. Those who have true faith, live by that faith; and faith fastens upon Christ's giving himself for us. He loved me, and gave himself for me. As if the apostle said, The Lord saw me fleeing from him more and more. Such wickedness, error, and ignorance were in my will and understanding, that it was not possible for me to be ransomed by any other means than by such a price. Consider well this price. Here notice the false faith of many. And their profession is accordingly; they have the form of godliness without the power of it. They think they believe the articles of faith aright, but they are deceived. For to believe in Christ crucified, is not only to believe that he was crucified, but also to believe that I am crucified with him. And this is to know Christ crucified. Hence we learn what is the nature of grace. God's grace cannot stand with man's merit. Grace is no grace unless it is freely given every way.

The more simply the believer relies on Christ for every thing, the more devotedly does he walk before Him in all his ordinances and commandments. Christ lives and reigns in him, and he lives here on earth by faith in the Son of God, which works by love, causes obedience, and changes into his holy image. Thus he neither abuses the grace of God, nor makes it in vain.

{5} I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead {e} in vain. (5) The second argument taken from an absurdity: if men may be justified by the Law, then it was not necessary for Christ to die. (e) For there was no reason why he should do so.

I do not frustrate the grace of God; I do not despise, reject, make void, (for by all these words the word here used is translated, Mark 7:9 John 12:48 John 3:15 Hebrews 10:28 ), the free love of God, in giving his Son to die for our sins: from whence is easily gathered, that those who live a loose life, and take a liberty to sin, from their justification, or from the free grace of God in Christ, they do contemn and despise the grace of God: or rather, (if we refer it to the following words), those who assert justification by the works of the law, they do reject and despise the free grace of God in the gospel, and (as much as in them lies) make it vain and frustrate. For if righteousness come by the law; for if it be possible, that a man by works done in obedience to the law should arrive at a righteousness, in which he may stand before God, then is Christ dead in vain; then Christ died to no purpose, or without any just cause: the reason of this must be, because it was the main and principal end of Christ’s death, to procure or purchase a righteousness wherein sinners might stand before God, to bring in an everlasting righteousness, Daniel 9:24 . If the most proper effect of the death of Christ be taken away, then his death is made causeless, and to no purpose.

Thus the apostle concludeth his thesis, laid down Galatians 2:16 : That none shall be justified by the works of the law, from two absurdities that would follow upon the contrary, viz. justification by the works of the law, the rejecting of the grace of God, and the frustration, or making void, of the death of Christ.

Galatians 2:21 . Οὐκ ἀθετῶ , I do not frustrate ) As the Judaizing teachers do, but embrace it with my whole soul.— τὴν Χάριν τοῦ Θεοῦ , the grace of God ) by which Christ died for us.— εἰ γὰρ , for if ) Christ is our righteousness in Himself; not in so far as [inasmuch as] He fulfils the righteousness of the law in us. This is evident from the consequence which Paul here shows would follow, if the case were otherwise.— ἀπέθανεν , He died ) and so rose again . There would have been no need of these, if righteousness had been from the law.

Frustrate (ἀθετῶ) Annul or invalidate. Comp. Mark 7:9; 1 Corinthians 1:19; Galatians 3:15. The grace of God (τὴν χάριν τοῦ θεοῦ) Χάρις is, primarily, that which gives joy (χαρά). Its higher, Christian meaning is based on the emphasis of freeness in a gift or favor. It is the free, spontaneous, absolute loving kindness of God toward men. Hence often in contrast with the ideas of debt, law, works, sin. Sometimes for the gift of grace, the benefaction, as 1 Corinthians 16:3; 2 Corinthians 8:6, 2 Corinthians 8:19; 1 Peter 1:10, 1 Peter 1:13. So here: the gracious gift of God in the offering of Christ. Is dead (ἀπέθανεν) More correctly, died; pointing to the historical incident. In vain (δωρεὰν) Groundlessly, without cause. See on 2 Thessalonians 3:8. The sense here is not common. It is not found in Class., and in N.T. only John 15:25. In lxx, see Psalm 34:7, 19; 108:3; 118:161; 1 Samuel 19:5; Sir. 20:23; 29:6. Comp. Ignatius, Trall. v. Paul says: "I do not invalidate the grace of God in the offering of Christ, as one does who seeks to reestablish the law as a means of justification; for if righteousness comes through the law, there was no occasion for Christ to die." Additional Note on Galatians 2:14-21. The course of thought in Paul's address to Peter is difficult to follow.

It will help to simplify it if the reader will keep it before him that the whole passage is to be interpreted in the light of Peter's false attitude - as a remonstrance against a particular state of things. The line of remonstrance is as follows. If you, Peter, being a Jew, do not live as a Jew, but as a Gentile, as you did when you ate with Gentiles, why do you, by your example in withdrawing from Gentile tables, constrain Gentile Christians to live as Jews, observing the separative ordinances of the Jewish law? This course is plainly inconsistent. Even you and I, born Jews, and not Gentiles - sinners - denied the obligation of these ordinances by the act of believing on Jesus Christ. In professing this faith we committed ourselves to the principle that no one can be justified by the works of the law. But it may be said that we were in no better case by thus abandoning the law and legal righteousness, since, in the very effort to be justified through Christ, we were shown to be sinners, and therefore in the same category with the Gentiles. Does it not then follow that Christ is proved to be a minister of sin in requiring us to abandon the law as a means of justification? No. God forbid. It is true that, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we stood revealed as sinners, for it was Christ who showed us that we could not be justified by the works of the law; that all our legal strictness only left us sinners.

Galatians 2:21 . Christ died in order that men might live before God by His grace in spite of a broken Law; if men could keep the Law of themselves and live, there would be no call for grace, and the death of Christ would be proved a useless sacrifice.— διὰ νόμου . Law was never, like faith, instrumental to justification ( cf. Galatians 2:16 ). Accordingly, Paul never speaks of justification through Law, but either ἐκ νόμου or ἐν νόμῳ . Here, as in Galatians 2:19 , διὰ νόμου really denotes a legal environment, and the verse argues that if righteousness was really within men’s reach under a legal dispensation, then there was no occasion for the death of Christ at all.

21. I do not frustrate the grace of God—I do not make it void, as thou, Peter, art doing by Judaizing. for—justifying the strong expression "frustrate," or "make void." is dead in vain—Greek, "Christ died needlessly," or "without just cause." Christ's having died, shows that the law has no power to justify us; for if the law can justify or make us righteous, the death of Christ is superfluous [Chrysostom].

(21) In thus attaching himself devotedly to Christ, the Christian escapes the charge of refusing and thwarting the free gift of justification which God has offered to him in His Son. He has made his choice of Christ, and not of the Law. On the other hand, if he had chosen the Law, and gone to it, and not to Christ, in his search for righteousness, he would have practically declared the death of Christ to be a useless and unnecessary sacrifice. Frustrate.—An exactly literal translation of the Greek word, which means “to render nugatory or ineffectual.” The grace of God goes forth with a certain mission to perform; but the Judaising party, by still clinging to the Law, prevented it from taking effect, and made it “return void” unto its Giver. If righteousness come by the law.—What all men seek is justification in the sight of God. This is given to the just or righteous. But there were two ways of becoming thus just or righteous. The Law professed to make righteous those who complied with its provisions. But this was only a profession, for no one could really keep the Law. The Christian, therefore, rightly falls back upon faith in Christ, which brings him both an imputed righteousness, and also, in part, at least, a real righteousness. A deep and genuine faith in Christ is allowed to atone for the many unavoidable breaches of the Law, and that faith by degrees operates a real and vital change in the character and life of the man.