I don’t reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”
World English Bible
Galatians 2:21
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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WEB World English Bible Public Domain ✓ - Modern English
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- MSB Majority Standard Bible A modern translation of the Majority/Byzantine text — the Berean counterpart to the critical-text BSB · Public Domain
- TCENT Text-Critical English New Testament A modern reasoned-eclectic New Testament (2022) · CC BY 4.0
- F35 Family 35 New Testament Wilbur Pickering's Byzantine-priority New Testament, with text-critical commentary notes · CC BY-SA 4.0
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- KJV King James Version Public Domain
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- TYNDALE Tyndale New Testament (1534) The pioneering early-modern English New Testament (New Testament only) · Public Domain
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- LEESER Isaac Leeser Tanakh (1853) The first Jewish English translation of the Hebrew Bible (1853, Old Testament only) · Public Domain
- KJVCP KJV Cambridge Paragraph Bible David Norton's critical Cambridge edition of the King James Version, set in paragraphs · Public Domain
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
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Does righteousness come from following the Law?
Luke 1:6 calls Zacharias and Elisabeth righteous specifically because they walked in all the Lord's commandments blameless, and Romans 2:13 states that doers of the Law shall be justified. Galatians 2:21 reverses course — if righteousness comes by the Law, Christ died for nothing.
Critical scholarship: Leans toward a genuine contradiction.
More on this question
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Other verses examined for the same kind of question or claim
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
Cite this page
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"Galatians 2:21 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/galatians/2/21?version=WEB (retrieved 27 August 2026).