The really serious error into which they fell was not that they carried the ceremonial law over into the new dispensation, whither God did not intend it to be carried, but that they preached a religion of human merit as over against a religion of divine grace.
via Modern Judaizers? – Feeding on Christ.
This statement by J. Gresham Machen is exactly not true. Paul says nothing about human merit in Galatians as the “really serious error” that lurks behind the attack on the Gospel that he exposes and rebukes. What he says is that it is wrong to separate Christians over “the ceremonial law” (which is not exactly how I think Paul would put it, but is close enough for the moment).
Paul doesn’t argue that “the ceremonial law” should not be misused as a merit system. He argues that it is over and done and should never separate Christians. He argues that the law has served its purpose so that the promise to the one seed (i.e. the one people represented by the one Christ) must no longer be divided.
As Tim Gallant put it in his excellent article:
The fact is, if Paul is directly concerned with dealing with “merit theologians,” then he never really explains anything. The redemptive historical argument, which comprises a good portion of the letter, and indeed is the very heart of his argument, makes little sense in that context.
Saint Paul should have argued differently. He should have said: “You foolish Galatians, don’t you know that good works cannot win you God’s favour? Good works are merely responses of thanksgiving; they cannot earn you heaven.”
But then, that would not address the concern of the occasion, would it? Such an argument would not refute the necessity of circumcision, any more than it would refute the necessity of baptism. The Judaizers could then still respond: “Yes, of course salvation is gracious, but the necessary response of thankfulness is circumcision and law-keeping.”
Paul’s actual argument works rather differently. He does not suggest that circumcision is okay, as long as it is done out of thankfulness, not of superstition, or out of some thought of earning one’s way. Rather, Paul argues redemptive-historically in order to prove that the Gentiles don’t need to be circumcised at all! He is not merely concerned that the Gentiles have a correct attitude toward circumcision – he doesn’t want them to practice it at all!
All of this suggests that Paul’s actual argument in Galatians strains our usual paradigms. If we are struggling mightily to see how the argument fits together, it probably means that we have not understood the argument.
Indeed we have not.
For what it is worth, here is something I wrote trying to promote rational discussion about what the Bible says on this and related issues.
Machen is certainly right that Galatians has boatloads of contemporary application. For some ideas, consider Rich Lusk’s “Getting the Galatian Heresy Right.”
Maybe not _the_ really serious error in Galatians but it’s exactly one of the really serious errors (merit vs. grace):
Gal.2:16,21 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. […] I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Gal 3:11,24 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” […] So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
Gal 5:4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.
I agree with Lusk that Paul’s “law” is not a “timeless, abstract critique of moralism and human merit” but specifically the ceremonial law of the Judaizers (“uniquely Mosaic or Jewish” as Lusk put it). But we can still reason that any other allegedly required work unto justification is equally anathema.
You wrote “Paul doesn’t argue that “the ceremonial law” should not be _misused_ as a merit system” but I hope you agree Paul argued that it should not be used at all and specifically not as a merit system.
I think Paul abominated the idea that anything should or could be used to merit any blessing from God. I think he brings it up as an ad absurdum argument in the beginning of Romans 4. I don’t see compelling evidence that his opponents were taking the opposite position. Likewise (and here most Reformed commenters are much more realistic, I don’t think the Corinthians were merit legalists even though Paul uses the same arguments from grace against their pride.
There’s a very fine line between “we alone practice all of God’s justifying deeds” and “we alone received all of God’s justification and so can do all.”
Even if Paul’s main point was the role of the ceremonial commandments, couldn’t one deduce a condemnation of merit-righteousness in the classic sense? If even the divinely-given works of circumcision and so on are insufficient to merit God’s approval, how can anything man-made be claimed? Thus, even if Paul is not focusing on merit-righteousness, the traditional doctrine is “safe” by good and necessary consequence.
Absolutely! Yes Joshua that is exactly the case.