Sha’ul’s Letter to the Galatians ~ Part 14

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 Circumcision: A Matter of Law ~ Part 1. In this post, we continue to explore his Doctrine on Messianic Liberty.

Circumcision: A Matter of Law ~ Part 2

⁷ You were running the race well; who has stopped you from following the truth? ⁸ Whatever means of persuasion he used was not from the One who calls you. ⁹ “It takes only a little hametz to leaven the whole batch of dough.” ¹⁰ I am confident that since you are united with the Lord, you will take no other view, and I am confident that the one who has been disturbing you, whoever he may be, will have to bear his punishment.

Chametz, “leaven,” is familiar to Jews from the Pesach (Passover) ritual) here, it could stand for sin, wrong ideas, or ungodly people (“One bad apple spoils the barrel”). See 1 Corinthians 5:6–8, where Sha’ul quotes the same famous proverb.

¹¹ And as for me, brothers, if I am still preaching that circumcision is necessary, why am I still being persecuted? If that were the case, my preaching about the execution stake would cause no offense whatsoever.

There was a group of people (call them the Out-of-Touch) whom we had not encountered before this verse, who had not kept up to date with what Sha’ul was saying and doing. They claimed he was still preaching that circumcision is necessary for Gentiles who wish to join God’s people, as he had before he was saved. The Judaizers misappropriated this false rumor as evidence that Sha’ul himself approved their insistence on the circumcision of Gentile believers.

Sha’ul’s answer implicitly references a second hitherto unmentioned group; I will call them the Super-Jews. They are zealous non-Messianic Jewish missionaries, the kind Yeshua said would “go about over land and sea to make one proselyte” (Mattityahu 23:15). It is interesting that when Sha’ul wrote – in contrast with now – his proclaiming Yeshua as the crucified Jewish Messiah would have caused him no difficulties in the Jewish community, had he continued preaching that Gentiles who come to faith in Yeshua must then convert to Judaism. It was not because of his preaching about the execution stake that the Super-Jews objected to and persecuted him. By itself, Sha’ul said, that would not offend whatever. Instead, he claimed that Gentiles could join the people of God without getting circumcised. Sha’ul insisted that trust alone was sufficient, so the Super-Jews persecuted him. Their persecution refutes the Judaizers’ false claim that Sha’ul is still preaching that circumcision is necessary.

¹² I wish the people who are bothering you would go the whole way and castrate themselves! ^[1]

I wish. Sha’ul’s choleric personality leads him to make intemperate use of his gift for sarcasm, neither his first nor his last; for another, see Acts 23:2–5, and compare his behavior as a nonbeliever at Acts 8:3. The people who are bothering you about getting circumcised are neither the Out-of-Touch nor the Super-Jews, but the Judaizers. They would go the whole way and castrate themselves, literally, “would indeed cut themselves off.” The Torah declares a castrated cohen unfit to perform priestly duties (Leviticus 21:20) and, “He who has been wounded in the stones or has had his sexual organ cut off shall not enter the assembly of Adonai” (Deuteronomy 23:2). But there is also a punning reference to being cut off from one’s people, a common sanction in the Torah: Sha’ul wishes these pests would be deprived of contact with the Messianic Community.

In our next post, we will continue to explore Sha’ul’s Doctrine on Messianic Liberty, starting in chapter 5:13.

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^[1] Galatians 5:7–12.