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Apostle, Bible, Christianity, Church, Faith, Galatians, God, Gospel, grace, Letters, Paul, religion, Scripture, study
Gal 2.15: “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners;”
- Translation matters on this and the next verse. Printed above is the ESV. NASB says, “by nature,” and “not sinners from among…” NIV says, “We who are…sinful Gentiles…” NKJV: “who are Jews by nature…sinners of the Gentiles.” This is significant because the first critical Greek word is ‘physis’ (fü’-ses), meaning nature or origin. The word connotates both your source (where you come from), and your make up (the essence of what you are). When Paul says it, he means that the Jews are Jews by descent. They are ethnic Jew — Jewishness is in their literal DNA. They have physical traits that distinguish them from others. But more than just DNA or physical characteristics, the Jews have a spiritual and cultural legacy that the Gentiles lack. This is because the Gentiles were outside of the Abrahamic covenant. How many ancestors of the Gentiles had witnessed the parting of the Red Sea? Or how many were at the sacking of Jericho?
- More to Paul’s point, however, is the giving of the law: the ceremonial, civil, and moral instructions from God on the governance of the People of Israel. Having this law, the Jew was instructed on what was right and wrong before God. This purpose is explained by Paul in Romans 7.7 when he writes, “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.” So the “Gentile sinners” is not a distinction between sinful Gentiles and righteous Jews, but ignorantly sinful Gentiles (unaware of the full measure of their sin), and conscientiously sinful Jews. Both are sinful. Both are condemned, since, “None is righteous” (Romans 3).
- Finally, I do like one implication of the ESV saying, “by birth,” since it adds time into the mind of the listener. How much longer and deeper was the Jew’s experience with the law? This is to set up Paul’s following argument in verse 16.
((Sorry for the short post this week! This section of notes was difficult to chop up, since the first major point on verse 16 is a long one (roughly 900 words). I try to make the cuts so that thoughts are generally completed, but that means we have a light week this week.))