NOTES for Gal 2:11-21
Speaking about the new life, the life of the Kingdom, Paul contrasts it with what he calls "works of the Torah" ("works of the Law," v. 16). It would seem that the works of the Torah should be the main occupation of those who seek to fulfill the commandments. But the matter, as can be seen, was not quite like that. In the time of Christ and Paul, works of the Torah were often understood as roughly what we today call religious duties. Formally, all of them were connected, of course, with the need to fulfill one or another norm of the Torah, but in fact many of them had long since ceased to have any relation to it, being based solely on tradition, often only loosely connected with the Torah. The fulfillment of these religious duties turned, in circles of religiously active people, such as the Pharisees, into a kind of religious sport, in which successes and achievements were valued very highly. After all, according to the opinion generally accepted in the religious environment, the reward for those who succeeded was the Kingdom, toward which religious activists sometimes strove with complete sincerity, though at times without a very clear idea of what that Kingdom was, the one they were so eager to reach.
Paul, as can be seen, understands perfectly well that no successes in religious life have any relation to solving the main task: they cannot bring anyone closer to the Kingdom. The apostle never tires of reminding us that a sinful person is not able to follow the Torah to the end, that for this he will have to die; otherwise sin will never leave him, and no religion has the power to change anything here (vv. 19-21). The former, natural life must disappear in order to give way to another, new life, the life of the Kingdom, by which the risen Christ lives. But this is a difficult path, and fallen human nature begins quite naturally to look for easier paths, turning among other things to religion. For Paul, all such attempts are nothing other than a desire to return to the former, sinful life, refusing the path to which the Savior calls His faithful ones (vv. 17-18). It is a refusal of the Kingdom for the sake of human opinions, human concepts, and human religiosity. It is a refusal that never passes without a trace for those who have refused.