Galatians 2:15-16 - Homiletics

The true way of salvation.

The apostle then proceeds to show that the way of salvation is not by the works of the Law at all, but in a quite different way. t/is words to Peter imply—

I. THE NECESSITY OF JUSTIFICATION FOR BOTH JEWS AND GENTILES . "We being Jews by nature, and not sinners from among the Gentiles." He tells the Judaists the Jews had some advantage over the Gentiles. Yet, after all, the Jews themselves, such as Paul and Peter, were obliged to renounce trust in Judaism and to find their justification in Christ Jesus. The apostle shows the necessity of justification elsewhere in the case of both Jews and Gentiles ( Romans 1:1-32 ., 2.). "All the world is found guilty before God" ( Romans 3:19 ). The charge is abundantly proved, and the sentence has gone forth: "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the Law to do them" ( Galatians 3:10 ).

II. THE NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION . "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but by the faith of Christ." Its meaning is to declare a person to be just. It does not mean either to pardon or to make just. It is a strictly judicial act. Newman admits that it signifies, not "to make righteous," but" to pronounce righteous;" yet he says it includes the "making righteous" under its meaning. That is, the sense of the term is counting righteous, but the sense of the thing is "making righteous." This is to make nonsense of language. To say that it means "making righteous" is to make justification and sanctification the same thing. This Romish divines actually do; yet they regard sanctification, that is, infused or inherent righteousness, as the ground of justification. That is, sanctification is at once a part of justification and the ground of it. Can a thing be at once part of a thing, and at the same time the ground of a thing? The meaning of the term " justification " is fixed by its opposite, "condemnation,'' which is, not to make wicked, but to pronounce guilty. "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord" ( Proverbs 17:15 ). "If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judge may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked "( Deuteronomy 25:1 ). "The judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification of life" ( Romans 5:16 ). The term is thus forensic. Justification includes more than pardon, because:

1 . The very terms imply a difference. To pardon is to waive the execution of the penal sanction of the Law. To justify is to declare that the demands of the Law are satisfied, not waived. Pardon is a sovereign act; justification, a judicial act.

2 . Pardon is remission of penalty , in the absence of a satisfaction. It is not an act of justice. But justification proceeds on the ground of a satisfaction. One is the remission of punishment; the other is a declaration that there is no ground for the infliction of punishment.

3 . The apostle speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works " ( Romans 4:6 ). To impute righteousness is to justify. To pardon a man is not to ascribe righteousness to him.

4 . The terms of Scripture require this distinction. It would be unmeaning to say, "No flesh shall be pardoned by the works of the Law." Justification includes both pardon and acceptance with God. It includes a title to eternal life, and therefore is called "justification of life," and on account of it men are made heirs according to the hope of eternal life ( Titus 3:7 ). This is the "true grace of God in which we stand." God does more than pardon; he "imputeth righteousness without works." Christ is made "the righteousness of God" to us. We are "accepted in the Beloved." Yet the pardon and the acceptance are never separated. All who are pardoned are justified, and all who are justified are pardoned.

III. THE GROUND OF JUSTIFICATION . "A man is not justified by the works of the Law, but by the faith of Christ."

1 . It is not by the works of the Law.

(a) It is the whole Law—the Law in the sense in which the apostle's readers would understand it, that Law whose violation brings in the whole world guilty before God ( Romans 3:19 ).

(b) The apostle never contrasts the works of the ceremonial with the works of the moral law, as if to imply that we cannot be justified by the first class, but may by the second. The opposition is always between works in general and faith.

(c) He excludes as inadequate to our justification those very "works of righteousness" ( Titus 3:5 ), that is, according to Romish theology, works done after regeneration, which may be regarded as possessing the highest order of excellence. He even excludes the works of a good man like Abraham, the father of the faithful ( Romans 4:2 ).

(d) The objection of Romans 6:1 , that if works are not the ground of our justification, we may live in sin, supposes that good works of every sort are excluded from the ground of our justification.

(a) The Law demands perfect obedience, and no obedience at one time can atone for disobedience at another ( Galatians 3:10 , Galatians 3:21 ; Galatians 5:3 ).

(b) If we are justified by works, Christ is dead in vain. There was no need for his death ( Galatians 2:21 ; Galatians 5:4 ).

(c) Our salvation would not in that case be of grace, but of debt ( Romans 11:6 ).

(d) It would give room for boasting, which is excluded by the law of faith ( Romans 3:27 ).

2 . Our justification is by the faith of Christ. There are two facts here set forth—faith and the object of faith. The faith that justifies is distinguished by its object, Jesus Christ. The two prepositions ( ἐκ and διὰ ), used in the passage are designed to mark, respectively, source or cause and instrument.

(a) Faith is not the ground of our justification. Yet it is said, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for ( εἰς ) righteousness" ( Romans 4:3 ). This does not mean that faith is the graciously admitted ground of justification. For:

( α ) We are never said to be justified on account of faith ( διὰ πίστιν ), but through ( διὰ ) faith or of ( ἐκ ) faith.

( β ) This view of the relation of faith to justification is not consistent with those passages which affirm that the ground of our justification is not anything in us or done by us; for faith is a work done by us, quite as much as prayer or repentance.

( γ ) It is not consistent with those passages which make Christ's merits, his blood, his death, his cross, the ground of our acceptance. Faith cannot, therefore, be at once the ground and the instrument of our justification.

( δ ) We are saved by the righteousness of another, but that righteousness is always distinguished from the faith that apprehends it ( Romans 1:17 ; Philippians 3:8-11 ). Faith cannot, therefore, both be and not be that righteousness.

( ε ) The apostle, when he says that Abraham's faith "was counted to him for ( εἰς ) righteousness" or "as righteousness," meant merely to say that faith, not works, secured his salvation.

The word εἰς is used in two senses—"instead of" and "with a view to," and Ellicott is of opinion that the idea of destination is here blended with that of simple predication. Thus if Abraham's faith is equivalent to righteousness in God's account, it is because it is designed to secure that righteousness. "It was not the act of believing which was reckoned to him as a righteous act, or on account of which perfect righteousness was laid to his charge, but the fact of his trusting God to perform his promise introduced him to the blessing promised" (Alford).

(b) Faith is not the ground, but the instrument of our justification. It receives and apprehends Christ in his righteousness. We have proved that faith is merely the instrument of our justification when we have proved that the only ground of our acceptance with God is the finished work of Christ, and that the only grace by which we rely upon that work is faith. For there is a relation between justification and faith which does not exist between justification and every other grace.

IV. THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR JUSTIFICATION . "Knowing that we are justified." There is a twofold aspect of this knowledge. It is:

1 . Doctrinal. The apostles, both Peter and Paul, understood the true doctrine of a sinner's justification, as we see by their discourses and their writings.

2 . Experimental. They realized it in its blessed fruits. They had an assured sense of God's favour, and of all the blessings involved in it.

V. THE EFFECT OF OUR JUSTIFICATION . The only effect pertinent to the present discussion was the new relation of the justified sinner to the Law. In virtue of his union with Christ, he died to the Law. There was, therefore, no longer any question of his submission to legal observances, or to "the beggarly elements" of a forsaken Judaism.