3/21/26 – 6 Pts. From Galatians II

¹⁹ “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God

Last wk we examined Ch. 1 & the aspect of placing relationships in their proper place when compared to your relationship w/ Jesus. This Is because there is a clamor in this age to be accepted, to have a voice & be included with people & entities that we deem greater or more significant to ourselves. There is a masquerade that is being played in the churches across the world who operate under the illusion they are part of the family of God but they are merely living by deception to look the part because they have not placed Jesus as the priority in their life.

Here in Ch. 2 we see the essence of that push in a different form. Last wk it was understood we were willing to adapt to behaviors that are an afront to God rather than serve God. This wk we see an attachment that many churches are dealing with as well. The law.

The law as in the Jewish law. The law found in Exodus, Deuteronomy & Leviticus. Here Paul declares the law killed him & it was I that striving he recognized he need to live for God. This very book in 3:10-11 declares “For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law. Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”

Romans 3:20 ²⁰ For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.

Romans 7:7, “What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’”

The summary of Paul’s teaching for the law is that it makes us accountable once we know it & no one can keep it. The law leads to death, the law cannot be kept entirely.

²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Jesus crucified, this was done to fulfill the law. The remission of sin is only done by shedding the blood of the innocent lamb, here the Lamb of God is mentioned by Paul demonstrates that when Jesus dies we are to have died with him to the law. But Christ, if we are truly living with Christ in us, that is a relationship we are to live in faith to what the Son of God did on the cross. We are to have died because of the sin we have engaged, participated & even sought to wallow in. Let’s change the perspective, say V20 in the first person about yourself? Is it truth? Does this verse apply to you? The life you live in your body, do you live it by faith in the Son of God?

According to what Paul is saying he too died when Christ Jesus gave up his Spirit into the hands of the Father. Does this apply to your life? This is hard to conceive, does this mean you are dead? Does this mean that you are nonexistent? Just what does this mean? To be with the Lord you have to be right standing, which is righteousness. It is obvious the law cannot provide that righteousness. So what hope do we have? Paul goes one step further.

²¹ I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

Paul then introduces the grace of God stating that the law cannot provide right standing meaning works are dead. If he is crucified with Christ that is why he says he died to the law. Righteousness is only attributed through what Jesus did for us. But this does not go deep enough. Remember at the beginning I spoke of churches having a problem with masquerading? They are doing so by the wrong premise for what life in Christ is because the operating with what caused Jesus to die. The law.

This means when the people around you who are saved by the blood, who declare they have been saved from their past throw dirt on anyone else are saying that the blood of Christ is not enough. Here is why,

• You are not defined by your past when you are crucified with Christ.

We have no grounds to bring up what is under the blood. The blood has the final say.

The blood is what gives us righteousness. The blood of the crucifixion is the answer to our past wrong doings. The death of Jesus by the giving us the blood necessary to wash us clean & give us life is where the value of eternal life is. The question is to each & everyone of us is what we do to be a servant of Christ something we do for our ego, for the false sense that we can boast before God because we are somehow valuable to him in what we do?

The blood is what we should be able to see in our life that puts our past to death and say, that does not define me. I am a new creation in Christ!