Justification

Galatians 2:16 • 6 min. read • grade level: 10

Question: Gal. 2:16¹⁶Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. (Galatians 2:16). It has been lately asserted on the strength of ἐὰv μή in this verse, that, since it is by faith of Him who is the end and fulfilling of the law that men are justified, it involves in itself the full virtue of a legal righteousness. The apostle does not say, as he often does elsewhere, that man is not justified by works but by faith simply; but that he is not justified by works of law “except through faith of Jesus Christ,” that faith receiving as its portion not only a clearance from all legal blame, but by imputation the positive merit also of that righteousness of law, which, described by Moses, is found only in the man Christ Jesus and with the rest of His personal perfections carried to the account of those who have by grace their redemption and their acceptance equally in Him. It is by the obedience of One, as the same witness testifies, that the many are made righteous—language which, while harmonizing perfectly with the fundamental doctrine of sacrificial atonement, invites us to consider, not the definitive act of dying only by which the Son of God brought to its predestined close the course of His obedience here below, but the proved personal merit also of the man who gave Himself and all that He had shown Himself to be for our sins.....The tables of stone, fit emblems of its (the law’s) own unrelenting character, and also of the intrinsic strength and stability of that Man who should perfectly discharge its claims, have disappeared forever......No longer enmity, law is, in Christ, a part of that “great peace,” which is the eternal portion of them that, in the spirit of a justifying faith, serve still with their minds the law of God. Such is the statement: is it just?

Is it true, in short, that this is the natural force of the words ἐὰν μὴ διὰ Ἰησοῦ as contrasted with ἐκ πίστεως, and that it would be possible to justify the authorized version only on the assumption of a large ellipsis? “Man is not justified by works of law” (and therefore not justified at all), except by faith of Jesus Christ. Does the remainder of the verse, as it stands in the original, appear to forbid this?

Answer: I do not think the smallest doubt can rest on the sense of Gal. 2:16. We have only to read the rest of the verse to make the meaning of the apostle perfectly clear, and more than clear if possible, earnestly contradicting such a sense: ἐκ πίστεως Χριστοῦ καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ἒργων νόμου. That makes his meaning incontrovertible. But he adds, as anxious to insist on the point, διότι ἐξ ἒργων νόμου οὐ δικαιωθἡσεται πᾶσα σάρξ. How this can be an explanation that we shall be justified by works of law by the faith of Christ, I am at a loss to understand. But it is a mistake as to the force of εἰ μή or εἰ δὲ μή. Not that it is not used as “unless” or “except.” But its connection with the main idea of the previous phrase, and opposition to the manner there stated, is common: it is really stronger than ἀλλά, having the force of only, or but only. Compare Rom. 14:14¹⁴I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. (Romans 14:14), where the δι’ αὑτοῦ must be left out, and the unclean, or main idea taken by itself. Only in that case a thing is unclean, and the point is the opposition to the way or manner. It is exactly so here. There κοινός! is the common idea, justifying here, δἰ αὑτοῦ the special case hypothetically put and denied. Introduce δἰ αὑτοῦ into the second member of the sentence and you make nonsense of the whole. And so you do here if we read what follows. So Matt. 12:4⁴How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? (Matthew 12:4). It was not lawful for him to eat nor those with him, but only for the priests. So Luke 4:26, 27²⁶But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. ²⁷And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. (Luke 4:26‑27), but (or but only) to Sarepta, which was not in Israel: so as to Naaman. There is always the contradiction of or opposition to something in εἰ μή. The question is to what? In the first case it is of priests to common Jews; in Luke it is to “in Israel!” in Romans “by nature” or to him who so esteems it; in Galatians law and Christ; and always a common idea too, as in Matthew, lawfulness to eat; in Luke, widows or lepers; in Romans uncleanness; in Galatians, justifying. Hence the common idea is not uncommonly left out, and only εἰ δὲ μή put in, and the contradicting matter only stated. Meyer, Ellicott, De Wette, Hammond, Fritzsche on Rom. 14:14¹⁴I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. (Romans 14:14), all take it as “but,” or “but only” in Gal. 2:16¹⁶Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. (Galatians 2:16). The difference of ἀλλά seems to me to be that there is not necessarily a common point or subject as well as contrast, but simply contrast (not this, but that) with εἰ μή! there is always a common point about which the contrast takes place. But it is a great mistake to think that it makes the whole antecedent clause the common point, which is what the question would do, so that the clause following it is a condition simply of the whole. You may see the grammatical statements in Klotz’s Devarius, Hoogeveen or Viger, Βos’ Ellipses, and Winer 654, (sec 66), the rest under ti μή, and the Commentaries in loco. In both, passages from the classics will be found. The point of the difference of ἀλλά and εἰ μή has not been noticed that I am aware of! but I think it will be found just.