Galatians 2: Paul’s Logic of Salvation & Flow of Thought Explained | Nicolai Techow

Galatians 2:15–21 is one of the most debated passages in Paul — but why is it so difficult to interpret, and what exactly is Paul arguing?
In this episode, we walk step-by-step through the flow of thought in Galatians 2, showing how the Greek text reveals Paul’s logic regarding justification, faith, the law, and Christian identity.

Daniel Mikkelsen speaks with Nicolai Techow (Lecturer at Fjellhaug International University College, Copenhagen), a scholar of Paul and the Greek New Testament, about how reading Galatians in Greek uncovers structure, connections, and meaning that are often obscured in English translations. Together we explore how Paul uses phrases like “works of the law” and “Gentile sinners,” why verse 18 is a turning point in the argument, and how the grammar and discourse build toward Paul’s famous statement: 'I have been crucified with Christ.'

This episode will be helpful for anyone studying biblical exegesis, justification by faith, Pauline theology, the New Perspective on Paul, or for those simply wanting to understand how Paul’s reasoning works in context — rather than as isolated theological slogans.

Finally, we consider how Paul’s understanding of justification shapes daily Christian life and why his argument in Galatians remains so important for the Church today.

Don't Miss the Next episode: 

A conversation with Ed Glenny on how the Septuagint (LXX) is used in 1 Peter, why Peter sometimes quotes Scripture differently than the Hebrew text, and what that means for our understanding of inspiration, meaning, and early Christian interpretation.

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Chapters

00:00 Coming Up...
01:09 Meet Nicolai Techow — Scholar of Paul and the Greek Text
05:06 How Learning Greek Became an Unexpected Joy
08:44 Three Levels of Understanding Scripture Through Greek
15:12 What Greek Reveals That English Can’t Capture
19:58 How Greek Changes How We Read Salvation in Galatians
22:56 Why Paul Writes Galatians the Way He Does
28:43 How Galatians 2 Fits Into Paul’s Larger Argument
36:08 Why Galatians 2 Is One of Paul's Most Debated Texts
41:30 Key Puzzles in Galatians 2 — What Does Paul Mean?
51:46 What Is Paul Tearing Down and Rebuilding?
01:06:17 How Justification Shapes Everyday Christian Life

Music Credits:
Music from #Uppbeat
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Podcast Keywords:
biblical languages, New Testament, Old Testament, Christ, bible study,  Relationship with God, learn biblical languages, Biblical Theology, Christianity, Covenants, New covenant, old covenant, language acquisition, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew.

Transcript

0:00

Anyone that reads Galatians just read through that it reads quite differently to the rest of Paul's letters. Why is that? Paul, the very gospel itself is under threat. He thinks that everything is at stake here. He must get this one right. And the Galatians are on their way to damnation, nothing less. And he must stop that. So one of the key problems is, is verse 15 where Paul says, we are Jews by nature and not Gentile sinners. What does he mean by that? And what does it actually mean for the way we interpret the text? That's a question interpreters have really had trouble with. What's obvious in the Greek text is that verse 18 begins with a for if. So the for there shows us that 2 18 must somehow support what has been said in 2 17. One of the things that have become clear to me is that in tall justification and the judgment of God are integrated. You cannot separate those two. I'm compelled by your argument. I just have one problem with it. Welcome back to another episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture, brought to you by NT Greek Tutoring, the place for personalized Greek learning in your spare time. My name is Daniel Mikkelsen. I'm the host. I'm the founder of NT Greek Tutoring and I'm a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh in New Testament Studies and Christian Origins. And this podcast exists to make gems from biblical studies accessible to everyday Christians and show you how the biblical languages opens up scripture. Our aim is to increase your love for his word. and his mission, so they become more joyful witnesses for his mission. And today I'm delighted and honored to be joined by my former undergraduate lecturer and supervisor, Nicolai Techow m who teaches New Testament at Fjellhaug International University College, Copenhagen. Nicolai is a regular preacher at the services of Københavnerkirken. He also runs the Greek course at Fjellhaug's Copenhagen campus. which is where we are today, which also means that he taught me Greek. He specializes in Paul's theology of salvation and he published eh a book on this particular matter in Galatians just last year. You can see it right here. It's called Sinners Works of Law and Transgressions in Galatians 2.14b-20-21. in the prestigious WUNT series from Mohr Siebeck. This is also what we're going to talk about later on in this episode. So if you want to know more about what the flow of thought in Galatians means for how we understand Paul's salvation and what is at stake, then stick around for that. m I'm very excited for one to... for this conversation. It's been a very interesting project. So I'm looking forward to it. And as Nicolai was my bachelor's supervisor and undergraduate lecturer, I have benefited much from his teaching and I have a lot to thank him for in regards to where I am as a student of God's word today, especially on the New Testament front. On a more personal note, I'm very grateful to Nicolai, to you for doing the blessing service at our in relation to our wedding. So when my wife and I got married, which was a very special day for us. Yeah, that was such a special thing for me that you'll be able to do that for us. Well, me too, that's for sure. It was a great day and privilege to be able to do that. Yeah, yeah, so it's a great honor to have you on my podcast my friend. Yeah, welcome here. Anything else you want to add before we get started? Well, there's nothing really about me to add. just I'm delighted to have you here. It's great to have you come and visit and and then see you develop. I usually talk about you Daniel as the student that keeps exceeding my expectations and you've done that for the last decade or so just keeping on going and in a weird backward sense, it's nice to see one students, you know almost passed one by because they're just getting on with their research and their knowledge and everything. That's just a great joy and you're a prime example of that. And being able to see you and Lera together was just a very, very great joy for both uh me and my wife Maria. So, yes, that was just wonderful. Thank you for those kind words and to God be the glory. So yeah, yes, yeah, I could say lots about that and maybe do that another time. yeah, yeah, glory be to God. So, but let's then start with your personal journey. How did you get into studying of the biblical languages? how did that... I think actually, you know, even before I started studying theology, I was asking questions in the biblical text as I read that I had questions. What does this mean? How does that argument work? And so on. And at some point, I saw that if I wanted to dig deeper into trying to find answers to some of those questions, I would need to be able to actually read the original text in Greek or Hebrew. um so that was a great motivation for actually choosing to study theology. And before I started that, I didn't understand languages at all. I was a mathematician. Like like not not not at university level but but as a high school student that was my specialty and I just loved math and have no understanding for languages at all and and I thought it was probably going to be very tough and hard and and and and perhaps even a drag but All of a sudden it all became very, very exciting. think that that motivated me very much to be able to understand, you know, the first verse in John's Gospel, being able to read that. That was just a great experience and that gave more motivation. And then as years go by, you've suddenly read a whole lot of Greek. yes, that's very good. That's fascinating how you got in, but yeah, I remember tall stories about you like dragging about this massive bag with two massive dictionaries. yeah, this was before computers or laptops and so, and way before even, know, Accordance or GramCourt or any of those programs that began to use back in the 90s perhaps. But this was back when, you you had to, when you studied Latin and Greek and Hebrew, you had your dictionary and your syntax and your text and... Those are big dictionaries to carry around. So yeah, it was good. My back was young back then. It was good. Because you did at least two of them and together Yeah, I had one full years of, I started my studies at an uneven semester somehow. And so I had to uh change the sequence of some of the courses, which meant that I ended up having one whole academic year with only Latin, Greek and Hebrew and nothing else. So I just woke up every morning to my three. wonderful dictionaries and my texts and syntax and just you you you knew the drill every morning and to me that was just great and wonderful. That's great. to some students, that's a fear. Of course it and and I think of it almost no matter what you study you will have those days when things are just not very motivating when you feel that it's all very dusty and boring and so on but I think that almost anything if you study it intensely it will become exciting somehow. And you know even the just the experience of beginning to master something that's a great motivation in itself and so yeah. Yeah. even despite the dull moments, if you can get past those, then the rewards accumulate as I've mentioned several times. I think there's at least three layers to learning Greek. There is the oral, sort of like you can see where it plays. Then there is the level of like semantic range and meaning where you sort of... can see things that you otherwise wouldn't couldn't see or even the word play in the word place that that one word is used in the same way like in in in James where the word for for temptation and for trial is the same in Greek and and as Daniel K. Eng pointed out to me and I've seen before as well is in in in in Philippians when Paul talks about being a persecutor of the church and then pursuing Christ. It's the same word. So that word has that link, like semantic range. And then you have the syntactical level, which is, I think is the more complicated level, which takes longer to get. You can get the two ones, you can get that pretty quickly. But the syntactical and discourse analysis level is... is where I think there are most rewards to be made, but it's also the more complicated. And it's harder to give an example of that with just saying, this. But it sometimes needs to read several... You will need to look at the flow of thought, which we'll be talking more about in a minute in Galatians 2. but maybe I should ask you the question. So as you've been reading the biblical languages, how have knowing them opened up scripture for you? I think that has happened at many different levels almost. uh First of all, it has given me some knowledge and some skills and some tools to actually... being able to engage critically with uh different interpretations of the text and different arguments for more technical discussions and so on. that has been one uh thing. I think also at uh a more meta level, sort of, it has given me a better insight into how language works, simply. And that, in turn, has perhaps... helped me not to make some of those interpretive fallacies that are very easy to make if you don't really understand how language works. so that has been one of the, think, actually it's been a great help. I think that most of all, the most important thing that has given me is that I have gotten the tools and the skills and so on. in order to be able to more precisely follow what I would call the flow of thought in a discursive text. Actually being precise in how does the logic work here and so on. Being able to analyze that in more detail. That has been uh really good. And so being able to read the biblical languages gives the opportunity to better understand what we perhaps could call the interpretive space that a text always leaves or gives you, what's possible ways to understand this and what are impossible ways to understand it. Because every time you translate, you put something into the text of this and there and the original, and you take something out that is there. You can't avoid that. because going from one language to another is just, that's just how it is when you translate and you can't avoid it. So being able to go behind that ah translation, that interpretive choice, involves to be able to go behind that and see what's actually there, that's the most general, wonderful thing to be able to do. Like appreciate what is there for yourself and not, I think, was it my... So Robert Lane, he was talking about the rope setters on the mountain. So the people who set the ropes are the ones who actually did it. When you can climb your mountain yourself without the ropes and thereby you can... m You can go to the language, to the Bible itself, rather than if you would climb the ropes, more like letting the Bible come to you. So there is a difference. You get the same thing, ultimately. But there is a distinction between whether you actually climb the mountain or that you use the ropes that were said for you. It may both be hard, but the reward... getting to the top if you didn't use the ropes, it usually feels greater. And I think you can compare that to the languages. And I think that's, is that what I hear you say? As part of it at least, I think that if we stay in that analogy, if you climb the mountain itself, you get a better feel for the very small, tiny nooks and cranges that you've needed to use in order to get to the top. both ways of getting there will get you to an understanding of what's actually being said, what the point is, but you're getting more and a more precise experience. and a more direct experience of the mountain if you're right there. That could be a good way to explain one aspect at least of the difference. Yeah, that's great. That's amazing. Do you have any more specific examples that you have m seen something that you didn't see in the original that you can see in the translation? Yeah, think the one I mention here would be in Romans chapter 6, for instance, in the Danish translation when you get to verse 7, it says that the one who has died has been liberated. from sin and um that's or delivered from sin it's it's it's a and that's possible translation but the word that Paul used there is that is the same he uses when he talks about being justified and there's really no reason in the context for shifting your translation from talking about justification and being justified etc in all of the other occurrences in the context and then when the same verb occurs there in 6-7, the most natural translation is that the one who has died has been justified from sin. what that shows me is, and of course it's not the only place Paul says things like that, but it comes very explicitly to expression right there, oh that justification happens through dying somehow. And that is then a doorway into uh very important aspects of Paul's talk about salvation and uh justification and so on. Yeah. And of course if I had had a translation that had just translated with this justify from I would not have needed the Greek text to understand that but the translation I used to read the Danish authorized translation had delivered and I think the same is actually the case in several English translations as well. I would say, I wouldn't say there's none that does it, the great majority would do it. yeah, yeah, Matt Novenson actually goes with that for different reasons in his new monograph. But that's a discussion for another time. Yeah, so I think we disagree, I would disagree with him in how he, what he makes of that, I think you would too, but it's very interesting and it's very important in Paul's flow of thought through Romans in that regard, I agree. em Do you have another example? It could be from Galatians 5. I think we're in verse 16. Yes, I think it's verse 16. When Paul says that, um if you... um Let me look it up just to be sure I get the wording right here. So hold on for a second. got it here somewhere uh me see. you have it there. That's great. Well, it says that um if you walk in the spirit, eh and then the Greek text says, you know, walk in the spirit as an imperative, and then it goes, you will not at all... uh fulfill the uh desires of the flesh. So in Greek, the most natural way to take this is that Paul first tells the Galatians to walk in the spirit and then what comes after is what will happen when they do that. In the Danish authorised translation it is given as two commands that are just sequential after each other. So he says, you should walk in the spirit and you should not uh complete. I'm sure that Paul would agree that we shouldn't either way, but actually um it's a wonderful thing that here he gives us one command and then he gives us a promise. And so that changed the text when I read that to me. would be another example. There are many different. So maybe we could focus the conversation a little bit. Because you spend lots of time working through the Greek texts of Galatians in particular. Sure. But yeah, and many other places in the New Testament. Without giving too much away from what we're going to talk about in just a moment. Have you seen something about salvation in Galatians or elsewhere in Paul? that enhanced your understanding of the salvation; Paul's notion of salvation that you otherwise wouldn't have seen in translation? yes. I think there are several things. But the most important things, I can't see that they were not there in translation, but the cumulative effect of seeing the tiny nuances have built something up. I think that what has happened overall to me by reading Galatians carefully in Greek as to seeing how Paul again and again bases this argument on the cross of Christ. His basic argument in Galatians is if you Galatians had really understood what the cross was about, you would never even consider what you're actually thinking about doing with this circumcision thing and so on. And that has to do with the fact that justification and so on, Galatians is again and again spoken about as something that happens in Christ. And sometimes translations don't really just translate that as it is. They will sometimes go with, you know, by Christ or something. But this locative understanding of of what's going on, that somehow comes clearer out in the Greek text, and that has helped me, I think, see, rather, to me, central aspect of what justification is all about more clearly than I would have if I had just read the translations. That's very helpful. And sometimes ἐν (en) has many different sort of like meanings. yes it does. So some of those nuances are hard to depict in a translation because you want to make translation readable. precisely, yes, having worked with translation myself, it's the hard thing, you're always thinking a lot about how do I lose as little as possible and add as little as possible to convey the original interpretive room here. That's hard. Yes, absolutely. Well, maybe that's a good segue into asking questions. Why did you decide to study salvation in Galatians 2, rather than elsewhere in Paul? um Well, at the time that I chose that was way back many years ago when I um was going to start the PhD project. And I had been working with the theme of the law in Paul a lot and when you do that you get into all of these justification texts and so on and I have worked rather detail in a rather detailed ways with Romans and many of the other texts and Philippians 3 and 2 Corinthians and so on and also perhaps a bit with some of the Corinthian texts and um it was natural when you've studied those things you get into all the discussions about how to read Paul's perspective on this and that and the different perspectives on Paul and I was thinking a lot about the new perspectives from Paul and so on and I wanted to get to study the thing about uh works of law and justification how to understand that expression and how it works in Paul's text about justification and in that field it seemed to me at that point in time that One of the texts that were not really written that much about in detail as to how the thought of flow goes in it would be Galatians 2, the second half of Galatians 2. uh so I started out with that text at least and then originally I think I had an ambition of going through all Paul's justification texts and really doing the detailed study of them all. And then I just had to realize what I think was Murray Harris who said once to me and some other students that the PhD project is a... a constant retreat in ambition and that was what happened to me as well. So I got stuck in Galatians 2 and never got out again, one can say. So I ended up with that but began there because my impression was that the secondary literature was a little less humongous on Galatians 2 at that point. That was 20 years ago more, almost 25 years ago. things have changed since. m No, yes. It's less today. no, but it is still a very, very central text and uh most likely the first text I think where Paul really develops his thoughts on justification. Yeah. And anyone that reads Galatians, just read through it it reads quite differently to the rest of Paul's letters. oh why is that? I I think that to Paul, the point is that he sees... the gospel, the very gospel itself is under threat. That's the situation and alongside that he sees his old claim to apostleship as being threatened. So he's in a sense he's in a corner. He thinks that everything is at stake here. He must get this one right and the Galatians are on their way to damnation, nothing less, and he must stop that. So he writes differently uh even when he writes to the Corinthians, which was not... model church, they had their problems and so on. Still when he addresses them, he thanks God for them, everything, all the gifts that they've received, etc. and so on, and then he addresses their problems. None of that in Galatians goes right to the problem. I am the English work, but it troubles me. I'm amazed in a negative sense that you so quickly turn away and desert and so on. So it's a very different uh thing. I think the background is simply the seriousness and the acuteness that Paul feels. Now we can discuss when Galatians is written, I and it's all but settled, but uh it seems to me that the theory that still most easily accounts for most data is an early dating, which means that Paul might be writing Galatians on his way to a meeting in Jerusalem to discuss this matter. So, he is really warming up for something important at that time. Yeah, I agree it has to be before the meeting in Jerusalem in Acts 15. Otherwise I don't feel that there are lots of things that doesn't make sense. em But that's actually a little bit different discussion. em And the dating is maybe not so important for what we talking about today necessarily. I don't think it is. Yeah, but maybe it's worth asking, so how does Galatians 2 fit into the flow of thought in the rest of the letter? That's a good question. And it's important Learning New Testament Greek can be a real challenge. If that's been your experience, I've put together a free PDF guide called Why Learning Greek Could Be a Struggle and How to Move Forward. Inside you'll find the most common pitfalls and my simple three step framework to help you start reading Greek with more confidence. Get your free copy today by clicking the link in the description below or the pinned comment. Now back to the episode. how does Galatians 2 fit into the flow of thought in the rest of the letter? That's a good question. And it's important to try to understand the context that Galatians 2 is a part of. I might draw it up this way. In Galatians, Paul has... there are like almost two theses he wants to demonstrate. Or we can say there are two different aspects of his one thesis because they're closely connected. And the one part is that his apostleship is not something that he has been given from another human being. And it has not. been given through another human being. They've not been involved at all. He's not dependent on any other human beings. It might be because some people have said about him that, he's not really an apostle in the way that Peter, John, and James and so on are. And so he wants to defend his own apostleship. And then the other part is that he wants to argue that the gospel that he preaches is the gospel and it's the true gospel. It is the truth of the gospel, as you can see. And he wants to argue for that. And so right after having said that and and really established the importance of this, he he endures into an extended narrative that stretches all the way from 1.13 in Galatians all the way through chapter two. There's a bit discussion of how the end of chapter two is to be understood, but I think the narrative goes all the way. And so what he does there is he tells his own story all the way from back before he became a believer and then depending on how we establish the chronology, perhaps all the way to the moment of writing almost is where he almost ends his narrative, or at least not that early before, that long before the time of writing. And so what goes on in that narrative is that Paul first spends a lot of time arguing that there was no way he could have at all become a believer unless God himself entered into his story. He was radical in his pursuit of the law and so on and even his persecution of the church and so on but God turned him around just like he's done with He called him the way he had called the prophets and so on. So it was a divine calling that happened to him. And he did not consult with the other apostles right away. his narrative has as one of its major points that his apostleship was not conveyed through the other apostles. He's completely independent of whom it was God directly who called him. And that's the first major point. And there's some discussion as to when has he actually established that point well enough. And I tend to think that he's actually established that point well enough when he's through chapter one. And then he goes on to say something a little bit different, which is that, by the way, oh there is no disagreement between me on the one hand and the other apostles on the other as to what the gospel is. I have presented my gospel to them and they agreed with the whole thing. So that's a point to him. So now he begins to talk not only about his own apostleship but also about the content of his gospel whether or not it's the real one. He says that hey they agreed with this. And then as the third point he says even if some of the other apostles should um do something or say something that could be even interpreted as being in contrast with my or in conflict with the gospel I preach, then they are the ones having the problem, not me. And there was actually one time when that happened in Antioch when Peter did something he shouldn't have done and I just gave him a scolding and then he recorts. in a pointed way, I think, a very dense summary of what it actually was he said to Peter on that occasion in Antioch. So that's what chapter two does. And then right after that, we have the first direct address. One can say, since the beginning of the letter to the Galatians, that's where he goes, you foolish Galatians, and so on. So that's a great... There's one of the very few places where all interpreters agree that here's a break in the letter. That's right there after chapter 2 and then he goes into an argumentation for his thesis on the basis of scripture and the experience of the Galatians and himself together. So that's where chapter 2 fits in. and then goes on to talk about how that works in life in the last two, three chapters, like four, five, six, kind of that's what is going on there. Four is still in the, like you can see in the law that there is a differentiation between the people walking, ἔργα νόμου (erga nomou) 'works of the law' and the ones who walk. according to the spirit. And then you can see it in Abraham's story. then he applies it to life. Is that so like... One can say that, yes. Of course. we can begin to have a long talk about what the precise relation is between what we call theology now and what we now call ethics or the indicative and the imperative and so on. Relations and so on. But at one level, I think that's a right way of seeing it. Clearly chapters five, verse 13 and on are all the way back into 6.11, 6.10 are more more perinetic as we say, they're more telling the Galatians how they should live their life and their salvation in Christ. Yes, that's true. Yeah, this question is kind of... I hope it will be very succinct to think of this one because em Galatians is very disputed text in Paul. There's lots of different opinions. There's not so much which different opinions necessarily, it's more like why? Yes, well I think the reason that Galatians 2 is so disputed is that it involves almost everything. It involves chronology and history, it involves syntax, it involves understanding social phenomena in the early church, it involves very, very central aspects of his theology at all and you know, especially the doctrine of justification. What is the issue? What is the point there? So every essential thing is very, very involved in that. And I think that's why there are so many different opinions about it. There's much at stake. Yeah, and it involves almost anything. Yeah, maybe we should like, one of the key problems, we might want to go through a couple of them. So one of the key problems is often verse 15 where Paul says, we are Jews by nature and not Gentile sinners. And why does he actually say that? And what does he mean by that? And what does it actually mean for the way we interpret the text? That's one of the cruxes there that we are difficulties in the text. I think it's important to note that uh this is the way he almost begins his speech to Peter. has a couple of, he has a rhetorical question to Peter before that in chapter 2, 14b, and then this is what comes in verse 15. And uh I think it's important to try to understand how the two are connected somehow. And my understanding of the connection here depends a little bit on my understanding of what he says in 14b, of course. Looking just at verse 15. It's important that he says that we are Jews 'φύσει (physei)' in Greek 'by nature'. And it says, it stands in opposition to sinners from Gentiles. So the nature and the from Gentiles part are structurally parallel. They both refer to birth or where we come from, our starting point. So he expresses a great difference in starting point between we. which is himself and Peter and all the other Jewish believers on the one hand. And then all the Gentiles, the contrast is not between sinners and not sinners. It's between Jews, people being born as Jews with all that involves on the one hand. And then... Sinners from Gentiles, which is not a very good starting point to have because then you're in a sense It's a lower level somehow in religious terms And I think that's the point that's the difference. He's just been speaking verse 14 about Peter Implicitly, I think uh forcing the Gentiles to live the way Jews ought to live uh while not himself even being able to do it actually. And then Paul takes a step back and begins to explain what the problem is in all of that because what he says in verse 15 with the contrast between the starting point of these two groups is then contrasted again with what comes after in verse 16. yeah, which is a there is definitely another crux there. Yeah. So, Matt in his new monograph does actually divide the second sentence differently. So, he thinks that it is he sees that Paul sees the Jews, they know better. So, he says that they know better. So, they should know what Paul is about to say. or they know what Poles are supposed to say if they're good Jews according to Matt. I want to modify it little bit. would say Jews should know better because they have the law. Where Gentiles, they don't have that basis. And that's the point. And I've seen that way of understanding the text. I don't agree with it because it somehow implies that it is because there are Jews that they know what they know, which is... a bit strange because the content of the knowledge that we're dealing with in verse 16 is not one that is reserved for Jews. It's a broader one and that's why I think it's different. that's where the discussion of the syntax and so on, what's the syntactical, at least pragmatic relation between verse 15 and 16. I think I also might be misrepresenting a little bit. think you might be closer to him, but I can't, should have, maybe I should have read that section before we started the interview. But it is very interesting and yes, maybe that's for another time. But it may be worth considering maybe the big crux you already mentioned, ἔργα νόμου So what does it actually mean in this particular text? and also how it's understood within the context of Galatians. Yes. See, the expression ἔργα νόμου is of course a very central one in the discussion about how Paul understands the law and he uses that expression to say what people are not justified by. So it's sort of a mirror image to believing in Christ or... πίστις χριστοῦ (pistis Christou), at least, that's another expression as a matter of discussion, of course. But since, at least since uh E.P. Sanders wrote his monograph back in 1977, and before that even, of course, uh many interpreters have understood ἔργα νόμου as an expression referring to that which made Jews Jews um with a special focus often on what we call identity markers that you know circumcision, Sabbath laws and etc. And um so if you follow that interpretation and take Erganuma as an expression that is all about being Jewish rather than as many people within what we call could call the reformation paradigm have understood it namely as an expression of anything the law demands, good works, etc. and so on, least including that, then you get two different understandings of what it is that we are not justified by. if we understood this, if we understand the expression as about, an, we call it an ethnic category, justification, the point in justification is that we are not justified by being Jewish or becoming Jewish, which means that the gospel of justification is a gospel that centrally says that that the point is that Gentiles do not need to become Jews in order to be justified, which is clearly part of what Paul is saying. The question is whether that's the primary thing or all of it. I uh don't think it is to be understood as narrow as that, but many people have said that since the context speaks about meal fellowship and so on, then it's clear that in Galatians 2 it must be these identity markers and so on. And that's one of the things that I think actually will not hold if you try to really follow in detail the flow of the argument. Yeah, yeah. We'll get into that a little bit further in a minute. I do have some comments on that, sure. But one of the things that is unique about your book, it's another more technical part of the chapter, maybe I should put it that way, is that the transition between 17 and 18. And it's very debated, very contagious problem. And so how does this transition and verse 18 fit into Paul's flow of thought? That's a question interpreters have really had trouble with. What's obvious in the Greek text is that verse 18 begins with a 'for if'. So the for there shows us that 2.18 must somehow support what has been said in 2.17. And 2.17 ends with the very emphatic denial by Paul, μὴ γένοιτο (mē genoito) in Greek, know, may it not be, not at all. So we have to try and find a way that what he says in 2 18 supports that denial. Now in order to understand that we need to understand what is it he denies in 2.17 and so on and that leads into a question of whether or not what Paul actually is trying to say in 2.17 and so on. I think that many of the problems that interpreters have with *verse 18 has to do with their almost default interpretation of thinking that Paul talks about in verse 18 breaking down and rebuilding the law or a function of the law or some aspect of it. So when Paul in verse 18 talks about that I break if I rebuild what I have broken down that I will show myself as a transgressor, then the vast majority of interpreters, almost without thinking, say that what Paul is talking about having destroyed and perhaps rebuilding there is the law in some sense. And that gives... people a lot of problems when they didn't have to explain how 2.18 supports 2.17. And so that's part of why I try to actually understand that which Paul breaks down and rebuilds differently because that changes things and makes us able to actually see 217 through 18 as a linear argument that is actually very interesting. Yeah, yeah, and how do you understand that it's also the so it's ἃ (ha) and ταῦτα (tauta) in verse 18 that you deal with which and this or these. So can you explain to me how you understand it? I do have some comments on that in terms to like its neutral plural and how we should understand it but I'd like to like, like, can you flesh out how you, you like argue for it? Yes. Well, what I've done is to say what happens if we try to understand the idea of breaking down and rebuilding as a scriptural metaphor that has a background in what we call the Old Testament and related literature. I've actually just... uh tried to find every instance in that whole literature where um the text speaks about destroying or breaking down or you know that could be different verbs used to that or rebuilding and so on and see is there what do these metaphors convey what's the idea about it and and and it seems to me rather clear actually that very, very rarely, if at all anywhere, does that antithesis occur with the laws, that which is being broken down or rebuilding. Rather, what's being talked about again and again and again is breaking down sinners and their sin and rebuilding people again or... human beings being broken down and building up. and so I, and that, you know, the text where this becomes very clear in the Old Testament is in Jeremiah. He's, know, archetypically the prophet who's called to uproot and plant again and to break down and rebuild. That's his program. And he was understood to have that program. We can read that in... Sirach that when he lists the prophet then that's what Jeremiah is all about and in Jeremiah It's very clear that what's being broken down is all the opposition to God all the the sin and all the sinners that are being destroyed by the by the the judgment of God coming out of the mouth of the prophet sort of you know, it's an effective word that that breaks them down and then later the promise of a new covenant of God forgiving them their sins and so on. That's what will rebuild them into a new people and new human beings. And so I think that that's the background key to understanding what Paul's all about in 2.18. And so he's talking in 2.18 about what he does as as an apostle because he's, you know, the what we could call him the eschatological equivalent to the prophets back there now in a new time in revelatory history. He does as the prophets did. He comes out there and he breaks down people with part of his proclamation and then he rebuilds them with the gospel. And I think that's that that opens up the text. Yeah, and I'm compelled by your argument. I just have one problem with it. Good. So my problem is that the only that sinners, so ἁμαρτωλοί (hamartōloi) is masculine in Greek and ἃ (ha) and ταῦτα (tauta) are neuter plurals. and as far as I have seen in your book, you don't actually, you don't explain. how that fits. Yes, I've done a little bit more in detail on it in an article that I wrote. in an antology about this. uh But my response to that, it's a good question and I'm glad to see how you're thinking in the Greek text. You know, it's a well-known uh phenomenon that we use the neuter pronouns to refer to uh collectives that perhaps belong to different genders in in the antecedents. And so you could have a ἁμαρτωλός (hamartōlos) in masculine and ἁμαρτία (hamartia) in feminine and the feminine and then one way of referring to the whole as a collective would be by using the neuter. And then there is also the part that Paul thinks of himself as an apostle to the Gentiles, τὰ ἔθνη (ta etnē), which is neuter and... ἔθνη (ethnē) can have both an exclusive meaning referring only to the non-Jewish human beings and their nations and then can have an inclusive meaning which refers to all nations and either way it could be part of what goes into Paul actually using the neuter. So that would be my response, but I do acknowledge that that is actually, I wish he had used another gender. Yeah, I actually I want to hear how would you think of this because I think the antecedent is ἔργα νόμου But I do not think that that excludes your interpretation. I will explain to you how why what I mean is that Because I think that if you use the law or deeds of the law as any means to try to justify yourself Then you build up what has been broken down And in that sense you build up the sinner. Which you shouldn't. You should let him die and then be raised in Christ. Both metaphorically in this life and eschatologically real. So for me I think that that will grammatically solve the It could be. I'd have to think about that. I'm not that fast of a thinker. I need to sit down, you know, and smoke a pipe and light.. no I don't smoke a pipe. Think it more carefully through. I don't see it as any insurmountable problem to the interpretation, because I see so often the phenomenon of just going into the neuter when you refer. Yeah. proceeding so it would be uh yeah but I'd consider that let me me think it through because I think that that's a general problem within the Galatians because I worked my PhD on a particular piece of Galatians. I've worked in Galatians 2 for different reasons. And I'm going through the text as well. And, and, I see that most people, just seem to don't care about whether there's this neuter or not. it's like, and there is only, I think in your book, there's three books that actually acknowledge that. A couple of like German scholarship. Yes. And I feel like, I think if you do it this way, then your interpretation will be more persuasive. Yes. It could be. I have a footnote or so as far as I remember where I discuss at least that a little bit. There are some deep connections in Paul about what is the most basic. sin, in the sense it comes to expression in another troublesome or difficult to interpret passage in Galatians 3.10, almost says that it's sinful to do these works of law and so on. that's one uh place where he actually speaks that way, and I have a footnote where I talk about that if you actually think this through. you cannot completely separate destroying sinners and their sins and destroying the law in that function of being used for justification. yes, perhaps I already have actually written a couple of lines on that, but uh it's good for me to go back and... because it also would, in my case, it also would see like when his, it will work with his flow of thought in chapter three as well. When he talks about the law as never having that function. It's always been, it was there as a, as a guide a παιδαγωγός (paidagōgos) until the Messiah came, which is Christ. em And then that is, was not meant to be, then the Messiah will, will, will do a different job or. will use the law in a different way or the same way as was supposed to be used in the Old Covenant, in a more powerful way through the Spirit. Which I have not thought those things through, but I think that that is helpful. But I might want to ask another question is that, so what does this tearing down and building up of sinners mean for our understanding of Paul's salvation? That's a very good question. Now he begins to get into the center of everything. I think one of the things that have become clear to me is that in Paul justification and the judgment of God are integrated. You cannot separate those two. There is, as an aspect of being justified, the phenomenon of being judged and being... When God judges, it's not just something He says. When it's the Almighty God who speaks, then what He speaks actually happens. And so, when God justifies as an integral part of that... is his judgment of the one he justifies as a sinner. and when God... judges someone as sinners. He executes them in the same movement sort of. When God says, I judge you, then the judgment is executed. uh In the Apostles uh proclamation, the word is not just information. It's not just information that is transferred. It's a very living and strong and active word that actually does something to the people that uh he speaks to, just as we can see in Jeremiah, that Jeremiah's words are not just information, they actually affect what they say. when Paul preaches the Word of God to people, it contains... It contains the message that God will judge you and he uh will kill you for your sin. And the wonderful gospel is that he did that in Christ. If you put your trust in Christ, you are connected so intimately with him that the judgment of God that actually kills you has been executed in Christ so that in him you have actually died. And when he rose up from the grave, you were justified. so justification happens by being executed. and resurrects it from the dead in Christ. That's how God's judgment is. uh It's a judgment of a judge, so it's a declaration, but it's a very effective declaration as well that is the reality before his judgment seat and that will actually become reality in people's lives. Yeah, so what I'm hearing you say is that that execution, so if it wasn't for Christ who does die and then it's done, but because Christ conquers death and thereby sin and thereby the sinner who is then synchronized as you have used many times is synchronized with the Christ event, then they are made righteous through Christ and thereby judged as flawless. Yes, they are connected with him. They are so intimately connected with him that whatever is true of Christ is true of them. That's why Paul can say that, one died for all, therefore all have died. So when Christ died for me, I died. And when God rose Jesus up from the dead and declared him righteous, he declared me righteous because me and Jesus belong together. Just as my wife and I belong together that closely. is uh legally about Christ is true about me. And it will actually become reality both in my life now and on the day of Christ's return. That whole dying and resurrection will... it's consummation or I don't know if that's the right way to express it. I think that's a good way to express it, like the consummation of what Christ has done for us is fully revealed eschologically. Yes, think that's perhaps partly where it becomes clear that my background is a bit Lutheran in this. I don't think of justification as something that is just where everything begins for a believer, that God justified me at one time, then that's a thing of the past. I agree that justification is an event, but it's an event that is judgment day itself, having broken into this world in the cross and resurrection of Christ, an event that I have been integrated into. And in that sense, it's almost as if justification is expanded out and in every nanosecond between me coming to faith and then Judgment Day is the one and the same event that happens there and in that sense it's a one-time event and it's never a process in any sense but it is the very judgment of Judgment Day that happens right there when my heart grasps around Christ. Yeah, being Lutheran myself, I have no problem with that. No, that's true. But maybe we could so obviously verse 20 and 21 is kind of like a very interesting passage within this passage. And how do we read that in light of this, in view of your reading? Actually, think it was at some late afternoon, all of a sudden, it seemed like I just saw the connection that made me go for the sinners and their sin understanding in 2.18. Because if my interpretation of 2.18 is right, then what Paul is saying in 2.18 is that if he as an apostle breaks down precisely the same people as he races a build-up again so they are not changed at all then he transgresses his own apostolic mandate he he he leaves the the true path as a as a star God has given a direction for he just goes aside from the clear path God has given him. And then in verse 19, he uses himself as an example, as a paradigm for what he should do to his listeners, which is what happened to him when he met Christ. And then says, because I am through the law, I died to the law so that I can live for God. I have been crucified. with Christ and it is no longer I who live. So what he's saying in 2.19 to 2.18 is I am no longer the same. It's not me anymore and that makes a very close connection between verse 18, what he breaks down and rebuilds. the sinners and their sin and then his own example is a paradigm for his own listeners. I was broken down, it's no longer me who lives, it's a different person. And so that makes the argument actually hang together very nicely, I think. And it also tells us about wonderful central truths about believing in Jesus and living with Him and in a union with Him. and so on. So that's how I see the connection. Yeah, and maybe that's a good way to sort of ask the question that we prefer to ask here in the end of the podcast is how can each of the listeners or viewers of our conversation today apply this to their everyday walk with Christ, the one we've been talking about. I think there are many different applications. If we look on Galatians, the last half of Galatians two, one thing is that, you know, it is not important what other people think of you. That was what the Gentiles were almost, you know, pressured to think that it was very important what Peter or other people thought about them. That's not as important. What's important is what God thinks about us. And Galatians 2 tells me that my righteousness, my justification is completely in Christ. He is my whole righteousness. He is not 99 % of it. He's everything. I have nothing but something that's rolled into sin. I stand before His judgment seat. the only thing I have to put forward there is Christ Himself. But He's enough. He's everything. No matter if I have a good day or a bad day, if I have not had an argument with my wife or not, or if the kids are not, you know, behaving the way I'd like them to, or if I have wrong thoughts or say the wrong words and so on, Jesus is my full and complete righteousness. But then on the other hand, That does not leave me the same. If I really think that in Christ I have both been killed and resurrected, I cannot keep living in peace with my sin. It's a different life that needs to grow in me. But I think the most central part that Galatians 2 tells me is that the wonderful truth about m justification not being by anything that I ever do or uh can do uh in terms of fulfilling God's will or being a certain kind of person, whether that should be a Jew or a highly moral person, that my righteousness is fully complete in Christ. And that's wonderful news for all of us, if we're honest. Yes, it is really wonderful. Because if really honest to ourselves, we couldn't really do well enough to say to God, you need to judge me and you'll survive. That would require quite a bit of courage to go before God and say that I'm reminded about passage in Luther's writing against Latomus It's an important writing Luther did. At one point he says, okay, Latomus, let you and I, know, we go before the judgment seat of Christ together now and you bring the best work you've ever completed in your life, the very most pious thing you've ever done. And now you put it there before God and you're telling him, this one's clean, this one's pure, this one is without sin, this is part of my righteousness. And then there is a little pause in the text and then Luther says to Latomus are you sweating? Are you sweating? uh Because here God is and his light just reveals that... all we is Christ – nothing more. a good way to end. Thank you for joining us. Well thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure and it's great to see all the work that you do and may God bless that richly Daniel and go use Daniel as your Greek teacher, he's good. Thank you. all glory be to God. Yeah. See you guys. I'll see you in the next one. But before you go, if you enjoyed this podcast and you want more people to see it, please subscribe and leave a like. It really helps us create more episodes like this one. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great day and I'll see you in the next one.