Clearly I was Justified 

My dad was a #girldad before it was cool. He had four daughters and never acted like he was disappointed he didn’t have a son, even with me, number 4. He taught us the essentials: how to play basketball, how to shoot a gun, how to change a tire. He also encouraged us to defend ourselves, especially against snotty-nosed boys. So when two boys were playing keep away with my purse in homeroom before school started, I knew I had to stand up to them. I asked them nicely a few times to give it back. When they didn’t, I punched one of them in the nose. He started bleeding so profusely, he ran to the bathroom to try to get it to stop. There was a blood stained handprint on the boy’s bathroom door until a janitor could come clean it up. The warning bell rang. Before we took our seats, I told the other boy I had to punch him too…just to be fair. He said okay but not in the nose. So I punched him in the eye. These events led to me going to the principal’s office and earning a detention after school. The punishment would likely be much more severe today.

Shortly after this was our sports awards banquet. The boy I punched in the nose was pointing me out to his parents. I started to shrink back, but then my daddy put his arm around me like he was proud. In essence, he was teaching me these boys had it coming and clearly my actions were justified.  

I don’t think that’s what Paul had in mind when he was defending the Truth of Justification, but I leaned into my daddy’s hug just a little more, feeling his protection as he dared anyone to say otherwise.  

The Justification for Justification 

If you recall, Galatians is the first book Paul wrote. He had to get the central doctrine of Justification correct. It is the basis of his later letters. His missionary base of Antioch was the location of the first Gentile church and where Paul opposed Peter to his face for being hypocritical. Peter withdrew from Gentile Christians he had been enjoying sweet fellowship with because he feared the Circumcision Party that required Jewish regulations be followed in order to be saved.  

Paul explains in Galatians 2:15-21 why he was willing to engage in this head on collision with a fellow Apostle. It’s simple really. The Truth of the Gospel was at stake, particularly the doctrine of Justification.  

Justified is a legal term that simply means to be declared right.¹ For a Christian, justification is the good news that sinful men and women may be brought into acceptance with a Holy God, not because of works but through the simple act of trust in Jesus Christ.² Paul uses this word four times in these verses to demonstrate the urgent need he had in defending it. Generally speaking, a person could not stand before God through human effort. Paul reminds Peter they had the best system of rules the world has ever seen and still had to come to Christ by personally accepting Him by Faith, not by observing rituals. Paul emphatically concludes that universally no one will be declared right by good morals because sin is in the heart.³  

Paul Answers the Challenge to Justification. 

Paul was unknowingly caught up in God’s plan all along. The law he tried to keep pronounced the sentence of death on his way of life.⁴ He then goes on to answer the challenge to justification by grace through faith in Christ alone.⁵ In essence he is saying, “if you haven’t noticed yet, we aren’t perfect.” But that doesn’t mean Christ is an accessory to sin. God forbid! That accusation is frivolous.  

What actually took place was this, 

I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God. 

It didn’t work. 

So I quit being a law man 

So that I could be God’s man. 

The Message.  

Amazing Freedom is the Result 

You can see Galatians 2:20 in the scripture text below. Just go ahead and commit to memorizing it right now. One of the young ladies in my Bible study had memorized it as a song when she was a child. And she sang it for us right there in class. I memorized it this way too and could hum along. Music is good like that, producing core memories that pierce the soul. You will see verse 21 packs a punch as well. 

My reflections are as follows: If I share in the crucifixion of Christ, I also share in the victory of the resurrection. God will still use my personality and the way He gifted me, but He directs and empowers all that I do so that my ego is no longer taking center stage in the life I am living. I am completely trusting in and relying on the love of Jesus Christ who gave Himself for me and effectively works through me by His Spirit. I am not going to treat the Grace of God given to me as something of minor importance. If I could have been acquitted from my guilt through rule-keeping, then Christ died for no purpose. I refuse to invalidate my Savior’s death as if it were in vain. I can’t live like that with any conviction. Coming to this realization with my whole heart brings a settling sense of amazing freedom that is hard to explain but can be felt every day as I choose to live a life worthy of this calling.⁶ 

Justified by Faith 

¹⁵We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; ¹⁶yet we know that a person is not justified^[a] by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. 

¹⁷But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! ¹⁸For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness^[b] were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. 

Galatians 2:15-21 ESV 

1. Amplified Bible. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation. Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. 

2. John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians: Only One Way. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1968. 

3. John Macarthur, The Macarthur Study Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006. 

4. The ESV® Study Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 

5. MSG Eugene Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs, NavPress, 2005. Scripture taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright ^© 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. 

6. All Glory to God for the above cited sources that have informed and influenced my thinking and actions.