Galatians 2:21

‘I do not make void the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the Law then Christ is dead in vain.'

The suggestion from this verse is that others do make void the grace of God, for they insist that righteousness comes through the (impossible) strict observance of the Law and obedience to the covenant. It may even be that some had said that Paul made void the grace of God because he rejected the Law and covenant so graciously given. But, he says, it is not he who makes void the grace of God, it is they.

For God's grace, God's free unmerited goodness and favour, revealed in action in the giving of Christ, and through Him of His Spirit, is upheld and glorified through Paul's teaching, for in it Christ is all. But in their teaching He is diminished and His death is in vain, for in their case it is the righteousness that they seek through the Law is what finally matters, the righteousness that they can never achieve. That is their be all and end all. They do not see their salvation as being as a result of the activity of God, but as arising out of their own activity. They are failing to rest on the grace of God. And yet it is available to no one in their way, for none can fully keep the Law. However hard they strive they will never achieve it, and thus they will die, and Christ's death will have been in vain. Indeed they no longer leave any reason for Christ to die. For if the main basis of salvation is their own righteousness attained by keeping the Law, then the old sacrifices would be sufficient. That would then be to make Christ's sacrifice unnecessary. It is clear therefore clear that faith in Christ alone, and in His saving work alone, is our only hope, and is the only way by which we can magnify the grace of God. It is by saying ‘God has done all'. All I have done is let it happen to me, and even that I could do nothing about. I have responded because I had to. I have heard because He has spoken (John 10:27).

In finishing this section we must draw attention to one fact. What Paul is against here is not the Law, but the Law looked on as a means of salvation, as a means of maintaining a covenant relationship with God. Elsewhere he says ‘the Law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good' (Romans 7:12). As a pattern, especially as revealed in Jesus Christ, it is without compare. But his point is that as a way of salvation its standards are too good. It is beyond us. If it is seen as the means of our salvation it can only destroy us.

But once we have been crucified with Christ and have died to the Law, we will begin to fulfil it from glad hearts because we will allow that greatest of all Law-keepers, the One Who alone kept it to the full, to live through us His glorious life of obedience. But always we must remember that our salvation is through His grace and His power, brought home to us when we came to the cross, and continually at work within us as we allow the crucified and risen One to live through us (Philippians 2:13). Never must we think that it results from our keeping of the Law, because we will never, and in this life never can, do that satisfactorily.