Would You Get Circumcised for Your New Religion?
(A Discussion of the Term “Law” in Galatians)
By
Jim Gruenholz
Most of us would answer “no” to the question above, except for those who would answer “hell no!” But some of the Galatians in Paul’s day were seriously tempted to do that very thing…you know, get their foreskin cut off! I’m talking about grown-ups, adults who were considering this radical action. It seems so weird to us today. I mean, where in ancient Galatia (which was a group of little villages and towns like Lystra and Derbe) would you go to even get circumcised, the butcher’s?
But this is now and that was then and even though such a temptation doesn’t make much sense to us today there must have been some persuasive reasoning at work which motivated the Galatians to even consider such a drastic sign of covenant with God. The issue at hand was Torah, the Law. The Law was God’s covenant with Israel. Should Gentile believers (non-Jews) keep the Law?
In a written response to the Galatian crisis Paul makes the following dramatic claim that has changed the way Christianity has viewed religion ever since:
Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” - Galatians 3:11
No one? No one who follows the law carefully and meticulously will end up justified? This is a hard saying. This is bad news for a lot of people in Paul’s day that put great stock in the Law and invested their lives in the following of it.
After all what is righteousness if it is not loyalty to the Law that was given by God to Israel? The Law is what set Israel apart. It’s what put the “us” in the “us versus them,” Jews versus Gentiles. The lack of the Law was what made “them” them. The lack of regard for the Law was what made “them” unrighteous. It didn’t matter if a Gentile was a very moral person – they didn’t have the Law, they were outside the covenant, therefore they were unclean (unrighteous). You see? It’s not that the Gentiles were bad or immoral people; it’s that they weren’t committed to adhere to all the commands of the Law of Moses. Therefore they were unrighteous – not like us.
So let’s suppose you were a gentile, one of “them,” and you came to faith in the Messiah of Israel, and came to believe that forgiveness of sins and membership in the family of God (Israel) came through Jesus, wouldn’t you want to show yourself to be part of the family, part of Israel? Wouldn’t you want to join the club, God’s club? Wouldn’t you want to be one of the righteous? You have to remember, many of these Gentile converts were “God fearing” Gentiles whom Paul found hanging around the Jewish synagogues on Sabbath days anyway.
If righteousness was not allegiance to the Law, what was it?
This is the question Paul faces in writing to the church in Galatia. This is the question the Galatian gentile believers were trying to puzzle through, with dubious results. And this question begs a more general question of us: What is righteousness? Where does it come from? What does it look like? Paul, a Jewish Christian, has very different answers to those questions than did the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem.
Most of us have no notion of the ancient Jewish definition of righteousness. Why would we? When we modern gentiles are asked to define righteousness, we probably talk about moral uprightness. We might say that a righteous person is someone who is honest, doesn’t lie, doesn’t cheat, can be trusted, is unselfish, giving, and loving. Most of us would choose to define righteousness with character-words, words that described good human qualities.
In Paul’s time, these good human qualities would no doubt have been much appreciated by the Jewish community, but these qualities would not have constituted “righteousness.” Righteousness, to the ancient Jewish mind, could only mean one thing - adherence to the Law of Moses. And the thing we gentiles often forget is how much, how very much, of the Law of Moses and the traditions surrounding the Law had nothing at all, nothing whatsoever, to do with moral character. An enormous amount of the Law and its traditions had to do with strange, off-the-wall requirements that have no connection at all with what we would call righteousness.
I mean, think about it: don’t mix dairy and meat products on the same plate? How does this affect moral fiber? How about Sabbath laws? You can walk so many steps and carry a burden weighing so much and no more. Big deal. Do you really think wearing phylacteries made you a better person? Yarmulkes? Sure, let’s cover our bald spots guys, that’ll help get the girls but it won’t make us righteous. You may eat meat only from animals with cloven hooves who also chew the cud. That makes you a better person than one who eats ham on rye?
I mean would you cut off your foreskin for your new religion? Because nothing said “person of the Law,” nothing proclaimed righteousness like circumcision.
That was the whole thing for the practicing Jew, to do it all, just because it was commanded, not because it made any sense. The practice of the weird, nonsensical
parts of the Law were the very thing that made a man righteous! You were committed to the Covenant to do all that is written in the Law.
Therefore, if you were a truly serious religious male (ladies had other less invasive but not less weird proscriptions placed upon them) who had just come to faith, you would willingly be circumcised, as the Law commanded, in order to show that you were a righteous man. You would do this of your own accord, to the admiration of the Jewish-Christian community, even though your Gentile friends would think you had lost your mind and no doubt thought you would be drinking the poison Cool-Aid next.
And so that is how reasonable men like the ancient Galatians were deceived into thinking that in order “go all the way” in their dedication to the One God of the Jews who gave the world the Messiah and the Law, they had to get circumcised.
It is quite an ethical knot Paul had to try to unravel. But the Apostle to the Gentiles had a totally different take on the relationship between Law and gospel. He wasn’t buying the Jerusalem Judaizers line for one minute. His understanding was essentially a spiritual understanding. He was less concerned with external behaviors (like keeping the Law) than he was with inner regeneration and he believed that God thought that way too. Furthermore, he wanted all believers to see things with their spiritual eyes, as he did.
Paul was a theologian, a spiritual philosopher and it was important for him to explain how we got from the “covenant of Moses” to the new “covenant of Jesus.” He couldn’t just throw out unfounded assertions; he needed to show step-by-step how we got from “there” - Law to “here” - gospel. He further needed to explain the difference between “law-keeping” and “walking in the Spirit” (i.e.: living in Christ while Christ lives in you).
In fact, the crisis in Galatia was the perfect vehicle for Paul to compare and contrast many things new and old. His efforts lead to quite a list of brilliant and dazzling conclusions and repercussions. In the book of Galatians Paul contrasts Law with grace, the Spirit with flesh, the “fruits” of the Spirit with the “works” of the flesh, legal righteousness with a new creation, Abraham with Moses, faith with legal observance, and law v. promise. And in doing so he finds his way to describing our freedom as believers, our assurance as Christ-followers, and our never-failing standing with God because of what He has done on our behalf in Jesus Christ.
The whole crisis in Galatia serves as the opportunity for Paul to lay the true spiritual foundation for all believers. He uses the problems with the Judaizers as the reason for digging down to the basement of faith and laying the foundation that no other man can lay: Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And while Paul is discussing all the above, he begins to hint at the universal truth about moral standards. The Law is a perfect stand-in for any moral system you want to name. Paul uncovers the truth that because of our sin nature we all strive to justify ourselves by our good behavior. We want to earn our standing before God. And Paul successfully demonstrates that no version of self-justification has any place in the new faith. No man is justified through adherence to any moral standard.
And so it is important for us today, as we attempt to understand Paul’s arguments in the book of Galatians, that we first see the Law of Moses as a whole thing – ceremonial, civil, and moral – as it exists in scripture and as it was practiced in ancient Israel and as the Galatians were tempted to practice it.
Only after accepting the very “Jewishness” of the Law can we make broader applications of the term “Law.” Only then we can see the term “Law” as a metaphor for any and every kind of moral or behavioral system we want to name. “Law” eventually becomes a synonym for “human effort” or “works of the flesh” – anything we humans do to make ourselves feel justified before God. But it starts in Galatians as Law = Torah.
Paul will eventually move from the anti-Judaizer mode of Galatians to the universal human dilemma mode of the book of Romans, but in Galatians Paul nevertheless makes all the grand assertions and arguments that seal the great doctrine of “Justification by Faith Alone” that became the foundation of the Reformation and that is the foundation of Evangelical churches today – whether we remember it or not.
(A Discussion of the Term “Law” in Galatians)
By
Jim Gruenholz
Most of us would answer “no” to the question above, except for those who would answer “hell no!” But some of the Galatians in Paul’s day were seriously tempted to do that very thing…you know, get their foreskin cut off! I’m talking about grown-ups, adults who were considering this radical action. It seems so weird to us today. I mean, where in ancient Galatia (which was a group of little villages and towns like Lystra and Derbe) would you go to even get circumcised, the butcher’s?
But this is now and that was then and even though such a temptation doesn’t make much sense to us today there must have been some persuasive reasoning at work which motivated the Galatians to even consider such a drastic sign of covenant with God. The issue at hand was Torah, the Law. The Law was God’s covenant with Israel. Should Gentile believers (non-Jews) keep the Law?
In a written response to the Galatian crisis Paul makes the following dramatic claim that has changed the way Christianity has viewed religion ever since:
Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” - Galatians 3:11
No one? No one who follows the law carefully and meticulously will end up justified? This is a hard saying. This is bad news for a lot of people in Paul’s day that put great stock in the Law and invested their lives in the following of it.
After all what is righteousness if it is not loyalty to the Law that was given by God to Israel? The Law is what set Israel apart. It’s what put the “us” in the “us versus them,” Jews versus Gentiles. The lack of the Law was what made “them” them. The lack of regard for the Law was what made “them” unrighteous. It didn’t matter if a Gentile was a very moral person – they didn’t have the Law, they were outside the covenant, therefore they were unclean (unrighteous). You see? It’s not that the Gentiles were bad or immoral people; it’s that they weren’t committed to adhere to all the commands of the Law of Moses. Therefore they were unrighteous – not like us.
So let’s suppose you were a gentile, one of “them,” and you came to faith in the Messiah of Israel, and came to believe that forgiveness of sins and membership in the family of God (Israel) came through Jesus, wouldn’t you want to show yourself to be part of the family, part of Israel? Wouldn’t you want to join the club, God’s club? Wouldn’t you want to be one of the righteous? You have to remember, many of these Gentile converts were “God fearing” Gentiles whom Paul found hanging around the Jewish synagogues on Sabbath days anyway.
If righteousness was not allegiance to the Law, what was it?
This is the question Paul faces in writing to the church in Galatia. This is the question the Galatian gentile believers were trying to puzzle through, with dubious results. And this question begs a more general question of us: What is righteousness? Where does it come from? What does it look like? Paul, a Jewish Christian, has very different answers to those questions than did the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem.
Most of us have no notion of the ancient Jewish definition of righteousness. Why would we? When we modern gentiles are asked to define righteousness, we probably talk about moral uprightness. We might say that a righteous person is someone who is honest, doesn’t lie, doesn’t cheat, can be trusted, is unselfish, giving, and loving. Most of us would choose to define righteousness with character-words, words that described good human qualities.
In Paul’s time, these good human qualities would no doubt have been much appreciated by the Jewish community, but these qualities would not have constituted “righteousness.” Righteousness, to the ancient Jewish mind, could only mean one thing - adherence to the Law of Moses. And the thing we gentiles often forget is how much, how very much, of the Law of Moses and the traditions surrounding the Law had nothing at all, nothing whatsoever, to do with moral character. An enormous amount of the Law and its traditions had to do with strange, off-the-wall requirements that have no connection at all with what we would call righteousness.
I mean, think about it: don’t mix dairy and meat products on the same plate? How does this affect moral fiber? How about Sabbath laws? You can walk so many steps and carry a burden weighing so much and no more. Big deal. Do you really think wearing phylacteries made you a better person? Yarmulkes? Sure, let’s cover our bald spots guys, that’ll help get the girls but it won’t make us righteous. You may eat meat only from animals with cloven hooves who also chew the cud. That makes you a better person than one who eats ham on rye?
I mean would you cut off your foreskin for your new religion? Because nothing said “person of the Law,” nothing proclaimed righteousness like circumcision.
That was the whole thing for the practicing Jew, to do it all, just because it was commanded, not because it made any sense. The practice of the weird, nonsensical
parts of the Law were the very thing that made a man righteous! You were committed to the Covenant to do all that is written in the Law.
Therefore, if you were a truly serious religious male (ladies had other less invasive but not less weird proscriptions placed upon them) who had just come to faith, you would willingly be circumcised, as the Law commanded, in order to show that you were a righteous man. You would do this of your own accord, to the admiration of the Jewish-Christian community, even though your Gentile friends would think you had lost your mind and no doubt thought you would be drinking the poison Cool-Aid next.
And so that is how reasonable men like the ancient Galatians were deceived into thinking that in order “go all the way” in their dedication to the One God of the Jews who gave the world the Messiah and the Law, they had to get circumcised.
It is quite an ethical knot Paul had to try to unravel. But the Apostle to the Gentiles had a totally different take on the relationship between Law and gospel. He wasn’t buying the Jerusalem Judaizers line for one minute. His understanding was essentially a spiritual understanding. He was less concerned with external behaviors (like keeping the Law) than he was with inner regeneration and he believed that God thought that way too. Furthermore, he wanted all believers to see things with their spiritual eyes, as he did.
Paul was a theologian, a spiritual philosopher and it was important for him to explain how we got from the “covenant of Moses” to the new “covenant of Jesus.” He couldn’t just throw out unfounded assertions; he needed to show step-by-step how we got from “there” - Law to “here” - gospel. He further needed to explain the difference between “law-keeping” and “walking in the Spirit” (i.e.: living in Christ while Christ lives in you).
In fact, the crisis in Galatia was the perfect vehicle for Paul to compare and contrast many things new and old. His efforts lead to quite a list of brilliant and dazzling conclusions and repercussions. In the book of Galatians Paul contrasts Law with grace, the Spirit with flesh, the “fruits” of the Spirit with the “works” of the flesh, legal righteousness with a new creation, Abraham with Moses, faith with legal observance, and law v. promise. And in doing so he finds his way to describing our freedom as believers, our assurance as Christ-followers, and our never-failing standing with God because of what He has done on our behalf in Jesus Christ.
The whole crisis in Galatia serves as the opportunity for Paul to lay the true spiritual foundation for all believers. He uses the problems with the Judaizers as the reason for digging down to the basement of faith and laying the foundation that no other man can lay: Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And while Paul is discussing all the above, he begins to hint at the universal truth about moral standards. The Law is a perfect stand-in for any moral system you want to name. Paul uncovers the truth that because of our sin nature we all strive to justify ourselves by our good behavior. We want to earn our standing before God. And Paul successfully demonstrates that no version of self-justification has any place in the new faith. No man is justified through adherence to any moral standard.
And so it is important for us today, as we attempt to understand Paul’s arguments in the book of Galatians, that we first see the Law of Moses as a whole thing – ceremonial, civil, and moral – as it exists in scripture and as it was practiced in ancient Israel and as the Galatians were tempted to practice it.
Only after accepting the very “Jewishness” of the Law can we make broader applications of the term “Law.” Only then we can see the term “Law” as a metaphor for any and every kind of moral or behavioral system we want to name. “Law” eventually becomes a synonym for “human effort” or “works of the flesh” – anything we humans do to make ourselves feel justified before God. But it starts in Galatians as Law = Torah.
Paul will eventually move from the anti-Judaizer mode of Galatians to the universal human dilemma mode of the book of Romans, but in Galatians Paul nevertheless makes all the grand assertions and arguments that seal the great doctrine of “Justification by Faith Alone” that became the foundation of the Reformation and that is the foundation of Evangelical churches today – whether we remember it or not.
