Galatians 2:18 Commentary and Bible Study

Paul now answers his own rhetorical question in the previous verse, and, in answering, puts himself in Peter’s place to make this public correction somewhat more acceptable. ‘If I, like you Peter, were to build again the things which I destroyed, I would make myself a transgressor.’ How would he make himself a transgressor? By going back to the method of justification which he had already abandoned and concluded could never work. When he was converted he realised that all his attempts to earn righteousness from the law were futile, and he abandoned them in order to come to Christ. The law only managed to make his sin more evident, more stark and more obvious; it could not remove it. But if he now goes into reverse and tries to rebuild that old life which he once destroyed because it was worthless, he ends up making himself a transgressor. How so? Because he has already given his verdict on that old life, and he condemned it and he was right to do so, and now he is trying to rebuild it.Again, there are different interpretations of this verse. Was Peter a transgressor when he left the law in order to come to Christ? By returning to the law, is he saying that he disapproves of what he did in coming to Christ, and so he is marking his Christian life without the law as a life of sin? Peter’s return to the law condemns his former action in ever leaving it in order to embrace Christ. This would hypothetically make his going back to the law a good thing. His return would be the mark of disapproval on what he has now come to see was a terrible mistake – embarking on the life of faith in Christ. At the same time by returning, he would be making Christ the minister of sin, for Christ encouraged him to do what he now sees was wrong. ‘I make myself to have been a transgressor in ever leaving the law, and it was Christ that encouraged me to commit this transgression.’ Paul’s argument would then be that since Peter’s action leads to such a terrible conclusion, it must be a wrong action. Or is Paul saying that by trying to rebuild a life based on the law, which he has already set aside as useless, Peter is trying to rebuild what which he has already destroyed. This view fits the context much better. His verdict on that old life stands, but his new direction in only eating with Jews is an attempt to go back to what he has already condemned as hopeless. Peter has taken the first step towards rebuilding a righteousness that comes from the law, and that makes him a transgressor by his own action in coming to Christ for salvation, and therefore, rather than Christ being the minister of sin, it is he himself that is the minister of sin. To bring out this meaning the verse should be read with the emphasis on the word ‘myself’. When he abandoned his hope in the law – as he had to in coming to Christ – he plainly declared that there is no righteousness outside of Christ. He threw away this false hope in order to take hold of a true one. That verdict still stands and anything that goes against it must be regarded as error. By returning to the law Peter has made himself a sinner by forsaking reliance on Christ alone, and embracing again what he has already discarded as worthless. This argument could only be used against a believer, for only a believer has condemned his former reliance on the law. It is as if a man were to speak very forthrightly against a sin that he had seen in another and were then to do the same thing himself; he would be said to have made himself a sinner. God forbid that Christ should be called the minister of sin. It is not Christ who is the minister of sin by taking men away from the law, but it is you, Peter, who make yourself the minister of sin by returning to what you have already agreed condemns you.The real message to Peter is ‘the law never did you any favours. Why are you so keen to return to it again?’, for Paul refuses to miss the principle in all this. It is not just a matter of eating and drinking; the real issue is one of righteousness before God. The righteousness which Peter thought he was losing by becoming ‘a Gentile sinner’ was imaginary, but the righteousness which a Jew who had found Christ would lose by returning to the law was very real.