Galatians 2:15-18

Galatians 2:15-18New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. 

One of Paul's famous passages on justification.

It's good I think to parse out of these passages some of the themes that might cause confusion for those who don't think about justification every day!

First, it's important to remember that what started Paul here was the idea of the Jewish Christians of Galatia demanding that new Gentile Christian men be circumcised.  That was the specific law that began this thread of thinking for Paul in this passage.

That is not to say that it doesn't not apply to other things and ways today that we try to justify ourselves.

Which we do do - all the time, really.

What is justified anyway?

It is being made righteous with God. Being vindicated. 

For the entire Jewish history since Moses, there had been a code of laws that had done that justifying, but Paul wants it clear that all of that is meaningless now. In Christ we are fully free.  The wrong has been righted.  Christ took all the violence and sin human beings could throw on him and died with it on the Cross.

And then in his resurrection, he showed how meaningless it all is.

But, Paul shows how we still forget.  We still build up those structures of trying to produce our own righteousness.  We might not require circumcision anymore, but I'll be you can think of things we require of other Christians in our tribe that we see as righteousness.

What might those be?

Lord we have been deemed righteous by you. Help us to remember that and to live that righteousness out in true freedom and love. Amen