*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
We who are Jews by nature. Some, I am aware, think that this is stated in the form of an objection, (anthupophora,) anticipating what might be urged on the other side, that the Jews possessed higher privileges; not that they would boast of exemption from the law, (for it would have been highly absurd, that they to whom the Law was given should make this their boast,) but that there was a propriety in retaining some points of distinction between them and the Gentiles. I do not entirely reject, and yet, as will afterwards appear, I do not altogether adopt this view. Some, again, consider that it is Paul himself who uses this argument, "If you were to lay upon the Jews the burden of the law, it would be more reasonable, because it is theirs by inheritance." But neither do I approve of this view. He is now proceeding to the second part of his speech, which commences with an anticipation. The Gentiles differed from them in this respect, that they were "unholy and profane," (1-Timothy 1:9;) while the Jews, being holy, so far as God had chosen them for his people, might contend for this superiority. Skilfully anticipating the objection, Paul turns it to the opposite conclusion. Since the Jews themselves, with all their advantages, were forced to betake themselves to the faith of Christ, how much more necessary was it that the Gentiles should look for salvation through faith? Paul's meaning therefore is: "We, who appear to excel others, -- we, who, by means of the covenant, have always enjoyed the privilege of being nigh to God, (Deuteronomy 4:7,) have found no method of obtaining salvation, but by believing in Christ: why, then, should we prescribe another method to the Gentiles? For, if the law were necessary or advantageous for salvation to those who observed its enactments, it must have been most of all advantageous to us to whom it was given; but if we relinquished it, and betook ourselves to Christ, much less ought compliance with it to be urged upon the Gentiles." The word sinner, signifies here, as in many other places, a "profane person," (Hebrews 12:16,) or one who is lost and alienated from God. Such were the Gentiles, who had no intercourse with God; while the Jews were, by adoption, the children of God, and therefore set apart to holiness. By nature, does not mean that they were naturally free from the corruption of the human race; for David, who was a descendant of Abraham, acknowledges, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me," (Psalm 51:5,) but the corruption of nature, to which they were liable, had been met by the remedy of sanctifying grace. Now, as the promise made the blessing hereditary, so this benefit is called natural; just as, in the Epistle to the Romans, he says, that they were sprung from a "holy root." (Romans 11:16.) When he says, we are Jews by nature, his meaning is, "We are born holy: not certainly by our own merit, but because God hath chosen us to be his people." Well, then, we who were by nature Jews, what have we done? "We have believed in Jesus Christ." What was the design of our believing? "That we might be justified by the faith of Christ." For what reason? Because we "know that a man is not justified by the works of the law." From the nature and effect of faith, he reasons that the Jews are in no degree justified by the law. For, as they who "go about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God," (Romans 10:3,) so, on the contrary, they who believe in Christ, confess that they are sinners, and renounce justification by works. This involves the main question, or rather, in this single proposition nearly the whole controversy is embodied. It is the more necessary to bestow some care on the examination of this passage. The first thing to be noticed is, that we must seek justification by the faith of Christ, because we cannot be justified by works. Now, the question is, what is meant by the works of the law? The Papists, misled by Origen and Jerome, are of opinion, and lay it down as certain, that the dispute relates to shadows; and accordingly assert, that by "the works of the law" are meant ceremonies. As if Paul were not reasoning about the free justification which is bestowed on us by Christ. For they see no absurdity in maintaining that "no man is justified by the works of the law," and yet that, by the merit of works, we are accounted righteous in the sight of God. In short, they hold that no mention is here made of the works of the moral law. But the context clearly proves that the moral law is also comprehended in these words; for almost everything which Paul afterwards advances belongs more properly to the moral than to the ceremonial law; and he is continually employed in contrasting the righteousness of the law with the free acceptance which God is pleased to bestow. It is objected by our opponents, that the term "works" must have been employed without any addition, if Paul had not intended to limit it to a particular class. But I reply, there is the best of all reasons for this mode of expression; for, though a man were to excel all the angels in holiness, no reward is due to works, but on the footing of a Divine promise. Perfect obedience to the law is righteousness, and has a promise of eternal life annexed to it; but it derives this character from God, who declares that "they who have fulfilled them shall live." (Leviticus 18:5.) On this point we shall afterwards treat more fully in its own place. [1] Besides, the controversy with the Jews was about the law. Paul, therefore, chose rather to bring the matter to an issue, by meeting them at once on their own ground, than to adopt a more circuitous route, which might wear the aspect of evading the subject, or distrusting his cause. Accordingly he resolves to have a close debate about the law. Their second objection is, that the whole question raised was about ceremonies, which we readily allow. Why then, say they, would the apostle pass suddenly from a particular department to the whole subject? This was the sole cause of the mistake into which Origen and Jerome were betrayed; for they did not think it natural that, while the false apostles were contending about ceremonies alone, Paul should take in a larger field. But they did not consider that the very reason for disputing so keenly was, that the doctrine led to more serious consequences than at first view appeared. It would not have given so much uneasiness to Paul that ceremonies should be observed, as that the confident hope and the glory of salvation should be made to rest on works; just as, in the dispute about forbidding flesh on certain days, we do not look so much to the importance of the prohibition itself, as to the snare which is laid for the consciences of men. Paul, therefore, does not wander from the subject, when he enters into a controversy about the whole law, although the arguments of the false apostles were confined wholly to ceremonies. Their object in pressing ceremonies was, that men might seek salvation by obedience to the law, which, they falsely maintained, was meritorious; and accordingly, Paul meets them, not with the moral law, but with the grace of Christ alone. And yet this extended discussion does not occupy the whole of the Epistle; he comes at length to the specific question of ceremonies: but as the most serious difficulty was, whether justification is to be obtained by works or by faith, it was proper that this should be first settled. As the Papists of the present day are uneasy when we extort from them the acknowledgment that men are justified by faith alone, they reluctantly admit that "the works of the law" include those of a moral nature. Many of them, however, by quoting Jerome's gloss, imagine that they have made a good defense; but the context will show that the words relate also to the moral law. [2]
1 - See [2]p. 90.
2 - "The Papists will readily acknowledge that we are justified by faith; but they add that it is in part. Now this gloss spoils all; for they are convinced that we cannot be righteous before God, unless it be accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ, and unless we rely on that salvation which he has procured for us. The Papists see this very well; and therefore, with a careless air, they will say, We are justified by faith. But by faith alone? No. On this point they give battle, and this is the chief article on which we differ from them." -- Calvin's Sermons.
We who are Jews by nature - It has long been a question whether this and the following verses are to be regarded as a part of the address of Paul to Peter, or the words of Paul as a part of the Epistle to the Galatians. A great variety of opinion has prevailed in regard to this. Grotius says, "Here the narrative of Paul being closed, he pursues his argument to the Galatians." In this opinion Bloomfield and many others concur. Rosenmuller and many others suppose that the address to Peter is continued to Galatians 2:21. Such seems to be the most obvious interpretation, as there is no break or change in the style, nor any vestige of a transfer of the argument to the Galatians. But, on the other hand, it may be urged:
(1) That Paul in his writings often changes his mode of address without indicating it - Bloomfield.
(2) that it is rather improbable that he should have gone into so long a discourse with Peter on the subject of justification. His purpose was answered by the reproof of Peter for his dissimulation; and there is something incongruous, it is said, in his instructing Peter at such length on the subject of man's justification. Still it appears to me probable that this is to be regarded as a part of the discourse of Paul to Peter, to the close of Galatians 2:21.
The following reasons seem to me to require this interpretation:
(1) It is the most natural and obvious - usually a safe rule of interpretation. The discourse proceeds as if it were an address to Peter.
(2) there is a change at the beginning of the next chapter, where Paul expressly addresses himself to the Galatians.
(3) as to the impropriety of Paul's addressing Peter at length on the subject of justification, we are to bear in mind that he did not address him alone.
The reproof was addressed to Peter particularly, but it was "before them all" Galatians 2:14; that is, before the assembled church, or before the persons who had been led astray by the conduct of Peter, and who were in danger of error on the subject of justification. Nothing, therefore, was more proper than for Paul to continue his discourse for their benefit, and to state to them fully the doctrine of justification. And nothing was more pertinent or proper for him now titan to report this to the Galatians as a part of his argument to them, showing that he had always, since his conversion, held and defended the same doctrine on the subject of the way in which people are to be justified in the sight of God. It is, therefore, I apprehend, to be regarded as an address to Peter and the other Jews who were present. "We who were born Jews."
By nature - By birth; or, we were born Jews. We were not born in the condition of the Gentiles.
And not sinners of the Gentiles - This cannot mean that Paul did not regard the Jews as sinners, for his views on that subject he has fully expressed in Romans. 2; 3. But it must mean that the Jews were not born under the disadvantages of the Gentiles in regard to the true knowledge of the way of salvation. They were not left wholly in ignorance about the way of justification, as the Gentiles were. They knew, or they might know, that men could not be saved by their own works. It was also true that they were under more restraint than the Gentiles were, and though they were sinners, yet they were not abandoned to so gross and open sensuality as was the pagan world. They were not idolaters, and wholly ignorant of the Law of God.
We who are Jews by nature - We who belong to the Jewish nation - who have been born, bred, and educated Jews.
And not sinners of the Gentiles - Ἁμαρτωλοι· Not without the knowledge of God, as they have been. Ἁμαρτωλος often signifies a heathen, merely one who had no knowledge of the true God. But among the nations or Gentiles many Jews sojourned; who in Scripture are known by the name of Hellenists, and these were distinguished from those who were termed εξ εθνων ἁμαρτωλοι, sinners of the Gentiles - heathens, in our common sense of the word; while the others, though living among them, were worshippers of the true God, and addicted to no species of idolatry. Some have translated this passage thus: We Jews, and not Gentiles, by nature sinners; for it is supposed that φυσει here refers to that natural corruption which every man brings into the world. Now, though the doctrine be true, (and the state of man, and universal experience confirm it), yet it can neither be supported from this place, nor even from Ephesians 2:3. See the note on Romans 2:16. It appears, from the use of this word by some of the best Greek authors, that φυσει did not signify by nature, as we use the word, but expressed the natural birth, family, or nation of a man; to distinguish him from any other family or nation. I can give a few instances of this, which are brought to my hand in a small elegant pamphlet, written by Dr. Mnter, the present bishop of Zealand, entitled Observationum ex marmoribus Graecis Sacrarum Specimen, and which has been lent to me by the right honorable Lord Teignmouth, to whose condescension, kindness, and learning, many of my studies have been laid under particular obligation.
The word in question is the xxviiith example in the above pamphlet, the substance of which is as follows: In an inscription on a Greek marble, given by Dr. Chandler, page 27, we find these words Ὁ γαμβρος μου Λεων Αρτεμεισιου, ὁ επικαλουμενος Ιασων, οικονει μεν Μειλησιος, φυσει δε Ιασευς· "My son-in-law, Leo, the son of Artemisius, who is called a Jasian, is of the house of Milesius, though by nature he is from Jaso." That is: Jaso being a town of Caria, this Leo is said to be φυσει Ιασευς, by nature a Jasian, although he sprang from the Milesian family. The following examples will place this in a clearer light. Josephus, Ant. Jude., lib. xi. cap. vi. sec. 5, speaking of Amanes, the Amalekite, says: Και γαρ φυσει τοις Ιουδαιοις απηχθανετο, ὁτι και το γενος των Αμαλεκιτων, εξ ὡν ην αυτος, ὑπ' αυτων διεφθαρτο· "For he was by nature incensed against the Jews, because the nation of the Amalekites, from whom he sprang, had been destroyed by them;" that is, he had a national prejudice or hatred to the Jewish people on the above account. The following example from Dio Chrysostom, Orat. xxxi., is also to the point: Οἱγε (Αθηναιοι) τον δεινα μεν Ολυμπιον κεκληκασι, ουδε φυσει πολιτην ἑαυτων· "For they (the Athenians) called this person an Olympian, though by nature he was not their citizen;" that is, he was called an Olympian, though he was not naturally of that city, or, in other words, he was not born there. From these examples, and the scope of the place, we may argue that the words, we who are Jews by nature, mean, we who were born in the land of Judea, and of Jewish parents. And hence the passage in Ephesians 2:3, which speaks most evidently of the heathens, "and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others," may be thus understood: Being Gentiles, and brought up in gross darkness, without any knowledge of God, abandoned to all sensual living, we were, from our very condition, and practical state, exposed to punishment. This sense is at least equally good with that given of the words in Romans 2:16, where it is proved that φυσει, in several connections, means truly, certainly, incontestably; "we were, beyond all controversy, exposed to punishment, because we had been born among idolaters, and have lived as they did. Here both senses of the word apply.
(3) We [who are] Jews (o) by nature, and not (p) sinners of the Gentiles,
(3) The second part of this epistle, the state of which is this: we are justified by faith in Christ Jesus without the works of the Law. Which thing he propounds in such a way, that first of all he meets with an objection (for I also, he says, am a Jew, that no man may say against me that I am an enemy to the Law), and afterward, he confirms it by the express witness of David.
(o) Even though we are Jews, yet we preach justification by faith, because we know without any doubt that no man can be justified by the Law.
(p) So the Jews called the Gentiles, because they were strangers to God's covenant.
We who are Jews by nature,.... I Paul, and you Peter and Barnabas, and the rest of the Jews at Antioch. Some are Jews by grace, in a spiritual sense, as all are that are Christ's, that are true believers in him, that are born again, and have internal principles of grace formed in their souls, of whatsoever nation they be; see Romans 2:28. Others become Jews by being proselytes to the Jewish religion: such were the Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven, that were dwelling at Jerusalem, when the Spirit was poured down on the apostles on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:5, but these here spoken of were such as were Jews by birth; they were born so, were descended of Jewish parents, and from their infancy were brought up in the Jewish religion, and under the law of Moses, and in the observance of it:
and not sinners of the Gentiles: , "the wicked of the nations of the world", as the (l) Jews call them. Not but that the Jews also were sinners both by nature and practice, were involved in the guilt of sin, under the power of it, and defiled with it, as the apostle elsewhere most fully proves: nor is this said with regard to the vain opinion the Jews had of themselves, as very holy and righteous persons, who in their own apprehension needed neither repentance nor remission; and who looked upon the Gentiles as very unholy and unfit for conversation with them: but this more particularly respects that part of the character of the Heathens, that they were without the law, and were under no restraints, but lived in all manner of wickedness, without hope and God in the world, and so were notorious sinners, filled with all unrighteousness, profligate and abandoned to every evil work, and are therefore called emphatically "sinful men", Luke 24:7. And indeed the word Gentiles, among themselves is sometimes used for , "a certain most wicked part" of Gentiles in a city (m), and so may here design such who lived the most dissolute lives and conversations, to which the Jews are opposed, who had a written law, and were under a better regulation and discipline. The reason of this description, both in the positive and negative branch of it, is to observe, that since they, the apostles, and others, who were born Jews, and so under the law of Moses, and, until Christ came, were under obligation to observe it, but had now relinquished it, and wholly and alone believed in Christ for righteousness and life; then it was the most unreasonable thing in the world, by any means whatever, to lead the Gentiles, who never were under the law, to an observance of it.
(l) Mattanot Cehunah in Vajikra Rabba, fol. 164. 3. (m) Harpocratian. Lex. p. 93.
Paul, having thus shown he was not inferior to any apostle, not to Peter himself, speaks of the great foundation doctrine of the gospel. For what did we believe in Christ? Was it not that we might be justified by the faith of Christ? If so, is it not foolish to go back to the law, and to expect to be justified by the merit of moral works, or sacrifices, or ceremonies? The occasion of this declaration doubtless arose from the ceremonial law; but the argument is quite as strong against all dependence upon the works of the moral law, as respects justification. To give the greater weight to this, it is added, But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ the minister of sin? This would be very dishonourable to Christ, and also very hurtful to them. By considering the law itself, he saw that justification was not to be expected by the works of it, and that there was now no further need of the sacrifices and cleansings of it, since they were done away in Christ, by his offering up himself a sacrifice for us. He did not hope or fear any thing from it; any more than a dead man from enemies. But the effect was not a careless, lawless life. It was necessary, that he might live to God, and be devoted to him through the motives and grace of the gospel. It is no new prejudice, though a most unjust one, that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, tends to encourage people in sin. Not so, for to take occasion from free grace, or the doctrine of it, to live in sin, is to try to make Christ the minister of sin, at any thought of which all Christian hearts would shudder.
Connect these verses together, and read with most of the oldest manuscripts "But" in the beginning of Galatians 2:16 : "We (I and thou, Peter) by nature (not by proselytism), Jews, and not sinners as (Jewish language termed the Gentiles) from among the Gentiles, YET (literally, 'BUT') knowing that . . . even we (resuming the 'we' of Galatians 2:15, 'we also,' as well as the Gentile sinners; casting away trust in the law), have believed," &c.
We. You and I. Both Paul and Peter were Jews by birth, and not Gentiles sinners. As Jews were wont to call the Gentile heathen.
Knowing. There were certain facts that both of them knew. One of them was that men were justified (that is, forgiven) not by the works of the law (of Moses), but by the faith of Jesus Christ; that is, by the gospel. Both had believed on Christ in order that they might be justified.
For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. This passage, quoted in Romans 3:20, is found in Psalm 143:2.
But if . . . we were found sinners. We, Paul and Peter. We came to Christ for justification, because the gospel revealed to us that we were sinners, though professing to keep the law of Moses.
Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? Did Christ make us Jews sinners? No, but when the knowledge of the gospel comes, they find that they are and have been sinners like the Gentiles. Christ only reveals to them their sinful state.
If I build up again the things which I destroyed. Go back from Christ to Moses, and teach others to do the same.
I make myself a transgressor. For thus I teach men to trust in the works of the law which cannot justify.
For I through the law am dead to the law. Compare Romans 7:4-6, and see notes there; also Colossians 2:20. When the knowledge of Christ came, and he saw his faulty obedience to the law, he realized that he was dead in sin, slain by the law. But having died, he was freed from the law, when he became a new creature in Christ.
I have been crucified with Christ. By faith Paul was crucified at his conversion, crucified in the flesh, died to the old life with Christ. Now he lives, or rather, Christ liveth in him. The old life is laid aside, and the new life is a Christlike life, due to the spirit of Christ. He is now merged in Christ.
Live by faith. Faith is the bond that binds him to Christ and enables him to live the new life.
I do not frustrate the grace of God. He would do so, if he went back to the Jewish law, and trusted in it. If it gave righteousness, then the gospel was not needed, and Christ died in vain.
We - St. Paul, to spare St. Peter, drops the first person singular, and speaks in the plural number. Galatians 2:18, he speaks in the first person singular again by a figure; and without a figure, Galatians 2:19, &c. Who are Jews by nature - By birth, not proselytes only. And not sinners of the gentiles - That is, not sinful Gentiles; not such gross, enormous, abandoned sinners, as the heathens generally were.
*More commentary available at chapter level.