It is a terrible thing that the apostle says in this text: “Christ the minister of sin.” It is an appalling statement that was brought about by an appalling doctrine.

Shockingly, already in the apostle’s day, among the churches that had been established by his preaching, the apostle Paul had to contend for the truth of justification by faith alone over against false apostles who had crept into the churches and undermined that truth. Even more shockingly, the apostle had already contended for the truth of justification by faith alone against the apostle Peter. The gospel truth of justification by faith alone seldomly is held in the church for very long. This is true in our day. This has been true throughout history. This was true in the apostle’s day.

In the context of Galatians 2, the apostle had rebuked Peter for dissembling with the truth. Peter was living like a Gentile and was not keeping the civil and ceremonial laws of Moses. Peter ate pork, worshiped God on Sunday, and dressed like a Gentile. Importantly, Peter ate with the Gentiles. They were not sinners of the Gentiles any longer. They were righteous. God had justified both Peter and the Gentiles by faith alone and not by law-righteousness. But when certain men came from James, then Peter feared them and withdrew from the Gentiles. This was to dissemble with the gospel and to teach by his actions that besides faith in Christ something else was necessary for salvation.

By withdrawing from the Gentiles, Peter was saying that besides faith in Christ it was necessary to live like a Jew to be saved. Peter was teaching that something extra besides Christ received by faith alone was necessary for salvation and acceptance in God’s sight. In reality it does not matter if you eat pork or you do not eat pork or if you dress like a Jew or you dress like a Gentile. But Peter made that something extra besides Christ a matter of righteousness. So also today, for example, it does not matter if you drink a beer or you do not drink a beer, but some make that a matter of righteousness.

And the exclusion of law-righteousness from salvation extends to all deeds and activities of man. Law-righteousness is anything that man does or that man claims that he does for his acceptance with God. Man is not righteous because he believes. He is not righteous in the way of his repenting. He is righteous by faith alone in Christ, and through Christ alone he stands in the grace of God.

Today such law-righteousness is taught when faith is made man’s act, repentance is made to be that work of man through which one receives the forgiveness of sins, and man’s works are said to function as helps for the assurance of salvation. The same law-righteousness is promoted when men teach that obedience to the law brings one into closer fellowship with God; that the more one obeys, the more God loves him; and that Christ and man’s works are the way to God. All that is law-righteousness.

Those who teach law-righteousness frequently have many pious-sounding defenses for their doctrine: “We do not want the people to be lawless.” “We are interested only in the holiness of the church.” “Obviously,” they say, “you cannot have fellowship with God when you walk in sin.” “Is it not clear that man does believe and that man does repent? He is not a stock and a block, after all.” “We are emphasizing only the responsibility of man.” All these are the same species of argument. They are all intended to defend the teaching of law-righteousness. The teachers of law-righteousness usually do not come out and blasphemously say that Christ is not enough. They always have a word about Christ, and yet they always add the activities of the sinner to Christ as the way of salvation. They make Christ and the activities of the sinner two things that together give righteousness, blessedness, peace, joy, happiness, and ultimately eternal life.

Everyone must understand that righteousness is the foundation of life. To be righteous is to have God’s approval. And so also these things always go together: righteousness and peace, righteousness and joy, righteousness and happiness, righteousness and comfort, righteousness and assurance, and righteousness and blessing. If our blessedness and assurance come in the way of works, then righteousness must come in the way of works. False teachers in the apostle’s day and false teachers in our day teach that it is Christ and something of the sinner that bring righteousness. For them it is both Christ and the sinner.

But the apostle says that it is either Christ or the sinner. Our justification is either all of Christ, or our justification is all of ourselves. Either we are justified by faith alone, or we are justified by works alone.

Over against all those who teach and believe that sinners are righteous, have peace with God, and stand in his grace by both Christ and their activities, the apostle says that they make Christ the minister of sin.

All must understand that in Galatians 2:17–19, the apostle is not guarding his doctrine from the charge of lawlessness. That is how many interpret the text. They understand that the apostle says, as it were, “Do not suppose that being justified by faith means that you can live as you please. You cannot be careless and profane in Christ because he does not justify you so that you can sin freely. Christ is not a minister of sin.” But that is not the case. The apostle is charging the teachers of the false doctrine of righteousness by works with the most terrible crime: For all their professed interest in the holiness of the church and the responsibility of man, they make Christ the minister of sin.

Many teach the doctrine of justification very differently than the apostle. Let us say for the sake of argument that these ministers teach in words the sound doctrine of justification by faith alone. But they immediately cast doubt on the doctrine by saying, “But this doctrine does not mean that men can be careless and profane.” They betray by their warning about careless living that they believe that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is a doctrine that could make men careless and profane. Their understanding of the doctrine is not that careless and profane men will abuse the doctrine as a license for their own wickedness. No, their understanding is that the doctrine itself could—and does—make men careless and profane. The doctrine is to blame.

However, it is in fact impossible that the doctrine of justification by faith alone makes men careless and profane. It is as impossible for the doctrine to make men careless and profane as it is for Christ to be still in the grave, for God to deny himself, or for the Holy Spirit to sin. It is an utter and inconceivable impossibility that the doctrine of justification makes men careless and profane. If it did, then it would be a wicked doctrine that no longer should be preached in the churches.

When a man preaches the doctrine of justification by faith alone soundly in words but immediately warns that this does not mean that men can be careless and profane, then he himself has never tasted the goodness and power of the doctrine. In fact, such a teacher takes into his mouth the slander of the enemies of the truth and presents it to his listeners as a real possibility that the doctrine makes men licentious.

Such men are up to no good. They suggest the possibility that the doctrine of justification makes men careless and profane because they believe that the doctrine in fact does. They warn against the doctrine because they are intent on overthrowing the doctrine in order to bring in their doctrine of law-righteousness. They hold for truth that Christ is sufficient as far as he goes, but man must also believe, repent, and obey. For them it is both Christ and the sinner, both the grace of God and the responsibility of man, both Christ’s obedience and the sinner’s obedience, and both Christ’s activities and the sinner’s activities that are necessary for the blessing of God, righteousness, and eternal life.

Rather than warning that his doctrine not be used as the occasion of evil living, the apostle charges that the doctrine of those who say both Christ and the sinner are necessary for salvation is a wicked doctrine. Their wickedness is that by their doctrine they make Christ the minister of sin. They take the glorious, spotless, lovely Christ, who came to take away sin, to overcome sin, and to destroy sin, and they make him a minister of sin.

The apostle says, “If, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin?” By “while we seek to be justified by Christ,” the apostle does not mean that we do something to be justified, but he means that we confess that we are justified by Christ and that we are justified in Christ. Does anyone who is a Christian deny that? Does anyone who is a Christian dare to say that Christ is not enough? We seek to be justified in Christ. That is our confession. Ask any Christian if he is saved by grace and not by works, and he will say, “That is true. I am saved by Christ alone. We are saved by grace alone.”

The apostle here puts our confession about our righteousness in the form of “seek to be justified” because he is mocking the false apostles who bound everyone by the law and said, “We have to be active in our faith, active in our repentance, and active in our obedience. God does not believe, repent, and obey for us. We are not stocks and blocks, after all.” Over against that the apostle says in effect, “I am active. I strive to be righteous in Christ every day by doing nothing for my salvation but resting in Christ crucified alone.”

When the apostle speaks of our justification, he refers back to his doctrine stated in verse 16, that we are justified “by the faith of Christ,” that is, the faith that has Christ as its object. To be justified is to be declared righteous by God and to have our sins forgiven. We are not justified by law-righteousness. Doing this or doing that does not make us righteous. We are justified by Christ; we are not at all justified by our activities or our deeds. Being justified by faith alone and not by our activities, we stand in the grace of God, we have the assurance of our salvation, and we know that God is our God and that all things are for us and nothing can be against us.

We are justified in Christ. Faith makes us members of his corporation and partakers of his righteousness. We are justified by the faith of Christ, the faith that has Christ as its object and that looks to Christ for righteousness, holiness, satisfaction, grace, blessedness, and glory. Seeking to be justified in Christ is the hope, the only hope, of the Christian.

There is no other justification.

Many who dissemble with the truth say the same thing: “We are justified in Christ.”

When Peter withdrew from the Gentiles, he would not have said that Christ was insufficient. But when he withdrew from the Gentiles, by his actions he was saying that they needed something besides Christ. When he withdrew from the Gentiles, he was saying that those who had Christ, confessed that they were righteous in Christ, but did not live like Jews were still sinners. That is why Peter withdrew from the Gentiles.

What Peter said by his actions is what all say who teach that in addition to Christ some activity of man, some work, some deed, or some lifestyle is needed for the blessing of Christ. They are saying that we have Christ but that we are still sinners until we live a certain way, do certain things, or conform to certain rules.

Even more sinister is the teaching that Christ justifies, Christ alone justifies, and Christ justifies by faith alone but that we cannot and do not know that, are not and cannot be assured of that, so that we are found in our own hearts, minds, and consciences to be sinners until we have obeyed the law, repented, or done something. We seek to be justified and righteous in Christ, but in our own minds and consciences we are found sinners.

The words “found sinners” express the terrible pains, anxiety, and trouble of heart and mind of those who are not right with God. They are not found sinners of men but of God. They are found sinners not merely in outward deeds but also in their inward natures. Their consciences trouble them, and they are tossed to and fro and are without any comfort, joy, peace, or assurance of eternal life.

If we say that we have Christ and have no peace, comfort, or joy, that is because Christ is not enough to us. That is what all do who add to Christ their own righteousness, that besides Christ man must do something to experience and to have the peace of Christ in his conscience and mind.

The words “we seek to be justified [righteous] in Christ” mean that we are really righteous in him and before God, and the words “we ourselves also are found sinners” mean that we are not really righteous in Christ and before God.

That is what Peter said about the Gentiles by his actions. The Gentiles were righteous in Christ. Peter himself had taught them that. Then he withdrew from them and by doing so said, “Really you are sinners yet until you keep the law of Moses.” So ministers say that we are righteous in Christ, but we must also do this thing and that thing in order to experience righteousness. Then we are not really righteous until after we have done something. Or men teach what amounts to the same thing, that we do not experience our salvation, taste the goodness of God, and know God as our God until we have performed this or that work. They teach that in Christ we are still in need of the righteousness of the law. So those who are righteous in Christ are not really righteous at all.

These teachers, like those who troubled the Galatian churches, make Christ a minister of sin!

Is it not true that if we seek to be justified in Christ and we are still found to be sinners in Christ, that Christ is the minister of sin? If we say that we are justified in Christ and yet we still have to obey, to live a certain way, and perform certain works to experience justification, have we not denied that we are in fact justified in Christ? All that Christ has done then is to remind us of what we must still do and that we are still sinners before God until we do it.

When the apostle says “the minister of sin,” he means that Christ brings all our sins back into view, and Christ leaves us as sinners before God.

The law is a ministry of sin. The purpose of the law is to bring all your sins to remembrance. The law makes sin exceedingly sinful, and transgressions abound under the law. The purpose of the law is to tear away the pretense of righteousness that every man uses as a shield against the judgment of God. Being a ministry of sin, the law is a ministry of death. The purpose of the law is to kill you. Men say that they are righteous, and the law comes and shows them that they are not. Men say that they have overcome sin and that they live, and the law comes, sin revives, and they die.

If we say that those who are righteous in Christ still need something else to be righteous, then we have turned Christ into a new lawgiver, and his ministry is no different from the ministry of the law. Those who are supposedly righteous in Christ are still found to be sinners. Christ is a new Moses, and Christ’s work is no different from the deadly work of the tyrannical law.

The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The ministry of Christ is to take away sin and guilt and to destroy all the works of the devil. The purpose of Christ is to give light where there was darkness, to give life where there was death, to grant righteousness where there was unrighteousness, and to abolish the reign of death.

Christ does that by establishing righteousness. He comes to sinners, absolves them of their sins, imputes to them his righteousness, and ministers to them an abundant entrance into God’s kingdom. Christ does that according to God’s grace and his eternal election of grace.

But if we still need to keep the law for righteousness, if we still need to keep the law in order to experience the favor of a reconciled God, if we still have a host of laws that we need to obey to be loved by God, then Christ is nothing other than the minister of sin. Then he comes to us only to bring our sins to remembrance, to make us work again, and to fill us with anxiety about whether we have done enough, repented enough, or believed enough. If we who are justified in Christ still need to be justified by the law, then we are not in fact justified in Christ, but we are made sinners and guilty in him. Christ is the minister of sin.

Christ does not take away sin, but he brings sin in again.

Christ does not bring peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Christ brings sorrow and distress and trouble.

God forbid!

Can you think of a greater blasphemy than to say that Christ is the minister of sin?

The apostle explains his vehement “God forbid” when he says, “If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.”

The apostle refers to his preaching and to all preaching of Christ. By preaching Christ he destroyed something. Whoever mentions Christ, the work of Christ, and the righteousness of Christ, no matter if he does so in sincerity or not, destroys something. The apostle preached Christ as the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. He preached Christ as the one who suffered wrath, fulfilled the whole law, freed us from the curse of the law, established righteousness, and did all that was necessary for our salvation. Christ cannot be mentioned by anyone without bringing in that truth. The very name of Christ is synonymous with those works of salvation.

The things that the apostle destroyed by preaching Christ were the whole old testament economy of Moses; Paul destroyed the dominion of the law over souls; he destroyed all the power of the devil; Paul destroyed sin, guilt, sorrow, and condemnation. He destroyed the idea that a man is justified by laws and rules and regulations. He destroyed those things when he preached Christ because Christ himself by his cross and resurrection had destroyed those things.

But to so preach Christ and then to teach that we must still obey the law for righteousness or that there are many things yet that we must do to have the favor of God is to build again the things that were destroyed.

The apostle here transfers to himself what he accuses the false apostles of teaching in order to show both the absurdity and the wickedness of their doctrine.

If we destroy something and then simply rebuild the same thing, we are fools. Let us say that there is a broken-down, rickety, and dilapidated old house, and we tear it down. If we simply rebuild the same rickety, old house again, we are fools. It is not that we tear down that old house to build a new and better house. That is what Christ did. He tore down the old, rickety, and dilapidated house of the law that could not make anyone righteous but only brought sin to remembrance and threatened all who lived in that house with destruction. And thus do all those who preach Christ. They tear down that old house. Having torn down that old house of the law, Jesus Christ built a glorious house in his body, in which all who are in him by faith have a place and are righteous and heirs of eternal life. But if we tear down an old house and build again the same rickety and dangerous house, we are fools. Such is the folly of saying that we are righteous by a work, a lifestyle, or a deed after we have preached Christ.

But it is worse than folly. In the case of a house, we could charge a man who did such a thing with folly, but in the case of the gospel, we charge him with transgression: “If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” The apostle transfers this charge to himself, but he condemns the false apostles and their doctrine. They make themselves transgressors.

The false apostles said that by their doctrine of the law and their doctrine of obedience for blessing that they made the church and the people of God holy. But they made them wicked, and that wickedness started with the false apostles. What a monstrous sin to tear down the law and then to build it again in another form. By doing so they were saying that faith in Christ cannot save, but the law saves. The false apostles made the law to be grace and turned grace into the law. They made Moses to be Christ and Christ to be Moses. The false apostles mixed everything up, and in the process they made Christ the minister of sin and themselves and all who listened to them to be transgressors. They changed the whole scripture, for the promise of scripture is that whosoever believes in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life. They added to the promise that whosoever believes in Christ and obeys the law shall not perish. They made God a liar because they said that whoever believes and keeps the law shall be saved, when God had said that those who believe in Christ shall be saved. They robbed Christ of his glory as the savior; they robbed God of his honor as the one who is just and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus; and they robbed men of all hope, joy, comfort, and assurance.

And in love for Christ, God, and God’s people, the apostle attacks the lie: “For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.” The word for usually gives a reason for something said previously. Here the apostle does not give a reason for something he said in the immediate context, but he gives the reason for attacking the doctrine of the false apostles with so many furious charges and for publicly rebuking Peter. Now the apostle Paul is stating the truth of the matter of justification in relationship to the law.

The false apostles always told their hearers, “Do not forget that you have to keep the law too.” They placed the church under the law and said that keeping the law would make the church a holy church.

We say that we do not deny that the law is good and that good works are desirable and necessary. However, we are not talking right now about whether the law is good and good works are necessary. But we are talking about righteousness, peace, joy, and blessedness that comes to us in Jesus Christ.

When the apostle says “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God,” he makes all teachers who add man’s works to Christ’s righteousness not only foolish and transgressors but also ministers of death. They are bloody men. They kill souls, congregations, and denominations. They have stained their own hands with blood and have filled the pages of history with the blood of souls they have slain by their doctrine, and they are still filling hell today. What a disgrace that those who are supposed to be ministers of reconciliation are ministers of death.

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. He is our life, and he is our law. So the apostle says, “I…live unto God.” Christ brings life. The false apostles bring death. The false apostles say, “Law, law, law.” Paul says, “Christ is our law.” The false apostles insist that we must have law, and we say that Christ is our law. They insist that we must be active, and we say that Christ is our activity. They insist that we must obey, and we say that Christ is our obedience. They insist that we must do this and that to be righteous, and we say that Christ did all that they require of us. We simply refer all the demands and requirements of the false apostles to Christ.

The apostle says, “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.”

In Christ we are dead to the law. If we are alive to the law, we die. To be alive to the law is to seek to be pleasing to God by law-keeping, so that we seek our blessing in our law-keeping, our doing, and our activities.

But if we are alive to the law, we cannot live unto God. That means that if we are alive to the law, we cannot be holy people. The law slays all those who are alive to it. To be alive to the law means that we must keep the law and keep it perfectly. The law terrifies those who are alive to it. To be alive to the law is to hear its curse and to fear the coming of death and hell. To be alive to the law is to be in danger of hellfire because we come under all the law’s condemnations. To be alive to the law is to have no peace with God. To be alive to the law is always seeking and striving to be righteous but never attaining righteousness and peace of conscience.

All those who are alive to the law begin to loathe the law. Those who are alive to the law never say, “Oh, how we love God’s law.” If we are alive to the law, then we hate the law. Hatred of the law is a terrible crime. Man must not hate God’s law. The law is good and true. But if we are alive to the law, we will hate it. Those who are alive to the law may say with their mouths that they love the law, because it is hardly Christian to say otherwise, but they hate the law in their inward beings. They wish that the law would be quiet and that it would stop saying, “Cursed is everyone who continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” But that is all the law can say. It cannot promise eternal life. The law curses sinners and damns the least imperfection.

The evidence that those who are alive to the law hate the law is that they try to change it. Is that not a terrible wickedness to change God’s perfect law? They take the law that says “be perfect and be holy as I am holy,” and they say that God requires that we do our best and teach that God is satisfied with our imperfect good works. They change the law, which addresses our inward parts and places us before God’s judgment seat, and they make keeping the law a matter of outward behavior and looking good before men. They substitute for the law of God the laws of men that they can keep. That is the evidence that men hate the law and cannot bear its testimony.

Besides, those who hate the law hate God. To hate the law is to hate the God of the law. They hate the very thought of God. The proof of that is that they will not abide his word about them that they are wicked and evil. They want to be good, and they say that they are not totally depraved. Such people hate the law, and they hate God.

That is what being alive to the law does. We cannot live unto God if we are alive to the law. Being alive to the law, we become terrible sinners who hate the law and hate the God of the law. The law never made anyone holy nor caused anyone to keep it. The law is a ministry of death, and all those who add man’s law-keeping and activities to Christ are ministers of death.

To live unto God, we must die to the law by the law. To die to the law by the law is to die to the law by the perfect work of Christ. Christ is our law, through whom we died to the law. The apostle calls Christ our law because Christ perfectly obeyed the law. He satisfied all God’s justice. Christ bore all God’s judgments. Christ died under the judgment of the law.

And we died with Christ. We died to the law by the law. In Christ the law cannot curse us. The law cannot say, “Do this to live or do this to have God’s blessing and favor.” The law can no longer threaten us with death and damnation. We are free from the law’s tyranny because we died to it, just as a servant who dies is freed from the tyranny of his cruel master.

Our death, and thus our freedom from the bondage of the law, is lawful and righteous. Our death came by Christ. So the apostle calls Christ our law, through whom we died to the law.

Only if we have died to the law can we, do we, and will we live unto God.

Only by death to the law by the death of Christ, can we, do we, and will we live unto God.

And to live unto God is perfection. Is there anything more glorious that we can say about a human being than that he lives unto God? Remember that to live unto God is God’s own life. God lives unto God. God seeks the glory of God in God in everything and from eternity to eternity. So to live unto God is to live God’s own life. There is no holier life than that. That is to be lifted up to heaven and to enjoy a life that cannot perish, is immortal, and is beyond the condemnation of the law, beyond sin, and beyond the possibility of dying.

We do not and cannot have that life by the law, by saying that we must do this or that to be blessed by God. You must die to the law, so that the law can no longer say to you, “You must keep me to live. If you do not keep me, I will kill you.” You die to the law in Christ through his death; and in Christ and his resurrection, you are lifted up to the highest honor and the most glorious freedom of living unto God.

If we add to Christ the least thing, so that our blessedness in the least thing depends on what we do, then we will be in bondage, and we will hate the very thought of God. Only the righteousness of Christ is the ground of the higher and more glorious life of living unto God. Christ is not the minister of sin. He is the minister of righteousness. Thus he is the minister of holiness, goodness, peace, joy, happiness, liberty, and everlasting life.

Hallelujah!