Galatians # 25

GALATIANS # 25
4/25/11
Crucified with Christ?
Paul’s doctrine
Chapter 2: 17 - 24

Title : The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
Edition : Second
Copyright : Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. Electronic Edition STEP Files Copyright © 2004, QuickVerse, a division of FindEx.com, Inc.

Galatians 2:17-21 ( ESV )
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!
For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.
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 do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

(KJV):
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. 18For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. 20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

In verses 15 – 16, Paul is addressing fellow Jewish Christians (likely Peter, Barnabas and “the other Jews”) with a point of agreement; stating as a matter of fact that everyone agrees that we are justified by faith – not by works. Now, with the word “but” introducing vv 17 -18 he presents a point of disagreement: responding to any objections before they can be leveled. With this shift, Paul also now broadens his audience to include the Galatians; then vv 19 -21, he defines the gospel with an intense personal confession of faith. With these seven short verses Paul lays out the foundation, the core of our hope, the premise on which all Christian Theology/Christology/Soteriology is based. He expands upon these principles in chapters 3 and 4.

• 2:17, 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!

The KJV uses the stronger “God forbid!” in either case Paul passionately rebuts this concept. There is no record of what the conversations were between the men from James and Peter or what was specifically said to the Galatians it is very possible that they had made just such an accusation, possibly something like:
“You are sinning by eating “un-clean” food with these gentiles and you’re then telling them that they are free to likewise not keep the commandments which God delivered through Moses, by doing this you are making Jesus the agent of sin!”
Something along these lines was at least a part of the accusations which were being used against Paul. All we have to go by is Paul’s response. Paul’s rebuttal applies to both the problem in Antioch and the trouble brewing in Galatia; his use of the word “we” includes the Jews who have been keeping the law, as sinners, right along with the gentiles!

We have to keep in mind that the ones challenging Paul’s doctrine were not un-believers or even apostates – they were sincere Christians, devout in their adherence to the Mosaic law; they truly did not comprehend how their teaching, adding “works”, diluted the Gospel – in fact negated the gospel of Grace; they truly believed that not keeping the Mosaic law was sinning…

• 2: 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

Paul had been around Peter enough that he undoubtedly knew about Peter’s vision in Joppa and his experiences with Cornelius; even though he shifts to “I” this statement is also pointedly meant for Peter…without directly condemning him. It applies to gentile converts as well – in accepting the salvation given by Christ, they had all been freed from the bondage to whatever system they had been in. Now to abandon that free gift and rebuild the bondage they had been in would in fact convict them as “a servant of sin”, enslave them again! Having known Christ’s Grace, and then, In rejecting that free gift, Christ’s atonement for us, I would truly be a sinner of the worst kind!
• 2: 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to GodContinuing with “I” Paul makes a subtle shift – now he is making a confessional statement, harking back to 1: 15 – 16. Though stated in personal terms what he says applies to all Christians, describing a “normal” Christian life.
Paul is using the phrase “died to the law” in the sense of “released from the dominion of”; it no longer controlled him.

F. F. Bruce, in his commentary on Galatians provides a slightly different but valid view:
…‘The question of transgressing the law does not arise for one who has died in relation to the law.’ Transgression implies a law to be transgressed, as Paul notes in Rom. 4:15b; 5:13; it is in the presence of law that sin shows itself in the form of transgression. But the possibility that ‘I constitute myself a transgressor’ before the law is now excluded, for ‘I have died in relation to the law’. Death in relation to the law is more relevant to Jewish Christians who once lived under law: if it is preposterous for them, after dying to the law, to put themselves under law again, it is even more preposterous for Gentile Christians like the Galatians to assume the yoke of a law to which they had no ancestral commitment.
All believers in Christ have ‘died in relation to sin’ (Rom. 6:2, 11), but the point stressed here is that, at the same time, they have ‘died in relation to law’—Jewish believers specifically and consciously so. Paul—for he puts the case in the first person singular—no longer lives under the power of the law; he has been released from its dominion and has entered into new life. ‘With death obligations towards the law have ceased’ (H.-J. Schoeps, Paul, 193). It is fundamental to Paul’s understanding of the law that he can define one and the same experience as death to law (cf. Rom. 7:4–6) and death to sin (Rom. 6:2). To be under law is to be exposed to the power of sin, for ‘the power of sin is the law’ (1 Cor. 15:56); it is the law that provides sin with a vantage-point from which to invade Mansoul (cf. Rom. 7:7–11). But to those who have entered into new life in Christ the assurance is given: ‘sin will have no more dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace’

Paul, then, ‘died to the law’ in order to ‘live to God’ (revealed in Christ). But how was it διὰ νόμου that he died νόμῳ? According to T. Zahn (Galater, 133), the law showed him his need of redemption and referred him to faith. More adequately, R C. Tannehill (Dying and Rising, 59) understands Paul’s wording in the light of the law’s relation to Christ. As appears below in 3:13, Christ bore the curse of the law and exhausted its penalty on his people’s behalf: in this sense Christ died διὰ νόμου, and ‘the believer’s death to the law is also “through law” because he died in Christ’s death’—as Paul goes on immediately to affirm: Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι. The law has no further claim on him who in death satisfied its last demand, and the believer who has ‘died with Christ’ is similarly ‘discharged from the law’ (Rom. 7:6).

(Rom. 6:14). Cf. P. Benoit, ‘La loi et la croix d’après Saint Paul (Rom VII,7–VIII,4)’, RB 47 (1938), 488–509 (especially 502 n. 3).
C. F. D. Moule, ‘Death “to sin”, “to law”, and “to the world”: A Note on Certain Datives’, Rigaux FS, 367–375, suggests that the construction of ἀποθανεῖν with the dative was created by analogy with ζῆν followed by the dative in a relational sense (e.g. ζῆν τῷ θεῷ, as in 4 Macc. 7:19; 16:25; Lk. 20:38).


Expanding on v19:

• 2: 20 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

1n v13 Paul began interjecting sanctification along with his usage of justified, now here in v 20, he builds upon and broadens the concept.

Down through the ages sanctification, along with justification, has been one of the major disagreements between the protestants and Catholics. Difference between the meaning and application of the two terms has been a matter of serious disagreement and friction throughout the church, not only between Catholics and Protestants, but throughout Christendom; it is vitally important to distinguish between the two:
• Justification: G1344 δικαιόω dikaioō dik-ah-yo'-o From G1342; to render (that is, show or regard as) just or innocent:—free, justify (-ier), be righteous.
• Sanctification:G37 ἁγιάζω hagiazō hag-ee-ad'-zo From G40; to make holy, that is, (ceremonially) purify or consecrate; (mentally) to venerate:—hallow, be holy, sanctify

Among the various Christian denominations there is a wide range of beliefs as to the meaning and application of sanctification, Here are a few examples from Wikipedia:
Calvinist and Evangelical theologians interpret sanctification as the process of being made holy only through the merits and justification of Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification cannot be attained by any works based process, but only through the works and power of the divine. Sanctification is seen as a process in Calvinism and not instantaneous.[3] As the process of sanctification flows, the person becomes, in their essence, a different person/man. When a man is unregenerate, it is their essence that sins and does evil. But when a man is justified through Christ, it is no longer the man (in his essence) that sins, but the man is acting outside of his character. In other words, the man is not being himself, he is not being true to who he is.[4] (See Gal 2: 13, 20)

The Catholics see it as a multiple set of actions (Wikipedia):

Roman Catholicism
According to the Catholic encyclopedia "sanctity"[10] differs for God, individual, and corporate body. For God, it is God's unique absolute moral perfection. For the individual, it is a close union with God and the resulting moral perfection. It is essentially of God, by a divine gift. For a society, it is the ability to produce and secure holiness in its members, who display a real, not merely nominal, holiness. The Church's holiness is beyond human power, beyond natural power.
Sanctity is regulated by standards. For example, according to the doctrine of the love of suffering, holiness must include this quality. It is not that pleasure were evil in itself, but that suffering purifies one's love of God. Those who attain holiness learn to rejoice in suffering. By it their love of God is freed from self-seeking. Their lives conform to their master.
There are many other views among the various other denominations.

Timothy George, in The New American Commentary sheds a little light on it:

…But what does it mean to be “crucified with Christ”? In one sense this is presumptuous language because the mystery of atonement requires that the death of Christ be unique, unrepeatable, and isolated. The two thieves who were literally crucified with Christ did not bear the sins of the world in their agonizing deaths. On the cross Christ suffered alone forsaken by his friends, his followers, and finally even his Father, dying, as J. Moltmann puts it, “a God-forsaken death for God-forsaken people.”194 With reference to his substitutionary suffering and vicarious death, only Jesus, and he alone, can be the Substitute and Vicar. And yet—this was Paul’s point—the very benefits of Christ’s atoning death, including first of all justification, are without effect unless we are identified with Christ in his death and resurrection. As Calvin put it, “As long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.”195 Thus to be crucified with Christ is, as Paul said elsewhere, to know him in the “fellowship of his sufferings” (Phil 3:10). To be crucified with Christ is the same as being dead to the law. This means that we are freed from all the curse and guilt of the law and, by this very deliverance, are set free truly to “live for God.” As Calvin said again, “Engrafted into the death of Christ, we derive a secret energy from it, as the shoot does from the root.”196 It is this experience of divine grace that makes the doctrine of justification a living reality rather than a legal fiction.
3. “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”Paul set forth in this expression his doctrine of the indwelling Christ. Probably no verse in the Letter of Galatians is quoted more frequently by evangelical Christians than this one. Much harm has been done to the body of Christ by well-meaning persons who have perpetuated erroneous interpretations of these words. Properly understood, Paul’s words give sanction neither to perfectionism nor to mysticism. Paul was not saying that once a person becomes a Christian the human personality is zapped out of existence, being replaced somehow by the divine logos. The indwelling of Christ does not mean that we are delivered from the realm of suffering, sin, and death. Paul made this abundantly clear in his very next phrase, “the life I now live in the flesh” (NRSV). So long as we live in the flesh, we will continue to struggle with sin and to “groan” along with the fallen creation around us (Rom 8:18–26). Perfectionism this side of heaven is an illusion...

As I mentioned earlier there are many other views – some diametrically opposed to this.

• 2: 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

If Christ’s death didn’t complete atonement for us, “penal substitution”, and we must perform various “works” to save ourselves, then he was not the Messiah…there was no point to his crucifixion, He accomplished nothing…
(if time discuss sanctification a little more…)

DISCUSSION

1. What is “sanctification”?
2. What is “justification”?
3. How does Paul bring out the two?
4. What does Paul mean by “crucified with Christ”?
5. What does he mean “Christ lives in me”?
6. Give four examples of different doctrines of sanctification.(read J.I. Packer, 18 words: Sanctification, and Wikipedia “sanctification” etc.)