Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Galatians · About this commentary
Not by Works of the Law
Galatians 2:15-16
15 “We, being Jews by nature and not Gentile sinners, · WEB
The letter's thesis arrives in a single sentence that says the same thing three times, and the third time closes every exception.
Verse 15 begins with a concession spoken from inside the group being addressed: we, being Jews by nature and not gentile sinners. Paul grants the distinction his opponents relied on, in their own terms, before dismantling what they built on it.
Then verse 16, and it is the thesis of the letter. The phrase works of the law occurs nine times in the New Testament, six of them in this letter — and three of the six are in this one verse. The repetition is not clumsiness; it is a sentence built to leave no exit.
The first statement is general: a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. The second is autobiographical, and it is the sharper of the two: even we believed in Christ Jesus — we, the Jews by nature of verse 15, who had the law and the standing, came the same way as anyone else. Whatever advantage the previous verse conceded, it did not include a different route.
The third statement closes the question with a universal: because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law. Not not yet, and not not without faith — no flesh, ever.
What the verse does not say is that the law is bad, or that obedience is optional. It says the law is not the instrument of justification, which is a claim about function rather than about worth. The letter will make that distinction explicit when it asks whether the law opposes the promises and answers that it does not Galatians 3:21.
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