GALATIANS 2:21

The Bible says in Galatians 2:21, “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” The purpose of the book of Galatians is to emphasize the grace of God and its central importance in the salvation from our sins that God gives to those who believe in Jesus Christ. If we have tasted of the grace of God and started with the grace of God, we must have as one of our goals to always remember the grace of God and what God did freely for us in Christ. If you are not determined, there will be distractions and there will be ideas to come along that will not properly keep grace in its proper place of emphasis. Paul said, “I do not frustrate the grace of God.” In other words, Paul made sure that he did not in any way oppose or neglect giving the grace of God its proper place. What a shame it would be if someone started with the grace of God through Christ, but then stopped emphasizing the importance of the grace of God (the salvation that Jesus gives us freely and that we do not earn by good works or by keeping the law.) That is exactly what was happening to the Galatians.

It should be simple logic to remember that our salvation and our relationship with Jesus and our standing with Him is based only upon His grace. Paul wrote, “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” Just think of the crucifixion of Christ and why it happened and what it accomplished. Jesus died for our sins. That is what gave us the means to bring us back to God. It was what Jesus did, and nothing that we did. Salvation is the free gift of God based upon what Jesus did for us on the cross. Righteousness does not come by the law, because if it does then Jesus died for no reason. Be careful about the language that you use. Righteousness refers to being a good person. The only way to become a good person in God’s eyes is to gain the righteousness that is credited to your account freely because of what Jesus did for you. Some people experience this salvation, but then over time some opposing ideas start coming into their minds. That is what started happening to the Galatians.

Paul wrote in Galatians 3:1, “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified among you.” Paul states clearly the problem that the Galatians had and why they had it. The Galatians had become foolish. They had become foolish because they had been bewitched. In other words, false teachers had taught them things that were false, and the false teachings led them away from the truth: the truth that salvation is by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and nothing else. There is one thing that the Galatians knew that should have kept them away from that falsehood: the knowledge of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and what it means for the believer.

The false teaching that had infected the Galatians was legalism: that the Galatians needed to keep the works of the law in order to be saved and to be accepted by God. But this was a false emphasis on human works. Somewhere along the line they departed from the emphasis on grace alone through faith in Christ. Paul wrote in Galatians 3:2-5, “This only would I learn of you, Received you the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain? If it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministers to you the Spirit, and works miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”

Do you think that you are rightly related to Jesus? Do you think that you have been accepted and received by God into His presence and into His kingdom? If you think this because of who you are or what you have done, then you have made the same mistake as the Galatians. Paul is saying in these verses that we can stay true to the grace of God in Christ by remembering the difference between the Spirit and law, and remembering the difference between faith and law. Paul mentioned the difference between law and the Spirit three times. In Galatians 3:2 he said, “Received you the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” In Galatians 3:3 he said, “Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?” In Galatians 3:5 Paul said, “He therefore that ministers to you the Spirit…does he do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”

There is a difference between the law and the Spirit. If you do not understand that difference, then you will be easy prey to fall into legalism just like the Galatians did. If you have been saved, then that salvation experience was a spiritual experience whereby the Spirit came into you once you put your faith and trust in Jesus. That spiritual experience had nothing to do with the law, and had everything to do with faith.

If you started with the Spirit and if you started with faith, then you need to continue with them. One of the great challenges of the Christian life will be to keep the faith in spite of the attacks and the deceptions and the false teachings that will pass your way in life. Paul reached the end of his life and he said in Second Timothy 4:7, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” Unfortunately some Christians do not keep the faith. They start with faith, but then something happens. They start listening to the wrong teachers, and they start being guided by the principle of the works of the law instead of the principle of faith.

Paul asked the Galatians to look in their midst and see the true works of God that were being done. If they understood what was really going on, they would see that the work of God was really being done because of the gifts of the spirit by those who had faith in the Lord Jesus, and was not being done because of those who were religiously keeping the works of the law. After we are saved, we are totally dependent upon the Spirit in order to serve God, and not upon our ability to keep the works of the law. When we are saved, the Spirit of God enters into us and we are immediately baptized by the Spirit. Paul wrote in Romans 8:9, “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”

Once we have the Spirit of God through the salvation experience in Christ, then we serve Him, not by keeping the works of the law, but by exercising the spiritual gifts that were given to us. Speaking of Jesus, the Bible says in Ephesians 2:8, “When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and he gave gifts unto men.” There is a difference between law and grace, and that difference is true not only in salvation, but also in service. If you are going to serve God in this world, then you must discover the gifts that God has given you and use them. That is why Paul told Timothy, “Neglect not the gift that is in thee.” It is because of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit that you are able to serve God, and not because of keeping the works of the law.

There is a direct connection between faith and being led by the Spirit and putting into action the gifts of the Spirit that have been given to you. That is why Paul said in Galatians 3:5 that the exercise of the gifts of the Spirit takes place “by the hearing of faith.” It was not the human works that made the difference: it was the faith that made the difference. Your service to God does not center around what you do, but what you believe and how much faith that you have. “The just shall live by faith.” “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”

The Bible says in Galatians 3:6, “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” This is one of the great verses of the Bible that explains the fact that salvation has always been by grace through faith, even in the Old Testament. This verse is a quotation of Genesis 15:6. Paul quoted it in Romans chapter four also. Salvation comes by faith and faith alone, and not by works. It has always been that way. We can go all the way back to the time of Abraham and it was that way then also. Notice the way this great Bible verse puts it. “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

Evidently God keeps an account of every person, and one thing in that account is a question: Is this person a righteous person or not? What is it that causes a person to be accounted by God as righteous? The answer is belief: faith. “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” It was not what Abraham did that made the difference: it was what Abraham believed. It was the fact that Abraham put his trust and confidence in God.

God made a promise, and then Abraham believed the promise. Because he believed, God counted him as a righteous person. In our generation God has also made a promise, and that promise has to do with the fact that Jesus died for you and rose from the dead. When you believe in Jesus and the promise of the gospel by calling upon the name of Jesus, you also are accounted as a righteous person, not because of anything that you have done, but because of your belief and faith. Through faith you enter into the promise and the benefits of it. It works the same way today as it did in the day of Abraham.

Galatians 3:7 says, “Know you therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” Now we are getting back to just how the false teachers had deceived the Galatians. It had to do with the subject of becoming a child of Abraham and inheriting all those wonderful promises that God had made to Abraham: in other words, becoming a Jew. According to the false teachers who had invaded the Galatians, you had to be a Jew to inherit the promises of God. Everyone knew that. But what Paul is pointing out is the fact that they had misunderstood. You do not inherit the promises that were made to Abraham through the human lineage of Abraham or by becoming a Jew through circumcision. You inherit the promises that were made to Abraham by having the same kind of faith that Abraham had. In other words, you must be in the spiritual lineage of Abraham in order to be one of the children of Abraham.

That is how Gentiles become spiritual children of God. Paul said that God was thinking of the Gentiles when He made the great promises to Abraham. Galatians 3:8 says, “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” There would be a connection between Abraham and all the nations of the earth. That is talking about the Gentiles. The connection is the faith. The way that you enter into the blessings and the promises that were made by God to Abraham is to have the same kind of faith that Abraham had. Today there are two of the religions of the world, the Jewish religion and Islam, that each trace their history to their human linage to Abraham. But the Jews and the Moslems today are making the same mistake that the false teachers were making among the Galatians. They thought that the human lineage connected them to the promises given to Abraham, the man of faith. They are wrong. You can have a spiritual lineage to the same promises that were given to Abraham, but only if you have the same kind of faith; and now you need faith in the promises that God is making today, the promises of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Galatians 3:9 says, “So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”

What about those who do not have that kind of faith but are depending upon their good works instead? Galatians 3:10 says, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” This is the problem with the law and the works of the law and why righteousness cannot come from it. The law requires total and perfect obedience with no failure of any kind. If you fail, you are condemned and cursed. That is why it says in this verse, “Cursed is everyone that continues not in all the things.” The law could have given righteousness if human beings could have been perfect. But the flesh is weak, and so the law is not the answer for finding righteousness in the sight of God.

If you attempt to please God and to be acceptable to God by your ability to keep the law, then you will end up under a curse. The Bible says in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” It also says right here in Galatians 3:10, “Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”

With the law, you will end up with a curse; but thank God He has provided something that can give you righteousness, and instead of a curse an eternal promise. That promise is salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. If you are under the curse of the law because you have attempted to establish your own righteousness, then turn to Jesus today, call on His name, and believe the promise of forgiveness in Christ, and become one of the spiritual children of Abraham.

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