Now that Paul has brought his authoritative Damascus Road resurrection experience to the forefront to soundly defend the authenticity of his apostleship and the legitimacy of his gospel message, his Galatian readers can be convinced that what Paul is about to write is also authentic and legitimate and authoritative.
Paul will also eventually end his letter with an interesting play on words letting certain Jewish-law-based trouble-makers know that the troubles they have been making for him and the Galatian Christians are now over because he bears on his body the real marks of apostleship as opposed to the marks of the circumcision-party, those trouble makers who were espousing circumcision as the way of justification.
In the Galatian letter, Paul is astonished that the Galatian Christians are so quickly deserting him, Jesus and the gospel message that he preached to them and alternatively latching onto other (ἄλλος) apostolic workers of another kind (ἕτερος) who are promoting another (ἕτερος) kind of gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who are wanting to trouble Paul and the Galatians, and who are wanting to distort the gospel of Christ.
There is plenty of evidence within the Galatian letter that helps us understand in what way the gospel that Paul preached to the Galatians was being distorted by these trouble-makers. After Paul explains the circumstances surrounding the legitimacy of his gospel ministry, having met with the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and receiving the right hand of fellowship from them, he explains his gospel message, and then says that in his meeting with these leaders, “he did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for the Galatian believers.” (2:5)
It appears that these trouble-makers wedged-in among these leaders were apparently exerting pressure on Paul to bend to their way of thinking, but Paul refused to do so at the expense of the truth of the gospel message. Paul specifically mentions that as a result of this meeting “not even Titus, who was with him, was forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.” (2:3) Here is a clear indication of the pressure put on Paul to force non-Jews to be circumcised. Paul however, is assured that to do so would be a distortion of the gospel message that he preaches to these non-Jewish people and he refused to give in to these trouble-makers - not even for one moment.
Confirming that circumcision is the point at which the gospel is being distorted, Paul refers to Cephas as one of the people who seemed to be influential and one of the very ones whose “conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel.” Paul boldly accuses Cephas of hypocrisy by asking him publicly, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (2:15)
Notice the use of the word “force” here in 2:15 as used previously for Titus not being “forced” to be circumcised. (2:3) In this context then, Cephas evidently was forcing Gentiles to be circumcised as the Jews were as a requirement of their faith, something Paul says is not in step with the truth of the gospel. Circumcision is not part of the gospel that Paul preached to the Gentiles. It is a distortion of that gospel.
Further evidence that circumcision is the distortion of the gospel that Paul preached to the Gentiles can be found in chapter 5. After Paul’s lengthy discussion in chapters 3-4 of how adherence to circumcision as a means of justification is contrary to his gospel message of justification by faith, Paul concludes his remarks on circumcision as being useless for the believer by using very graphic and perhaps grotesque language. He begins chapter 5 by saying,
“Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.”
Paul is very upset at these circumcision trouble-makers readers. In this discussion, he has already exhorted the Galatian Christians to realize that they have been hoodwinked. “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you!” (3:1) Earlier in 1:6, Paul said that he was “astonished” at the Galatians for their quick gullibility to those who make much of them.(4:17)
So, clearly, he is not happy with them, especially the distorters of his gospel. Paul would have them “accursed” two times over. (1:8 & 9) Not only that, in 5:10 Paul is confident that God will fully penalize the trouble-makers for how they are taking advantage of the Galatians, yet he is still “perplexed” and in “anguish” over the Galatian believers at the same time. (4:20)
Paul is in such emotional turmoil with these circumcision trouble-makers for persuading these Galatian Christians to take another (ἕτερος) “view of the gospel” and for “hindering them from obeying the truth” that he cannot help himself from blurting out “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” Not only does Paul use a circumcision term here, but he uses a wholly-circumcised term.
So much so does Paul want to remove the term circumcision from his gospel message, that he unequivocally wants those trouble-makers to remove not just part of their anatomy, but all anatomical parts associated with the circumcision ceremony. In a sense, Paul may be over-zealously saying, since you are so cutty-cutty, then go all the way, and cut-cut-cut—cut away and remove everything from your own bodies.
Maybe there is an interesting point to be made for how Paul got to this emotional state in his writing. Paul has already told his readers in these emotionally charged chapters…
“that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.” (5:1)
The word (ὠφελέω) that Paul uses to communicate “advantage” is a term that means “useful”. So in this context Christ becomes useless to the Galatians if they accept circumcision.
Can Paul be pre-referring to the uselessness of a castrated man for comparative purposes? Is Paul saying that just as a castrated man is useless for gaining offspring through castration is a circumcised man useless for gaining justification through circumcision?
He goes on to give the Galatians the reason that Christ will be useless to them. He explains that since they have so quickly deserted Jesus and abandoned salvation by grace, they are now once again relying on the law as their means of justification, which as Paul states in 3:11
”it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”
So, according to Paul’s logic, circumcision is useless for justification since justification comes by faith. He also makes the comment that, “every man who accepts circumcision is obligated to keep the whole law.” (5:3) And since no one is justified by the law, it’s a useless endeavor to keep the whole law to which they have become obligated by their circumcision.
Paul then goes on to explain the new spiritual state into which this useless obligation to the law now places them.
“You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.”
Could Paul be using circumcision imagery here? If so, then if the Galatian Christians were to accept circumcision, would they not only be severed physically with the useless foreskin falling away from the body, but also would they be severed spiritually from Christ and falling away from grace?
Could this be the circumcision imagery that Paul is trying to communicate to his readers, and which fuels the fire within him which ultimately leads to his outburst in 5:12 for the trouble-makers to emasculate themselves? Contextually, it does seem to fit. One may object; at Paul for being so crass and tactless, or at the blogger for attempting to suggest such imagery. If nothing else, it is a very graphic image that illustrates Pauls point very well and indicates the level of intensity with which he addresses those trouble-makers.
It is to those trouble-makers that Paul addresses his cutting remarks, those influencers,
“those who make much of the Galatians, so the Galatians would make much of them.” (4:17),
those cutters who leave marks on the bodies of the Galatians.
What’s more, Paul refers a third time to the Gentiles being “forced” to undergo circumcision, and all for show at the hands of those “who seem to be influential.”
“It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.” (6:12)
It seems we can be quite certain that the Jewish contingency in Galatia was exerting spiritual force upon the uncircumcised, pressuring them to be circumcised assumingly on behalf of salvation efforts.
And in reference to being persecuted for the cross, Paul most likely offers his final remarks in chapter 6 contrasting the scars on his body that he has received in response to his preaching of the gospel to the circumcision scars that the Galatians have received at the hands of those who “seemed to be influential.” This reference is yet another indication that circumcision is the distortion of the gospel that is so emotionally distorting for Paul.
Then once more, one final comment to the trouble makers that Paul makes also indicates that the distortion of the gospel to which Paul refers is circumcision. Not only does Paul want to take one last shot at the troublemakers for cutting into his gospel message, but he is also taking one last slice at those who would discredit his apostolic authority.
“From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus?”
Could it be that Paul ends his letter with another brief pun, in reference to the trouble-makers who have lured the Galatians into slavery to the law once again, and forced them to bear on their bodies the marks of circumcision? Could he also be putting to rest any further discussion about the authenticity of his apostleship and the legitimacy of his gospel message that people have troubled him with, so that his Galatian readers can be more convinced that what Paul has written bears the marks of authentic, legitimate and authoritative apostolic genuineness.
Now that we have seen from the very beginning of his Galatian letter, how Paul has handled his apostolic-authority-troubles, we will look at exactly why circumcision has no place in the gospel message that Paul preaches to the Gentiles.
In Paul’s opening greeting to his readers of his Galatian letter, Paul tells his readers that “Jesus gave himself for our sins…” as an act that is in “accordance with the will of God.“
Circumcision has no part in the gospel. Salvation by circumcision is not the gospel. Salvation by circumcision is not the will of God.
In my next blog, we will look at The Gospel As The Will of God.