Galatians 2:18

THE MESSAGE

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
If I rebuild those things that I tore down, I show myself to be a lawbreaker.

King James Version (1611)
For if I build againe the things which I destroyed, I make my selfe a transgressour.

King James Version
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

English Standard Version
For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

New American Standard Bible
"For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a wrongdoer.

New Century Version
But I would really be wrong to begin teaching again those things that I gave up.

Amplified Bible
"For if I [or anyone else should] rebuild [through word or by practice] what I once tore down [the belief that observing the Law is essential for salvation], I prove myself to be a transgressor.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

Legacy Standard Bible
For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

Berean Standard Bible
If I rebuild what I have already torn down, I prove myself to be a lawbreaker.

Contemporary English Version
But if I tear down something and then build it again, I prove that I was wrong at first.

Complete Jewish Bible
Indeed, if I build up again the legalistic bondage which I destroyed, I really do make myself a transgressor.

Darby Translation
For if the things I have thrown down, these I build again, I constitute myself a transgressor.

Easy-to-Read Version
But I would be wrong to begin teaching again those things that I gave up.

Geneva Bible (1587)
For if I build againe the things that I haue destroyed, I make my selfe a trespasser.

George Lamsa Translation
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I will prove myself to be a transgressor of the law.

Good News Translation
If I start to rebuild the system of Law that I tore down, then I show myself to be someone who breaks the Law.

Lexham English Bible
For if I build up again these things which I destroyed, I show myself to be a transgressor.

Literal Translation
For what if I build again these things which I destroyed, I confirm myself as a transgressor.

American Standard Version
For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor.

Bible in Basic English
For if I put up again those things which I gave to destruction, I am seen to be a wrongdoer.

Hebrew Names Version
For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker.

International Standard Version
For if I rebuild something that I tore down, I demonstrate that I am a wrongdoer.

Etheridge Translation
For, if those things which I destroyed I build again, I make it manifest of myself that I transgress the commandment.

Murdock Translation
For if I should build up again the things I had demolished, I should show myself to be a transgressor of the precept.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
For yf I builde agayne the thynges which I destroyed, then make I my selfe a trespasser.

English Revised Version
For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor.

World English Bible
For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker.

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

Weymouth's New Testament
Why, if I am now rebuilding that structure of sin which I had demolished, I am thereby constituting myself a transgressor;

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
God forbede. And if Y bylde ayen thingis that Y haue distruyed, Y make my silf a trespassour.

Update Bible Version
For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor.

Webster's Bible Translation
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

New English Translation
But if I build up again those things I once destroyed, I demonstrate that I am one who breaks God's law.

New King James Version
For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

New Living Translation
Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down.

New Life Bible
But if I work toward being made right with God by keeping the Law, then I make myself a sinner.

New Revised Standard
But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For, if, the things that I pulled down, these, again, I build, a transgressor, I prove, myself, to be.

Douay-Rheims Bible
For if I build up again the things which I have destroyed, I make myself a prevaricator.

Revised Standard Version
But if I build up again those things which I tore down, then I prove myself a transgressor.

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
For yf I bylde agayne yt which I destroyed. then make I my selfe a treaspaser.

Young's Literal Translation
for if the things I threw down, these again I build up, a transgressor I set myself forth;

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
For yf I buylde agayne yt which I haue destroyed, then make I my selfe a trespacer.

Mace New Testament (1729)
on the contrary, if I re-establish what I have demolish'd, I show myself a prevaricator.

Simplified Cowboy Version
I'd really be a sinner if I tried to make people do the things that I gave up when I signed on to ride for Jesus.

Contextual Overview

¹¹Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line. Here's the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That's how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that's been pushing the old system of circumcision. Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade. ¹⁴ But when I saw that they were not maintaining a steady, straight course according to the Message, I spoke up to Peter in front of them all: "If you, a Jew, live like a non-Jew when you're not being observed by the watchdogs from Jerusalem, what right do you have to require non-Jews to conform to Jewish customs just to make a favorable impression on your old Jerusalem cronies?" ¹⁵We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over "non-Jewish sinners." We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good. ¹⁷Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan. ¹⁹What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Galatians 2:4, Galatians 2:5, Galatians 2:12-16, Galatians 2:21, Galatians 4:9-12, Galatians 5:11, Romans 14:15, 1 Corinthians 8:11, 1 Corinthians 8:12

Reciprocal: Romans 6:15 - shall we

Cross-References

Genesis 1:31
God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good! It was evening, it was morning— Day Six.

Genesis 3:12
The Man said, "The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it." God said to the Woman, "What is this that you've done?"

Ruth 3:1
One day her mother-in-law Naomi said to Ruth, "My dear daughter, isn't it about time I arranged a good home for you so you can have a happy life? And isn't Boaz our close relative, the one with whose young women you've been working? Maybe it's time to make our move. Tonight is the night of Boaz's barley harvest at the threshing floor.

Proverbs 18:22
Find a good spouse, you find a good life— and even more: the favor of God !

1 Corinthians 7:36
If a man has a woman friend to whom he is loyal but never intended to marry, having decided to serve God as a "single," and then changes his mind, deciding he should marry her, he should go ahead and marry. It's no sin; it's not even a "step down" from celibacy, as some say. On the other hand, if a man is comfortable in his decision for a single life in service to God and it's entirely his own conviction and not imposed on him by others, he ought to stick with it. Marriage is spiritually and morally right and not inferior to singleness in any way, although as I indicated earlier, because of the times we live in, I do have pastoral reasons for encouraging singleness.

1 Peter 3:7
The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God's grace, you're equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don't run aground.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For if I build again the things which I destroyed,.... Which must be understood not of good things, for formerly he destroyed the faith of the Gospel, at least as much as in him lay, and now he built it up, established, and defended it; in doing which he did no evil, or made himself a transgressor, but the reverse; he showed himself a faithful minister of Christ: but of things not lawful, such as the rites and ceremonies of the law of Moses, which were now abrogated, and he had declared to be so all over the Gentile world; and therefore should he go about to establish these things as necessary to salvation, or teach men to join the observance of them with Christ's righteousness for justification, then, says he,

I make myself a transgressor: for he could not be otherwise, be the case how it would with respect to the abrogation, or non-abrogation of the law; for if the law was not abolished, then he made himself a transgressor of it; by neglecting it himself, and teaching others to do so; and if it was abolished, then it must be criminal in him to enforce the observance of it as necessary to a sinner's justification before God. Now though the apostle transfers this to himself, and spoke in his own person to decline all invidious reflections and characters; yet he tacitly regards Peter, and his conduct, who had been taught by the vision the abrogation of the ceremonial law, and acted accordingly by conversing and eating with the Gentiles, and had declared that law to be an insupportable yoke of bondage, which the Gentiles were not obliged to come under; and yet now, by his practice and example, built up and established those very things he had before destroyed, and therefore could not exculpate himself, from being a transgressor: or these things may regard sins and immoralities in life and conversation; and the apostle's sense be, that should he, or any other, take encouragement to sin from the doctrine of free justification by the righteousness of Christ, as if he was the author and minister of sin, and allowed persons in it; this would be to establish sin, which the righteousness of Christ justifies from, and engage in a living in sin, to which, by Christ's righteousness, they are dead unto; than which, nothing can be, a greater contradiction, and which must unavoidably make them not only transgressors of the law, by sinning against it, but apostates, as the word παραβατης here used signifies, from the Gospel; such must act quite contrary to the nature, use, and design of the Gospel in general, and this doctrine in particular, which teaches men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and that being dead to sin, they should live unto righteousness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For if I build again the things which I destroyed - Paul here uses the first person; but he evidently intends it as a general proposition, and means that if anyone does it he becomes a transgressor. The sense is, that if a man, having removed or destroyed that which was evil, again introduces it or establishes it, he does wrong, and is a transgressor of the Law of God. The particular application here, as it seems to me, is to the subject of circumcision and the other rites of the Mosaic law. They had been virtually abolished by the coming of the Redeemer, and by the doctrine of justification by faith. It had been seen that there was no necessity for their observance, and of that Peter and the others had been fully aware. Yet they were lending their influence again to establish them or to build them up again. They complied with them, and they insisted on the necessity of their observance. Their conduct, therefore, was that of building up again that which had once been destroyed, destroyed by the ministry, and toils, and death of the Lord Jesus, and by the fair influence of his gospel. To rebuild that again; to re-establish those customs, was wrong, and now involved the guilt of a transgression of the Law of God. Doddridge supposes that this is an address to the Galatians, and that the address to Peter closed at the previous verse. But it is impossible to determine this; and it seems to me more probable that this is all a part of the address to Peter; or rather perhaps to the assembly when Peter was present; see the note at Galatians 2:15.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 18. For if I build again the things which I destroyed — If I act like a Jew, and enjoin the observance of the law on the Gentiles, which I have repeatedly asserted and proved to be abolished by the death of Christ, then I build up what I destroyed, and thus make myself a transgressor, by not observing the law in that way in which I appear to enjoin the observance of it upon others.