Sunday Morning: Galatian 2:11-21

Sermon notes
- Difficult area of NT interpretation as deals with teh question of how the OT and NT fit together - Law and Gospel
- if you leave church with a full notebook, but an unchanged life you have missed the point
- what must I do to be accepted?
- previously - you need to be a Jew, a son of Abraham. This was a the great wall between Jews and rest of the world. Wall = Law.
- Exodus, Lev and Deut - particularly set out how to live acceptably as God's people.
- 20(?) years previous to this letter - the Temple curtain had been torn in two.

Truth of the gospel in essence vv11-16
- ignore the ESV break
- vv15-16 - the gospel explored (you are not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ. Typical Paul sentence - Not/But/So/In order/Because. No-one can keep the Law except Jesus)
- vv11-14 - the issue being faced. Gospel + is actually gospel -. vv12-13 Antioch - hypocrisy.
- what are you relying on?
- faith in Jesus +? denominational rules, experience/Holy Spirit, performance of daily prayer and quiet time, commitment to evangelism, conformity to Christian social norms, portfolio of service. Many are perfectly good things - but when we seek to rely on them - we are in danger of subtly becoming a hypocrite.
- how does it affect us practically?
Truth of gospel in experience
vv17-21 - where Paul says 'I', this can be read as 'one'
* I died to the Law v19
* I have been crucified with Christ
* I no longer live (it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me) v20
* The life that I now live I live by faith v20