Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians — 05 - Chapter 2, vv 16-18
VERSE 16.
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.
For the sake of argument let us suppose that you could fulfill the Law in the spirit of the first commandment of God: “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart.
” It would do you no good.
A person simply is not justified by the works of the Law.
The works of the Law, according to Paul, include the whole Law, judicial, ceremonial, moral.
Now, if the performance of the moral law cannot justify, how can circumcision justify, when circumcision is part of the ceremonial law?
The demands of the Law may be fulfilled before and after justification.
There were many excellent men among the pagans of old, men who never heard of justification.
They lived moral lives.
But that fact did not justify them.
Peter, Paul, all Christians, live up to the Law.
But that fact does not justify them.
“For I know nothing by myself,” says Paul, “yet am I not hereby justified.
” (I Cor.
4:4. ) The nefarious opinion of the papists, which attributes the merit of grace and the remission of sins to works, must here be emphatically rejected.
The papists say that a good work performed before grace has been obtained, is able to secure grace for a person, because it is no more than right that God should reward a good deed.
When grace has already been obtained, any good work deserves everlasting life as a due payment and reward for merit.
For the first, God is no debtor, they say;
but because God is good and just, it is no more than right (they say) that He should reward a good work by granting grace for the service.
But when grace has already been obtained, they continue, God is in the position of a debtor, and is in duty bound to reward a good work with the gift of eternal life.
This is the wicked teaching of the papacy.
Now, if I could perform any work acceptable to God and deserving of grace, and once having obtained grace my good works would continue to earn for me the right and reward of eternal life, why should I stand in need of the grace of God and the suffering and death of Christ?
Christ would be of no benefit to me.
Christ’s mercy would be of no use to me.
This shows how little insight the pope and the whole of his religious coterie have into spiritual matters, and how little they concern themselves with the spiritual health of their forlorn flocks.
They cannot believe that the flesh is unable to think, speak, or do anything except against God.
If they could see evil rooted in the nature of man, they would never entertain such silly dreams about man’s merit or worthiness.
With Paul we absolutely deny the possibility of self merit.
God never yet gave to any person grace and everlasting life as a reward for merit.
The opinions of the papists are the intellectual pipe-dreams of idle pates, that serve no other purpose but to draw men away from the true worship of God.
The papacy is founded upon hallucinations.
The true way of salvation is this.
First, a person must realize that he is a sinner, the kind of a sinner who is congenitally unable to do any good thing.
“Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin.
” Those who seek to earn the grace of God by their own efforts are trying to please God with sins.
They mock God, and provoke His anger.
The first step on the way to salvation is to repent.
The second part is this.
God sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we may live through His merit.
He was crucified and killed for us.
By sacrificing His Son for us God revealed Himself to us as a merciful Father who donates remission of sins, righteousness, and life everlasting for Christ’s sake.
God hands out His gifts freely unto all men.
That is the praise and glory of His mercy.
The scholastics explain the way of salvation in this manner.
When a person happens to perform a good deed, God accepts it and as a reward for the good deed God pours charity into that person.
They call it “charity infused.
” This charity is supposed to remain in the heart.
They get wild when they are told that this quality of the heart cannot justify a person.
They also claim that we are able to love God by our own natural strength, to love God above all things, at least to the extent that we deserve grace.
And, say the scholastics, because God is not satisfied with a literal performance of the Law, but expects us to fulfill the Law according to the mind of the Lawgiver, therefore we must obtain from above a quality above nature, a quality which they call “formal righteousness.
” We say, faith apprehends Jesus Christ.
Christian faith is not an inactive quality in the heart.
If it is true faith it will surely take Christ for its object.
Christ, apprehended by faith and dwelling in the heart, constitutes Christian righteousness, for which God gives eternal life.
In contrast to the doting dreams of the scholastics, we teach this: First a person must learn to know himself from the Law.
With the prophet he will then confess: “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
” And, “there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
” And, “against thee, thee only, have I sinned.
” Having been humbled by the Law, and having been brought to a right estimate of himself, a man will repent.
He finds out that he is so depraved, that no strength, no works, no merits of his own will ever deliver him from his guilt.
He will then understand the meaning of Paul’s words: “I am sold under sin”; and “they are all under sin.
” At this state a person begins to lament: “Who is going to help me?
” In due time comes the Word of the Gospel, and says: “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.
Believe in Jesus Christ who was crucified for your sins.
Remember, your sins have been imposed upon Christ.
” In this way are we delivered from sin.
In this way are we justified and made heirs of everlasting life.
In order to have faith you must paint a true portrait of Christ.
The scholastics caricature Christ into a judge and tormentor.
But Christ is no law giver.
He is the Lifegiver.
He is the Forgiver of sins.
You must believe that Christ might have atoned for the sins of the world with one single drop of His blood.
Instead, He shed His blood abundantly in order that He might give abundant satisfaction for our sins.
Here let me say, that these three things, faith, Christ, and imputation of righteousness, are to be joined together.
Faith takes hold of Christ.
God accounts this faith for righteousness.
This imputation of righteousness we need very much, because we are far from perfect.
As long as we have this body, sin will dwell in our flesh.
Then, too, we sometimes drive away the Holy Spirit; we fall into sin, like Peter, David, and other holy men.
Nevertheless we may always take recourse to this fact, “that our sins are covered,” and that “God will not lay them to our charge.
” Sin is not held against us for Christ’s sake.
Where Christ and faith are lacking, there is no remission or covering of sins, but only condemnation.
After we have taught faith in Christ, we teach good works.
“Since you have found Christ by faith,” we say, “begin now to work and do well.
Love God and your neighbor.
Call upon God, give thanks unto Him, praise Him, confess Him.
These are good works.
Let them flow from a cheerful heart, because you have remission of sin in Christ.
” When crosses and afflictions come our way, we bear them patiently.
“For Christ’s yoke is easy, and His burden is light.
” When sin has been pardoned, and the conscience has been eased of its dreadful load, a Christian can endure all things in Christ.
To give a short definition of a Christian: A Christian is not somebody who chalks(sp) sin, because of his faith in Christ.
This doctrine brings comfort to consciences in serious trouble.
When a person is a Christian he is above law and sin.
When the Law accuses him, and sin wants to drive the wits out of him, a Christian looks to Christ.
A Christian is free.
He has no master except Christ.
A Christian is greater than the whole world.
VERSE 16.
Even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified.
The true way of becoming a Christian is to be justified by faith in Jesus Christ, and not by the works of the Law.
We know that we must also teach good works, but they must be taught in their proper turn, when the discussion is concerning works and not the article of justification.
Here the question arises by what means are we justified?
We answer with Paul, “By faith only in Christ are we pronounced righteous, and not by works.
” Not that we reject good works.
Far from it.
But we will not allow ourselves to be removed from the anchorage of our salvation.
The Law is a good thing.
But when the discussion is about justification, then is no time to drag in the Law.
When we discuss justification we ought to speak of Christ and the benefits He has brought us.
Christ is no sheriff.
He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
” (John 1:29. ) VERSE 16.
That we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the Law.
We do not mean to say that the Law is bad.
Only it is not able to justify us.
To be at peace with God, we have need of a far better mediator than Moses or the Law.
We must know that we are nothing.
We must understand that we are merely beneficiaries and recipients of the treasures of Christ.
So far, the words of Paul were addressed to Peter.
Now Paul turns to the Galatians and makes this summary statement: VERSE 16.
For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
By the term “flesh” Paul does not understand manifest vices.
Such sins he usually calls by their proper names, as adultery, fornication, etc. By “flesh” Paul understands what Jesus meant in the third chapter of John, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh”.
(John 3:6. ) “Flesh” here means the whole nature of man, inclusive of reason and instincts.
“This flesh,” says Paul, “is not justified by the works of the law.
” The papists do not believe this.
They say, “A person who performs this good deed or that, deserves the forgiveness of his sins.
A person who joins this or that holy order, has the promise of everlasting life.
” To me it is a miracle that the Church, so long surrounded by vicious sects, has been able to survive at all.
God must have been able to call a few who in their failure to discover any good in themselves to cite against the wrath and judgment of God, simply took to the suffering and death of Christ, and were saved by this simple faith.
Nevertheless God has punished the contempt of the Gospel and of Christ on the part of the papists, by turning them over to a reprobate state of mind in which they reject the Gospel, and receive with gusto the abominable rules, ordinances, and traditions of men in preference to the Word of God, until they went so far as to forbid marriage.
God punished them justly, because they blasphemed the only Son of God.
This is, then, our general conclusion: “By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
” VERSE 17.
But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin?
God forbid.
Either we are not justified by Christ, or we are not justified by the Law.
The fact is, we are justified by Christ.
Hence, we are not justified by the Law.
If we observe the Law in order to be justified, or after having been justified by Christ, we think we must further be justified by the Law, we convert Christ into a legislator and a minister of sin.
“What are these false apostles doing?
” Paul cries.
“They are turning Law into grace, and grace into Law.
They are changing Moses into Christ, and Christ into Moses.
By teaching that besides Christ and His righteousness the performance of the Law is necessary unto salvation, they put the Law in the place of Christ, they attribute to the Law the power to save, a power that belongs to Christ only.
” The papists quote the words of Christ: “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
” (Matt.
19:17. ) With His own words they deny Christ and abolish faith in Him.
Christ is made to lose His good name, His office, and His glory, and is demoted to the status of a law enforcer, reproving, terrifying, and chasing poor sinners around.
The proper office of Christ is to raise the sinner, and extricate him from his sins.
Papists and Anabaptists deride us because we so earnestly require faith.
“Faith,” they say, “makes men reckless.
” What do these law-workers know about faith, when they are so busy calling people back from baptism, from faith, from the promises of Christ to the Law?
With their doctrine these lying sects of perdition deface the benefits of Christ to this day.
They rob Christ of His glory as the Justifier of mankind and cast Him into the role of a minister of sin.
They are like the false apostles.
There is not a single one among them who knows the difference between law and grace.
We can tell the difference.
We do not here and now argue whether we ought to do good works, or whether the Law is any good, or whether the Law ought to be kept at all.
We will discuss these questions some other time.
We are now concerned with justification.
Our opponents refuse to make this distinction.
All they can do is to bellow that good works ought to be done.
We know that.
We know that good works ought to be done, but we will talk about that when the proper time comes.
Now we are dealing with justification, and here good works should not be so much as mentioned.
Paul’s argument has often comforted me.
He argues: “If we who have been justified by Christ are counted unrighteous, why seek justification in Christ at all?
If we are justified by the Law, tell me, what has Christ achieved by His death, by His preaching, by His victory over sin and death?
Either we are justified by Christ, or we are made worse sinners by Him.
” The Sacred Scriptures, particularly those of the New Testament, make frequent mention of faith in Christ.
“Whosoever believeth in him is saved, shall not perish, shall have everlasting life, is not judged,” etc. In open contradiction to the Scriptures, our opponents misquote, “He that believeth in Christ is condemned, because he has faith without works.
” Our opponents turn everything topsy-turvy.
They make Christ over into a murderer, and Moses into a savior.
Is not this horrible blasphemy?
VERSE 17.
Is therefore Christ the minister of sin?
This is Hebrew phraseology, also used by Paul in II Corinthians, chapter 3. There Paul speaks of two ministers: The minister of the letter, and the minister of the spirit; the minister of the Law, and the minister of grace; the minister of death, and the minister of life.
“Moses,” says Paul, “is the minister of the Law, of sin, wrath, death, and condemnation.
” Whoever teaches that good works are indispensable unto salvation, that to gain heaven a person must suffer afflictions and follow the example of Christ and of the saints, is a minister of the Law, of sin, wrath, and of death, for the conscience knows how impossible it is for a person to fulfill the Law.
Why, the Law makes trouble even for those who have the Holy Spirit.
What will not the Law do in the case of the wicked who do not even have the Holy Spirit?
The Law requires perfect obedience.
It condemns all who do not accomplish the will of God.
But show me a person who is able to render perfect obedience.
The Law cannot justify.
It can only condemn according to the passage: “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
” Paul has good reason for calling the minister of the Law the minister of sin, for the Law reveals our sinfulness.
The realization of sin in turn frightens the heart and drives it to despair.
Therefore all exponents of the Law and of works deserve to be called tyrants and oppressors.
The purpose of the Law is to reveal sin.
That this is the purpose of the Law can be seen from the account of the giving of the Law as reported in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of Exodus.
Moses brought the people out of their tents to have God speak to them personally from a cloud.
But the people trembled with fear, fled, and standing aloof they begged Moses: “Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.
” The proper office of the Law is to lead us out of our tents, in other words, out of the security of our self-trust, into the presence of God, that we may perceive His anger at our sinfulness.
All who say that faith alone in Christ does not justify a person, convert Christ into a minister of sin, a teacher of the Law, and a cruel tyrant who requires the impossible.
All merit-seekers take Christ for a new lawgiver.
In conclusion, if the Law is the minister of sin, it is at the same time the minister of wrath and death.
As the Law reveals sin it fills a person with the fear of death and condemnation.
Eventually the conscience wakes up to the fact that God is angry.
If God is angry with you, He will destroy and condemn you forever.
Unable to stand the thought of the wrath and judgment of God, many a person commits suicide.
VERSE 17.
God forbid.
Christ is not the minister of sin, but the Dispenser of righteousness and the Giver of life.
Christ is Lord over law, sin and death.
All who believe in Him are delivered from law, sin and death.
The Law drives us away from God, but Christ reconciles God unto us, for “He is the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world.
” Now if the sin of the world is taken away, it is taken away from me.
If sin is taken away, the wrath of God and His condemnation are also taken away.
Let us practice this blessed conviction.
VERSE 18.
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
“I have not preached to the end that I build again the things which I destroyed.
If I should do so, I would not only be laboring in vain, but I would make myself guilty of a great wrong.
By the ministry of the Gospel I have destroyed sin, heaviness of heart, wrath, and death.
I
have abolished the Law, so that it should not bother your conscience any more.
Should I now once again establish the Law, and set up the rule of Moses?
This is exactly what I should be doing, if I would urge circumcision and the performance of the Law as necessary unto salvation.
Instead of righteousness and life, I would restore sin and death.
” By the grace of God we know that we are justified through faith in Christ alone.
We do not mingle law and grace, faith and works.
We keep them far apart.
Let every true Christian mark the distinction between law and grace, and mark it well.
We must not drag good works into the article of justification as the monks do who maintain that not only good works, but also the punishment which evildoers suffer for their wicked deeds, deserve everlasting life.
When a criminal is brought to the place of execution, the monks try to comfort him in this manner: “You want to die willingly and patiently, and then you will merit remission of your sins and eternal life.
” What cruelty is this, that a wretched thief, murderer, robber should be so miserably misguided in his extreme distress, that at the very point of death he should be denied the sweet promises of Christ, and directed to hope for pardon of his sins in the willingness and patience with which he is about to suffer death for his crimes?
The monks are showing him the paved way to hell.
These hypocrites do not know the first thing about grace, the Gospel, or Christ.
They retain the appearance and the name of the Gospel and of Christ for a decoy only.
In their confessional writings faith or the merit of Christ are never mentioned.
In their writings they play up the merits of man, as can readily be seen from the following form of absolution used among the monks.
“God forgive thee, brother.
The merit of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the blessed Saint Mary, always a virgin, and of all the saints; the merit of thy order, the strictness of thy religion, the humility of thy profession, the contrition of thy heart, the good works thou hast done and shalt do for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, be available unto thee for the remission of thy sins, the increase of thy worth and grace, and the reward of everlasting life.
Amen.
” True, the merit of Christ is mentioned in this formula of absolution.
But if you look closer you will notice that Christ’s merit is belittled, while monkish merits are aggrandized.
They confess Christ with their lips, and at the same time deny His power to save.
I myself was at one time entangled in this error.
I thought Christ was a judge and had to be pacified by a strict adherence to the rules of my order.
But now I give thanks unto God, the Father of all mercies, who has called me out of darkness into the light of His glorious Gospel, and has granted unto me the saving knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord.
We conclude with Paul, that we are justified by faith in Christ, without the Law.
Once a person has been justified by Christ, he will not be unproductive of good, but as a good tree he will bring forth good fruit.
A believer has the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will not permit a person to remain idle, but will put him to work and stir him up to the love of God, to patient suffering in affliction, to prayer, thanksgiving, to the habit of charity towards all men.
