Full Text for Galatians- Volume 22 - What are the theological issues that follow this confrontation between Paul and Peter at Antioch? (Video)

No. 22. >> I, too, have a final question out of Chapter 2. Paul's first statement on justification by grace through faith occurs after the Antioch incident. What are the theological issues that follow this confrontation between Paul and Peter? And how do they affect the rest of his letter to the Galatians in Chapter 2 verses 15 to 21. For example what does justification mean? What are works of the law? What does Paul mean when he says I died to the law through the law? What does it mean that Christ lives in him? If this is not an ontological statement, is it at least a dynamic statement? And did Luther view the believer as being carried by another? >>DR. ARTHUR A. JUST, JR.: David, I think you have recognized that this section in Galatians is really I guess you could say the first deeply theological section where Paul reflects theologically about what the Gospel is. But it is I think the densest section of Galatians. And it is where we see as you already indicated the first statement by justification by grace through faith. There is so much packed in here, we could almost spend an entire course just unraveling the theology that Paul has here. But let's in the next few minutes try to get at the basic theological issues, particularly as they develop now in the rest of the Galatian homily. Now, I think Verse 15 sets the stage. And this is, as I said, the first concerted theological argument in Galatians. And I love what one commentator says about Verse 15. And I'll just read it, translate it. And then I'll explain what I think it means. Paul says now: We -- and the we is you, Peter and me -- we are by nature Jews and a not Gentile sinners. Now, what an author says is that he thinks Paul here is rhetorically putting his arm around Peter. In other words, Paul has just gotten in Peter's face. Says: You stand condemned. Describes him as a hypocrite. Being afraid. But I think Paul has some compassion here for Peter. And he puts his arm around Peter. And he's going to use this as an opportunity to show what we believe about the Gospel as Jews. And he says: We are by nature Jews. Peter, I was brought up as a Pharisee. I was the best in my class. I was in the school of Gamaliel. You don't think I understand the law? You don't think I understand this? He says: Peter, you and I, we are Jews. We are not like these Gentile sinners. Look what he's saying. These Galatians are Gentile pagan sinners. We're not sinners. We're Jews. Now, you know what he means. He means we are the ones who have been privileged with the revelation of God. We have the temple. We know what it means to be holy. And let's not be like them. By resorting to a Gospel that's not a Gospel. And so that's why in verses 16 and following he states the Gospel. Now, Verse 16 is perhaps the most important verse in Galatians. It is the densest at least. And to translate it carefully is extremely important here. Now, I have not mentioned this. And I probably should have earlier. But I've given you as -- if you have the Greek, it's great. But if you don't have the Greek, I've given you kind of a diagrammed translation of the text here. And here it's very important. Because what we have is some parallelism going on. And I think you can see it in the English as well as the Greek. Let's translate it first and then go back and talk about it. Because it's very important. Verse 16 -- and I'm going to read a translation because I want to trust my own translation. I'll read one. And I may make a few adjustments as we go. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus. In order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law. Because by works of the law, no one will be justified. Now, there are so many new concepts here first of all, the language of justification. And here the translation I'm reading, the ESV here uses the word justify. Sometimes we translate this declared righteous. Those are both good translations. We tend not to use the translation make righteous. And especially it if it's applied to a believer can be somewhat problematic. But to declare righteous, that's the courtroom. That's what we call forensic action, forensic language. This is certainly the language of justification as it's been handed down to us through the reformers, particularly Luther. And as you know, the Lutheran Confessions and Luther himself says that justification is one of the principle if not the principle doctrine of Christianity. And as Lutherans there is a statement. It's not in the confessions. But it's a statement that we all affirm that justification is the doctrine upon which the church stands and falls. And we believe that. I would like, however, to say this about the Word here in this verse. That I think one of the ways to translate it is not declare righteous or justify. And bear with me here. I'll explain it in a minute. But to translate it this way: That what Paul is saying here is in the language of justification that God is making right what has gone wrong. Now, we all know what has gone wrong. We know that God created this creation good. If you just read the first chapter of Genesis, you see over and over again it was good, it was good, it was good. And that what happened is our first parents disobedience infected creation with a virus that all of a sudden that was so good went so terribly wrong. And we know that ever since the first sin of our parents that they fell into sin by the temptations of the devil which they succumbed to, that our world has been infected with this virus of sin that's caused death and tragedy and suffering and sickness and the most unimaginable things. And I think we also know at least if we're believers and if we understand the New Testament that we cannot -- and this is one of the points that Paul is making. We cannot by our own works, by trying hard to be good or trying to be righteous or trying to do the right thing that we cannot make right what has gone wrong. Because as the psalm says our works are like filthy rags. We can't do it. I think this is what Paul's opponents are telling the Galatians. Yes, you can. God does a little. You do a little. But you can help yourself. You can help make right what has gone wrong. I think that Paul is saying very clearly here that only God can make right what has gone wrong. And only God can do that by sending his Creator who created everything good back into this world. Coming into this world as the Creator come to his creation to make all things new. That when the Creator comes in Jesus Christ, that it's only then that God in Christ is making right what has gone wrong. And he does it through a cross. He does it by being the focus of the Father's wrath. By being the focus of the Father's wrath against sin. By taking into himself our shame and our guilt. It is only in the cross where God a making right what has gone wrong. Now, I think it's also important to say that even though in a way -- in a way -- we can say that our faith makes right what has gone wrong. But it's our faith in Christ, in his atonement and resurrection, that makes right what has gone wrong. Now, there are some issues here in this verse about how to translate these words. And let me say this: I would translate it this way: Knowing that a man is made right in what has gone wrong not by works of the law but through the faithfulness unto death of Jesus Christ. And we believed in Jesus Christ in order that we may be made right in what has gone wrong by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ unto death and not by works of the law. Because by works of the law all flesh cannot make right what has gone wrong. You see, I think that Paul is speaking here in a cosmic sense. He's not talking about individual works of the law. He's not talking about individual faith. He's talking about Christ. And what Christ has done on the cross in his faithfulness, in his obedience unto death, in giving up his life for us. Now, the reason why I say that is I think most of the translations get it wrong when they say: Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. Now, the Greek is ambiguous there. It can mean faith in Jesus Christ or the faith of Jesus Christ, namely his faithfulness unto death. The only translation that takes it that way is the King James. Faith of Christ. And that's interesting. Because I think in some ways they understood the language better back then than we do now. But here is the deal: In Verse 16, our faith in Christ stands at the center of that verse. This in no way discounts that our faith in Christ is important. But it says: How does God make right what has gone wrong in the world? It is through Christ and his faithfulness on the cross. Not by works of the law. Not by our faith. Because all flesh is going to be declared righteous, justified. That all of this is going to make right what has gone wrong by means of what happened on the cross of Calvary. Now, the reason I bring this up is that this is what's being discussed among the Pauline scholars today. not only in Galatians but also in Romans. And I think in both Galatians and Romans, Paul is speaking here in the bigger picture. I think if you look at the language of faith in Christ, it individualizes it too much. It makes it too personal. Too subjective. That's I think a little too moderate. And even though Luther took it that way, if you read the Galatians commentary you can see Luther understood this in the context of the larger salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Now, Paul goes on. And I think the way in which he goes on helps explain this. And I think Verses 17 and following are really helpful in clarifying this. In 17 he says: But if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we, too, were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not. Now, this is kind of an obvious statement for Paul. But I think what it says in Verse 17 is that people are calling Paul by his teaching, by the fact that he eats with Gentiles, by the fact that he includes, you know, himself. And therefore, Christ and his Gospel with Gentile table fellowship is that he is being called by these opponents as a sinner. And anybody who has relationships in terms of both the Lord's Supper and just generally with Gentiles is a sinner. Then if that's true, then Christ is also a servant of sin. Because the Gospel is for everybody. And if you're going to go with a selective Gospel, then you are going to go with a Gospel that makes not only those who kind of expand the Gospel to include Gentiles a sinner, then Christ then is a sinner, too. Now, when he says: Certainly not, he's saying: No, that's not the case. That is not the case. Because that's not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And then in Verse 18 he says this: For if I rebuild what I tore down -- and he's talking about the law there. If I'm going to put up the law again as a means of salvation, if I'm going to do that, then he says: I prove myself to be a transgressor. Then I am a sinner. I'm not a sinner if I have table fellowship with Gentiles and see the Gospel as being for all people. I'm a sinner if I put requirements on the Gospel. If I make the Gospel something that I build up now, the law, around it as kind of a wall, then I am a sinner. And here is his explanation. And this is very complicated. But it's going to give birth to a fuller theology later on in Chapter 3. So we have to handle it now. And Verse 19 is very critical here. For I through the law died to the law. Now, think about that. I through the law died to the law. Now, I think we can understand what Paul says: I died to the law. Namely, his life under the law before the cross, before Damascus. That is something that Damascus put an end to as well as the cross put an end to. He no longer lives according to the law. We died to that. But how does he die to the law through the law? That's harder to understand. And I think the reason is this: Because I don't think we recognize that at the cross there is a collision. There is a collision between Christ and the law. Now, here you see Paul recognizing very clearly what happens at the cross. What he says later onto the Corinthians: That he who knew no sin becomes sin on our behalf. When Jesus was nailed to the tree, he is a sinner. He is the ultimate sinner. That's why the Father forsakes him. That's why the Father curses him as he says in Chapter 3 here in Galatians. That is why the Father has to forsake him to the point of death. That's why the Father's wrath is upon him. Because he's a sinner. Now, what does the law do? The law shows us our sins. When the law looks at Jesus who is the ultimate sinner there, what must the law do? It must put Jesus to death. That's what the law demands of sinners. That's how Paul died to the law through the law. Because the collision there on the cross between Christ and the law, the law condemning Christ because Christ is a sinner there, that is how Paul dies to the law. He's referencing here the cross of Jesus Christ. And what happens? That happens so that he might now live to God. Because he is co-crucified with Christ. He's not the one who is crucified. It is Christ who is crucified and Paul now in Christ. Here he is referring to his baptism. How he's baptized into Christ's death and resurrection. He's going to talk about that in Galatians 3 and 4 and then in Romans 6. Because he's co-crucified in Christ. And this comes to him in his baptism. That is why he can now live. That Christ's death and resurrection becomes his. Not because he dies the death of Christ. Not because he rises the resurrection of Christ in a literal way. But because in Christ he dies with Christ. And in Christ, he rises with him. Now, that is a profound statement. And look at what happens in Verse 20, what he wants to expand now is the life. The life. This is the life after the cross. The life after Damascus. The life after faith. He says: The life -- and let me get this translation right in Verse 20. I am co-crucified with Christ. It is no longer -- it is no longer I who live. Me, Paul. But Christ who lives in me. I'm joined to Christ now Paul says. I have Communion with Christ. So when you see me, you don't see me, you see Christ. Even though you see my personality, you see my body, it is Christ who lives in me. This is that incorporation into Christ that justification brings. That baptism brings. Now, this is as fundamentally an important doctrine for Paul as justification by grace through faith. Justification is for the whole cosmos where what is wrong out there is made right through God through the cross. Baptism is how that very reality becomes my own personal possession where Christ now lives in me. And it's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And as he says: And the life that I now live in my flesh, in my body, I live by faith. Now, here, look at this translation. I'm going to translate it a little differently than yours. I live by faith. The faith of the Son of God. Namely, his faithfulness unto death. And here this explains what that faithfulness unto death, the faith of the Son of God is. That is the one who loved me. That is the one who has -- and this echoes the opening prologue of the epistle to the Galatians -- the one who has given himself on behalf of me in death. In the atonement. Just like the body and blood are given on behalf of you for the forgiveness of sins. Now, look at what we're saying here. We're saying that at the cross there is a collision between Christ and the law. And that there Paul dies to the law. The nomistic world, that means the world of the law no longer is what defines him. What defines him is the Christ that lives in him, namely, the Gospel. And that comes to him through baptism. And that he lives now in the same faithful way, obedient unto death, even death on the cross the way Jesus lived. The one who loved him and gave himself up for him. So finally Verse 21 and this brings this extraordinary rich section to an end. Paul says: I do not nullify the grace of God. He says he's not going to -- that grace, that space in which God is making right what has gone wrong, he's not going to nullify that. Because he says: If justification were through the law -- in other words if God made things right in the cosmos by means of our works of the law which is what the Pharisaical Christians are saying, then Christ died in vain for no purpose. There would be no point to the atonement then. Because going back to Verse 19, Christ and the law collided at the cross. And because that happened Paul and all of us who were baptized into Christ can say the law no longer defines us. I've died to the law. I died to it through the cross of Jesus Christ. And so it's Christ who lives in me. And that life I live is his life.