Only Grace

Greetings everyone.

Today, we will finish up Galatians 2 with a quick look at verse 21.  Here is my translation of the verse:  

I will not negate the grace of God. If I could somehow be made righteous through the law, Christ died for no reason. 

Paul has been making the arguments in this chapter that lead us up to this verse. Paul wants to make sure that he does not negate the work of grace in his life, because if somehow we could be righteous enough to earn, then Jesus suffered and died on Cross for no reason whatsoever.  Paul emphasizes this point: obedience to the Law will never make us righteous.  We can never be justified due to our obedience.  

Paul begins verse 21 with these Greek words.  Οὐκ ἀθετῶ  (ouk athetō).   Οὐκ means ‘not.’  So whatever ἀθετῶ means, Paul is saying he does not do it, in relationship to the grace of God.   According to The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, ἀθετῶ can mean any of these: 

1. To reject something as invalid, nullify, ignore. 
2. To reject by not recognizing something, reject, disallow.
3. To make of no account.  

In other words, Paul is saying that he will not make the grace of God to be of no account. So when we are looking for a means of justification, Paul is saying that no matter of obedience to the Law, or any kind of hybrid of grace and law, merits any kind of consideration.  Those ways of thinking negate or invalidate grace.  

He follows this by saying that if we could somehow be made righteous through obedience to the Law, then Jesus died for nothing, because grace isn’t grace any more.  It has become something else. 

So verse 21 is closely connected to the last phrase of verse 20, “the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself up for me.”  He described Jesus’s gracious action on our behalf on the Cross, and because of that, Paul will not set aside grace.  There is nothing that we could do in obedience to the Law that would possibly merit the Cross.  We cannot possibly earn it.  The conclusion: It is far better for us if we instead accept God’s gracious gift.  

Paul has been conituous driving this point home, and he will continue to do so.  I hope that the 1st Century Galatians got the message.  I hope we get it too.