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Galatians 2:16<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n We are not justified before God by doing any works or obeying any rules. We are justified only by God\u2019s grace, through faith.<\/p>\n Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The word translated \u201cjustified<\/span>\u201d is dikaioutai<\/span><\/em> which is a verb form of the noun dikaios,<\/span><\/em> meaning \u201crighteousness.\u201d <\/span>Hence, dikaioutai<\/span><\/em> (a passive form of the verb), <\/span>literally means \u201cto be made righteous.\u201d <\/span>The translators could have rendered the opening of this verse as, \u201cknowing that a man is not made righteous by works of the law \u2026<\/span>\u2019<\/p>\n Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The first part of this verse makes it clear that Paul recognized those to whom he was talking were truly Christians (even we have believed in Christ Jesus<\/span>). And Paul points out that they all knew that Christians have righteousness before God not from what we do, but from what we believe.<\/p>\n Peter, Barnabas, and the other Christian Jews with them, according to Paul, were all made righteous before God because they believed that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, and that his death on the cross paid for their sins. And, just as God placed all our sins on Jesus while he was hanging on the cross, He also placed the righteousness of Christ on those of us who believe. Hence, we are made righteous by faith, not by works because, as Paul says here, \u201cfor by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified<\/span> (made righteous).” Here\u2019s how Paul said it in the book of Romans?<\/p>\n Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is<\/span> the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, <\/span>(Romans 3:20-24<\/span><\/strong>)<\/p>\n It is only through the grace of God that we are declared righteous. He didn\u2019t have to do this, but He chose to do it. There is no amount of works (acts, deeds, contrition, penance, sacrifice, or anything that we do no our own) that will make us righteous in God\u2019s eyes. This applies equally to our lives after salvation as it did before salvation. We are righteous in God\u2019s eyes ONLY because He declared us to be so.<\/p>\n Application <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n For those of you who have never accepted God\u2019s gift of salvation, you can never do enough good works to merit righteousness in God\u2019s eyes. Righteousness only comes from believing that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.<\/p>\n And for those of you who have accepted God\u2019s free gift of salvation, you can never make yourself more righteous or acceptable to God by works of obedience! <\/span><\/p>\n In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2007 <\/span>Will <\/span>Krause. All rights reserved.<\/span><\/p>\n – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n <\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone (618) 614-3070 and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to: Galatians 2:16 knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-galatians-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-2D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"signature\"](\"..\/..\/signature.gif\")
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