Here we may notice the great human objection to the gospel, as revealed by Christ to His servant Paul. Whoever preaches the same gospel is invariably charged with antinomianism, that is, the setting aside of the law in the sense of liberty to break it. Paul speaks of this, “(as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.” (Rom. 3:88And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just. (Romans 3:8).) And again, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” Read his answer. (Rom. 6:1-151What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 3Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7For he that is dead is freed from sin. 8Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 9Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 10For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 15What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. (Romans 6:1‑15).)
But what an answer to this insane charge against the gospel taught to Paul by Christ, in our chapter (Gal. 1:15-1615But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, 16To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: (Galatians 1:15‑16)): “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb,, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood,” &c. No one can read the conversion of Saul but must admit that it was by pure, unmerited favor. It was “by his grace,” or free favor. But he says, “it pleased God to reveal his Son in me.” Not only what He had done for him, but in him. Yes; God took up in free grace that mad persecutor against Christ, and said, My Son shall be revealed in him. The radiance of the glory shone into the earthen vessel. Even Christ, as the beloved Son, shone in him, and like Gideon’s broken pitchers, the radiance of the glory of Christ shone out of him. Yes; he could say, “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified IN my body, whether by life or by death.”
There is something worthy of God in this, to take up the man hater of the rejected Christ, and say, as it were, My rejected Son shall be seen in you, and be reproduced in you. Was this that he might break the law? Did not Christ far more than fulfill it? Paul was not dead to the law that he might break it; but for Christ that he might bring forth fruit unto God. Yes; thus it pleased God. And does it not still please God that each believer should be a reproduction of Christ? What a vocation! May we each walk worthy of such a calling. And, mark, it was not to preach mere doctrines, but “that I might preach him among the heathen.” Yes, Christ takes the place of law. Christ is the gospel.
So distinct and certain was the revelation Christ to Paul, that he needed no conference with men. He takes pains to show us that he did not go up to Jerusalem to be ordained by the other apostles. As we have seen, he derived no authority from them, and he knew absolutely nothing about apostolic succession. Three years after, he went up to Jerusalem to see Peter. He was with him fifteen days; yet, though he was there over two Lord’s days, he saw none of the other apostles, only James, the Lord’s brother. What a complete setting aside of all mere human authority.
Paul had to do directly with the Lord. One might have thought, in reading Acts 15, that he went up to Jerusalem about the law and circumcision, by circumstances: her it tells us it was by revelation. It was thus the will of God that the question should be settled, not at Antioch, but at Jerusalem, the very seat of Judaism, so that there should be no division. But that conference, he tells us, added nothing to him. Who, however, would have thought that the first principal person Paul would have to withstand in the defense of the gospel would be Peter himself? But so it was. He says, “I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.”
What was he to be blamed for? He treated the believers of Antioch, who were not under law, as if they were not fit to eat with—fearing those who had the law and Christ, and separating from those who had only Christ. This was not upright, but dissimulation. If they of the law were better than the believers without the law, then the gospel Christ had taught Paul was not true: plainly then. Paul must rebuke Peter. Ah, if Paul were here now, how many Peters would he have to rebuke? Is there not a growing determination to despise and shun all, or rather the few, that hold the doctrine of Paul? There are millions who are seeking to attain to righteousness and fitness for heaven by keeping the law in addition to the salvation they hope they have or may have in Christ. Every one of these are in uncertainty, and if sincere, in bondage and misery. For these we write.
Chapter 2:15. Let us now examine carefully the mode of Paul’s defense of the gospel of God. He begins with the believing Jews: “We Jews by nature. knowing that a man is not justified by the works of law, but by the faith [or principle of faith] of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by works of law; because on the principle of works of law shall no flesh be justified.” Here are two principles of justification so different that you cannot have both. The Jews had been on the one principle, seeking righteousness by works of law for 1500 years. They never could attain to righteousness on that principle, for there was not one righteous: on that principle all were guilty. They, the very people to whom the law was given, had now to give it up, in order that they might be justified on a totally different principle of faith.
And, further, this principle was the very gospel that Christ had revealed to and taught Paul. This shows how greatly Peter and all his imitators are to blame. For if the believer, justified in Christ, is still a sinner, unfit for those on the principle of law to eat with, then plainly Christ would be the minister of sin in having taught Paul such an error. There is no escape from this—He would in that case have led Paul to be a transgressor. He says: “For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” The principle of justification by faith, which Christ had taught Paul, destroyed the principle of justification by works of law. If, then, Paul now gave way to Peter, and built again the principle of works of law, this clearly involved the terrible fact, that Christ was the minister of sin in thus teaching him to set aside the one principle and establish the other. Thus the gospel was undermined by the dissimulation of Peter. Now, if this was the case then, is it not so now? This is surely as important question to examine.
It is most important in every way, not only as to peace with God, but to show that to rebuild the principle of justification by works of law is to make Christ the minister of sin; for it was He who first taught His honored servant the truth of justification by faith. This is most serious, when we remember, that the great party in Christendom for justification by works of law, not only would not eat with those who are justified on the principle of faith as taught by Christ to Paul, but they declare them cursed heretics; and when they Live the power will imprison, torture, and put to the most cruel death, every man, woman, and child, that dares to, believe the truth as thus taught by Christ!
But also, as a personal question, this subject is of the utmost importance. What is the effect to a soul to be under law? What effect had it had on Paul? “For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live to God.” The law had come with its righteous demands and had found him a guilty sinner before God, and it could only kill him. Righteous he could not be on that principle, for he was guilty. His just sentence was executed on his Substitute. But this was not, as we shall see, further on, that he might break it; no, it was, as he says, “That I might live to God.” The law could not give life, it could only kill—in Christ risen we live to God.
Paul now looks at the cross of Christ and says—mark it well—“I am crucified, with Christ.” I was once under law responsible to keep it; now I am crucified with Christ. There is the end of all my responsibility under law: the end of my whole self under law—crucified with Christ.
Have we accepted this solemn truth? If my old self is thus judged and executed, is there an end of me personally? It is true I am thus judged, thus executed, crucified: “Nevertheless, I; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” It is all Christ now. “And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Thus Paul defends the gospel. He had given up entirely the law, both as to righteousness and life. The Jew who was under law could never be justified by, or on, that principle, and had to give it up in order that he might be justified on the principle of faith. He was guilty, and law could not justify the guilty—it could only kill; therefore he had to be dead to it in order that he might live by Christ being his life—living in him.
He now becomes bolder. To introduce the law for righteousness would be to frustrate the grace, or free favor of God; yea, it would be to declare that Christ had died in vain. This is how he puts the matter “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by law, then Christ is dead in vain.” (Chap. 2:21.)
Do you say, This is very strange. I have been taught from my infancy to seek to be righteous by keeping the law. It was hung up before my eyes, and I was taught to pray that I might keep it—in a word, I have been taught to seek righteousness by keeping it, just as a Jew was for anything I see. Now be very careful here: tell us what has been the effect of all this teaching? And what has been your desire, your object, in all your efforts and prayers to keep the law? Has it not been that you might attain to righteousness, so as at last to be saved? Now, candidly, have you not been entirely disappointed? You are not fit for heaven; you are not righteous; you have not peace with God; you do not even know that you have eternal life. Nay, further, the more you pray and seek after righteousness by keeping the law, the more sin you discover to be in you. And the truth is, sin in some form or other has dominion over you. You are not what you want to be, you are not what you ought to be. You are doing the things which perhaps you hate, and you cannot do the good that you long to do. Oh, do you not see that you are praying and striving to frustrate the grace of God? There would be no grace or free favor in it, if you could attain to righteousness by keeping the law. God tells you, you are a ruined sinner under judgment, and you pray and strive to prove it is not so. Do not forget that if the doctrine that thousands are preaching be true„ that righteousness comes by law, “Then Christ is dead in vain.”
Yes, that very law which can only kill, and which God gave to prove to man his lost and guilty condition before Him, that very law Satan now uses to frustrate the grace of God, and thus, if possible, to make the death of Christ to be in vain. Well might the apostle call these deceivers, who were seeking to draw Christians back under law, the ministers of Satan. (Gal. 5:7-97Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? 8This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. 9A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. (Galatians 5:7‑9); 2 Cor. 1:13-1513For we write none other things unto you, than what ye read or acknowledge; and I trust ye shall acknowledge even to the end; 14As also ye have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus. 15And in this confidence I was minded to come unto you before, that ye might have a second benefit; (2 Corinthians 1:13‑15).)
Before we close this important chapter, let us recall the illustration of the redemption of a slave. The ransom has been paid by a kind friend as an act of free favor. Liberty is proclaimed to the slave. Believing that act of kindness, without a penny of his own, he is free, He is told that it is all very well as far as it goes; but he must not have the presumption to so, really believe the kindness of that friend, or to be quite sure he is free—indeed, he must now pray, and work hard, in order to attain or obtain his liberty, he must, in fact, still wear his chain, and toil on, and only hope to be free at last, if ever. Is not this an illustration of the bulk of Christendom? If he follows this fatal advice does he not entirely frustrate the kindness of his friend? If he obtains his freedom by works, then the ransom was paid in vain. is it not exactly so with every soul seeking righteousness on the principle of works of law? If even he could obtain it, and be justified before God, on the principle of works, would he not thus frustrate the kindness and grace of God in giving His Son? Would you, if you could, like thus to prove that Christ died in vain? For just as if the slave can obtain liberty by his own works,—then the ransom need not have been paid; in like manner, if you can be justified before God by your works, then Christ need not have died.