Galatians 2:21

21. I do not thus, like the legalist and Judaizer, frustrate, that is, make useless, the grace of God: for if righteousness, that is, justification and pardon, are by the law, then Christ died (not in vain, but) needlessly. There was no demand for grace or atonement if law gave righteousness.

The following extract from Stanley’s notice of “The Clementines” (see our note, 2 Corinthians 10:1,) illustrates the assaults against which Paul here defends himself: “In an argument between Simon [Magus] and Peter, in which the former insists on the superiority of visions as evidence to our Lord’s discourses, the latter on that of actual intercourse, Peter concludes as follows: ‘If, then, Jesus our Lord ( ο Ιησους ημων ) was seen in a vision, and was known by thee, and conversed with thee, it was in anger with thee as an adversary that he spoke to thee through visions and dreams, and even through outward revelations. But can any one be made wise to teach through a vision? If thou sayest that he can, why then did our Master abide and converse with his disciples, not sleeping but awake, for a whole year? And how shall we believe the very fact that he was seen of thee? And how could he have been seen of thee, when thou teachest things contrary to his teaching? And if, by having been seen and made a disciple by him for one hour, thou becamest an apostle, then expound what he has taught, love his apostles, fight not with me who was his companion. For me, the firm rock, the foundation of the Church, even me thou did “withstand” openly ( ανθεστηκας ). If thou hadst not been an adversary, thou wouldst not have calumniated me, and reviled my preaching, to deprive me of credit when I spoke what I had heard myself in intercourse with the Lord; as if I were to be blamed, I whose character is so great. Or if thou sayest that I was condemned by my own act, ( κατεγνωσμενον ,) thou accusest God who revealed Christ to me, and attackest him who blessed me because of that revelation. But since thou wishest truly to work with the truth, now learn first from us what we learned from him; and when thou hast become a disciple of the truth, then become a fellow-worker with us.” Compare Galatians 1:1; Galatians 1:12; Galatians 1:15-20; 1Co 9:1 ; 2 Corinthians 10:16; 2 Corinthians 11:1-5, and especially St. Paul’s own words (Galatians 2:11) in the account of the feud at Antioch αντεστην ,… κατεγνωσμενος .” See note, 2 Corinthians 10:1.

In this speech Paul makes Peter’s error the starting point to give, perhaps, his first fixed exposition of the contrast between law and grace. For the Jew to perform a sacrifice, or the papist to say a certain number of paternosters as an act which in itself compensated or atoned for sin, was a legal, worthless, unsaving work. The true way is, by a self-consecrating faith to surrender my all to Christ, by him to be empowered to walk in all the ways of holiness. And here he spreads for his Galatians a platform on which they should stand, but which some sorcery is deluding them to desert.