Annie and I have certain favorite TV shows. One of them is Hercule Poirot – the brilliant Belgian detective who uses his “little gray cells” to solve crimes. Poirot is actually the most successful and popular character of the world famous author, Agatha Christie – who is the best selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold over 2B copies and been translated into over 100 languages.
Here’s the thing: no one plays Poirot like David Suchet. He is Poirot – and there could never be anyone else. He is fantastic. What is interesting for us today however is when I was reading his book on playing Poirot he described the incredible responsibility he felt in trying to successfully bring Poirot to TV. By successful he meant to represent Poirot on screen as he was in the novels.
There had been several other actors who tried playing Poirot, but they didn’t do Agatha Christie’s character justice at all. Suchet said it this way: “THE CHARACTER I WAS READING I HAD NOT SEEN PORTRAYED BEFORE ON THE SCREEN.” What he lamented was that other actors had failed to bring him to life on the screen – they all portrayed Poirot more in their own image, their own style. Thus, Suchet complained no one had ever shown the true Poirot on screen before – the one created by Christie and beloved around the world. And he felt a deep obligation to bring the true Poirot out.
So Suchet threw himself into studying every little detail of Poirot – especially the quirky ones. He kept a list that numbered more than 80 and he practiced until he felt he had perfected the Poirot on page.
What David Suchet said about playing Poirot is true for God’s righteousness as well: “No one has ever seen righteousness faithfully portrayed.” In human history there has never been a man who has taken the picture of righteousness that God has given in His “book” and been able to act it out faithfully. Just like David Suchet wanted to “become the voice of the author” in his acting – meaning to be exactly what the author created the character to be – so also no man has ever become righteousness the way the divine Author intended. No one has ever been able to live out the righteousness of what God has authored.
What does this mean? It means that no one has ever or could ever live righteously enough to be approved by God. What God requires, and what He has explained regarding righteousness, has never been lived out before by any man. Except one: Jesus Christ.
Verse 21 is the final verse in chapter 2. Lets summarize whats happened so far in this passage. In verses 11-14 we see an event where Peter sins by withdrawing from Gentile believers, pulling back from the new Christian ways and reverting to old Jewish Law ways. Paul confronts him over this explaining how hypocritical it was. As Paul describes this event here in Galatians he then goes on to explain the theology that was behind his rebuke of Peter. In other words, Paul was laying out the Christian doctrines and ways of thinking that Peter sinned against, so that it was clear to the Galatians why it was sin.
Peter was treating the Gentile Christians like they were unclean because they didn’t follow the Law of Moses and so he had to stay separated from them – like the Law and Jewish customs required. Peter was under the New Covenant, but acted in that moment like he was under the Old Covenant.
The summary of verses 15-20 are that Jews and Gentiles are equally sinners before God and are both saved by faith. Having the law doesn’t save any Jew and no Jew can follow the Law so as to be justified before God. Paul also explains that when they as Jews start following CHrist they leave the Law of Moses behind and are not to return to it, but instead they have died to it, and now they have Christ living in them in this new life they’ve received by faith.
Which leads us to verse 21, “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the Law, Christ died for nothing!”
We will go through our verse today under three sections: 1) Setting Grace Aside, 2) Impossible Righteousness, and 3) Wasting the Cross
SETTING GRACE ASIDE
First we see “Setting Grace Aside.” Paul says, “I do NOT set aside the grace of God….” Paul is emphatic here that he does NOT set the grace of God aside.
What does that mean to “set aside” the grace of God? The word means things like to “nullify” or “invalidate” or “disregard.” It has the sense of rejection and casting something off. We see it used in lots of other places in the NT.
- Jesus told the Pharisees that they have “a fine way of setting aside the commands of God to follow their own man made rules.” (Mark 7:9). They disregarded God’s commands, they cast off God’s commands, they invalidated God’s commands so that they could make their own rules
- Its translated as “frustrate” as well, as in 1 Corinthians 1:19, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Their intelligence will be invalidated, nullified, cast off and rejected by God
- Its seen in many other places, but Paul uses the word again in Galatians in 3:15, “Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established….” If a covenant has been established, it cannot be invalidated or nullified or cast off. It cannot be rejected and then rendered ineffective. The covenant is binding and the terms will be fulfilled.
Here Paul says that he does not invalidate the grace of God – he does not set it aside. He upholds it, stands by it and in it. He rejects anything that would contradict it or undermine it. He would not allow the grace of God to be done away with in his ministry or in the hearts and minds of the Galatians.
Lets connect the dots: Grace means unearned favor and blessing. God’s grace for us is that favor He gives us that we not only have never deserved, but it is His favor freely given us when we fully deserve His condemnation. It is by grace you have been saved, not works! Ephesians 2:8-9 declares. But that is not all since Paul already said in Galatians 1:6 that we have been called to LIVE in the grace of Jesus Christ. Living in grace means the grace that saved us is also a grace life we go forward living in the rest of our lives. We do not start with grace to get saved only to then switch back to the Law to live our lives. We do not set aside the grace of God to turn back to living under the law. We walk now, Romans 7 and Galatians 5 say, in the new way of the Spirit – not the law.
APPLICATION: Stand firm in God’s grace. Live in God’s grace. Do not turn away from, fall away from or set aside the grace of God. But stand firm in it.
IMPOSSIBLE RIGHTEOUSNESS
The second heading today is “Impossible Righteousness.” Look again at verse 21, “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.” “IF righteousness COULD be gained THROUGH the law…” But it can’t. Righteousness absolutely canNOT be gained through the Law. Therefore Christ did NOT die for nothing. His death means everything! We’ll get to that next.
But I want to emphasize the impossibility of righteousness. Just like no one had ever represented Poirot accurately, no man has ever or could ever represent God’s righteousness accurately. God’s righteousness is an impossible righteousness for man. Look again at verse 16 “a person is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too [Jews] have put our faith in Jesus Christ that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”
As we’ve been seeing the last number of weeks, the law is NOT a roadway for us to become righteous. As we’ve seen in this whole section: the purpose of the law is not to make us righteous but to prove our unrighteousness. Never forget what Romans 3:20 so plainly states, “No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”
APPLICATION: Do not try to be righteous. Do not TRY to be righteous in any way at all. It is impossible to be righteous on your own. Instead, accept the gift of righteousness God gives. This is the Gospel: you can never earn righteousness by works – you can only accept it as a gift. Stop trying. Start accepting what is being freely offered. The same Paul who wrote Galatians said this in Philippians, “I do not have a righteousness that comes from the law, but rather I have a righteousness that comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ.” (3:9)
WASTING THE CROSS
Our final heading is “Wasting The Cross.” Look at verse 21 again, “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.”
Did Christ die for nothing? Absolutely not! The necessity of the cross is based on the impossibility of righteousness. If man could be righteous in any other way than through Christ crucified for sins than His death on the cross is for nothing. But the death of this One man demonstrates that no man can ever live – no man can ever live without the death of that one man.
The cross is not one option among many to achieve justification and righteousness. The cross is the only option. The grace of God is only in the cross of Jesus Christ. Every man and every woman needs God’s grace and the only place to find it is at the cross. At the cross two things converge: the wrath of God and the grace of God. Jesus went to the cross to suffer God’s wrath for all our sins, so that if anyone would then go to the cross they would find the grace of God. There is no other place to receive the grace of God than at the cross where God’s Son was crucified for you.
APPLICATION: Go to the only place where God’s grace is offered: the cross. If you go anywhere else you will be wasting the death of Christ – a sin God will never forgive.
CONCLUSION
The family of Agatha Christie was overjoyed with the performance of David Suchet’s acting. They believed their mother would have been elated at seeing the Belgian detective she created on paper, alive on the screen in the actor, David Suchet.
Similarly, when it comes to divine righteousness, there is only one person who has perfectly “acted” it out. That actor on the stage of history is Jesus Christ. He is called the Holy One and the Righteous One of God. He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He fulfilled it perfectly when every single other human being in history failed miserably to live up to and live out that righteousness of the law.
That righteousness is the only way any of us will ever see eternal life. That righteousness cannot be achieved – it can only be received. As a gift. Receive it today.