Galatians 2:15-16 – Part 1 of a verse by verse devotional commentary

Main Reading: Galatians 2:15-16

If you walked up to 10 people and asked them “are you going to Heaven and why?” what do you think most of them would say?“I’ve tried to be a decent person.” “I go to church.” “I’m better than some people, and I hope that’s enough.”

Thankfully, the Bible doesn’t leave that question up in the air…And that’s exactly what we’ll be talking about in this passage.

v. 15-16 “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 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”

Remember what led up to this? Peter stopped eating with Gentile Christians because he was scared of what the religious guys from Jerusalem might think…He chickened out, traded grace for appearances, and Paul called him out in front of everyone.

Now, Paul turns to—and explains—the root issue of it all. He boils it down by saying: “Look, even people who were born-and-raised as Jews know this: obeying the law doesn’t make you right with God. Faith in Jesus does.” Paul’s telling Peter (and us): “You have no reason to break fellowship with believers based on cultural backgrounds. You’re not more justified because of your background. They aren’t less justified because of theirs. If anyone is justified, it’s only because of faith in Christ.” Speaking on behalf of all Jews, Paul says: “Regardless of what we might’ve thought, we aren’t right with God because we followed some rule. Our relationship to God is based on faith, just like theirs is.”

“Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith” (Romans 3:27-30).

Paul is doing way more, here, than campaigning for more potlucks between Jews & Gentiles…After hinting at the big theme of the letter, this is where he kicks the door off the hinges. Paul isn't just arguing about who you can sit with at church—he’s preaching what’s at the very center of everything:

There’s a question that every human being faces every day. There's a status that every person chases for their entire life: Everybody wants to be right. Everyone wants other people to side with them. And, most importantly, people want to know that, when this life ends, whichever god may be out there will look on them and say: “you did a good job.” We want God to look at us and say “well done” rather than “well, that was a failure.” People have been wrestling with this since the very beginning; “How can a man be in the right before God?” (Job 9:2).

Paul’s answer to all of this searching and these questions is justification by faith. Not the Law. This doctrine makes proud people squirm and sinners sing. It takes everything we thought we knew about earning & deserving and throws it in the trash. Paul says: “The Law didn’t justify us. It can’t do that for anyone. That’s why we need Christ.” This is it. This is the beating heart of the Bible, the Christian faith, & human existence. As we’ve been reading Galatians—and especially in the verses we just heard—you’ve probably noticed Paul keeps using this word: “justified.” I know, it might sound like “Christianese” or a theological buzzword—one of those topics pastors argue about while the rest of us nod and pretend we know what’s going on.

But justification isn’t just an answer to a trivia question…it’s extremely important, but most Christians are unfamiliar with it. So, if you’ve been wondering what this word means, just know you are not alone. Let me prove it.

Members of the White Horse Inn radio program attended a Christian publishers convention and asked people to explain justification. An overwhelming majority of the answers were: “I’m not familiar with the topic” or, even worse, “we have to justify ourselves.” Obviously, if Christian authors and publishers are unfamiliar with justification, most Christians don’t have a clue either—and that’s unfortunate…Because I can hardly think of anything more important for you to know than this.

Martin Luther once said that justification is “the doctrine on which the Church stands or falls.” If you lose this truth, your church has ceased to be a Christian one. It’s that serious.

Whether or not you’ve ever even heard of justification, it’s one of the most important things in your life. Let’s think about what this 5-syllable word means. To start, justification, has strong ties to the courtroom (“just-” like justice)—it’s legal language. If someone is accused of a crime and the judge determines that he is not guilty, This defendant is “justified”—vindicated, acquitted, or declared innocent. “ Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died —more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:33-34).

But you don’t need a courtroom to understand this…You already know what this feels like. Think of a time when someone questioned your actions—maybe a friend, a parent, or a boss. They approached you and said: “You’ve got some explaining to do.” At that moment, it became your job to defend yourself–to justify your decisions & prove you were right. None of us enjoy this, however…we’d prefer our friends, family members, and supervisors to always be pleased with everything we do. But what’s even more exhausting is living every day of your life wondering: “what does God think of me?”

Here’s the cold, hard truth: if God’s opinion of us is dependent on us—just our record and the evidence—we are not right in God’s eyes. We don’t pass the test. We don’t make the cut. Our sin—lies, anger, lust, pride, selfishness, etc.—has ruined any chance of earning God’s approval. By the standards of God’s Law, we are guilty sinners, worthy of punishment. But the gospel tells us that Jesus makes the guilty righteous in God’s eyes! He takes people who have no business being accepted by God and justifies them!

There are two truths going on in your Christian life. Two ways that God speaks to us—they are both true but they are not the same. How God’s Law relates to you is totally different than the Gospel. This is taught all over the Bible. There’s Moses & there’s Jesus. Law & Promise. Doing or Believing. Wages or Gift. Works or Faith. If you’re a sinner—and you definitely are—the Law can’t justify you. It will show you your sin. It’ll accuse you. It’ll crush you. But it will never say, “You’re right with God.”

So how can anyone be justified? That’s the question. And while plenty of people in Paul’s day were offering their own answers: “try this,” “do that,” “add a little Jesus to your effort”—Paul’s about to shut all of that down. He’s going to settle it. Once and for all. And what he says will change everything by definitively teaching how a sinful person can gain God’s approval.

Paul starts by looking Peter in the eye and saying, “You and I—we’re Jews. We grew up on the Law. We’re not Gentile sinners, right?” That was the popular mindset…Jews saw themselves as righteous and all Gentiles as sinners—that’s they refused to eat together, and why Peter backed away from the table…But the truth is: both Jews and Gentiles are sinners. “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin” (Romans 3:9).

Even the people who had the Law drilled into them from day 1—weren’t able to obey it or justify themselves by it. But this didn’t stop people from trying to get themselves right with God through the Law. In fact, most of the Jewish people in Paul's day had tried to be right with God through the Law & failed. “But that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,” (Romans 9:31-32).

It doesn’t matter if you’re Abraham’s great-grandson and were circumcised on the 8th day, or you’re a brand-new Gentile convert to Christianity—no one is justified by the Law. Not even Abraham was accepted by God based on what he did. “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness ” (Romans 4:3-5).

And the most accomplished Hebrew, Saul, wasn’t justified by works either.

“If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ . Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith ” (Philippians 3:4-9).

The only way to be justified is, according to Galatians 2:16, through faith in Christ. If you want to be right with God, you can try 1 of 2 routes that are diametrically opposed to each other: Do works to fulfill the Law, or grab on to Christ by faith. The path of works reaches for some sort of personal improvement plan. (In Judaism, this process all began with circumcision). Whereas, faith reaches out to hold onto Christ alone!

Here’s the upside-down truth of Christianity: It’s not about being good enough to be saved…It’s about being bad enough to know you can’t be good enough! People who think they’re good enough try to earn salvation through foolish methods like circumcision, ceremonies, and self-righteous living. But people who know they’re bad enough? They fall at the foot of the cross and cling to Christ who died to cover all of their sins!

This message was one of the main focuses of the apostle Paul’s ministry. People are saved by nothing other than Jesus & faith is the way they receive Him. But is this really Paul's idea? Is he going rogue and teaching new ideas? Not a chance! The Good News of people being forgiven, apart from their own efforts, is all over the Old Testament.

❶ Abraham was the first example Paul used.

In Genesis 15, God says to Abraham, “I’m going to protect you and give you a reward and a son.” Abraham believed the LORD and was considered righteous in God's sight (Gen. 15:6). Abraham was not some sort of righteous man all along…he started out worshipping idols (Josh. 24:2), and even after he trusted God, he lied about his wife & put her in danger—twice (Gen. 12:10-20, 20:11-18). Thank God the story of Abraham isn’t about some perfect guy who was really important in and of himself—if that were the message of our faith, I wouldn’t qualify for it…neither would he!

❷ This also was the case for Noah much earlier.

“By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith ” (Hebrews 11:7). When God told Noah about the Flood, he believed the message and ended up building a boat. By faith, he became an “heir”—the language of gift—and was given righteousness before God.

❸ David says God forgives sinners who repent, not people who work for it.

“For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:16-17). David was “a man after God's own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), despite being a cheater, murderer, & liar. His son, Solomon, was also a sinner, but he displeased God because of his lack of faith in Yahweh, demonstrated by his chasing after idols and foreign “gods.”

❹ The prophet Habakkuk explicitly teaches faith over human performance.

“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith ” (Habakkuk 2:4). God is not impressed by proud people—who think highly of themselves, their accomplishments, and efforts—but God considers those who live by faith in Him as completely righteous.

❺ The idea of justification by faith didn’t stop with the prophets and patriarchs—it’s also how Jesus Himself talked about salvation.

“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other . For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:9-14). One man’s prayer revealed that he trusted his own religious rigor, the other confessed his sins and begged for forgiveness—and he went home justified!

“For God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life . For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:16-18). Jesus’ most famous words teach that we receive salvation through trust in Him.

When a curious crowd was asking Jesus questions about being right with God, He told them this: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life . He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). “Then they said to him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’” (John 6:28-29).

Jesus told the sinful woman: “your sins are forgiven” and “your faith has saved you” in Luke 7:36-50. When Jesus saw the faith of the paralytic & his friends, he said: “your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). Jesus’ disciples taught this too!

“And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree, but God raised Him on the third day and made Him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name ” (Acts 10:39-43).

“And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, 'Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith . Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will ” (Acts 15:7-11).

“Then he brought them out and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And they said, ‘ Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved , you and your household’” (Acts 16:30-31).

And people in Church History have long acknowledged that we do not get on God’s good side by our own works, but by faith in what Jesus has accomplished.

“We are not justified by ourselves, through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works, or holiness of heart, but through faith” (Clement, paraphrased).

“The best kind of confidence in God is when you don’t brag about being a good person, but know that you are lacking in righteousness, and are justified by faith alone in Christ” (St. Basil the Great, paraphrased).