Galatians 2:21
Galatians 2:2121I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing.
JWs read as Paul rejecting the Mosaic Law — not as a broader statement about the sufficiency of grace. The Watchtower teaches that while the Law covenant is abolished, Christians must still meet ongoing requirements under "the law of the Christ": knowledge, organisational loyalty, field service, and endurance to the end. The ransom makes salvation possible; personal performance makes it actual.
Paul writes: "if righteousness is through law, Christ actually died for nothing" (, NWT). The stakes could not be higher: adding conditions to the finished work does not supplement it — it nullifies it. shows God is "both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" — both halves simultaneously true at the cross. The cross is not God lowering his standard so he can let you off; it is God meeting his own standard so he can let you go. in the NWT says Christ "entered into the holy place, once for all time, and obtained an everlasting deliverance for us." adds: "by one sacrificial offering he has made those who are being sanctified perfect for all time." If deliverance is everlasting and perfecting is for all time, adding organisational requirements re-imposes the very principle Paul says makes Christ's death pointless.
NWT renders tēn charin tou theou as "the undeserved kindness of God" rather than "the grace of God" — the systemic NWT charis → "undeserved kindness" pattern (compare , , ). Particularly significant here because Paul is making his strongest anti-works- righteousness move — "if righteousness is through law, Christ actually died for nothing." The "grace" Paul says he refuses to reject carries the entire Pauline semantic range (sovereign favour, imputed righteousness, new-covenant provision). "Undeserved kindness" flattens that to a politer transactional category and loses the theological weight Paul is leveraging against Judaising legalism.