Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Galatians 2:15-21

JEWS THEMSELVES WERE DRIVEN TO RESORT TO CHRIST AS SINNERS FOR PARDON BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT OBTAIN JUSTIFICATION BY PERFECT OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW NOT THAT THEY MIGHT THEREBY BECOME MORE FREE TO SIN, BUT FOR THE SAKE OF NEW LIFE IN CHRIST, EVEN AS PAUL HIMSELF ENDURED CRUCIFIXION WITH CHRIST, THAT CHRIST MIGHT LIVE IN HIM. Galatians 2:15. As the next verse opens, according to the Greek MSS., with εἰδότες δὲ, it is necessary to understand here a finite verb, We are Jews, etc.

The personal narrative breaks on abruptly at this point. Peter drops out of sight, and the Epistle passes from a protest against his vacillation into an elaborate argument against the doctrinal errors of the Pharisaic party, which forms too integral a portion of the whole Epistle to be detached from it. Yet the new strain of thought springs so directly out of the previous remonstrance that it might well have been addressed there and then to the Jewish Christians at Antioch. The outspoken protest against an insidious attempt to force on Gentiles the Jewish rule of life leads naturally to an enquiry what this rule has done for men who are Jews by birth. Did it justify them before God? We know that it did not: they had to turn to Christ for the peace with God which the Law could not give. In short, Galatians 2:15-21 are connected at once with the preceding matter and the subsequent; and apparently reproduce in substance an argument which had already been addressed, viva voce, to the circumcision-party at Antioch, whom the Apostle identifies in spirit and policy with the subsequent agitators in Galatia. οὐκ ἐξ ἐθνῶν ἁμ. This clause expresses pointedly the insolent contempt of the Pharisaic party for Gentiles, who did not belong to the holy nation nor inherit the Law and the Covenants. Yet in spite of these arrogant pretensions to superior sanctity (it is added) they were driven by the verdict of their own conscience to embrace the faith of Christ because they knew that no flesh could possibly be so perfect in obedience to Law as to be thereby justified.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Galatians 2:15-21

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