Galatians 2:16
The Message
15-16 We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over “non-Jewish sinners.” We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.
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Galatians 2:16
New International Version
16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law,(A) but by faith in Jesus Christ.(B) So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in[a] Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.(C)
Footnotes
- Galatians 2:16 Or but through the faithfulness of … justified on the basis of the faithfulness of
Galatians 2:19-21
The Message
19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.
21 Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.
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Galatians 2:19-21
New International Version
19 “For through the law I died to the law(A) so that I might live for God.(B) 20 I have been crucified with Christ(C) and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.(D) The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God,(E) who loved me(F) and gave himself for me.(G) 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law,(H) Christ died for nothing!”[a]
Footnotes
- Galatians 2:21 Some interpreters end the quotation after verse 14.
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
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