Sha’ul’s Letter to the Galatians ~ Part 13

We pause the ongoing story of Sha’ul to examine his Letter to the Galatians.

In our last post, we left off in Chapter 5:1 with Sha’ul describing the Allegory of Sarah and Hagar. In this post, we begin his Doctrine on Messianic Liberty.

Circumcision: A Matter of Law ~ Part 1

² Mark my words – I, Sha’ul, tell you that if you undergo b’rit-milah (circumcision), the Messiah will be of no advantage to you at all! ³ Again, I warn you: any man who undergoes b’rit-milah is obligated to observe the entire Torah! ⁴ You who are trying to be declared righteous by God through legalism have severed yourselves from the Messiah! You have fallen away from God’s grace!

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the message of these verses is directed to Gentiles, specifically Gentiles whom the Judaizers have told that they must believe in Yeshua and become Jews to be acceptable to God. A Gentile who heeds them and gets circumcised loses the advantage of the Messiah and has fallen away from God’s grace precisely because he is trying to be declared forensically righteous by God (Galatians 2:16a, 2:21) through legalism (literally, “by law”; see Galatians 2:16b).

The truth, says Sha’ul, is that now that the Messiah has come, a Gentile becomes part of God’s expanded people, the Messianic Community, through trusting in God and his Son. This entails turning from sin, seeking God’s forgiveness, and being immersed into the Messiah (3:27). But it does not entail his becoming Jewish. So, if he turns back to the earlier procedure for joining the people of God, he is denying the Messiah and the new procedure he inaugurated. What a tragedy that a Gentile believer, already declared righteous by God on the grounds of his trust alone, by becoming dissatisfied and heeding the Judaizers’ mistaken preaching that his trust is insufficient, would lose everything God has freely given him!

But none of this applies to Jewish believers. Sha’ul himself circumcised the Messianic Jew Timothy (Acts 16:1–3). During his last visit to Yerushalayim, his actions were explicitly directed at disproving the false charge that he told Jewish believers not to have their children circumcised (Acts 21:20–27). The Brit Hadashah through Yeshua no more cancels b’rit-milah, the “covenant of circumcision” established by God with Avraham (Genesis 17:9–12) than the Sinai covenant through Moshe cancels God’s promises to Avraham (3:15–18).

⁵ For it is by the power of the Spirit, who works in us because we trust and are faithful, that we confidently expect our hope of attaining righteousness to be fulfilled. ⁶ When we are united with the Messiah Yeshua, neither being circumcised nor being uncircumcised matters; what matters is trusting faithfulness expressing itself through love. ^[1]

Neither being circumcised nor being uncircumcised matters so far as being accepted by God on the grounds of trusting Yeshua is concerned. See 1 Corinthians 7:19, where Sha’ul says the same thing; also, Galatians 6:15 & 3:28. What matters is trust and faithfulness, expressing themselves through good deeds in love. In the Tanakh and the Brit Hadashah, “love” refers to works, not mere feelings. Thus, verse 6 powerfully refutes the idea that Christianity and Messianic Judaism elevate belief over action and creed over deed.

Good deeds, though always of value to those who benefited, will be of value to those who do them only if they spring from the love that comes through the power of the Ruach, who works in us (v. 5). This is how, as others are helped, we progress toward attaining behavioral righteousness (see Galatians 2:16a, 2:21). The importance of our holiness cannot be sidestepped by claiming that one should not be preoccupied with one’s spiritual progress but should be concerned with the well-being of others. The two are not mutually exclusive; one must be concerned for others without countenancing sin in one’s life (see Yochanan 17:15–17, Ya’akov (James) 1:27).

In our next post, we will continue to explore Sha’ul’s Doctrine on Messianic Liberty, starting in chapter 5:7.

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^[1] Galatians 5:2–6.