If we’re going to understand the Christian life one of the things we have to understand is the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Old Covenant is the Covenant God made with Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai. In that covenant God bound Himself to the nation of Israel and they became His possession out of all the other nations, or as He says through the prophet Amos, “You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth.” (3:2) In that covenant God gave them honors and privileges to mark them out as His chosen people – this included the Law, the prophets, the temple worship, the sacrificial system, the land, circumcision and so on. Central to this covenant was the emphasis on marking the Israelites out as God’s, and marking them out from all other people. They were to see themselves as belonging to their God, they were to observe all his commands and to be “clean” before Him. This covenant produced a psychology of separation – Israelites separated from Gentiles. They were not to think of themselves as being like other nations because they weren’t.
The New Covenant, however, is not like the Old Covenant. It is another covenant God has made. It was first promised in Jeremiah, and it has been established through the blood of Jesus Christ. Membership in this new covenant comes through faith in Jesus Christ – not ancestry. The high priest of this covenant is Jesus Christ – not Aaron. The temple of this covenant is the whole community who has faith – not the one of stones in Jerusalem. The New Covenant includes people from every tribe, tongue and nation – not merely those in Israel. Circumcision in the New Covenant is of the heart done by the Spirit – not in flesh by man like in the Old Covenant. Forgiveness is full, absolute and complete in the New Covenant, based on the shed blood of Jesus Christ, who is the One True Lamb of God who died for our sins – not like the the Old Covenant system of the blood of animals. The New Covenant is the real substance, the Old Covenant the shadow of the real. The Old Covenant was lived out in the Law, the New Covenant is lived out in the Spirit. The Old Covenant divided Jew from Gentile, the New Covenant unites Jew and Gentile.
Our passage this morning is verses 17-18, and at first these are very confusing couple of verses. Let me begin by summarizing them. Then we will break them into several pieces for us to study and understand more clearly.
SUMMARY: The basic point of these two verses is that a person does not become a lawbreaker by abandoning the Law, but by following it. Sin increases when a person is obligated to the Law, not when they are free from it.
Jews who trust in Christ have come to realize that they are sinners like Gentiles, and like Gentiles they can only be justified by faith in Christ. The law can’t justify them – it can only condemn them. What is more, as Jews, when turning to Christ it requires they turn away from the law as a hope for righteousness. So then, for a Jew to turn back to the law after becoming a Christian would result in them becoming a lawbreaker. Again, to summarize the point of these two verses: the law does not cause people to become less sinful, but more sinful.
CONTEXT
In verses 11-14 Paul described his rebuke of Peter for separating from Gentile believers based on old Jewish ways of the law. Paul told Peter that it was hypocritical to live like a Gentile, but then make Gentiles live like Jews. In other words, Peter ate with Gentiles, which was forbidden for Jews, but then he gave into Jewish pressure and withdrew from those Gentile brothers – based on old Jewish ways of the law requiring separation from Gentiles because they were unclean. Then Paul said in verses 15-16 that all of them as Jewish Christians understand now that there is no “us” and “them,” and that Jews are sinful like Gentiles, and like Gentiles Jews are justified by faith. So for all of them as Jewish Christians to understand these things, they should not then be
We will travel under 2 headings: 1) Christ Does Not Promote Sin, 2) The Law Makes Me A Lawbreaker
CHRIST DOES NOT PROMOTE SIN (v17)
In verse 17 Paul addresses a misconception, and in verse 18 he corrects it. Here in verse 17 the misconception is that Jesus Christ promotes sin, “…READ….”
Notice Paul’s question: “Doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin?” There is some idea that Paul is bringing up in verse 17 that is a common misconception. That misconception is somehow leading people to the false conclusion that Christ promotes sin. What is that misconception? Lets look at the misconception and then how it leads into the faulty view that Christ is the promoter of sin.
Look at the first part of the verse, “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves among the sinners…..does that mean Christ promotes sin?” Paul is talking about himself and all other Jewish Christians. He is saying that he and all other Jewish Christians have looked to Christ to be justified. That means, according to verse 16, that they have put their faith in Jesus Christ to be right with God and before God. It also means, according to verse 16, that they have renounced any reliance on works of the Law to be justified – we’ll come back to that in a moment.
But he then says in verse 17 that somehow, for Jews, by putting their faith in Jesus Christ, they – as Jews – “find themselves among the sinners.” So the question we would ask is this: how does a Jew end up “among the sinners” merely by their faith in Jesus Christ? In what way does turning to Christ mean they are counted among sinners? There are several ways this is answered by commentators. I’ll offer the two that make very good sense.
First, being found “among the sinners” means that Jews realized they are sinners before God too just like Gentiles. It referred to the new realization Jewish Christians had of how one is saved. Don’t underestimate this massive shift in a Jew’s mind. If a Jew realized they could only be justified by faith in Jesus Christ, just like Gentiles, then they had to abandon the thought that having the Law as a Jew somehow justified them before God. Remember verse 15 “We who are Jews by birth and NOT SINFUL GENTILES…” We explained last week that Paul was picking up on that common Jewish misconception that Gentiles were sinners for being Gentiles and Jews were not sinners because they were not Gentiles.
But a Jewish Christian stepped into a whole new understanding – one where they realized that merely being Jewish and having the Law did not justify them before God, and that like “sinful Gentiles” they too as Jews were sinful and needed justification the same way as Gentiles – through faith. So, the first sense of being found “among the sinners” means that Jews realized they are also sinners before God, just like Gentiles.
A second sense of Jews being “among the sinners” is that Jewish Christians were now fellowshipping with Gentile Christians. That by hanging out with and eating with Gentile Christians they were now “among the sinners.” Many Jews were very critical of Jewish Christians for doing this. The reason was because they were not abiding by the Law’s requirement that Jews keep strict separation from Gentiles. Turn to Acts 10:28 and 11:2 with me and see this conflict in action….
So Jewish Christians began fellowshipping with Gentile Christians and abandoning the rules of separation in the law, and thus they were “among the sinners.” This was causing no small amount of alarm among the Jewish community – and it was causing no small amount of criticism.
That criticism of Jewish Christians was pushing further, and this is what Paul is talking about in verse 17. The criticism went so far as to say, “If in following Jesus neither Jews nor Gentiles are required to follow the Law, then sin will increase. Therefore, Jesus must be the promoter of sin.” Paul says “Absolutely not!”
The idea of people not being obligated to the law causes a misconception in people’s minds – both then and today in the Church – that the Law is somehow a guardrail keeping people from going off into wild sinful living. Back then having the law gave an identity of righteousness – so without it that was lost. Back then Jews would have followed rules such as circumcision and washings and dietary restrictions and separation from Gentiles as part of their conception of what is righteous. So abandoning the law and the obligation to those sorts of rules made them alarmed that they would lose their distinction from unclean Gentiles and then start living like pagan Gentiles. Today, Christians often think that enforcing the Law and teaching Christians to follow it is somehow the way that Christians live righteously in Christ. Furthermore, many Christians think that the law is the set of rules that we are now able to follow because we are Christians. This is all error. This is all misconception. A Christian is not under the law – but dead to it and free from it. Jesus Christ requires setting aside the Law to have faith in Him – but that does not then mean that Christ promotes sin. Lets look at the next verse to see why.
THE LAW MAKES LAWBREAKERS (18)
The next point is simple: The Law makes lawbreakers, “If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.” Paul explains in verse 18 the misconception in verse 17. It is not abandoning the law for Christ that results in sin, instead, it is turning from Christ back to the law that results in promoting sin. Verse 18 says that to truly be a lawbreaker, it requires rebuilding something that was destroyed. So what is it Paul is referring to that was “destroyed,” and should not be “rebuilt?” What is it that is destroyed, that in rebuilding it I become a lawbreaker? The answer is a life of Law-keeping. A life attempting to live by works of the Law.
When he and Peter and any other Jew turned to Christ they turned away from the Law. Abandoning a Law-keeping life is what Paul means here when he says, “what I destroyed.” A Jew who saw themselves as obligated to the Law but then found Christ was essentially destroying that old life of law-works by leaving it behind and stepping out in freedom through faith in Christ.
How do we know that the “law” is what Paul has in mind? How do we know that is what he means by destroying and rebuilding here? We know the Law is what Paul has in mind because this is what the entire context is about. Follow along with me:
- In verse 14 he faults Peter for requiring Gentile Christians to follow Jewish customs (meaning the Law)
- Then in verse 16, Paul says 3 times that the works of the Law cannot justify us.
- He says after our passage today in verse 19 “For through the Law I died to the Law” – meaning I don’t live for the law or by the law anymore – I died to that life of law-keeping (v19), which is saying the same things as verse 18 that I “destroyed” that life (18), .
- Then in verse 21 he declares righteousness cannot be gained by the law.
- Then in chapter 3:2-5 he begins a stern rebuke of his Galatian readers for turning back to the law after becoming Christians [READ]
So we know the law is what Paul has in mind because it is the focus of the whole passage. Verse 18 means this then: “If I destroy a life of law-keeping by abandoning it, only to then go back and try and rebuild a life based on keeping the law, then I would really, actually, truly become a lawbreaker. The example in Paul’s mind was Peter, who in verses 11-14 was wrong to return to the Law’s old ways and separate from the Gentiles. He was “rebuilding” what he had destroyed, and in doing so he became a lawbreaker, sinning against Christ and his Gentile brothers.
When Paul says, “I would really be a lawbreaker” this is a really important point he’s making. Returning to a life of following the law would result in truly becoming a lawbreaker. Here’s the radical thought that needs to be driven home: the Law is the real promoter of sin. Follow what I’m saying very carefully: the Law promotes sin not in the sense that God delights in sin, but rather the Law promotes sin in that it is meant to increase sin and bring out all the sinfulness within man to prove how sinful man really is. Hear this carefully: following the Law only leads to breaking it. We saw last week all those verses explaining that the Law’s purpose was to expose our sin and make us conscious of our sinfulness. But the Law not only exposed our sin – it increased it. The two ways that the Law increases sin are: it excites sin and it accounts for it.
First, the Law excites sin – thus increasing it. Turn to Romans 7:5 and 8. Notice how
Second, the Law accounts for sin – thus increasing it. Turn to Romans 5:13 and 20. This makes clear that things didn’t become sinful only when the Law finally was given. What this means is that sin has always been sin, and sin has always been happening in the world – before the Law and then after the Law came. The Law wasn’t given at the beginning of human history, but sin has been happening since the beginning. But in order for God to “take into account” sin for what it was, the Law was given. The Law was given to show what the standard of righteousness is and therefore show all the sin going on that was in violation of that standard.
APPLICATION: The Law is the standard of divine righteousness and when we are sensing our enormous failure to measure up to it we are then understanding it right. Look at the law, see how it condemns you, and you are on the right track.
CONCLUSION:
Faith Alone
Faith from Beginning to End