Footsteps #41

As you read Gal.2:15-21 ask yourself how you must apply these verses to your own Christian experience.

Before we can understand the phrase “the works of the law,” we first need to understand what Paul means by the word law. The word law (nomos in Greek) is found 121 times in Paul’s letters. It can refer to a number of different things, including God’s will for His people, the first five books of Moses, the entire Old Testament, or even just a general principle. However, the primary way Paul uses it is to refer to the entire collection of God’s commandments given to His people through Moses, which would include the moral(ten commandments) or ceremonial (symbolic) laws. Paul’s point is that no matter how hard one tries to follow and obey God’s law, our obedience never will be good enough for God to justify us, to have us declared righteous. That’s because God’s law requires absolute faithfulness in thought and action—not just some of the time but all of the time, and not just for some of His commandments but for all of them.

These Jewish Christians were trying to mix faith in Jesus with obedience as if obedience added something to the act of justification. The essence of Paul’s response is that salvation is not faith plus works, but a faith that works. The way that Paul repeatedly contrasts faith in Christ with the works of the law indicates his strong opposition to this kind of mixed approach. Faith, and faith alone, is the basis of justification.

For Paul, too, faith is not just an abstract concept; it is inseparably connected to Jesus. In fact, the phrase translated twice as “faith in Christ” in (v16) is far richer than any translation can really encompass. The phrase in Greek is translated literally as “the faith” or “the faithfulness” of Jesus. This literal translation reveals the powerful contrast Paul is making between the works of the law that we do and the work of Christ accomplished on our behalf, the works that He, through His faithfulness (hence, the “faithfulness of Jesus”), has done for us.