Galatians 2:19-3:6
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ,(A) 20 and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God,[a] who loved me and gave himself for me.(B) 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness[b] comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.
Law or Faith
3 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified!(C) 2 The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?(D) 3 Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?(E) 4 Did you experience so much for nothing?—if it really was for nothing.(F) 5 Well then, does God[c] supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law or by your believing what you heard?
6 Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,”(G)
Galatians 2:19-3:6
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.
Trust in Christ, Not the Law
3 You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a spell on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.
2-4 Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!
5-6 Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson