Galatians 2:21

Galatians 2:21. I do not frustrate, or set at nought, make of no effect, nullify, as the Judaizers do with their assertion of the necessity of the law for justification.

The grace of God, which revealed itself in the infinite love and atoning death of Christ, Galatians 2:20.

Christ died (not ‘is dead,' E. V.) for nought, or ‘uselessly,' ‘gratuitously,' i.e.. without good cause; not ‘in vain' (i.e., without fruit or effect). If the observance of the law of Moses or any other human work could justify and save man, the atoning death of Christ would be unnecessary as well as fruitless. This blasphemous inference gives the finishing stroke to the false Judaizing gospel.

The power of this concluding argument Peter could not resist, and he no doubt felt ashamed and humbled at this overwhelming rebuke, as he did after the denial of his Master, although Paul, from discretion and kindness, says nothing of the result of this collision. The effect of it was long felt: to the Ebionites it furnished material for an attack upon Paul, to the Gnostics for an attack upon the Jewish apostles, to Porphyry for an attack upon Christianity itself. But Christianity has survived all these attacks, and gains new strength from every conflict