Sermon: Easter 6 - Galatians 2:11-21, May 10, 2026
Scripture: Galatians 1.1-11
Preacher: Ryan Slifka
Sermon: Easter 6
This week we’re continuing in our sermon series on Paul’s letter to the Galatians. You’ll remember from last week that the Apostle Paul sends this letter to the churches in Galatia, churches that he helped establish, because they’ve abandoned some of his core teachings. At the urging of some false teachers, the Galatians have made circumcision necessary for Gentiles–non-Jews–to become part of God’s people, the new Christian movement. Based on its requirement according to the law of Moses. This, for Paul, entirely misses the point. Nothing wrong with circumcision, but in requiring circumcision, it creates an unnecessary obstacle to that one new community drawn from all the peoples of the world. Circumcision, along with other elements of the law, are an unnecessary stumbling block to Gentiles this new community.
I.
And, you’ll remember from last week Paul figured that this was the early church consensus. Fourteen years prior he’d made a visit to church authorities, including Peter–Jesus’ right-hand-man were on the same page when it came to his circumcision-free mission to the Gentiles. And apparently they were! They saw Paul’s mission to Gentiles as equal to Peter’s mission to Jews, one message, two missions.
So much for that, though. Today’s scripture begins with not only disalignment between Paul and Peter (using Peter’s Greek name, Cephas.)
“When Cephas came to Antioch,” says Paul. “When Peter visited my home base--I opposed him to his face. He was self-condemned, bringing on his own embarassment.”
Why? Because he backed off from our original agreement, Paul said. One sealed in the right hand of fellowship–under pressure from the pro-circumcision faction. The guy used to eat with uncircumcized Gentiles, until one of James’ people got up in his business, then he made sure not to be seen with the wrong people. These guys don’t believe that! They’re just scared. Like, how can this guy who didn’t follow those rules require anyone to follow those rules, how can somebody who doesn’t follow the law to a “t” ask that of everybody else. Peter knows better. Looked like hypocrisy to me.”
Now, it might sound to us like this Peter refusing to share a table with gentiles, is more Law of Moses stuff, like circumcision. But the truth is that nowhere does the Law of Moses say that Jews can’t be around Gentiles. If the food’s not kosher, they can’t eat it, but there’s nothing stopping them from sharing a table with them. The issue is, more than likely, that the pro-circumcision faction saw eating with Gentiles as representing a sort of slippery-slope. You eat with them, and next thing you’re not keeping kosher, celebrating the Sabbath or circumcising your kids. Eating with Gentiles didn’t lead to violating the law of Moses. But it sure made it more likely. Anybody whose had teenage children can have some sympathy–you’re worried less about the other kids they hang out with than what hanging out with those other kids will lead to. So it’s not that eating with Gentiles itself is off-limits according to the law. It’s that it’ll eventually lead to violating the law, it’ll eventually lead to off-limits behavior.
As understandable as Peter’s perspective may be, though, Paul still sees this as a capitulation. A surrender to the circumcisers. In order to avoid conflict with the pro-circumcision faction, Peter’s given up something absolutely essential. “We ourselves,” says Paul, “Peter and I, we aren’t Gentile sinners.” Like, we know the faith inside and out cuz we grew up in it, he says. So “we know that a person isn’t justified by the works of the law.” A person isn’t justified by the works of the law. If anyone should know better, it’s Peter.
Now, what does that mean exactly? That we are “not justified by the works of the law.”
First what does justified, mean? Other than a mid career album by Justin Timberlake?
One of my favourite writers, the late Frederick Buechner defined it that might be easy for anybody who’s used a typwriter or Microsoft Word before. “In printer’s language,” says Buechner. “In printer’s language to ‘justify’ means to set type in such a way that all full lines are of equal length and flush on left and right.” The text is straight and exactly parallel on both sides. “The religious sense,” says Buechner, is very close to this. Being ‘justified’ is being brought into right relation.”1
“Being justified is being brought into right relation.” The right relation, in this case, is not between two sides of a page, but, “To be ‘justified,’” in Paul’s sense writes New Testament scholar Richard Hays. “To be justified is to be declared in the right, or placed in right relationship to God.”2 There are so many meanings at play here: to be innocent, rather than guilty. To be good, to be righteous, to be worthy. To live and be as we should be. To be “justified” is to be in right relation to the Creator of the universe. To be right with God.
Now, of course, this is something that any 1st century Jew in their right mind would be on board with–bein’ right with God. But it’s “the works of the Law” part that sticks in Paul’s craw. Why’s that?
Well because Paul thinks it’s impossible to get right with God through the works of the Law. And why’s that? Well, because we human beings have dug ourselves such a deep moral hole that there’s no way to get out. And he got this idea from the scriptures: Psalm 143: “No living one is righteous before you,” prays the Psalmist. Not a single one of us. There is a brokenness in human life that infects every part of our lives. According to Paul the human predicament is so deep, so it’s impossible for doing any work of the law, from circumcision to refraining from a shrimp dinner, to make us right with God.
So in giving into the circumcision faction, in refusing to consort with gentiles until they are circumcised on the way keeping the law of Moses, Paul says that Peter’s not only being hypocritical, he’s making a colossal theological mistake. Because it suggests that we are justified, make right with God, by doing the law. Which is not only wrong-headed. It’s impossible. Peter, really, should know better.
II.
Peter should know better. Peter should know better. No one is justified by the works of the law. And so should we. So you I, so should you. But we don’t.
Now, I’ll wager to say that none of us here are scrambling around doing works of the laws of Moses to make sure we’re justified, to make sure we’re in God’s good books. Safe assumption.
But that doesn’t mean that we never have justification on our mind. In fact, we’re obsessed with justification, even if we aren’t Jews or Christians. This is human nature stuff. It’s universal! And to know this you only really have to ask yourself questions like this:
“What makes me a good person, or what will make me a good person? Or: what will make me feel like I’m enough”? The controversial and cranky Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson once said something like “what can you do to justify the space you take up on this planet”? That’s about right–and hey, he even used that word “justification.” What makes you feel like you’re right with the universe? What do you have to do to be the person you should be? What justifies your existence?
Being wealthy, powerful, successful–or even being a victim of the wealthy, powerful and successful? Could be eating right, being healthy. Keeping up with the news, being outraged by everything we hear. Having the right politics, not having the wrong ones. Buying all the right things, boycotting the wrong ones, having the right sticker on your car. Having kids, not having kids. Some friends of ours were made to feel extremely guilty for having more than one kid for climate reasons–they couldn’t justify it ecologically. There’s an endless list, isn’t there?
And the irony is that when we think we’ve ticked it off what’s when we tend to be at our worst. Think of Jesus’ parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee: tax collector’s a thief, a traitor to his own country, and the Pharisee’s as good as it gets. But the moment the Pharisee says “thank God I’m not like that sinner over there,” that’s the moment that Jesus says all he’s got in the goodness column counts for nothing. I may not be that great, but at least I’m not as bad as this guy. There is nothing worse than self-righteousness! I think it was Thomas Merton who said that the definition of a saint is someone who knows they’re a sinner. That’s because the best people never actually think they are! Our righteousness can’t even justify us because it’s often the gateway to the most profound unrighteousness.
Unfortunately, Paul is just about as right about the works of the law as he is about every work and every law we look to for justification–whether Jew or Christian, atheist, agnostic or otherwise. It’s impossible, to be enough, do enough, to be right with the universe, to be the people we ought to be in our sight, our neighbour’s sight or the sight of almighty. And the moment we think we are, that’s the moment we ain’t. It’s exhausting because it’s impossible. There’s nothing we could possibly do! Like Peter, we all know it. Even though we know it, we don’t believe it.
III.
Paul says we are not justified by the works of the law. There’s nothing we can do to be good enough to be right with God. But it doesn’t mean we can’t be justified at all.
It’s at this point of the scripture that we come to what most scholars believe to be the heart, the thesis of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It started the Protestant Reformation, kindling an unquenchable fire in countless hearts. It’s what many believe to be the very heart of the Christian message altogether. Including me. And including the United Church of Canada–at least on paper.
“We are not justified by the works of the law,” says Paul. “But by faith in Jesus Christ.” “We are not justified by the works of the Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.” Other translations, including the good ol’ classic King James Version translate it “by the faith of Jesus Christ,” rather than faith in Jesus Christ. Regardless of if it’s in or of, the meaning points in the same direction. That justification doesn’t come from us outward. But from God to us.
“The life I now live in the flesh,” says Paul. “The life I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Though justification–being in right relation–is impossible to achieve, though it’s something Paul could never earn or attain by anything he could possibly do. But it’s something God can do. And has done for him in Jesus Christ.
In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Paul says, God has done the thing we could never do for ourselves. In dying on the cross for the forgiveness of sins, and in being raised from the dead to bring newness of life, God has done what all the works of the law, any work of any kind, have failed to do.
What has justified Paul–the formerly self-righteous persecutor of Christians–is nothing that he’s done. But it’s his faith, his trust in Jesus Christ. That out of nothing but unconditional love for the creature, the Creator of the universe gave himself to make things right. To set him free. I love how Eugene Peterson puts it in his Message translation: “Convinced that no human being can ever 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.”
Thanks to Jesus, Paul never has to worry about being good enough, or justifying his existence. Because by grace, God has given him all the justification he’ll ever need.
And this, dear friends, is all the justification you and I will ever need, either.
Whatever you’re fruitlessly pursuing to prove you’re good.
Whatever you’re running yourself ragged for so you can finally be enough, but failing.
Whatever you’re chasing–hopelessly–to justify your existence.
The good news is that you don’t have to do any of it anymore. Why? Because we are not justified by our works, but by God’s work in Jesus. This says to you, and to me, to every single human being that