Righteousness By Faith
Freedom of the Gospel • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Today is week 4 of our series in Galatians. We will finish up the rest of chapter 2 today. This letter written by Paul was likely one of the first of his letters. It was written about halfway through his ministry time and written to a church who had begun to fall away from the centrality of the Gospel.
It doesn’t take long for Paul’s displeasure with how things are going to be clear. This is likely one of the most direct and to the point letters he wrote. The main issue was adding requirements of law following to the message of the Gospel. Today at the end of chapter 2, we get what English high school classes call the topic sentence of this letter. Let me give that to you now...
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
For those who have been Christians for some time, these are likely verses you’ve heard before. If you haven’t. I would suggest these are great verses to commit to memory. If you like to highlight verses, these are good ones to highlight.
Our righteousness does not come by our doing right things, for even in doing right things, we are sometimes wrong in how we do them, nor do we do right things all the time. Our righteousness is by faith in Jesus. And that is the title of the message today.
***TITLE SLIDE***
Righteousness by faith.
Before Paul can really get to the meat of this letter and dealing with this subject in the life of the Galatians churches, he establishes his authority to speak to them on this topic.
Up to this point, it’s been about Paul’s testimony about his walk and preparation to be an apostle. He even gets confirmation from the other apostles as part of his walking out this calling to the gentiles.
In the second half of chapter 2, it takes a bit of a turn. Paul is going to lay out a time in which he challenged the disciple who was closest to Jesus. He calls out Peter publically in front of others. That is essentially what this letter does with the Galatian churches. He calls them out on their error about the gospel. They’ve add things to the gospel which make it no gospel at all.
It’s the same things that Paul calls Peter out for. I believe Paul’s telling of this encounter has two purposes. 1. If he can call Peter publically on an error, then Paul also has the authority to call out any church for the same error. This is another qualification for his apostleship - Paul is a leader of leaders and a leader of churches. 2. Peter’s error is the same error, Paul is looking to correct in these churches. A legalistic view of the Old Testament Law as it pertains to life in the church.
Let’s begin reading, Galatians 2, verse 11...
11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
In the first part of chapter 2, Paul makes a trip to Jerusalem to see the apostles and discusses his ministry and understanding of the gospel. They were all in agreement about Paul and they had given the right hand of fellowship.
Now we see where Peter comes to visit Paul in Antioch. Antioch was a place that had a mixture of both Jews and Gentiles. It was a really diverse place. At first Paul witnessed Peter eating with everyone, but when those who were holding on to circumcision came, Peter began to withdraw and limited those who he was eating with.
Paul calls this hypocrisy. Acting one way in front of some people and then acting another way in front of others. It’s a problem and Paul calls it out.
Let’s keep reading...
14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
I am encouraged by this verse in a couple of ways. First of all, if a guy like Peter who spent time with Jesus and was the rock on which Jesus was starting the church...if that guy was in need of correction, then it’s probably likely that I am going to need correcting. It’s probably likely that we all need correcting from time to time.
My sense of the pride we’ve allowed into ourselves sometimes prevents us from being willing to accept correction. When correction comes, our instinct is to get defensive and potentially even go on the offensive.
Here are two church leaders, church fathers of our faith who openly had a confrontation where one was correcting the other. We don’t get to see Peter’s response, but I can’t imagine Paul talking about it if it didn’t go well. We also have this in 2 Peter...
15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
I’m also encouraged by Paul’s calling out Peter to his face in public. I’m sure it made Peter uncomfortable, but at that point, Peter’s actions had begun to lead others astray. It’s really easy to call someone out in public who is not in the room. It’s another thing altogether to do something like this in public to someone’s face.
This requires that Paul has a confidence in what he knows to be right. A confidence in knowing when something is wrong and being willing to address it no matter how popular, powerful or connected a person is.
Paul’s challenge was not one of personal gain, it was from concern for the souls of those who were witnessing it. I would never recommend a public challenge to someone for your own gain or offense. That should be done in private. But in the instance of a public offense that is resulting in people being led astray from the truth of the gospel, that may be done publically.
The main challenge here is that Peter was willing to eat with Gentiles, was willing to eat non-clean foods as a gentile would, but when Peter’s Jewish friends were around, Peter was requiring the Gentiles to abide by a different set of rules.
To be clear, if you as a non-Jew were to be invited to dine with a Jewish family, you should observe their customs, but it would be improper for a Christian Jew to require the rest of the church to follow Jewish customs and laws.
He continues in the next 2 verses...
15 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles 16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
One of the key phrases of the gospel is justified by faith. The word justified by itself used in a legal context mean to be declared, pronounced or treated as righteous or innocent. When we say justified by faith, we are saying that our righteousness is declare over us by faith, by faith in Jesus - his sinless life, his death on the cross and resurrection on the 3rd day.
Paul makes it clear that works of the law will do nothing to justify us. I think there are a lot of well intentioned people who would agree with that statement and yet live as though works are how they are justified. It can be such a subtle thought or action as well. I’m not saying that you should do good works, but if you are doing them to gain favor or to justify yourselves, you are doing them for the wrong reason.
Paul continues...
17 “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.
These two verses can be a bit confusing. In verse 17, Paul is playing out a logical fallacy...if faith makes us righteous and doing righteous works does not, does that mean Christ is promoting sin, or unrighteous behaviour? I think there are times in which people hear certain doctrines and use their own logic to come to a self-serving conclusion, but that conclusion is contrary to what scripture really says. We have to take the whole of scripture in context and not just cherry pick those that fit what it is that we want to do.
Then in verse 18 he is again referring to the law. If we’ve been set free from the requirements of the law by our faith in Christ and then reconstruct the law for those joining the church, that would be a sinful way to go. That person would be a lawbreaker.
Let’s read the next verse...
19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.
Taken alone, this verse is a bit confusing, but remember, Paul is making the point that life with God is not through the law, it is through Christ. All that the law can do is convince us that we are sinners. Sin requires death. This death is what Paul finally came to grips with when Christ met him on the road. He was able to see that because Jesus and only Jesus fulfilled every point of the law and then was sacrificed for him and us, that sacrifice was enough to cover our sin debt.
He continues this thought...
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
The law brought Paul and it brings us to a place of understanding that in ourselves and our own actions, we are not worthy. By accepting the gift of Christ, we have put our flesh, our sin on the cross with Jesus. Our life is now his and he lives in us. It is his righteousness that is in us.
Paul is trying to get us to understand that the only way to live an acceptable life is by faith in Jesus. That is what this entire letter is about. We can get so focused on what we can or can’t do, but Jesus tell us to live our life by faith. If we don’t...let’s see what the last verse says...
21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
If we try to be justified....declared righteous...but our works, the we are essentially saying that Christ died for nothing.
This is living in slavery to the law. We’ve been set free from that, not that would live however we wanted, but that we would live by faith in Christ. There is something that happens in a believer as they grow in the faith and love for Christ - they live more holy lives. Not because they are trying to be justified, but because that is how a Christ follower lives.
By our faith in Christ, we have been justified. We have been declared righteous because of what Jesus did, not because of what we have done or will do. Jesus did that for us at the moment of salvation. Also at the moment of salvation, we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in us. He is our comforter, our Counselor, our guide. Rather than live by the law, we are to live by the Spirit...
Let me give you a sneak peak at a passage later in Galatians...
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
We’ll explore these things more as we go through this letter to the Galatian churches. Today I have a few questions I want to end with.
Have you been saved by the grace of God? Are you trusting your goodness, or are have you trusted in the sacrifice of Christ for you salvation. Christ alone saves...not anything else.
Are we trying to mix law and grace? Law requires I do something to please God, grace says that God has done the work through Jesus to make me pleasing to God. Salvation is not faith plus works, it is faith in Christ alone.
Am we walking the in liberty of grace? Freedom in Christ doesn’t mean we are free to do what we want. It means we are free from the condemnation that comes with sin and law. That is bondage. Freedom in Christ is living by the Spirit who can spur us to produce Spiritual fruit in our lives.
Are we willing to walk in and defend the truth of the Gospel? Hypocrisy is one of the greatest tools of the enemy. And it usually takes place over time in little steps. It doesn’t matter what you say if actions are contrary to your words. Do you believe that justification is by faith alone? Are there ways in which you can see that you’ve allowed a plus to that statement...Justification is by faith plus coming to church every week, or by faith plus doing good works. We do want to pursue going to church each week and going good works, but we don’t do it for our salvation, we do it because of our salvation.
