Context No. 4024 of 4322 · Galatians

Galatians 2:11-21: in context

11But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12For before some people came from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. 13And the rest of the Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. 14But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do? 15“We, being Jews by nature and not Gentile sinners, 16yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law. 17But if while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker. 19For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. 20I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. 21I don’t reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”

Paul recounts confronting Peter for hypocrisy, drawing back from the Gentile believers out of fear, and it leads him to state the heart of the gospel: a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And then he says something that captures the whole Christian life: I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Here is the very heart of being a Christian. In Christ, our old self was crucified with him; we died to the old way of trying to earn God's favor by our own efforts, and now Christ himself lives in us. The Christian life is not fundamentally about our striving to be good enough, but about Christ living his life in and through us, received by faith. And it rests on a deeply personal foundation: the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. We do not live the Christian life by our own effort to keep the law, but by faith in the One who loved us and gave himself for us, letting Christ live in us.

Do I live not by my own striving to earn God's favor, but by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me, letting Christ live in and through me as one crucified with him?

Sources

Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me... I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me."
Galatians 2:16: "A man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ."
Galatians 2:21: "I don't reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!"