In the musical, The Phantom of the Opera, towards the end, the Phantom makes his move to bring Christine fully under his power. He commits murders and then she removes his mask on stage exposing him. He sings “Past the point of no return” arguing that there is now no going back, they are fully committed to the destiny he sees for them.
Is it possible to turn back? Margaret Thatcher once said “U-Turn if you want to …the Lady’s not for turning.” She was insisting that with her political agenda, she was fully committed, past the pointof no return.
Do you ever get cold feet as a Christian, wondering if there is a way back from the life you’ve committed to?
A look at the text (Read Galatians 2:15-21)
Central to Paul’s argument was that he and Peter both had inside knowledge and experience as Jeish believers themselves. They had grown up with the understanding that Jews were righteous and Gentiles were classified as “sinners” because they were outside of the Law (v15).[1] They’d learnt through experience that you cannot be “justified”, or made right with God by doing the good works that the Law required. Rather justification comes by believing in Jesus. That’s why they themselves had put their trust in Christ. Paul is emphatic that no-one can be made right with God by keeping the Law (v16).
The starting assumption of the Jews, as seen in verse 16 was that Gentiles were sinners and Jews were righteous. However, Peter and Paul, as Jews had discovered that they too were sinners, their Jewish Torah observance did not justify them. That was the logical conclusion of realising that they needed faith in Jesus. Did that mean that Jesus was in some way an “agent of sin”? Not only that but in their new life, they had already begun to live as though they were not under obligation to the law, such as by eating non kosher food and already mixing with Gentiles. They were living like Gentiles as so, in the old Jewish category of sinners.[2] It seems to have been frequently argued by those seeing to impose law observance onto Gentiles that if works were not effective and not required then people would live as they pleased. Was Paul by preaching Christ encouraging licentious hedonism? Paul insists “by no means” or “surely not” (v17). You see, Paul had insisted that justification, being right with God was by faith. If he insisted that, after all, you do need to be circumcised and keep the purity rules, this would in effect mean he was rebuilding the structure of Torah service that he had so systematically dismantled by preaching the Gospel and this would mean that since he (and Peter) had failed to consistently observe those rules, then they too were sinners because their obedience to the Law was patchy. They would be condemned again (v18).2
Paul insists that the Law has played its part, he hasn’t disregarded it. It was in a sense “through the law” that he came to salvation but not in the way normally assumed. Rather “through the law, he died to the law.” In other words, the Law brought the just condemnation of death. So Paul considered his old sinful self to have been crucified with Christ. His sinful nature was condemned on the Cross. He died to his old ways, in order to experience resurrection power and live to God. His argument is similar here to what we find in Romans 6 (v19-20).
Paul’s greater concern was not that he might nullify the law but that he might nullify God’s grace and so he is careful not to do this. The most crucial matter for believers in Jesus was not that they might make the law seem pointless but rather that they might make Christ’s death pointless and so make a mockery of the Gospel. Paul chooses to emphasise grace (v21).
Digging a Little Deeper
Paul’s point can be summed up as in effect, that it was no good for Jewish believers like him and Paul to go back on the implications of the Gospel. They could not simply return to their old beliefs and practices as though nothing had happened. They had been living like the Gentiles, acting as though the Law had no obligation on them. The result was that they now had become unclean. They belonged with the Gentile sinners, they had left the Mosaic Covenant behind. If they really were coming to the conclusion that you had to fully keep the Law in order to be free from condemntation, then they were not free. They were condemned by the Law. How then could they put things right for themselves. They were forcibly reminded that the only way that they could be right with God was through experiencing forgiveness through the atoning death of Jesus. They were more dependant upon grace than ever before.
A look at ourselves
Our priority should be to live consistent lives, lives that are consistent with our belief in God’s grace. Are there ways in which we can become inconsistent? If I start to believe that in any way that my relationship to God is dependent upon anything in me, or if I give that message to others Then I am being inconsistent, I am showing that I do not live under grace.
This is why it is important that grace saturates the culture of our churches. Sometimes, we can act as though people receive the good news and become Christians by grace but then heap up burdens and expectations on them. We lose grace in our culture. Sometimes, we allow what others have done to affect how we relate to them, they experience a decline in our love and care towards them. Yet if God loves them how can I choose not to or to love them less? These actions suggest that I’m attempting a U-Turn away from Grace.
There is no way back from grace to law. We shouldn’t make U-Turns.
[1] Keener argues that this is a summary of Paul’s speech to Peter. Keener, Galatians, 167.
[2] See Keener, Galatians 168. See also Moo, Galatians, 14-165. Commentators including Moo seem to see a conflict here between interpretations. Is Paul talking about pursuing justification through faith as his and Peter’s experience at conversion or post conversion. Moo and Keener settle for the latter. My view is that you cannot really separate these out.
Faithroots 