God’s Word for You
Galatians 2:18-19 Grace
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, June 28, 2024
18 But if I build up again those things that I once tore down, then I prove that I am a lawbreaker. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.
When he says “If I build up again…,” Paul says “I” instead of “Peter.” This does at least three things. First, it softens the blow against Peter since the confrontation was in the past and Peter obviously repented. So the accusation is no longer in the present, and Paul makes it about anyone by saying “I.” Second, with “I” Paul digs more deeply into the ongoing sins of the gospel-twisting Judaizers. He is saying, “If I did what you guys did, I would be ashamed!” Thirdly, Paul generalizes his statement which is really about the individual’s relationship with Christ: “If I did that, I would make myself an obvious sinner, not Christ,” continuing the thought from verse 17.
The “things that I once tore down” are the requirements of the law. How is heaven achieved? Is it through the law, or is it through faith in Christ alone? Peter was instrumental in proclaiming that the dietary laws have been removed by Christ. Peter received this from Jesus (Mark 7:19) and he also received it from the Holy Spirit in his vision at Joppa (Acts 10:10-16). Having torn this down, was he going to build it back up again under orders from the self-righteous Judaizers who opposed the very words of Christ and yet called themselves Christians? This is the very definition, Paul says, of a lawbreaker. “Lawbreaker” (parabaten, παραβάτην), is not someone who tries and fails, but someone who intentionally rebels against the will of God. He does not keep the law demanded by God but goes his own way. And he proves this with his actions, like a showman on stage waving his arms and shouting “Ta da!” He displays what he has done for everyone to see.
Paul goes on to explain the place of the law in man’s salvation. When he says, “Through the law I died to the law,” he means that since the law demands perfection from all mankind (Leviticus 19:2), the law itself made Paul realize that he could never stand acquitted before God by trying to do what God required, which is every single demand of the law. Worship God and God alone? We all set our own desires above God’s will and become idolaters. Only use God’s name for a holy purpose? We all crumble at this point, bringing God’s name into profane things, useless things, and self-righteous things. Love my neighbor perfectly? No. Insubordination, hatred, lust, covetous desire—who has kept any of the commandments in such a way that God would say “Well done!” on judgment day?
The law kills our hope of salvation as it crushes each one of our acts, words, and thoughts into pulverized dust before God’s holiness. The law does not save. Keeping the law, or trying to, does not save. The law is a mirror that we do not want to look into. We do not want God to see our faults there, or we will cry out, “To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws!” But God has compassion, grace, and love in addition to laws. He reaches down to man to touch and to heal. Reeling under the threat of the sword, “Man finds grace in the wilderness” as God smiles on us through Christ (Jeremiah 31:2).
Then, when Paul came to faith in Christ, he died to the law. The law stopped having any power over him. Dying to the law is the same as coming spiritually to life. We are justified before God by Christ’s death, not by our obedience. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
Faith is the channel that Christ’s blessings travel through from Christ into me. The ancients called it the organon lepticon, the “receiving organ,” like an additional little spiritual hand by which God grasps us and gives us his love and forgiveness. In modern terms, it is very much like the intravenous tube that the nurse inserts into our vein so that the medicine can flow into us to heal us. This is faith, to receive what God gives for our healing.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.