THE BASIS OF OUR JUSTIFICATION (GAL 2:15-21)

SERIES: FREE AT LAST, PART 7

GCEFC: NOVEMBER 8, 2009

INTRODUCTION

1. You’ve probably observed that there are some things in life that are just hard for people to grasp. As if there’s some kind of mental block that prevents their apprehension.

2. Not because the concepts are difficult to understand. But for some reason it just doesn’t seem to take. For example:

a. That if you consistently spend more money than you make—you will eventually have serious financial problems, go broke, or both.

b. That if you consume more calories than you burn up over a period of time—you will gain weight. There are precious few exceptions to this.

c. That if you neglect the spiritual disciplines—your spiritual growth will be stunted or non-existent.

3. These matters are not complex nor are they difficult concepts to grasp. Yet they seem to be overlooked, ignored, or never really comprehended by so many.

4. It reminds me of Paul’s struggle to communicate the simple gospel of God’s grace. Though it’s a marvelous concept, it’s really not a complicated one.

5. It’s simply that all human beings for all time are sinners. That they have failed to live up to God’s righteous standard.

6. Which makes them guilty before a holy God. The remedy for this predicament being limited to only 3 options:

a. Either we allow God to deliver us from the predicament as an act of his loving grace.

b. We attempt to deliver ourselves from the predicament through our own efforts.

c. Or we seek deliverance through a combination of these two.

d. There are really no other approaches but these three. The vast majority of people through history have taken the second or third approach.

e. Rather than accept God’s free gift of redemption and forgiveness—they attempt to earn it through their own efforts.

f. But what’s required for God’s redemption of us is righteousness. Which is a quality we don’t have naturally, nor can we produce it ourselves through effort.

g. Yankee ingenuity notwithstanding, there are some things we just cannot do no matter how much we may want to. Righteousness before a holy God is one of them.

h. But the concept is so elusive that we have an entire class of people worldwide who are convinced that grace alone through faith alone cannot save us.

i. We must do the hard work ourselves they say. No free lunch, no free ride, no free pass. Righteousness is like the old Smith Barney claim for making money the old fashioned way—they earn it.

j. But most of those who grant that God’s grace is involved in our redemption. Or that it’s even required for our redemption—it’s not enough.

k. God’s grace may provide the train, but it doesn’t buy your ticket. God’s grace may provide the car, but you have to buy the gas yourself.

l. For many, salvation is a wonderful thing that God graciously provides. But it’s not free. It must be earned through righteousness.

7. I don’t know if the Apostle Paul had hair or not, but if he did, he must have been pulling it out in frustration by now.

8. The Galatians were just not getting it. The false teaching Judaizers were just not getting it. The vast majority of the world didn’t get it. It still doesn’t.

9. So from V15 to the end of chapter 2, Paul continues to drive home the truth that salvation is not something you can earn. It’s not something you can buy. It’s not something that’s given as a reward for a righteous life.

10. Salvation is a gift of God’s grace alone. If it’s by grace, then it cannot be earned. If it can be earned, then it’s not by grace. These 2 things are mutually exclusive.

A. PAUL REPEATS HIMSELF

1. One of the time honored ways of getting a point across that is being missed is to repeat yourself.

2. If they don’t get it the first time, maybe they’ll get it the second, or third. Or 100^th. But in V15 Paul takes a slightly different approach in his repetition.

3. He makes 3 different statements of the same truth. The first statement is general. The second is personal. The third is universal.

4. He says in V15: We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentle sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

a. Paul understood the historical advantages to being Jewish. They were God’s chosen people. Not chosen because they were special—special because God chose them.

b. They had been given the Law of God through Moses. This gave them a true standard of right and wrong. Not speculation about it. Not human opinion about it. But God’s revelation. It was a reliable standard.

c. When Paul refers to “Gentile sinners,” it’s not a putdown of non-Jews. It was simply a given that Gentiles were sinners because they had no law of God to guide them.

d. How could they know what was right when they had no righteous standard? By definition they would have been sinners who did what God did not approve.

5. Which brings us to an extremely important biblical word—justification. This may be the most important word in the entire Bible.

6. Justification means that something or someone is in the right. That something or somebody has met a predetermined standard.

e. For example, this is a ruler. One foot totaling 12 inches. This is a tape measure. Sixteen feet totaling 192 inches.

f. I use these all the time for measuring. I’m confident that they’re accurate and reliable.

g. This is because they were manufactured according to an approved standard. Even though made by different manufacturers, they are consistent with the standard.

h. “Justify” is a forensic or legal term. It means: to declare righteous or innocent. We tend to think of righteous as a religious or spiritual word. But righteous simply means right—that the standard has been conformed to.

i. When someone is justified, it assumes that there’s a standard by which they’re judged. The opposite of justify is: declare guilty or condemn.

j. Justification is instantaneous. In a trial it occurs at the moment the verdict is read. When God justifies a sinner it’s instantaneous and permanent.

7. Paul is saying in V15 that even Jewish believers understand that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Christ.

8. Even those who have the law of God. Who know with certainty what God approves. Even these people know salvation comes through the grace of God and not by any qualifying law keeping.

9. Paul is making the general statement that a person is not declared righteous because he keeps the law of God. Jews and Gentiles must enter through the same door.

10. Then Paul gets personal in V17: So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law.

11. Okay, Paul—even in your own personal case, and in the case of your fellow Apostles—the same holds true.

12. Even Apostles are not saved by their good works and righteous lives. Even those who wrote what became the Bible are not saved this way.

13. And thirdly, he makes a universal statement in the same V17: because by observing the law—no one will be justified.

14. He’s saying, ‘people, take note.’ NO ONE will be justified by observing the law. There will be no exceptions. Those saved will be saved by grace—no one by works.

15. No one is justified by keeping any law. There is no laws that bring justification with God by keeping them. No national law, religious law, social law—or your own law. No one is justified by keeping any law—even God’s law!

16. You would think that would settle the matter.

B. THE ARGUMENT AGAINST GRACE

1. Paul continues because an argument had been raised to try to prove he was in error.

2. They argued that if people are saved by grace alone without any requirement of keeping the law—such a concept will promote sinful behavior.

3. It’s a logical argument really. That if people are declared righteous by God apart from any required personal effort—then grace will encourage lawlessness and unrighteousness.

4. You know the old saying that you don’t get what you expect but what you inspect? That what gets measured is what gets done?

5. If we’re saved by what Christ has done for us. Apart from anything we must do. Then in a sense—we have little motivation to do what’s right—right?

6. Think how this concept would work with your children. You simply request that they do what is right. And they will be rewarded whether they comply or not.

7. Think how it would work in the world. You make laws that govern how people are to act and treat each other. But there is no consequence whether thy comply or not.

8. What motivation would children or adults have to do what is right? Would not such a concept contribute to bad behavior? Why be good if good isn’t required or rewarded?

9. Paul uses strong language in response—may it never be!

10. He says in V18 that if he insists on returning to a system of law keeping to promote his own righteousness before God—and he fails in his attempt to avoid sin—then he is responsible for this—not God.

11. If God offers us a free gift that requires nothing on our part but faith. And we turn around and make a mockery of God’s grace by disobedience and sin—how is that God’s fault? Abuse of a righteous gift is an indictment of the receiver—not the giver.

C. THE OFTEN MISSED LARGER POINT

1. This brings us to the much larger point starting in V19: For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

2. Paul desperately wants us to understand is that justification by God as a result of grace through faith is not some legal fantasy or shenanigans.

3. When God declares us righteous in his sight through our faith in Christ—it’s a transforming event. We are never the same again. The old has gone, the new has come as he says in 2 COR 5:17.

4. If our justification was just some legal sleight of hand where God declares us righteous when we are really not. Then removing the accountability of obedience would only encourage us to go on sinning as we did before.

5. Paul is saying that in a very real sense, when Jesus died on the Cross, all true believers died with him. It was Christ who died. But legally and spiritually it’s as if we died with him. And when you die, the law has no more power or claim over you.

6. When a convicted criminal is executed, there is nothing more you can do to exact justice from him. The ultimate penalty has been paid. There’s nothing left to require.

7. Because we died with Christ, and were raised with Christ—our lives are now intimately and irreversibly intertwined and united with his.

8. Our identity with Christ is so complete it’s as if we died with him. To die with him is to die to the law. Just as death releases us from all earthly connections.

9. That death means that sin no longer has true mastery over us. It only reigns in us when we put it back on the throne. Sinning requires our consent.

10. Because we were so identified with Christ in his death, we are now identified with him in his life. Salvation provides a new life to be lived in the power of a perfect God.

11. To be “in Christ” is more than to be justified. It means we have died and been raised to new life in Christ. When you’re truly justified, you’re never the same.

12. When we have been justified in God’s sight, we may still sin. But sin is no longer our master. Our justification may leave us free to sin—but it also provides the freedom and power not to sin.

13. So the argument has been refuted by Paul. Justified sinners are no more likely to sin than those who are seeking to be justified by keeping the law.

14. The fact is—all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Those seeking to be justified by the law. And those seeking to be justified by grace. Human sin is universal.

D. WHAT SELF JUSTIFICATION WOULD MEAN

1. The chapter ends with a sobering statement in V21: I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

2. If it’s possible to be justified by keeping the law or being good enough to meet God’s righteous standard, then Christ died for nothing.

3. It would be unnecessary because salvation could be attained through works of righteousness.

4. If we can save ourselves—why would we need a Savior? If we can be justified through righteous lives, the death of Jesus was superfluous at best.

5. It’s telling Jesus that he needn’t bothered to have died. It wasn’t necessary. Nor was it enough. It’s a shame he went through so much suffering and pain for nothing.

6. If justification comes through keeping the law, then our justification is in our own hands rather than in God’s hands.

7. Actually, there is a justification apart from God’s. It’s called self-justification. Which we’re all free to do. We’re all more than eager to justify ourselves. We’re masters at it.

8. But it’s God’s standard we’ve missed—so it’s God’s justification we need—not our own.

9. My standard is easy to meet. In fact, if I miss it, I simply lower the bar . Works great in self-justification. But not for God-justification.

10. Finally, justification is not a license to sin—it’s freedom to live righteously. Not in order to be justified—but because we’ve BEEN JUSTIFIED.

11. Such a wonderful free and gracious gift should motivate us to live for God. Our response should be the same as Paul’s: Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.