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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Galatians 2:21

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I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness [come] by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

21. The word rendered ‘frustrate’ is used in reference both to persons and things, in the sense of setting at naught, treating with utter disregard and contempt. In ch. Gal 3:15 it is used of setting aside a covenant. Our Lord speaks of those who despise, treat with neglect His servants, as despising Him, Luk 10:16. In Heb 10:28 it is used of a presumptuous violation of the law of Moses.

I do not treat the grace of God with contempt, as if it were a thing of nought, as do the Judaizers. It was that grace which prompted the unspeakable gift, the all-sufficient sacrifice. And if man can be justified by his own obedience, the death of Christ is unnecessary.

is dead in vain ] Rather, “died without cause”. Not, ‘in vain’, but gratuitously, without any adequate purpose or result. Deny, or ignore the atoning efficacy of that death, and it becomes aimless and superfluous.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

I do not frustrate the grace of God – The word rendered frustrate ( atheto) means properly to displace, abrogate, abolish; then to make void, to render null; Mar 7:9; Luk 7:30; 1Co 1:19. The phrase the grace of God, here refers to the favor of God manifested in the plan of salvation by the gospel, and is another name for the gospel. The sense is, that Paul would not take any measures or pursue any course that would render that vain or inefficacious. Neither by his own life, by a course of conduct which would show that it had no influence over the heart and conduct, nor by the observance of Jewish rites and customs, would he do anything to render that inefficacious. The design is to show that he regarded it as a great principle that the gospel was efficacious in renewing and saving man, and he would do nothing that would tend to prevent that impression on mankind. A life of sin, of open depravity and licentiousness, would do that. And in like manner a conformity to the rites of Moses as a ground of justification would tend to frustrate the grace of God, or to render the method of salvation solely by the Redeemer nugatory. This is to be regarded, therefore as at the same time a reproof of Peter for complying with customs which tended to frustrate the plan of the gospel, and a declaration that he intended that his own course of life should be such as to confirm the plan, and show its efficacy in pardoning the sinner and rendering him alive in the service of God.

For if righteousness come by the law – If justification can be secured by the observance of any law – ceremonial or moral – then there was no need of the death of Christ as an atonement. This is plain. If man by conformity to any law could be justified before God, what need was there of an atonement? The work would then have been wholly in his own power, and the merit would have been his. It follows from this, that man cannot be justified by his own morality, or his alms-deeds, or his forms of religion, or his honesty and integrity. If he can, he needs no Saviour; he can save himself. It follows also that when people depend on their own amiableness, and morality, and good works, they would feel no need of a Saviour; and this is the true reason why the mass of people reject the Lord Jesus. They suppose they do not deserve to be sent to hell. They have no deep sense of guilt. They confide in their own integrity, and feel that God ought to save them. Hence, they feel no need of a Saviour; for why should a person in health employ a physician? And confiding in their own righteousness, they reject the grace of God, and despise the plan of justification through the Redeemer. To feel the need of a Saviour it is necessary to feel that we are lost and ruined sinners; that we have no merit upon which we can rely; and that we are entirely dependent on the mercy of God for salvation. Thus feeling, we shall receive the salvation of the gospel with thankfulness and joy, and show that in regard to us Christ is not dead in vain.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Gal 2:21

I do not frustrate the grace of God.

Salvation by works a criminal doctrine

1. The idea of salvation by the merit of our own works is exceedingly insinuating. When it gains the least foothold, it soon makes great advances. The only way to deal with it is to stamp it out. War to the knife. No surrender.

2. This error is exceedingly plausible. Said to encourage virtue. But where will you find a devout and upright man who glories in his own works?

3. Self-righteousness is natural to our fallen humanity. Hence it is the essence of all false religions.

4. This erroneous idea arises partly from ignorance:

(1) of the law of God;

(2) of what holiness is;

(3) of themselves.

5. It arises also from pride.

6. And from unbelief.

7. It is evidently evil, for it makes light of sin.

8. No comfort in it for the fallen. It gives to the elder son all that his proud heart can claim, but for the prodigal it has no welcome. What, then, is to become of the guilty? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Frustration of the grace of God

1. He that hopes to be saved by his own righteousness rejects the grace or free favour of God, regards it as useless, and in that sense frustrates it. If we can keep the law and claim to be accepted as a matter of debt, it is plain that we need not turn supplicants and crave for mercy. Grace is a superfluity where merit can be proved

2. He makes the grace of God to be at least a secondary thing. Many think they are to merit as much as they can, and that God will make up for the rest by His grace. Every man his own saviour, and Jesus Christ and His grace make-weights for our deficiences.

3. He who trusts in himself, his feelings, his works, his prayers, or in anything except the grace of God, virtually gives up trusting in the grace of God altogether. God will never share the work with mans merit. You must either have salvation wholly because you deserve it, or wholly because God graciously bestows it though you do not deserve it.

4. This doctrine takes off the sinner from confidence in Christ. So long as a man can maintain any hope in himself, he will never look to the Redeemer.

5. This doctrine robs God of His glory. If man can save himself, then the glory is his own, not Gods. What an awful crime, then, is this doctrine of salvation by human merit. It is a sin so gross that even the heathen cannot commit it.. They have never heard of the grace of God, and therefore they cannot put a slight upon it: when they perish it will be with a far lighter doom than those who have been told that God is gracious and ready to pardon, and yet turn on their heel and wickedly boast of innocence, and pretend to be clean in the sight of God. It is a sin which devils cannot commit. With all the obstinancy of their rebellion, they can never reach to this. They have never had the sweet notes of free grace and dying love ringing in their ears, and therefore they have never refused the heavenly invitation. What has never been presented to their acceptance cannot be the object of their rejection. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. Two great crimes are contained in the doctrine of self-righteousness.

1. The frustration of the grace of God. The self-righteous

(1) reject it as baseless;

(2) make it at least a secondary thing;

(3) virtually give up trusting in it;

(4) renounce their confidence in Christ;

(5) rob God of His glory.

2. The making of Christ to be dead is vain.

(1) Christs finished work is rendered imperfect;

(2) the covenant sealed with Christs death is rejected;

(3) each person in the Trinity is sinned against;

(4) fallen man is sinned against, who can have no mercy but; through Christ;

(5) the saints are sinned against, who have no hope but through Christ.

II. The two crimes are committed by many people. By–

1. Triflers with the gospel.

2. The senseless as to guilt.

3. The despairing.

4. Those who have misgivings about the power of the gospel.

5. Apostates.

III. No true believer will be guilty of these crimes. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Folly of human righteousness

How can a man trust in his own righteousness? It is like seeking shelter under ones own shadow. We may stoop to the very ground; and the lower we bend, we still find that our shadow is beneath us. But if a man flee to the shadow of a great rock, or of a widespreading tree, he will find abundant shelter from the rays of the noonday sun. So human merits are unavailing; and Christ alone can save. (Dr. Medhurst.)

Rejection of Gods grace

The rejection of the grace of God may take place

(1) by a denial of the perfect satisfaction of Christ;

(2) by setting alongside of it our own merits, worthiness and righteousness, as popery does in doctrine, and many Protestants do in fact;

(3) by abusing this grace to favour presumption, and to supersede sanctification;

(4) when even sincere souls, in the feeling of their unworthiness, are much too timorous to appropriate grace to themselves, and think they must first have arrived at this or that degree of holiness, before grace can avail them anything;

(5) when tempted ones from a lack of feeling conclude that they have fallen out of grace again. (Starke.)

Righteousness

I. The insufficiency of the law to promote righteousness.

1. It was never instituted for that purpose.

(1) It is a standard of righteousness,

(2) and therefore a constant and irritating reminder of unrighteousness, and

(3) has no moral power.

2. Men have never found righteousness by the law.

(1) All have sinned and broken it.

(2) The best morality falls below its requirements.

3. On the assumption of its sufficiency

(1) Gods grace is frustrated;

(2) Christ is dead in vain.

II. Hence the necessity of some better provision for the promotion of righteousness.

1. Men yearn after it.

2. It is Gods will that man should be righteous or He would never have made him so.

3. Righteousness is the law and harmony of the universe which sin has broken.

III. God has made this provision in the death of Christ.

1. That death has atoned for sin, and when accepted by faith past unrighteousness is remitted and man is justified (Rom 3:25).

2. By that death the Holy Spirit is secured who makes man actually righteous, and gives the power to fulfil all righteousness.

The frustration of Gods grace

If people can make themselves good by doing what is called their duty, then the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus Christ constitute the greatest mistake that ever was made in the universe. If a man can be really good, can make himself all that God can possibly desire him to be, of his own motion and will and by the resources of his own invention and energy, then the mediation of Jesus Christ was a great and generous expenditure of pain and life and sorrow, and an expenditure that ended in nothing. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Divine grace does not dispense with conditions but with merit

While in the case of two mutinous seamen who, having long resisted every effort on the part of the captain to reform them, have at last, through their continued intemperance, fallen overboard, one grasps the rope thrown out by his masters mercy, and is saved, while the other rejects it, or depends on his own efforts and is drowned; has the former ground to boast that he is his own saviour? There was assuredly more mad wilfulness in his hardened companion who refused the proffered aid; but the recklessness of the latter imparts no merit to the former. While the one can ascribe his deliverence to nothing in himself moving his captain thereunto, but solely to his masters compassion, the other had equal mercy shown to him, but his destruction was entirely his own doing. When the prodigal returned would his sense of the entire freeness of his fathers goodness and of his own absolute demerit have been at all diminished by learning that another brother who had run the same course of riot as himself refused to cast himself into those arms by which he himself had been so warmly welcomed? Would the greater obduracy and infatuated perverseness of his brother extenuate, in the pardoned sons eyes, his own guilt, or lead him less to ascribe his own forgiveness to free unmerited grace? (Principal Forbes.)

Morality not righteousness

Let the law stand for any attempt at duty doing with a view to self-salvation. I do not say that a man cannot wash his hands; I am not here to reason that it is not possible for a man to put on a good deal of external decoration. I believe that it is quite within his power to say to some of his appetites, Now you shall be starved for six months. I will touch no intoxicant for the rest of my life, and never more go into any associations which I believe to be corrupting, and will do my best to conform to the highest moral standard. What more can you expect me to do? Well, what have you done? Outside work; you have washed your hands, but you have not cleansed your heart. As between man and man you have done a good deal. But seeing that the question is not primarily between man and man, but between you and God, you have done nothing but confound righteousness with morality. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The moral consolation that righteousness is not of the law but through Christ

If Satan, the great Judaizer as well as antinomian, tempts us to trust in our own endeavours we fly to the cross. If conscience, the advocate of Sinai, reminds us of our multiplied offences and failures we say, Were it ten thousand times worse there can be no condemnation. Hardest of all, if, in times of despondency our innumerable and peculiar sins, not against the law, but against the very gospel that saves from the law, are pressed upon our spirits, we can still take refuge in the cross and think, I have paid my own debt in Him who died not only to discharge the obligation to clerical law, but also to expiate offences against the gospel itself, who atoned for sins against the atonement, and suffered on the cross for dishonour done to the very cross on which He suffered; and there is, or will be, a time to every one of us, when amidst the thick darkness that divides time from eternity, we shall find no greater consolation than this: I am crucified with Christ; I do not frustrate the grace of God; Christ hath not died for me in vain. (W. B. Pope, D. D.)

Grace is a free gift

A benevolent rich man had a very poor neighbour, to whom he sent this message: I wish to make you the gift of a farm. The poor man was pleased with the idea of having a farm, but was too proud at once to receive it as a gift. So he thought of the matter much and anxiously. His desire to have a home of his own was daily growing stronger; but his pride was great. At length, he determined to visit him who had made the offer. But a strange delusion about this time seized him; for he imagined that he had a bag of gold. So he came with his bag, and said to the rich man, I have received your message, and have come to see you. I wish to own the farm; but I wish to pay for it. I will give you a bag of gold for it. Let us see your gold, said the owner of the farm. Look again: I donor think it is even silver. The poor man looked, tears stood in his eyes, and his delusion seemed to be gone; and he said, Alas! I am undone: it is not even copper; it is but ashes. How poor I am! I wish to own that farm; but I have nothing to pay. Will you give me the farm? The rich man replied, Yes: that was my first and only offer. Will you accept it on such terms? With humility, but with eagerness, the poor man said, Yes: and a thousand blessings on you for your kindness! (W. S. Plumer, D. D.)

Grace must not be frustrated

I was once invited out to tea by a poor widow, and I took something in my pocket. But Ill never do it again. It was two cakes; and, when I brought them out and laid them on the table, she picked them up and flung them out into the street, and said, I asked you to tea; I didnt ask you to provide tea for me. And so with Christ. He asks, He provides, and He wants nothing but ourselves; and if we take aught else Hell reject it. We can only sup with Him when we come as we are. Who will accept salvation? Wholl say, I take the blessing from above, And wonder at Thy boundless love? (J. W. Ackrill.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 21. I do not frustrate] . I do not contemn, despise, or render useless, the grace of God-the doctrine of Christ crucified; which I must do if I preach the necessity of observing the law.

For if righteousness] If justification and salvation come by an observance of the law, then Christ is dead in vain; his death is useless if an observance of the law can save us; but no observance of the law can save us, and therefore there was an absolute necessity for the death of Christ.

1. THE account of the prevarication of Peter in the preceding chapter teaches us a most useful lesson. Let him who assuredly standeth take heed lest he fall. No person in a state of probation is infallible; a man may fall into sin every moment; and he will, if he do not walk with God. Worldly prudence and fleshly wisdom would have concealed this account of the prevarication of Peter; but God tells truth. This the fountain of it; and from him we are to expect not only nothing but the truth, but also the whole truth. If the Gospel were not of God we had never heard of the denial and prevarication of Peter, nor of the contention between Paul and Barnabas. And these accounts are recorded, not that men may justify or excuse their own delinquencies by them, but that they may avoid them; for he must be inexcusable who, with these histories before his eyes, ever denies his Master, or acts the part of a hypocrite. Had the apostles acted in concert to impose a forgery on the world as a Divine revelation, the imposture would have now come out. The falling out of the parties would have led to a discovery of the cheat. This relation, therefore, is an additional evidence of the truth of the Gospel.

2. On, I through the law am dead to the law, c., pious Quesnel makes the following useful reflections:

“The ceremonial law, which is no more than a type and shadow of him, destroys itself by showing us Jesus Christ, who is the truth and the substance. The moral law, by leaving us under our own inability under sin and the curse, makes us perceive the necessity of the law of the heart, and of a Saviour to give it. The law is for the old man, as to its terrible and servile part and it was crucified and died with Christ upon the cross as well as the old man. The new man, and the new law, require a new sacrifice. What need has he of other sacrifices who has Jesus Christ? They in whom this sacrifice lives, do themselves live to God alone; but none can live to him except by faith; and this life of faith consists in dying with Christ to the things of the present world, and in expecting, as co-heirs with him, the blessings of the eternal world. And who can work all this in us but only he who lives in us? That man has arrived to a high degree of mortification, who can say Christ liveth in me, and I am crucified to the world. Such a one must have renounced not only earthly things, but his own self also.”

3. Is there, or can there be, any well grounded hope of eternal life but what comes through the Gospel? In vain has the ingenuity of man tortured itself for more than 5000 years, to find out some method of mending the human heart: none has been discovered that even promised any thing likely to be effectual. The Gospel of Christ not only mends but completely cures and new makes infected nature. Who is duly apprised of the infinite excellency and importance of the Gospel? What was the world before its appearance? What would it be were this light extinguished? Blessed Lord! let neither infidelity nor false doctrine rise up to obscure this heavenly splendour!

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

I do not frustrate the grace of God; I do not despise, reject, make void, (for by all these words the word here used is translated, Mar 7:9; Joh 12:48; Joh 3:15; Heb 10:28), the free love of God, in giving his Son to die for our sins: from whence is easily gathered, that those who live a loose life, and take a liberty to sin, from their justification, or from the free grace of God in Christ, they do contemn and despise the grace of God: or rather, (if we refer it to the following words), those who assert justification by the works of the law, they do reject and despise the free grace of God in the gospel, and (as much as in them lies) make it vain and frustrate.

For if righteousness come by the law; for if it be possible, that a man by works done in obedience to the law should arrive at a righteousness, in which he may stand before God,

then is Christ dead in vain; then Christ died to no purpose, or without any just cause: the reason of this must be, because it was the main and principal end of Christs death, to procure or purchase a righteousness wherein sinners might stand before God, to bring in an everlasting righteousness, Dan 9:24. If the most proper effect of the death of Christ be taken away, then his death is made causeless, and to no purpose. Thus the apostle concludeth his thesis, laid down Gal 2:16; That none shall be justified by the works of the law, from two absurdities that would follow upon the contrary, viz. justification by the works of the law, the rejecting of the grace of God, and the frustration, or making void, of the death of Christ.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

21. I do not frustrate the grace ofGodI do not make it void, as thou, Peter, art doing byJudaizing.

forjustifying thestrong expression “frustrate,” or “make void.”

is dead in vainGreek,“Christ died needlessly,” or “without just cause.”Christ’s having died, shows that the law has no power to justify us;for if the law can justify or make us righteous, the death of Christis superfluous [CHRYSOSTOM].

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

I do not frustrate the grace of God,…. Or “cast it away”, as the Vulgate Latin version reads it; or “deny it”, as the Syriac and Arabic; or “despise, reject, and make it void”, as other versions; meaning either the grace of the Son of God in giving himself for him, just mentioned by him; or the particular doctrine of grace, justification, he is speaking of, as proceeding from the grace of God, upon the foot of the righteousness of Christ; or the whole Gospel, all and each of which would be denied, despised, rejected, made null and void, be in vain, fallen and departed from, should justification be sought for by the works of the law: but this the apostle did not do, and therefore did not frustrate the grace of God: which to do would be to act the most ungenerous and ungrateful part to God, and Christ, and to that love and grace which are so largely displayed in the free justification of a sinner.

For if righteousness come by the law; if a justifying righteousness is to be attained unto by the works of the law, or men can be justified by their obedience to it,

then Christ is dead in vain; there was no necessity for his dying: he died without any true reason, or just cause; he died to bring in a righteousness which might have been brought in without his death, and so his blood and life might have been spared, his sufferings and death being entirely unnecessary; which to say is to cast contempt upon the wisdom, love, and grace of God in this matter, and to offer the greatest indignity to the person, character, sufferings, and death of Christ. Wherefore it may be strongly concluded, that there is no righteousness by the law of works, nor to be attained that way, otherwise Christ had never died; and that justification is solely and alone by his righteousness.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

I do not make void the grace of God ( ). Common word in LXX and Polybius and on, to make ineffective ( privative and , to place or put). Some critic would charge him with that after his claim to such a close mystic union with Christ.

Then Christ died for nought ( ). Condition of first class, assumed as true. If one man apart from grace can win his own righteousness, any man can and should. Hence (, accordingly) Christ died gratuitously (), unnecessarily. Adverbial accusative of , a gift. This verse is a complete answer to those who say that the heathen (or any mere moralist) are saved by doing the best that they know and can. No one, apart from Jesus, ever did the best that he knew or could. To be saved by law ( ) one has to keep all the law that he knows. That no one ever did.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Frustrate [] . Annul or invalidate. Comp. Mr 7:9; 1Co 1:19; Gal 3:15.

The grace of God [ ] . Cariv is, primarily, that which gives joy [] . Its higher, Christian meaning is based on the emphasis of freeness in a gift or favor. It is the free, spontaneous, absolute loving kindness of God toward men. Hence often in contrast with the ideas of debt, law, works, sin. Sometimes for the gift of grace, the benefaction, as 1Co 16:3; 2Co 8:6, 19; 1Pe 1:10, 13. So here : the gracious gift of God in the offering of Christ.

Is dead [] . More correctly, died; pointing to the historical incident.

In vain [] . Groundlessly, without cause. See on 2Th 3:8. The sense here is not common. It is not found in Class., and in N. T. only Joh 14:25. In LXX, see Psa 34:7, 19; Psa 108:3; Psa 118:161; 1Sa 19:5; Sir 20 23; 29 6. Comp. Ignatius, Trall. 5. Paul says : “I do not invalidate the grace of God in the offering of Christ, as one does who seeks to reestablish the law as a means of justification; for if righteousness comes through the law, there was no occasion for Christ to die.”

ADDITIONAL NOTE ON VERSES 14 – 21.

The course of thought in Paul ‘s address to Peter is difficult to follow. It will help to simplify it if the reader will keep it before him that the whole passage is to be interpreted in the light of Peter’s false attitude – as a remonstrance against a particular state of things.

The line of remonstrance is as follows. If you, Peter, being a Jew, do not live as a Jew, but as a Gentile, as you did when you ate with Gentiles, why do you, by your example in withdrawing from Gentile tables, constrain Gentile Christians to live as Jews, observing the separative ordinances of the Jewish law ? This course is plainly inconsistent.

Even you and I, born Jews, and not Gentiles – sinners – denied the obligation of these ordinances by the act of believing on Jesus Christ. In professing this faith we committed ourselves to the principle that no one can be justified by the works of the law.

But it may be said that we were in no better case by thus abandoning the law and legal righteousness, since, in the very effort to be justified through Christ, we were shown to be sinners, and therefore in the same category with the Gentiles. Does it not then follow that Christ is proved to be a minister of sin in requiring us to abandon the law as a means of justification ?

No God forbid. It is true that, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we stood revealed as sinners, for it was Christ who showed us that we could not be justified by the works of the law; that all our legal strictness only left us sinners. But the inference is false that Christ is thereby shown to be a minister of sin.

For to say that Christ is a minister of sin, is to say that I, at his bidding, became a transgressor by abandoning the law, that the law is the only true standard and medium of righteousness. If I reassert the obligation of the law after denying that obligation, I thereby assert that I transgressed in abandoning it, and that Christ, who prompted and demanded this transgression, is a minister of sin.

But this I deny. The law is not the true standard and medium of righteousness. I did not transgress in abandoning it. Christ is not a minister of sin. For it was the law itself which compelled me to abandon the law. The law crucified Christ and thereby declared him accursed. In virtue of my moral fellowship with Christ, I was (ethically) crucified with him. The act of the law forced me to break with the law. Through the law I died to the law. Thus I came under a new principle of life. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. If I should declare that righteousness is through the law, by reasserting the obligation of the law as you, Peter, have done, I should annul the grace of God as exhibited in the death of Christ : for in that case, Christ ‘s death would be superfluous and useless. But I do not annul the grace of God.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “I do not frustrate the grace of God,” (ouk atheto ten charin tou theou) “I do not set, put, or place aside, the grace of God;”‘ Gal 5:4; Heb 7:11. He did not mix law and grace to provide an offer of salvation from sin, for they no more mix in God’s redemptive purpose and plan than oil and water mix, Rom 11:6.

2) “For if righteousness come by the law,” (ei gar dia nomon dikaiosune) “For if righteousness comes (to one) through law;” But that it does not is evident to the open student and honest believer of the Bible interpreted in contextual setting, Gal 3:11; Gal 3:21.

3) “Then Christ is dead in vain,” (ara Christos dorean apethanen) “Then Christ died without cause,” without a worthy, worthwhile or noble goal that would merit thanksgiving or praise. The death of Christ was vain, empty, and unnecessary, if salvation could have been obtained already, through flesh obedience to the Law of Moses, without the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, there was no occasion for the death of Christ; but it was necessary and was not in vain, even for me, this writer, Heb 7:12; Heb 7:22; Heb 7:26-27; Heb 8:3; Heb 9:16; Heb 9:23-28; 1Co 15:1-4; 1Co 15:12-22; 1Co 15:57-58. Since He saves, He lives, He intercedes, He comes again, our faith and labor are not in vain, in the Lord, Heb 10:37; Php_3:20-21.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

21. I do not reject. There is great emphasis in this expression; for how dreadful is the ingratitude manifested in despising the grace of God, so invaluable in itself, and obtained at such a price! Yet this heinous offense is charged against the false apostles, who were not satisfied with having Christ alone, but introduced some other aids towards obtaining salvation. For, if we do not renounce all other hopes, and embrace Christ alone, we reject the grace of God. And what resource is left to the man, who “puts from him” the grace of God, “and judges himself unworthy of everlasting life?” (Act 13:46.)

Christ is dead in vain (53) There would then have been no value in the death of Christ; or, Christ would have died without any reward; for the reward of his death is, that he has reconciled us to the Father by making an atonement for our sins. Hence it follows, that we are justified by his grace, and, therefore, not by works. The Papists explain this in reference to the ceremonial law; but who does not see that it applies to the whole law? If we could produce a righteousness of our own, then Christ has suffered in vain; for the intention of his sufferings was to procure it for us, and what need was there that a work which we could accomplish for ourselves should be obtained from another? If the death of Christ be our redemption, then we were captives; if it be satisfaction, we were debtors; if it be atonement, we were guilty; if it be cleansing, we were unclean. On the contrary, he who ascribes to works his sanctification, pardon, atonement, righteousness, or deliverance, makes void the death of Christ.

This argument, we shall perhaps be told, is of no weight against those who propose to unite the grace of Christ with works; which, it is universally admitted, was done by the false apostles. The two doctrines, it is alleged, stand together, that righteousness is by the law, and that we are redeemed by the death of Christ. True; supposing it were granted that a part of our righteousness is obtained by works, and a part comes from grace. But such theology, it may easily be proved, was unknown to Paul. His argument with his opponents is either conclusive or inconclusive. If any blasphemer shall dare to accuse him of bad reasoning, a powerful defense is at hand; for that justification in the sight of God of which he treats, is not what men may imagine to be sufficient, but what is absolutely perfect.

But we are not now called to plead in behalf of Paul against blasphemers, who venture to speak in reproachful language of the Holy Spirit himself. Our present business is with the Papists. They ridicule us, when we argue with Paul that, if righteousness come by works, Christ is dead in vain. They imagine it to be a beautiful reply, with which their sophists furnish them, that Christ merited for us the first grace, that is, the opportunity of meriting; and that the merit of his death concurs with the satisfactions of works for the daily pardon of sins. Let them ridicule Paul, whose language we quote. They must refute him before they can refute us. We know that he had to deal with men, who did not entirely reject the grace of Christ, but ascribed the half of salvation to works. In opposition to them he argues, that “if righteousness is by the law, then Christ is dead in vain;” and by so doing, he certainly does not allow to works one drop of righteousness. Between those men and the Papists there is no difference; and therefore, in refuting them, we are at liberty to employ Paul’s argument.

(53) “ Δωρεὰν ἀπέθανε does not mean ‘in vain,’ ‘uselessly,’ ‘ineffectually,’ but ‘without just cause;’ for if righteousness be by the law, there was no reason why he should die.” — Tittmann.

Εἰ γὰρ ἀπέθανεν ὁ Χριστός εὔδηλον ὅτι διὰ τὸ μὴ ἰσχύειν τὸν νόμον ἡμᾶς δικαιοῦν· εἰ δ ᾿ ὁ νόμος δικαιοῖ περιττὸς ὁ τοῦ Χριστοῦ θάνατος. “For if Christ died, it is very evident that it was because the law was unable to justify us; and if the law justifies us, the death of Christ was superfluous.” — Chrysostom.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(21) In thus attaching himself devotedly to Christ, the Christian escapes the charge of refusing and thwarting the free gift of justification which God has offered to him in His Son. He has made his choice of Christ, and not of the Law. On the other hand, if he had chosen the Law, and gone to it, and not to Christ, in his search for righteousness, he would have practically declared the death of Christ to be a useless and unnecessary sacrifice.

Frustrate.An exactly literal translation of the Greek word, which means to render nugatory or ineffectual. The grace of God goes forth with a certain mission to perform; but the Judaising party, by still clinging to the Law, prevented it from taking effect, and made it return void unto its Giver.

If righteousness come by the law.What all men seek is justification in the sight of God. This is given to the just or righteous. But there were two ways of becoming thus just or righteous. The Law professed to make righteous those who complied with its provisions. But this was only a profession, for no one could really keep the Law. The Christian, therefore, rightly falls back upon faith in Christ, which brings him both an imputed righteousness, and also, in part, at least, a real righteousness. A deep and genuine faith in Christ is allowed to atone for the many unavoidable breaches of the Law, and that faith by degrees operates a real and vital change in the character and life of the man.

Then Christ is dead in vain.If the Law had been enough to give actual righteousness to its votaries, and with righteousness the judicial declaration of freedom from guilt, then there would have been nothing for Christ to die for. His death would have had no object and been of no benefit to mankind.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

21. I do not thus, like the legalist and Judaizer, frustrate, that is, make useless, the grace of God: for if righteousness, that is, justification and pardon, are by the law, then Christ died (not in vain, but) needlessly. There was no demand for grace or atonement if law gave righteousness.

The following extract from Stanley’s notice of “The Clementines” (see our note, 2Co 10:1,) illustrates the assaults against which Paul here defends himself: “In an argument between Simon [Magus] and Peter, in which the former insists on the superiority of visions as evidence to our Lord’s discourses, the latter on that of actual intercourse, Peter concludes as follows: ‘If, then, Jesus our Lord ( ) was seen in a vision, and was known by thee, and conversed with thee, it was in anger with thee as an adversary that he spoke to thee through visions and dreams, and even through outward revelations. But can any one be made wise to teach through a vision? If thou sayest that he can, why then did our Master abide and converse with his disciples, not sleeping but awake, for a whole year? And how shall we believe the very fact that he was seen of thee? And how could he have been seen of thee, when thou teachest things contrary to his teaching? And if, by having been seen and made a disciple by him for one hour, thou becamest an apostle, then expound what he has taught, love his apostles, fight not with me who was his companion. For me, the firm rock, the foundation of the Church, even me thou did “withstand” openly ( ). If thou hadst not been an adversary, thou wouldst not have calumniated me, and reviled my preaching, to deprive me of credit when I spoke what I had heard myself in intercourse with the Lord; as if I were to be blamed, I whose character is so great. Or if thou sayest that I was condemned by my own act, ( ,) thou accusest God who revealed Christ to me, and attackest him who blessed me because of that revelation. But since thou wishest truly to work with the truth, now learn first from us what we learned from him; and when thou hast become a disciple of the truth, then become a fellow-worker with us.” Compare Gal 1:1; Gal 1:12; Gal 1:15-20; 1Co 9:1 ; 2Co 10:16; 2Co 11:1-5, and especially St. Paul’s own words (Gal 2:11) in the account of the feud at Antioch , .” See note, 2Co 10:1.

In this speech Paul makes Peter’s error the starting point to give, perhaps, his first fixed exposition of the contrast between law and grace. For the Jew to perform a sacrifice, or the papist to say a certain number of paternosters as an act which in itself compensated or atoned for sin, was a legal, worthless, unsaving work. The true way is, by a self-consecrating faith to surrender my all to Christ, by him to be empowered to walk in all the ways of holiness. And here he spreads for his Galatians a platform on which they should stand, but which some sorcery is deluding them to desert.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘I do not make void the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the Law then Christ is dead in vain.’

The suggestion from this verse is that others do make void the grace of God, for they insist that righteousness comes through the (impossible) strict observance of the Law and obedience to the covenant. It may even be that some had said that Paul made void the grace of God because he rejected the Law and covenant so graciously given. But, he says, it is not he who makes void the grace of God, it is they.

For God’s grace, God’s free unmerited goodness and favour, revealed in action in the giving of Christ, and through Him of His Spirit, is upheld and glorified through Paul’s teaching, for in it Christ is all. But in their teaching He is diminished and His death is in vain, for in their case it is the righteousness that they seek through the Law is what finally matters, the righteousness that they can never achieve. That is their be all and end all. They do not see their salvation as being as a result of the activity of God, but as arising out of their own activity. They are failing to rest on the grace of God. And yet it is available to no one in their way, for none can fully keep the Law. However hard they strive they will never achieve it, and thus they will die, and Christ’s death will have been in vain. Indeed they no longer leave any reason for Christ to die. For if the main basis of salvation is their own righteousness attained by keeping the Law, then the old sacrifices would be sufficient. That would then be to make Christ’s sacrifice unnecessary. It is clear therefore clear that faith in Christ alone, and in His saving work alone, is our only hope, and is the only way by which we can magnify the grace of God. It is by saying ‘God has done all’. All I have done is let it happen to me, and even that I could do nothing about. I have responded because I had to. I have heard because He has spoken (Joh 10:27-28).

In finishing this section we must draw attention to one fact. What Paul is against here is not the Law, but the Law looked on as a means of salvation, as a means of maintaining a covenant relationship with God. Elsewhere he says ‘the Law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good’ (Rom 7:12). As a pattern, especially as revealed in Jesus Christ, it is without compare. But his point is that as a way of salvation its standards are too good. It is beyond us. If it is seen as the means of our salvation it can only destroy us.

But once we have been crucified with Christ and have died to the Law, we will begin to fulfil it from glad hearts because we will allow that greatest of all Law-keepers, the One Who alone kept it to the full, to live through us His glorious life of obedience. But always we must remember that our salvation is through His grace and His power, brought home to us when we came to the cross, and continually at work within us as we allow the crucified and risen One to live through us (Php 2:13). Never must we think that it results from our keeping of the Law, because we will never, and in this life never can, do that satisfactorily.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Gal 2:21. Grace of God: See ch. Gal 1:6-7 to which this seems here opposed. The latter part of this verse will be found explained in St. Paul’s own words, ch. 5.

Inferences, drawn from Gal 2:17. One of the greatest and most plausible objections alleged by unbelievers against the divine institution of the Christian religion, is the smallness of the influence that it may seem to have upon the lives and manners of its professors. If God condescended to give men an express revealed law, and to send so extraordinary a person as his own eternal Son to promulgate that law upon earth; it were natural to expect that it should have some very visible and remarkable effects in the world, answerable to the dignity of the thing itself, and worthy of its great Author. They who are blessed with such singular advantages, what manner of persons, as St. Peter expresses it, ought they to be in all holy conversation and godliness!

And are there then,will unbelievers be apt to say,are there to be met with, in the lives and manners of Christians, any considerable distinguishing characters, whereby to judge that they are really under the influence and peculiar guidance of such a divine Director?Is there among those who call themselves Christians less of impiety and profaneness towards God, less of fraud and injustice towards men, than is found among the professors of other religions? Is there not too plainly the same boundless ambition, the same insatiable covetousness, the same voluptuousness and debauchery of manners, to be found among them, as amongst other men? Nay, have not moreover the pretences even of religion itself been the immediate occasion of the bitterest animosities, of the most bloody wars, of the most inhuman persecutions?Have not the greatest immoralities of all kinds received too plain an encouragement from the reliance upon a power of repeating continually certain periodical absolutions; and much more from an imagination that the practices of a vicious life maybe compensated before God by the observance of certain superstitious commutations?Lastly, and beyond all this, has not even the grace of God, as the Apostle urges, been itself too frequently turned into wantonness? That is, has not the fundamental grace of the gospel,the gracious promise of pardon, upon true repentance and amendment, and faith in Jesus Christ, been itself abused into an encouragement of wicked living, in a dependance upon the formalities of a death-bed repentance?

Very great, and very just reproaches, indeed, are these upon many who profess themselves to be followers of Christ. But, that such objections have no conclusive consequence at all against Christianity itself, is what the Apostle, after a very affectionate manner, declares in the words above proposed for our reflection, and which he closes with a generous God forbid!For, if, says he, I build again the things which I destroyed, I MAKE MYSELF A TRANSGRESSOR.

We will therefore endeavour to shew, from his words, first, “that the wickedness of the lives of those who call themselves Christians, is no argument against the truth and excellency of the Christian religion itself.”

Now, natural and necessary causes always and necessarily produce effects proportional to their natural powers: so that, from the degree or quantity of the effect, may always certainly be judged the degree of power and efficacy in the cause. But in moral causes the case is necessarily and essentially otherwise. In these, how efficacious soever the cause be, yet the effect, more or less, depends upon the will of the person upon whom the effect is to be wrought, whether the cause shall produce its proper effect or no.

The Christian religion affords men the most perfect instructions possible in the ways of holiness and virtue, and arguments infinitely strong to enforce the practice of them, jointly, with the greatest aids in behalf of the truly sincere. The effect of this doctrine upon the lives of men in the primitive times, before worldly corruptions entered into the church, was, through the grace of God, which can never be separated from any thing which relates to the salvation of souls, great and conspicuous: and if we understand the prophesies rightly, which relate to things yet to come, this effect will be much more remarkable in the latter ages; when the corruptions which now prevail among Christians shall be reformed, and the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the channels of the sea. As things at present stand, there are great numbers of men,many more than are taken notice of in the noise and hurry of the busy world,who, upon the foundation of a well-settled belief in the gospel of Christ, go on regularly in the course of a holy life, with a perpetual uniform sense of God upon their minds, and an assured expectation of a future judgment: nay, and even among those who value themselves upon despising the assistance of revelation, and rely entirely upon their own natural abilities in matters of religion, it is very plain that the greatest part of those right notions, concerning God and virtue, about which they can now so readily and so clearly discourse, are really almost wholly borrowed from the light of that revelation which they are so desirous should be thought entirely needless. This, I say, is very plain, from the extreme ignorance of the heathen world, notwithstanding there are not wanting among them men of excellent natural abilities; and from the right notions of God to be found, among Christians, in numbers of persons, even of the lowest capacities, and meanest employments, to a degree which few, exceeding few, even of the greatest philosophers, were ever able to arrive at. So very different a thing is it to discern the reasonableness of moral obligations, after they have been once clearly revealed; and to be able, without any assistance, to discover at first the same obligations by the mere strength of nature and reason.

But however this be, and supposing the effect of Christianity in the world had been much smaller than it has been, still this would be no argument at all against the truth and excellency of the doctrine itself: because, as was before observed, “in all moral causes it must always depend more or less on the will of the person upon whom the effect is to be wrought, whether even the most powerful cause shall produce its proper effect, or no.” When God himself calls men in the strongest and most efficacious manner that is consistent with his calling them at all, it is still in their own power not to hearken to that call; or at least not to yield to it finally;not to be on the whole the better,nay, to be the worse for it; much worse than if they had never known the way of righteousness. For as, where no law is, there is no transgression; so, on the other hand, and for the same reason, “where there is a law, not obeyed, that law worketh wrath; and sin, by this commandment, becomes exceeding sinful.” If therefore the effect were always to be the measure in judging of the goodness and excellency of a cause, the best and wisest laws would often, upon account of their very excellency, be the worst: the law of God would be chargeable with the malignity of sin, and God himself as the real and immediate author of evil.

The same may, in proportion, be said concerning reason, even the absolute and necessary reason of things. But if it be no objection against the excellency of reason itself, that it very often is not able to make men act reasonably, and never of itself graciously, and no diminution to the divine commandments in general, that they frequently, not only fail of reforming men’s manners, but even, on the contrary, do moreover make sin to become the more exceeding sinful; then, for the same reason, neither against the truth and excellency of Christianity in particular, can any argument be drawn from the wickedness of their lives who profess themselves Christians.

But, secondly, though the practice of any wickedness whatsoever affords no real argument against Christianity itself, yet it is always matter of very great and just reproach to the professors of this holy religion; as being the utmost contradiction, and the higher possible inconsistency with their profession. Nay, every vice that any Christian, so called, is guilty of, tends to defeat every end of the gospel of grace, and brings dishonour upon the name and upon the religion of Christ; for hence unbelievers are confirmed in their infidelity, and scoffers are encouraged to make a scorn of every thing sacred. See Rom 2:24.

From what has been said we are led, thirdly, to a very plain and easy rule, by which we may judge of the malignity and dangerousness of any error in matters of religion. In proportion as the error tends to reconcile any vicious, vain, or impious practice with the profession of religion; or, as St. Paul expresses it, to make Christ the minister of sin,in the same proportion is the doctrine pernicious, and the teachers of it justly to be deemed corrupt. And this is the reason why our Lord, when he warns Christians to be aware of false teachers, who should come to them in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly were ravening wolves, gives us this mark by which for ever to distinguish them:By their fruits ye shall know them. The fruits of holiness and true goodness are marks which admit no counterfeit. If the course of a man’s life be holy, devout, self-denying, virtuous, and charitable, and his doctrine leads men towards nothing but the love of God in Christ Jesus, holiness, goodness, and charity, in expectation of a righteous judgment to come,this is a mark, or character, to which nothing has any similitude but what is itself really and truly the same.

REFLECTIONS.1st. The Apostle, in vindication of his divine mission and ministry, as in nothing inferior to the other apostles, relates what passed at Jerusalem, when, fourteen years after his conversion, he went up thither, with Barnabas and Titus, by a special revelation from God, on occasion of the dissensions which the Jewish teachers had raised in the church of Antioch, about the necessity of circumcising the Gentiles, and engaging them to keep the law of Moses.

1. He communicated and explained in conversation, to those who were of greater note and reputation, the gospel which he preached among the Gentiles, in all its freedom and latitude, but privately, because of the known prejudices which many of the Jewish Christians entertained concerning the necessity of still observing the law. And this method he took, lest by any means he should run, or had run in vain, and, through the clamours of the hot zealots for Judaism, his past labours should have been in some measure rendered abortive, or his future usefulness be obstructed.

2. Though he acted with all prudence, he made no sinful compliance with their prejudices, maintaining the purity of the gospel, and firm to his principles, that the Gentiles were in no manner obliged to the observation of the Mosaical law: therefore, though Titus was a Greek, he was not compelled to be circumcised; nor did the apostles insist upon it. And St. Paul took Titus, a Gentile Christian, and minister of the gospel, on purpose that in him he might bear a public testimony against those false brethren, who had craftily insinuated themselves into the church at Antioch; and with prying eyes observed the Apostle’s conduct at Jerusalem, whether he would there maintain the liberty of the Christian Gentiles from the Mosaical institutions. For they would have been happy if they could have had such a plea as the circumcision of Titus, to urge the same upon the Gentile converts. But not for an hour would the Apostle and his colleague Barnabas give way to such a dangerous imposition, that the truth and freedom of the gospel might be maintained inviolable, and the Gentiles enjoy that entire liberty from every yoke of bondage which in Christ Jesus was preached unto them. Note; False brethren are our most dangerous foes. Against them we need peculiar watchfulness.

3. Though he conferred with the Apostles of chief eminence, and who were so preferred to him by the Judaizing teachers, whatever had been the case formerly ( ), and whatever privileges they had enjoyed above him, that affected not the matter at present. God accepteth no man’s person: however great the names of Peter, James, and John were, they added nothing to him, nor contributed the least to his improvement in knowledge; so thoroughly had he been taught of God the mysteries of gospel truth.

4. The issue of the conference was, the perfect satisfaction expressed by the Apostles at Jerusalem in what they heard; it appearing most undeniably, that the same Lord, who had wrought by St. Peter’s ministry among the Jews, who was more particularly sent to them, had wrought as effectually by St. Paul among the Gentiles; to whom they therefore concluded the apostleship of the Gentiles was committed. Therefore these pillars of the church, James, Cephas, and John, convinced of the grace and apostleship conferred upon him, with cordial affection gave to him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, and concurred in their sentiments, that it fully appeared to be the will of God that Paul and his fellow-labourer should go to the Gentiles more immediately, while their own ministry should be more generally confined to the Jews: only they recommended it to them that they should remember the poor saints in Judea, and obtain some relief for them from the Gentile churches,a service in which St. Paul warmly engaged. So that it was evident, from the result of this conversation, that there was a perfect harmony in doctrine between St. Paul and the apostles at Jerusalem, and that they fully recognized his divine authority and mission.

2nd, Nothing could serve more effectually to establish the character of the great Apostle of the Gentiles than the occurrence recorded Gal 2:11. &c. wherein, so far from being St. Peter’s inferior, as the Judaizing teachers suggested, he appears his faithful and zealous reprover.

1. Peter’s fault was, that, at his coming to Antioch, he freely communed with the Gentile Christians, and ate and drank with them, though they were uncircumcised; but, on the arrival of some Jewish brethren sent from James, he temporized, and, for fear of offending the prejudiced Judaizers, to the great discouragement of the Gentile brethren, he suspended his former familiar intercourse with them; and, influenced by him, the Jewish Christians at Antioch dissembled likewise, and withdrew from free converse, as before, with their Gentile brethren; and, overcome by such bad examples, even Barnabas himself was carried away with their dissimulation, and, contrary to all his former conduct and teaching, joined in this separation; for which St. Peter was most justly to be blamed.
2. The rebuke which St. Paul gave him was such as his dissimulation deserved. And as the offence given was public, publicly and to his face he with noble fidelity withstood him; and, seeing him deviate so much in the present instance from the path of truth, and the liberty of the gospel, he addressed himself to Peter, and said unto him, before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, satisfied that the ceremonial law is no longer binding, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews, and, by the example which thou hast lately shewn, wouldst enslave their consciences to the Mosaical institutions, as if necessary to their acceptance with God? What a glaring contradiction appears between such a conduct and your late avowed principles and practice!

3. He suggests the strongest arguments for the unreasonableness of such a conduct, since all distinction of Jew and Gentile now had ceased. We who are Jews by nature, God’s chosen people, and trained up in the law; and not sinners of the Gentiles, who, in general, are looked upon by the Jews as persons abandoned and reprobate; knowing that a man is not, cannot be, justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ for pardon and acceptance with God, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ,through faith in that great atonement which he accomplished for us, and not by the works of the law: and if this was the case with us, must not the Gentiles have recourse to the same free grace? for by the works of the law, moral or ceremonial, shall no flesh be justified, none being able to produce an immaculate obedience, adequate to its demands. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin; who, notwithstanding all that he has done for us, and in us, would, in such a case, leave us under the condemning guilt and prevailing power of sin? God forbid; with abhorrence is the thought to be rejected. Yet would this be the consequence of seeking to the law for acceptance with God; for if I should build again the things which I destroyed, and, after preaching the grace of the gospel, have recourse to the law for justification before God, I make myself a transgressor, contradict my own doctrine, and acknowledge myself still under guilt and condemnation, which my faith in Christ has not removed. So inconsistent was this behaviour, therefore, in St. Peter and his associates.

4. Though some might object to the doctrine of free justification, without the deeds of the law, the Apostle declares his own and every Christian believer’s judgment and practice. For I through the law am dead to the law, renouncing all my expectations from it, that I might live unto God, abiding in a constant state of favour with him, through the Redeemer’s infinite merit, and quickened by his grace to newness of life. I am crucified with Christ; the law has no more demands upon me, and worldly interests no power over me: nevertheless I live in a state of reconciliation with God, bringing forth the fruits of righteousness; yet not I, by any inherent power or principle naturally in myself, but Christ liveth in me; I receive from him, as my Head of vital influence, his quickening Spirit: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live not after the flesh, but by the faith of the Son of God, placing my whole dependance upon him, and drawing continual supplies of grace and strength out of his fulness, who loved me, and gave himself for me, to make a complete atonement, and to bring in an everlasting righteousness, for me and all who faithfully and perseveringly embrace his great salvation. I do not frustrate the grace of God, and slight, as of no value, the transcendant favour of God’s dear Son, and the righteousness unto life which is in him, as they do who go to the works of the law for acceptance with God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain; for in that case righteousness and salvation might have been obtained without him. Note; (1.) We must renounce all hope of being justified by the law, before we can fly to Jesus, and live unto God. (2.) By faith alone is the life of our souls maintained, while, from the fulness of our Redeemer, we derive the constant supplies of grace and strength. (3.) All who, either in whole or part, place their dependence on their own doings and duties for acceptance with God, make Christ to have died in vain.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Gal 2:21 . Negative side opposed to an antagonistic Judaism of the life which Paul (from Gal 2:19 ) has described as his own. By this negative, with the grave reason assigned for it, . . ., the perverse conduct of Peter is completely condemned.

I do not annul (as is done by again asserting the validity of the law) the grace of God (which has manifested itself through the atoning death of Christ).

] as in Gal 3:15 , Luk 7:30 , 1Co 1:19 , 1Ti 5:12 , Heb 10:28 : make of none effect ; see the sequel. It is here the annulling practically involved in the Judaistic courses of the grace of God in Christ, which is in fact rendered inoperative and cannot make righteous, if righteousness is furnished by the law . The rejection of grace (Vulgate and others, abjicio ) which is involved in this, is a practical rejection. [110] As to generally, which does not occur until after Polybius, see Schweigh. Lex. Polyb . p. 12.

. . .] justifies what has just been said, .

] through the law , namely, as the institute which brings about justification by virtue of the works done in harmony with it (comp. on Gal 3:11 ). This is emphatically prefixed, so that corresponds in the apodosis.

] not: without result (Erasmus, Paraphr ., Piscator), a meaning which it never has either in classical authors (in whom it occurs in the sense of gratis only) or in the LXX., but: without reason, without cause , as 1Sa 19:5 , Psa 34:8 (not Job 1:9 ): comp. Joh 15:25 ; Sir 20:21 ; Sir 29:6 f.; Ignat. Trall . 10, . Chrysostom justly says: , which was the very act of the grace which desired to justify men. This death would have taken place unnecessarily; it would have been, as it were, an act of superfluity (comp. Holsten), if that which it was intended to effect were attainable by way of the law . Erasmus aptly remarks, “est autem ratiocinatio ab impossibili .” Observe the exclusive expression of the clause assigning the reason of , which allows of no half-and-half division of justification between law and grace.

[110] So that , Rom 11:6 .

Note .

Paul is discreet enough to say nothing as to the impression which his speech made on Peter. Its candour, resolution, and striking force of argument would, however, be the less likely to miss their aim in the case of Peter, seeing that the latter was himself convinced of Christian freedom (Act 15:7 ff.), and had played the hypocrite in Antioch only by connivance from fear of men (Gal 2:13 ). But as, according to this view, an opposition of principle between the two apostles cannot be conceded (contrary to the view of Baur and his followers), we must abstain from assuming that this occurrence at Antioch had any lasting and far-reaching consequences; for it simply had reference to a moral false step taken in opposition to Peter’s own better judgment, and the scandal arising therefrom. It was therefore so essentially of a personal nature, that, if known at all by Luke, it might well have remained unmentioned in Acts considering the more comprehensive historical destination of that work without suggesting any suspicion that the absence of mention arose from any intentional concealment (comp. on Act 15 ). Such a concealment is but one of the numberless dishonest artifices of which the author of Acts has been accused, ever since certain persons have thought that they recognised in our epistle “the mutely eloquent accuser of the Book of Acts” (Schwegler), which is alleged to throw “a veil of concealment” over the occurrences at Jerusalem and Antioch (Baur, Paulus, I. p. 148, Exo 2 ).

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

REFLECTIONS

READER! let us pass over every lesser consideration, of men, and things relating to the Apostles, and servants of Christ, to have our whole thoughts fixed and centered upon the Person of the Almighty Master. Precious Jesus! be thou the One glorious Object of all my meditation!

And, while I contemplate Christ on the cross, as Paul hath here set him forth; let me ask myself, whether like Paul I can say, I am crucified with him! Do I indeed know that Christ, in all his sufferings and death, was the Surety, Representative, and Head of his people? Was I, to all intents and purposes, in Him, represented by Him, and by his sufferings and death, in the name, and for his people, redeemed by Him; and the old man of sin, in my nature, crucified with him? And not only in the cross, but in his burial, resurrection, ascension, entrance into Heaven, and sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on high; in all these, do I know Jesus as my representative? Did Christ buy out my redemption, on the cross? Am I buried with him by baptism, into death? Am I risen with him, by regeneration, through God the Holy Ghost; and do I see myself by faith sitting with Him, in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus? Is He gone as my forerunner, to appear in the presence of God for me; and the life I now live in the flesh, do I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me? Oh! for grace, in lively exercise, to be always realizing my personal interest in Christ! And may it be my daily portion, under the gracious teachings of God the Holy Ghost, to know, that such is the infinite dignity of Christ’s Person, and the infinite preciousness of his bloodshedding, and righteousness, that Jehovah is more honored, and glorified, by his obedience and death, than he is dishonored, by all the sins of his people, during the whole time-state of the Church on earth! Yes! thou dear Lord! I do see, through God the Spirit’s teaching, that thou art everything that is blessed, to thy Church, and people; and like Paul, I am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

21 .] I do not (as thou (Peter) art doing, and the Judaizers) frustrate (reff.: not merely ‘ despise ,’ as Erasm., al.) the grace of God: for (justification of the strong expression ) if by the law ( comes ) righteousness (not justification but the result of justification ), then Christ died without cause (not ‘ in vain ,’ with reference to the result of His death (for which meaning Lidd. and Scott’s Lex. refers to LXX: but it does not appear to occur in that sense), but gratuitously, causelessly (reff.); ‘ Christ need not have died .’ , , . Chr.). (truly so in this case, in having found such a faithful reprover) , , . . Thdrt.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Gal 2:21 . Christ died in order that men might live before God by His grace in spite of a broken Law; if men could keep the Law of themselves and live, there would be no call for grace, and the death of Christ would be proved a useless sacrifice. . Law was never, like faith, instrumental to justification ( cf. Gal 2:16 ). Accordingly, Paul never speaks of justification through Law, but either or . Here, as in Gal 2:19 , really denotes a legal environment, and the verse argues that if righteousness was really within men’s reach under a legal dispensation, then there was no occasion for the death of Christ at all.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

frustrate. Greek. atheteo See Gal 3:15 and Joh 12:48.

righteousness. Greek. dikaiosune. App-191.

by = through, as Gal 2:19.

is dead = died.

in vain. i.e. uselessly. Greek. dorean. See Joh 15:25,

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

21.] I do not (as thou (Peter) art doing, and the Judaizers) frustrate (reff.: not merely despise, as Erasm., al.) the grace of God: for (justification of the strong expression ) if by the law (comes) righteousness (not justification-but the result of justification), then Christ died without cause (not in vain, with reference to the result of His death (for which meaning Lidd. and Scotts Lex. refers to LXX: but it does not appear to occur in that sense), but gratuitously, causelessly (reff.);-Christ need not have died. , , . Chr.). (truly so in this case, in having found such a faithful reprover) , , . . Thdrt.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Gal 2:21. , I do not frustrate) As the Judaizing teachers do, but embrace it with my whole soul.- , the grace of God) by which Christ died for us.- , for if) Christ is our righteousness in Himself; not in so far as [inasmuch as] He fulfils the righteousness of the law in us. This is evident from the consequence which Paul here shows would follow, if the case were otherwise.-, He died) and so rose again. There would have been no need of these, if righteousness had been from the law.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Gal 2:21

I do not make void the grace of God:-In trusting God, walking by faith in Jesus Christ and seeking salvation through him, and turning from the law he did not frustrate or make vain the grace of God. [The teaching of the Judaizers certainly did set it aside, for if salvation is by grace it is no more of works, and conversely, if it is of works it is no more of grace; works and grace are incompatible, they are mutually exclusive. (Rom 11:6).]

for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought.-God seeks to make man righteous, and if righteousness could have been attained through the law of Moses, there would have been no need of the death of Christ. Hence his mission and death were meaningless, fruitless, without good to man. It was a vain and profitless mission and sacrifice that Christ made if man could have gained through the law, and without Christ all that was gained through him. Christ came to save man from his sins and make him righteous before God and to fit him to dwell with him. If the law could have fitted him for this divine companionship, the death of Christ was meaningless and vain. If man can be made righteous by any means out of Christ, it is equally true that Christ died for nought.

Thus he has vindicated, without dispute, his apostleship, and that the law was dead, and that life and salvation are to be found through Christ, and he urges the folly of leaving the gospel, and turning to the law of Moses or to any theory of man.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Chapter 8

I Do Not Frustrate The Grace Of God

I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

(Gal 2:21)

Why was Paul so dogmatic and bold in publicly withstanding Peter when Peter led the division of the church at Antioch, when he caused the Jewish believers, and even Barnabas, to separate themselves from their Gentile brethren? The answer to that question is found here in Gal 2:21. Peters actions were a frustration of the grace of God. That is to say, Peter (by his actions) led these believers back to the law as the basis of acceptance with God.

Therefore Paul writes, I do not frustrate the grace of God. The word translated frustrate means to cast away, deny, despise, reject, and make void. He here asserts that any and every assertion that salvation is the result of something men do is to cast away, deny, despise, reject, and make void the grace of God. It is a frustration of the grace of God the Son revealed in the sacrifice of himself for our sins. The teaching that salvation is in any way, or to any degree, the result of human effort is a denial of the whole gospel (Gal 5:1-4). It is a frustration of the gospel of the grace of God, because such doctrine declares that righteousness comes by the law rather than by Christ alone. Those who make righteousness (justifying righteousness and/or sanctifying righteousness) dependent upon the works of men have denied, despised, rejected, made null and void, made the gospel of the grace of God to be in vain, and have departed from it altogether.

For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. There was no need for the Son of God to die, if righteousness can be obtained in some other way. Nothing can be more contemptuous of our God and Savior than to assert that there was no reason for him to die. Such doctrine is monstrous. It asserts that God slaughtered his Son for no reason.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The Holy Spirit tells us plainly that the reason it was necessary for Christ to die was precisely because righteousness could not come to poor sinner like us, except by the substitutionary sacrifice of Gods dear Son (Rom 3:24-28). Only in this way can God be both just and the Justifier of his people. He could not be both a just God and a Savior (Isa 45:20) in any other way. It is beyond monstrous to imagine that the infinitely wise, good, and just God would sacrifice his darling Son were there no necessity for it.

Criminal Doctrine

That makes the doctrine of salvation by works a criminal doctrine. It was for this reason that Paul was determined to give it no place. He boldly opposed everything that bore any resemblance to salvation by human merit. Therefore, when Peter sided with the Judaizers at Antioch, and seemed to teach that the Gentile believers must live by the law, he publicly withstood him to the face.

The gospel of Christ is a declaration of salvation by grace, the good news of salvation accomplished by the obedience of Gods Son unto death as the sinners Substitute. Paul vehemently opposed every idea that the keeping of the law could merit Gods favor. He asserted dogmatically, clearly, and constantly that men are not saved by works in any degree, but entirely by the grace of God. By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. God has saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Grace means grace, and grace alone. Any mixture of works with grace is a complete denial of grace (Rom 11:6). To teach, as multitudes do, that salvation can be obtained by anything apart from the sacrifice of Christ, or by anything placed in connection with the sacrifice of Christ, done by man; is to frustrate the grace of God and say that Christ died in vain

There is no evil in the world so vile, so blasphemous, so destructive to the souls of men as the doctrine of salvation by human effort. Martin Luther declared, This is blasphemy more horrible than can be expressed. Nothing robs God of his glory as God like Arminian, free-will, works religion. Yet, there is no evil more common among men.

Inevitable Consequences

Paul asserts that there are certain, inevitable consequences to the doctrine of salvation by works. He specifically names two: (1.) If righteousness comes by the law, then the grace of God is cast away. And (2.) If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain.

All who hope to be saved by their own efforts reject the grace and free favor of God. They regard Gods grace as useless and frustrate it, cast it behind their backs, and trample it beneath their feet. If righteousness comes by the law then there is no need for grace. If keeping the law will win Gods favor, we do not need his grace.

Paul has specifically spoken of the legal ceremony of circumcision; but that ceremony is used only as an expression of legal obedience. This becomes obvious when we read what he says in the tenth verse of chapter three. As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

Many would have us believe that Pauls assertions concerning the law and the believers freedom from it only apply to the ceremonial law, and only apply to the attempts of men to be justified by their obedience to the law. They insist that, though justifying righteousness cannot be gained by our obedience to the law, sanctifying righteousness is. But Paul moves from justifying righteousness to sanctifying righteousness in chapter three. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? (Gal 3:1-3). It is in this context that he asserts that all who attempt to live before God upon the basis of their obedience to the law are damned (Gal 3:10).

The fact is, Christ is made of God unto his elect wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1Co 1:30). We have no other righteousness but Christ. He is both our justification and our sanctification (Heb 10:10-14). He is the whole of our acceptance with the Father (Eph 1:6).

To make our obedience to the law the basis of our righteousness, either for justification or for sanctification, is not only a frustration of the grace of God, it is also a frustration of the law of God. Those who teach that we make ourselves righteous, or make ourselves more righteous, by our obedience to the law bend the demands of the law to accommodate our weakness and sin, asserting that though the law is holy it can be satisfied by our unholy attempts to keep it.

If righteousness cannot be gained by our obedience to Gods law, it is certain that righteousness cannot be gained by the religious deeds and ceremonies men perform. The performance of penances, no matter how sincerely done, can never give a sinner acceptance with God. Righteousness cannot be gained by the waters of baptism, by taking the Lords Supper, or by any other religious ritual or deed.

When Paul speaks of legal righteousness, he is talking about works righteousness of any kind. All teaching of works righteousness cast aside and frustrates the grace of God. Any mixture of works with grace is the total denial of grace (Rom 11:6). You cannot trust Christ and yourself. Those who would mix works and grace would seldom say, I am saved by my own works. Yet, in reality, that is exactly what they believe. Ask them about the grounds of their assurance. They will always bring up their works. Ask them about the basis of their comfort. They will always bring up their works. Ask them about the their eternal reward in heaven. They will always bring up their works. Why? They trust in themselves that they are righteous (Luk 18:9). For they, being ignorant of Gods righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. They just do not understand that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth (Rom 10:3-4).

Dead In Vain

The second inevitable consequence of works religion is the horrible, blasphemous assertion that Christ died in vain, that the Son of God died for nothing, that his blood is useless. There are many ways in which this blasphemy is asserted by workmongers.

Some assert that man is not totally depraved. If man is not totally depraved, he does not need a Savior. Others assert that Christs death as the sinners Substitute was neither sufficient nor effectual. Let it be stated in whatever pretty phrases men may invent, the doctrine that the Son of God did not actually put away the sins of his people by the sacrifice of himself (Heb 9:26), did not actually obtain eternal redemption for Gods elect when he died (Heb 9:12), did not actually redeem and justify his people, did not actually bring in everlasting righteousness and make an end of sin, but only made these things possible, frustrate the grace of God, trample under foot the blood of Christ, and do despite to the Spirit of God (Heb 10:29). They do so by making the blood of Christ an unholy (that is a common) thing.

Such blasphemy makes the efficacy of Christs sacrifice to depend entirely upon the will of the sinner. That is what the Holy Spirit calls the basest form of idolatrywill-worship (Col 2:23). It is the worship of ones own will, trusting ones own will, rather than trusting and worshipping the Son of God. Did not our Savior cry, It is finished? Did he not seal the covenant with his blood? Did not the Father accept his sacrifice?

The doctrine of justification by works is sin and blasphemy against all three Persons of the Sacred Trinity. It blasphemes God the Father, asserting that he sacrificed his Son in vain for no cause. It blasphemes God the Son. It is the very denial of his deity and of him being Jehovahs righteous Servant, asserting that he failed in his mission (Isa 42:4), that he shall never see the travail of his soul with satisfaction (Isa 53:11), and that he really finished nothing when he died at Calvary (Joh 19:30). And it blasphemes God the Holy Spirit, asserting that he bears false witness of Christ, when he convinces sinners of their sin, Christs finished work of righteousness, and judgment finished (justice satisfied) by his death (Joh 16:8-11).

Cherished Heresy

The doctrine of salvation by works gives no hope to sinners and would silence the praises of the saints in heaven. Yet, it is a very popular doctrine, accepted and promoted by all false religion. It is a cherished heresy. The reason is obvious. It sets aside the glory of God and makes room for the sinner to boast.

Every religion except one, Augustus Toplady wrote, puts you upon doing something in order to recommend yourself to GodIt is the business of all false religion to patch up a righteousness in which the sinner is to stand before God. But it is the business of the glorious gospel to bring near to us, by the hand of the Holy Spirit, a righteousness ready wrought, a robe of perfection ready made, wherein Gods people, to all the purposes of justification and happiness, stand perfect and without fault before the throne.

The sinners only hope before God is Gods free, sovereign, effectual, irresistible grace in Christ, grace flowing freely to us through the effectual, accepted, sin-atoning blood of Christ.

Grace, tis a charming sound,

Harmonious to mine ear.

Heaven with the echo shall resound,

And all the earth shall hear.

Grace first contrived the way

To save rebellious man;

And all the steps that grace display

Which drew the wondrous plan.

Grace first inscribed my name

In Gods eternal book;

Twas grace that gave me to the Lamb

Who all my sorrows took.

Grace led my roving feet

To tread the heavenly road;

And new supplies each hour I meet,

While pressing on to God.

Grace all the work shall crown,

Through everlasting days;

It lays in heaven the topmost stone,

And well deserves the praise.

In this wonderful, glorious thing called salvation, Christ is all! He opened the gates of heaven and shut the gates of hell for all his people, when he entered once into the holy place with his own blood and obtained eternal redemption for us. He is all our Wisdom, all our Righteousness, all our Sanctification, and all our Redemption. The grace of God can never be frustrated, made void, or nullified (Job 23:13; Psa 33:11; Pro 19:21; Isa 46:10; Heb 6:17). The Lord Jesus Christ did not die in vain (Isa 53:11). All for whom he shed his blood at Calvary shall be seated with him in glory.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

grace Grace (in salvation). vs. Gal 5:4; Rom 3:24. (See Scofield “Joh 1:17”).

righteousness (See Scofield “Rom 10:10”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

do not: Gal 2:18, Psa 33:10, Mar 7:9, *marg. Rom 8:31

righteousness: Gal 2:16, Gal 3:21, Gal 5:2-4, Rom 10:3, Rom 11:6, Heb 7:11

Christ: Isa 49:4, Jer 8:8, 1Co 15:2, 1Co 15:14, 1Co 15:17

Reciprocal: Num 35:32 – General Job 15:4 – castest off Luk 7:30 – rejected Joh 15:25 – without Rom 3:4 – God forbid Rom 3:31 – do we Rom 4:14 – For if Rom 6:3 – were 2Co 6:1 – the Gal 3:18 – if Gal 5:4 – is Phi 3:18 – enemies Tit 2:11 – the grace

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Gal 2:21. -I do not frustrate the grace of God. The verb, which is used first by Polybius, has various shades of meaning. As applied to persons, it means to despise or reject. Mar 6:26; Luk 7:30; Luk 10:16 four times; Joh 12:48; 1Th 4:8; Sept. 1Sa 2:17. So Theodoret here has ; Grotius, non vilipendo; and the Vulgate, non abjicio. The definition of OEcumenius falls short of the full import: , , . In a stronger sense it denotes to cast off or violate, such as , Heb 10:28, or one’s faith, 1Ti 5:12; then it means to annul or make void. This last sense it has in the clause before us; as , Mar 7:9; , 1Co 1:19; Sept. 1Ma 15:27; Psa 33:10; Polyb. 2.58, 5; Gal 3:15. The sweeping conclusion shows that this must be its meaning. The grace of God is not in a general sense the gospel, nor exactly the work of Christ (Gwynne), though that work was its proof and channel, as the last clause indicates; but His sovereign kindness manifested in the death of His Son, spontaneous on His part and wholly unmerited on ours. See Eph 2:4-9. The apostle’s realization of identity with his Lord, dying with Him and rising with Him, his conscious possession of Christ as his life within him, and that life moving and being sustained in its element of faith in the Son of God,-all were proofs to him that he was not frustrating the grace of God. For he felt that the one source of justification was grace, and that the medium of it was grace embodied in the incarnate Son. In trusting in Christ, and in Him alone, he was magnifying the grace of God; while Peter, on the other hand, by his reactionary dissimulation, was in effect putting aside that grace. For if any one put faith in works, or revert to works, or in any way, either wholly or in part, give them place in justification, either as opposed to faith or as supplementing it,-if any one hope to merit what God so freely bestows, he frustrates the grace of God, regards it as void, or as an unneeded arrangement. For most surely-

, -for if through the law comes righteousness, then Christ died without cause. introduces strong confirmatory proof. The phrase , emphatic in position, is in contrast with in the same position. is supposed by some to be the result of justification (Alford); by others, righteousness imputed and inherent (Ellicott); by others, the possession of (Wieseler). Righteousness is that by which a man becomes right before God-that on his possession of which he is rightened or accepted as righteous in God’s sight. Such a basis of justification may come through law, and be personal righteousness, but that is impossible for fallen man. The law which he has broken can only arraign him, convict him, and work his death; works of law can therefore in no sense justify him. Another provision has been made by God, and a righteousness wrought out by the obedience unto death of His Son, becomes his through faith. See under Php 3:9. It comes not , but ; and law and faith are antagonistic instrumentalities. But if righteousness did come by the law, then there was no necessity for Christ’s death. If man by works of law can justify himself, what need was there that Christ should die to provide for him what he can win for himslf?

-then, after all-standing first in the apodosis after the previous conditional sentence-then as an undoubted inference. Mat 12:28; Luk 11:20; 1Co 15:18; Klotz-Devarius, ii. p. 160.

does not mean in vain, frustra (Erasmus, Piscator), or (Theophylact), nor gratis, as often in classical use. Mat 10:8; Rom 3:24. From this meaning, nulla praegressa causa, it comes to signify sine justa causa. Tittmann, Synon. 1.161, gives it as nulla erat causa moriendi. Sept. 1Sa 19:5, -rendered in our version without a cause; Psa 34:7, -without cause they hid for me a net, rendered by Symmachus , but followed by ; used in both clauses. So Sir 20:23, -and made him his enemy for nothing; Joh 15:25, -they hated me without a cause,-quoted from Psa 34:19, . Gesenius and Frst, sub voce . If there can be righteousness through the law, Christ’s death was uncalled for-was gratuitous; . . , Chrysostom. The sense is not, if works are necessary, Christ’s death is ineffectual or in vain; but, if works can secure righteousness, Christ’s death was needless. But Christ’s death could not be needless, therefore righteousness comes not of the law; it is the purpose and result of the great atoning sacrifice. His theme is, I do not constitute myself a transgressor; the reason is given, I do not frustrate the grace of God; and then the proof contained in the last clause is added. The former declaration was connected with (Gal 2:17), and this similarly with the same particle-two conclusions alike absurd and impious, but to which the inconsistency of Peter assuredly led by necessary consequence.

What reply Peter made, or how his subsequent conduct at Antioch was shaped, we know not. Nor know we how the crisis ended-whether the believing Jews recovered their earlier freedom, or whether any compromise was brought about. Yet in spite of this misunderstanding and rebuke, evincing the superior consistency of one of the apostles, tradition, with the exception of the Clementines, has placed Peter and Paul on a similar level in many points. The Apostolical Constitutions (7:46) report Peter as saying, Evadius was ordained bishop by me at Antioch, and Ignatius by Paul; but whether simultaneously or in succession, cannot be ascertained. The same authority adds, that Paul ordained Linus the first bishop of Rome, and Peter Clement as the second bishop. Irenaeus says, again, that the church of Rome was founded a gloriosissimis duobus apostolis Petro et Paulo-a false assertion indeed, but showing what honour both apostles enjoyed. Contra Haeres. 3.3, 2; Opera, vol. i. p. 428, ed. Stieren. Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, as quoted by Eusebius (2:25), says, Peter and Paul planted us at Corinth, and likewise instructed us. And this is very much in the spirit of the Acts of the Apostles, where Peter is found vindicating free Pauline doctrine, and Paul goes into the temple to show that he walked orderly, while miracles similar in character are ascribed to each. We may hold this opinion without going the length of asserting that the Acts was written for the apologetic purpose of defending the apostolate of Paul, or of placing him on the same official standing as Peter. Baur, Schwegler, and Lutterbeck admit that, if judged by the first Epistle of Peter, there is no essential difference between the Pauline and Petrine doctrine. The original apostles are, indeed, found in the temple again and again after the ascension; but after what was agreed to by them at the council, they cannot be justly accused of Ebionitism. The address of Peter at the council pointed indeed at the free and untrammelled admission of Gentiles, while the modifications are proposed by James; but even these restrictions gave up circumcision-the initial rite, the necessity for submission to which had been so fanatically contended for,-and proposed only certain compliances with the national ritual, along with obedience to the law of chastity, for the breach of which Syrian idolatries and the Antiochene grove of Daphne afforded so many facilities and temptations. Still, that conformity to the Jewish ritual should prevail especially in Palestine, is scarcely to be wondered at. Eusebius enumerates fifteen bishops, all of the circumcision, who held office in Jerusalem prior to the last Jewish rebellion, the church being entirely made up of believing Hebrews, Histor. Ecc 4:5. Sulpicius Severus records: Namque tum Hierosolymae non nisi ex circumcisione habebat ecclesia sacerdotem . . . paene omnes Christum Deum sub legis observatione credebant. Chron. 2.31; Opera, vol. :36, ed. Halm, Vindobonae 1866. Jerome describes the church at Alexandria founded by Mark, Peter’s interpres et disciplus, as adhuc judaizans, that is, in the period of Philo, De Viris Illust. viii. But the insurrection under Bar Cochba brought the vengeance of Hadrian upon the capital, and by him the Jews were forbidden to enter it under its new heathen title of AElia Capitolina. Christians had on the other hand free permission to settle in this Roman colony; and then, the Jewish element being so thoroughly eliminated, the church elected Marcus as the first Gentile bishop or presiding elder. Probably Jews who had fully renounced Judaism, who had denationalized themselves in embracing Christianity, might also be enfranchised. But the exiled Jews of the stricter party, who clung to their old Judaism like ivy to a ruined tower, and clung to it all the more keenly on account of this proscription, repaired to Pella, their refuge under the first siege, and the Ebionite community so originated survived till the fifth century. In course of time the Christian element had nearly faded out among them, and, as Origen informs us, there was little left to distinguish them from ordinary Jews. There were, however, various modifications both in the theology and practices of the party; and a section called Nazarenes, the original Jewish appellation of believers, were noted for their more orthodox creed and for their stern anti-pharisaic tendencies. See Neander; Lechler, das Apostol. u. das nachapostol. Zeitalter, p. 235.

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Gal 2:21. To frustrate means to hinder or set aside. In accepting the law of Christ, Paul did not show any disrespect for God’s grace that was given to previous dispensations, but rather he was carrying out the very things that were divinely intended in those ages. (See the comments on verse 19.)

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Gal 2:21. I do not frustrate, or set at nought, make of no effect, nullify, as the Judaizers do with their assertion of the necessity of the law for justification.

The grace of God, which revealed itself in the infinite love and atoning death of Christ, Gal 2:20.

Christ died (not is dead, E. V.) for nought, or uselessly, gratuitously, i.e., without good cause; not in vain (i.e., without fruit or effect). If the observance of the law of Moses or any other human work could justify and save man, the atoning death of Christ would be unnecessary as well as fruitless. This blasphemous inference gives the finishing stroke to the false Judaizing gospel.

The power of this concluding argument Peter could not resist, and he no doubt felt ashamed and humbled at this overwhelming rebuke, as he did after the denial of his Master, although Paul, from discretion and kindness, says nothing of the result of this collision. The effect of it was long felt: to the Ebionites it furnished material for an attack upon Paul, to the Gnostics for an attack upon the Jewish apostles, to Porphyry for an attack upon Christianity itself. But Christianity has survived all these attacks, and gains new strength from every conflict

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The apostle concludes the chapter with a double argument, to prove the Christian’s justification by faith, without the works of the law.

1. Were it otherwise, we should frustrate and make void the grace of God: For if justification be by works, it can no more be by grace; according to the apostle, Rom 6:6.

2. Christ’s death had been in vain, without any necessary cause or reason at all, if the justification of a sinner could have been obtained by his own works.

Where note, that as well works done after faith and conversion, as those done before it, are excluded from being the meritorious cause of our justification, either in whole or in part; because the joining of works with faith, in the matter of our justification, is a total exclusion of God’s free grace, and a loud proclaiming, that Christ died in vain: If righteousness come by the law, I frustrate the grace of God, and Christ is dead in vain.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

I do not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought. [I do not, Peter, in following my course, make void the grace of God which gave us Christ. But your course does this very thing, for if a man can be righteous and obtain justification under the law, then the death of Christ is superfluous. Paul’s rebuke to Peter is not only a complete climactic justification of his claims as an apostle, but forms also a most fitting introduction, both in matter and spirit, to his immediately following rebuke of the Galatians, who were, like Peter, returning to the law.]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

2:21 {5} I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness [come] by the law, then Christ is dead {e} in vain.

(5) The second argument taken from an absurdity: if men may be justified by the Law, then it was not necessary for Christ to die.

(e) For there was no reason why he should do so.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Paul concluded by affirming that he did not set aside the grace of God, as Peter had done by his behavior. Peter had nullified God’s grace by implying that it was not enough. He did this by putting himself back under the Law, saying in effect that obedience must accompany grace to make it sufficient. If that is true, Paul ended, Christ died needlessly. It is then really obedience that saves, not Christ. [Note: For another exposition of 2:15-21, see J. Dwight Pentecost, Pattern for Maturity, pp. 105-15.]

The final verses of this section (Gal 2:18-21) form a bridge from Paul’s personal experience to his doctrinal explanation. In chapters 3 and 4 he continued his defense of faith alone as the only method of salvation.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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