Justification by Faith, Not Law: Paul Confronts Legalism in Galatians and the Jerusalem Council

Paul’s teaching in Galatians is contrasted with the false gospel of the Judaizers, who insisted that obedience to the Mosaic Law—especially circumcision—was necessary for salvation. The lesson reviews how Paul marvels that the Galatian believers so quickly turned from the grace-based gospel of Christ to a different, law-centered message that brings bondage rather than freedom. Paul reminds them that the gospel he preached did not originate from men or from the apostles in Jerusalem; rather, he received it directly by revelation from the Lord during his time in Arabia. Fourteen years later, when controversy arose in Antioch because men from Judea were demanding circumcision for Gentile believers, Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem to lay their gospel before the recognized leaders. The Jerusalem discussion, including the testimony of Peter and the judgment of James, confirmed that Gentiles are not to be put under the Mosaic Law. Even so, legalistic pressure from Jerusalem continued to influence the church, eventually leading Peter himself to withdraw from table fellowship with Gentile believers in Antioch out of fear of those “from the circumcision,” and even Barnabas was drawn into this hypocrisy. Paul publicly rebuked Peter because such behavior denied the truth of the gospel: Jews and Gentiles alike know that a person is not justified by works of law but through faith in Christ, and to rebuild what Christ has already rendered inoperative in His death is to become a transgressor. The study then unfolds the believer’s union with Christ—being crucified with Him, dead to the law, and raised to walk in newness of life—showing that true righteousness and practical victory over the sin nature, the world system, and Satan are not achieved by self-effort under law, but by living out of who we are in Christ by faith. Christian liberty, rightly understood, is not freedom to sin, but freedom to practice righteousness apart from law as we learn and apply the will of God with a mature, exercised conscience.