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If we keep in mind the opening words of Gal. 2: 15 and remember that a "Jew by
nature" was one who, through circumcision and the observance of the Mosaic ritual,
believed that he had acquired merit in the sight of God, while the rest of the world had no
interest in the promises, covenants or fathers, and were indeed "sinners of the Gentiles",
we shall be better able to appreciate the conclusion found in Gal. 2: 17.
If we ourselves, then (as Peter's attitude seemed to suggest), through the desire of
ceremonial observance become no better than "sinners" (and this we must be if
circumcision by indispensable to salvation), what must be the inference? It must be that
Christ, in Whose name we have thus acted and believed, by ridding us of this incubus of
ceremonial law has but brought us to the level of the uncircumcised, unsaved, sinner of
the Gentiles!
Paul as we know from similar argument in Rom. 6: and 7: cannot long dwell upon
the fallacy which he would expose. Passing from the use of "we", the Apostle gives his
own personal testimony and the uses the pronoun "I" which Peter is invited to apply to
his own case.
"For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor"
(Gal. 2: 18).
It may be useful at this point to draw attention to the fact that while in the Apostle's
statement of the truth, the great doctrine of justification by faith is uppermost, it must be
remembered that the conflict between the apostles was not so much the question of
justification by faith, but the defence of the Apostle's own character, commission and
independent message that is prominent.
"The things which I pulled down" Ha katelusa.
The charge against Stephen, which the converted persecutor Saul, so soon had to meet
was:
"We have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy (kataluo) this place,
and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us" (Acts 6: 14).
Where there is "no law" there can be "no transgression of the law" (Rom. 4: 15); and
if the law be revived, then there must come about a revival of transgression, and so, said
Paul, I shall constitute or commit myself of being a transgressor.
The sacrificial death of Christ is the one unanswerable rejoinder of the Apostle to each
and every attack upon the believer's perfect emancipation by faith. This can be seen in
other epistles beside Galatians. Does the objector bring forward the specious plea "shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound?" The Apostle does not enter into a lengthy
disquisition, he cuts the false argument short with his "God forbid. How shall we, that
are DEAD to sin, LIVE any longer therein?" (Rom. 6: 2).
Does his Jewish objector look upon the giving up of the law of Moses for the faith of
the gospel as a kind of spiritual adultery? The Apostle meets the objection by saying "for