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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Galatians 2:21 - 2:21
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
I do not make void the grace of God (ouk athetō tēn charin tou theou). Common word in lxx and Polybius and on, to make ineffective (a privative and tithēmi, to place or put). Some critic would charge him with that after his claim to such a close mystic union with Christ.
Then Christ died for nought (ara Christos dōrean apethanen). Condition of first class, assumed as true. If one man apart from grace can win his own righteousness, any man can and should. Hence (ara, accordingly) Christ died gratuitously (dōrean), unnecessarily. Adverbial accusative of dōrea, a gift. This verse is a complete answer to those who say that the heathen (or any mere moralist) are saved by doing the best that they know and can. No one, apart from Jesus, ever did the best that he knew or could. To be saved by law (dia nomou) one has to keep all the law that he knows. That no one ever did.