Galatians 2:17
17 But [de] if, [ei] while we seek [zeteo] to be
justified [dikaioo] by [en] Christ, [Christos] we [heurisko] ourselves [autos] also [kai] are found [heurisko]
sinners, [hamartolos] is therefore [ara] Christ [Christos] the
minister [diakonos] of sin [hamartia]? God forbid [me]. [ginomai] KJV-Interlinear
17 "But if, while seeking to
be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ
then a minister of sin? May it never be! NASB
The words, ‘while seeking,’ refers back to the previous
verse, ‘have believed in Christ.’
When Paul and Peter were seeking justification from
their own sins, they in their cultural upbringing, naturally looked to the works
of the Levitical law, which was written by Moses long ago.
The Law, which is found in the first five books of
the Bible, but primarily in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, delineates the
many moral and social rules for how one was to conduct themselves in order to
maintain some semblance of purity, as opposed to being ceremonially unclean.
None of these rules brought about salvation. Most if not all of the rules demonstrated
that man could not maintain a cleanliness within himself that was adequate to
satisfy Gods perfect mandates.
These things needed to be accomplished by someone
other than mere man, someone who was capable of fulfilling all of the moral
codes requirements and thus be perfectly qualified to pay the price of sin,
demanded by sin.
Sin is an opposition of truth, and therefore an
opposition of God. Sin is a corruption
and an evil which cannot sustain itself, nor even clean up itself.
God is perfection and cannot be tainted by sin in
any form, lest God becomes as sin is. If
God were tainted than all perfection would be gone and God would not be God.
Thus, it would take a person who was God but also
on the level of man, that was capable of accomplishing that cleansing process,
washing away sin forever.
As perfection, God can have no relationship with
sin. Therefore as sinners, man cannot
have a relationship with God unless mans sin is cleaned away for good. Since sin was incapable of self-cleaning, then
someone else would be needed in order to accomplish that cleaning process.
That someone of course is Jesus Christ.
Therefore, seeking justification in Christ is the
correct approach for salvation. Christ
did the work, not man. Christ
accomplished the work necessary for man to have salvation available to man.
To look for justification in ones own work, is
promoting sin to correct sin.
Therefore, if the works of the Law do not promote
or accomplish justification, then one cannot expect gentiles to adopt a system
that was never designed to do what many traditional Jews were demanding.
Justification was not by works for Jews, and
therefore it would not be accomplished through those same works for gentiles
either.
There was a Levitical purity accomplished through the
ritual rules, but these were there to teach mans inability and therefore mans
need for a Messiah and Savior, to accomplish that which man could not do for
himself.
To pursue justification through ones own works would
be to pursue sin in order to justify sin.
And if this were correct then Christ, or God, would
be the promoter of sin within sin. And
that is certainly not so, as Paul points out here.
Justification is obtained in Christ. And the wording here is ‘in Christ’ not ‘through
Christ’ and that is important, because Christ did the work, Christ accomplished
the work, and man had no part whatsoever in the work of salvation.
We approach the Father ‘through Christ,’ and this
indicates our effort in approaching as one would go through a door in order to
get from one place to another. And this is perfectly fine as it is the only
authorized means of approach, which we do whether you know it or not, within all
of your spiritual activities.
But ‘in Christ,’ acknowledges that all the work for
our spiritual existence was accomplish not by us, but only by Christ.
Therefore, human works are taboo, not authorized,
never accomplish anything, cannot sustain or obtain anything of a spiritual
nature.
So, whether you are a circumcised Jew, or a circumcised
any person, or an uncircumcised gentile or whomever, your justification to God
is not accomplished by means of what you do or do not do.
Faith and faith alone, which is believing in
Christ, is the only means of justification that is available to anyone.
