Galatians 2:21
New International Version
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

New Living Translation
I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.

English Standard Version
I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Berean Standard Bible
I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing.

Berean Literal Bible
I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the Law, then Christ died for naught."

King James Bible
I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

New King James Version
I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

New American Standard Bible
I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

NASB 1995
“I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

NASB 1977
“I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

Legacy Standard Bible
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

Amplified Bible
I do not ignore or nullify the [gracious gift of the] grace of God [His amazing, unmerited favor], for if righteousness comes through [observing] the Law, then Christ died needlessly. [His suffering and death would have had no purpose whatsoever.]”

Christian Standard Bible
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

American Standard Version
I do not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
I do not reject the grace of God, for if righteousness is by The Written Law, The Messiah died for nothing.

Contemporary English Version
I don't turn my back on God's gift of undeserved grace. If we can be acceptable to God by obeying the Law, it was useless for Christ to die.

Douay-Rheims Bible
I cast not away the grace of God. For if justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain.

English Revised Version
I do not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
I don't reject God's kindness. If we receive God's approval by obeying laws, then Christ's death was pointless.

Good News Translation
I refuse to reject the grace of God. But if a person is put right with God through the Law, it means that Christ died for nothing!

International Standard Version
I do not misapply God's grace, for if righteousness comes about by doing what the Law requires, then the Messiah died for nothing.

Literal Standard Version
I do not make the grace of God void, for if righteousness [is] through law—then Christ died in vain.

Majority Standard Bible
I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing.

New American Bible
I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

NET Bible
I do not set aside God's grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing!

New Revised Standard Version
I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

New Heart English Bible
I do not make void the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing."

Webster's Bible Translation
I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness is attainable by the law, then Christ hath died in vain.

Weymouth New Testament
I do not nullify the grace of God; for if acquittal from guilt is obtainable through the Law, then Christ has died in vain."

World English Bible
I don’t reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”

Young's Literal Translation
I do not make void the grace of God, for if righteousness be through law -- then Christ died in vain.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Paul Confronts Cephas
20I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing.

Cross References
Romans 4:25
He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and was raised to life for our justification.

Galatians 3:21
Is the law, then, opposed to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come from the law.


Treasury of Scripture

I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

do not.

Galatians 2:18
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

Psalm 33:10
The LORD bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect.

Mark 7:9
And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

righteousness.

Galatians 2:16
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Galatians 3:21
Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.

Galatians 5:2-4
Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing…

Christ.

Isaiah 49:4
Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.

Jeremiah 8:8
How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:2,14,17
By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain…

Jump to Previous
Acquittal Attainable Christ Dead Died Effect Frustrate Gained Grace Guilt Justification Law Nought Nullify Purpose Righteousness Vain Void
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Acquittal Attainable Christ Dead Died Effect Frustrate Gained Grace Guilt Justification Law Nought Nullify Purpose Righteousness Vain Void
Galatians 2
1. He shows when he went up again to Jerusalem, and for what purpose;
3. and that Titus was not circumcised;
11. and that he resisted Peter, and told him the reason;
14. why he and others, being Jews, believe in Christ to be justified by faith, and not by works;
20. and that they live not in sin, who are so justified.














(21) In thus attaching himself devotedly to Christ, the Christian escapes the charge of refusing and thwarting the free gift of justification which God has offered to him in His Son. He has made his choice of Christ, and not of the Law. On the other hand, if he had chosen the Law, and gone to it, and not to Christ, in his search for righteousness, he would have practically declared the death of Christ to be a useless and unnecessary sacrifice.

Frustrate.--An exactly literal translation of the Greek word, which means "to render nugatory or ineffectual." The grace of God goes forth with a certain mission to perform; but the Judaising party, by still clinging to the Law, prevented it from taking effect, and made it "return void" unto its Giver.

If righteousness come by the law.--What all men seek is justification in the sight of God. This is given to the just or righteous. But there were two ways of becoming thus just or righteous. The Law professed to make righteous those who complied with its provisions. But this was only a profession, for no one could really keep the Law. The Christian, therefore, rightly falls back upon faith in Christ, which brings him both an imputed righteousness, and also, in part, at least, a real righteousness. A deep and genuine faith in Christ is allowed to atone for the many unavoidable breaches of the Law, and that faith by degrees operates a real and vital change in the character and life of the man.

Then Christ is dead in vain.--If the Law had been enough to give actual righteousness to its votaries, and with righteousness the judicial declaration of freedom from guilt, then there would have been nothing for Christ to die for. His death would have had no object and been of no benefit to mankind.

Verse 21. - I do not frustrate the grace of God (οὐκ ἀθετῶ τὴν χάριν τοῦ Θεοῦ); I do not reject the grace of God. As I should be doing, it; instead of resting with "glorified" (1 Peter 1:8) satisfaction in the fatherly love and complacency with which God regards me in Christ, I began to give anxious heed to what the Law prescribes touching things or persons clean or unclean, and to deem it possible and needful to secure acceptableness with God through works of ceremonial performance. If it were only for one single reason alone, I do not, I cannot, thus slight and set at nought the state of grace with all its attendant blessings into which God has in Christ Jesus brought me. The "grace of God" presents that entire notion of the kingdom of grace which the apostle sets forth, and on which he descants with such glowing animation, in the fifth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. The term of itself stands in vivid contrast to that slavish, anxious, never assured working for acceptance, which characterized the Jewish legalist, and characterizes the legalist Christian as well. As the apostle does not write ἐγὼ οὐκ ἀθετῶ, which would mean, "I do not set aside, not I," he is not to be read as if just now emphasizing a personal contrast between himself, and either St. Peter or the Judaizers with whom St. Peter was then to outward appearance taking sides; he is at present simply winding up his recital of his remonstrance at Antioch with the one terse argument, with which he then justified his own position, and, as if with a sledge-hammer, at once demolished the position of the Judaizers. The verb ἀθετῶ means "reject," "turn from as from a thing unworthy of regard;" as in Mark 7:9, "Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your tradition;" Luke 7:30, "The Pharisees and lawyers rejected for themselves the counsel of God;" 1 Thessalonians 4:8, "He that rejecteth [our testimony touching this], rejeeteth not man, but God;" Hebrews 10:28, "A man that hath set at nought Moses' Law;" in which last passage it indicates, but without itself fully describing, a more aggressive disobedience. The rendering "made void," adopted by the Revisers, in the sense of "disannul," is doubtless fully authenticated by Galatians 3:15; 1 Timothy 5:12; Hebrews 9:18. Since even an apostle could not "disannul" the "grace of God" viewed in itself, this sense of the word, if adopted, would, as well as the perhaps questionable rendering of our Authorized Version, "frustrate," apply to the previous work of Divine grace wrought upon the apostle's own soul. But the logical connection of the following clause is more easily shown by our reverting to the sense before given to the verb, which in the New Testament is the more usual one. For if righteousness come by the Law, then Christ is dead in vain (εἰ γὰρ διὰ νόμου δικαιοσύνη ἄρα Ξριστὸς δωρεὰν ἀπέθανεν); for if through the Law is righteousness, then did Christ for nought die. This one reason is decisive. The sole reason why the Son of God came into the world to suffer death was to do away our sins and make us righteous with God. But if sin can be purged by the purifications of the Law, and cleanness before God is procurable by Levitical ceremonies, then there was no need for this; then the Crucifixion, for this one end ordained and from the beginning of time prepared for by the Father, and fur this one end, of his own free choice gone forward to, brought about, and undergone by Christ himself, was a simply superfluous sacrifice. We might have been saved, nay, have perchance saved ourselves, without it. It is impossible to find in all Scripture a more decisive passage than this in proof both of the fact of, the atonement and of its supreme importance in the Christian system. This is emphatically Christ's great work. Compared with this, all besides is either subsidiary or derivative, Δωρεάν, (as a mere gift,) "for nought;" that is, without cause, there being no call or just occasion for it; thus, John 15:25, "They hated me without cause;" 1 Samuel 19:5, Septuagint, "Slay David without a cause;" Ezekiel 6:10, Septuagint, "I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them;" Ecclus. 29:6, "He hath got him an enemy without cause." The apostle adds nothing as to the effect of his remonstrance. It is impossible, however, to doubt that, so instinct as it was with the power of the Holy Spirit, it proved successful, not only in the healing of the mischief which had begun to show itself in the Antiochian Church, but also in its effect upon St. Peter. Nothing has transpired of any later intercourse between the two apostles. But the thorough honesty which in the main was one of St. Peter's great characteristics, notwithstanding the perplexed action in which from time to time he got involved, through the warmth of his sympathetic affections and his sometimes too hasty impulsiveness, would be sure to make him pre-eminently tractable to the voice of a true-speaking and holy friend; and, moreover, in the present instance, St. Paul was appealing to sentiments which he had himself recently proved at Jerusalem to be deeply operative in his own bosom. How deeply operative, is further evinced in his own two Epistles, written some eight or ten years later than this Epistle, and addressed also in part to the same Galatian Churches; in which he not only weaves into his language not a few expressions and turns of thought which have all the appearance of being borrowed from Epistles of St. Paul, but also in the second of them makes direct mention of those Epistles, speaking of them as standing on the footing of "the other Scriptures," and of their author as "our beloved brother Paul;" notwithstanding that one of those very writings contains the extremely plain-spoken account of that sad fall of his at Antioch. which we have here been considering. (On St. Paul's later relations with St. Barnabas, see above on ver. 13.) ADDITIONAL NOTE.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Greek
I do not set aside
ἀθετῶ (athetō)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 1st Person Singular
Strong's 114: From a compound of a and a derivative of tithemi; to set aside, i.e. to disesteem, neutralize or violate.

the
τὴν (tēn)
Article - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

grace
χάριν (charin)
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 5485: From chairo; graciousness, of manner or act.

of God.
Θεοῦ (Theou)
Noun - Genitive Masculine Singular
Strong's 2316: A deity, especially the supreme Divinity; figuratively, a magistrate; by Hebraism, very.

For
γὰρ (gar)
Conjunction
Strong's 1063: For. A primary particle; properly, assigning a reason.

if
εἰ (ei)
Conjunction
Strong's 1487: If. A primary particle of conditionality; if, whether, that, etc.

righteousness [comes]
δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē)
Noun - Nominative Feminine Singular
Strong's 1343: From dikaios; equity; specially justification.

through
διὰ (dia)
Preposition
Strong's 1223: A primary preposition denoting the channel of an act; through.

the Law,
νόμου (nomou)
Noun - Genitive Masculine Singular
Strong's 3551: From a primary nemo; law, genitive case, specially, (including the volume); also of the Gospel), or figuratively.

Christ
Χριστὸς (Christos)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 5547: Anointed One; the Messiah, the Christ. From chrio; Anointed One, i.e. The Messiah, an epithet of Jesus.

died
ἀπέθανεν (apethanen)
Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 599: To be dying, be about to die, wither, decay. From apo and thnesko; to die off.

for nothing.”
δωρεὰν (dōrean)
Adverb
Strong's 1432: As a free gift, without payment, freely. Accusative case of dorea as adverb; gratuitously.


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NT Letters: Galatians 2:21 I don't make void the grace (Gal. Ga)
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