GALATIANS BIBLE STUDY: 2:15-21

I. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE: CONFUSION #1 (v15-16)

A. Justification by faith means this: a person is declared to be in right standing with God at the moment of their faith in Christ.

B. This further means that

1. The justified are declared to be free from the guilt all sin and its consequences

2. The justified are, therefore, made fit to go to heaven because Christ’s life of perfection is now counted as their life.

C. Why is this even a problem?

1. The gospel of justification by grace alone is being changed to be something else and the Galatians are being deceived by a different gospel (Galatians 1:6)

2. The confusion is deepened when PETER behaves in a hypocritical way that seems to endorse this new gospel.

3. Paul’s teaching in verses 15-21 is the result of the confusion that has come about because of the hypocritical actions of Cephas and the others

D. The confusion is now this: justification is viewed as a combination of Torahkeeping and Faith in Christ or simply Christ Centric

1. The Galatian gospel: Torah and Jesus: people must believe in Jesus BUT/AND they need to keep the moral law for justification to take place

2. Paul’s Gospel is Christ-alone:

a. Paul says in v 16: We must believe in Christ in order to be justified.

Galatians 2:16 ESV

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.

II. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE: CONFUSION #2 (v17-18)

A. They believed that the gospel of Justification by grace alone makes God a sinner:

1. If God gave His law and it was to be kept…but

2. Grace came and now the law does not have to be kept … and

3. God accepts this “new deal.”

4. God is not being God … He is accommodating sin and sinners.

5. Paul’s response in essence: “No! Grace leads to freedom from sin’s slavery to obey God, not license to disobey him.”

Romans 6:1–2 ESV

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

III. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE: CLARITY #2 (v17-18)

A. Justification Carries A Two-Fold Dimension

1. The sense of declaring one righteous before God

2. The requirement of transformation

B. Deliver-dict: a verdict that effects deliverance.

IV. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE: CLARITY #2 (v19-21)

A. Justification by Faith Means Faith-ing In and With Christ

1. Intellectual Assent: Belief in Christ.

a. Explain ALLEGIANCE

b. Peter Application: He was not behaving in this truth

Ephesians 2:11 ESV

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—

Ephesians 2:15 ESV

by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,

2. Participational Allegiance: Behaving Like Christ

a. Discuss allegiance

b. Two aspect of this allegiance

- CO-CRUCIFIXION

i. Faith in Christ is participating into the death of Christ. Two aspects

1. Death to the law

a. No longer relying on the law for life

2. Death to self

Romans 6:6 ESV

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

b. Death to a previous existence

i. Happens at initial faith

ii. Baptism – public identifying with him

iii. Endures as a one time event that has continual

Perfect tense: completed act that produces present and continual results

3. Death To The Old Self/Old Man

a. This death must be actualized regularly

i. Put off the old

Ephesians 4:22 ESV

to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,

ii. Put on the new

Ephesians 4:24 ESV

and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

iii. Cannot be vice versa. We cannot be new without the mandatory requirement of killing – participating in the death of Christ for my sin – by dying to the sin that has been crucified

ROMANS

Romans 6:1 ESV

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

Romans 6:2 ESV

By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

2 COR 5-

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

exhibiting and experiencing the co-laboring power of the new life with the spirit, we must be forsaking the old (ways, and patterns, and systems and thoughts and allegiances

Galatians 5:24 ESV

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

WE NOW LIVE IN BUT ARE NOT GOVERNED BY THE FLESH

- CO-RESURRECTION

Galatians 2:19–20 ESV

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

i. Paul’s self is now determined not by himself, but by the powerful presence of Another

Colossians 2:12 ESV

having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Colossians 3:1 ESV

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Ephesians 2:6 ESV

and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Romans 6:4 ESV

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

GALATIANS CONTEXT 3:1-2

Galatians 3:1 ESV

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Galatians 3:2 ESV

Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

3. Righteousness

a. Justification means the creation of a just person and a just people

b. Justification is As Transformative as much as it is forensic and declarative

c. Righteousness is:

. Derived from Christ’s death

. Defined by Christ’s death

d. Therefore righteousness is:

. Faithfulness and Love

Galatians 5:6 ESV

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

i. Paul himself is the example of what this looks like

ii. Peter is what it does not look like

V. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE: CLARITY #3

A. Horizontal: the community of faith

B. Vertical: the community of the Trinity