Circumcision in Galatians 5:3

[Davidius]

I'm not sure which forum this question should go in. Please move it if need be!

Galatians 5:3 says...

I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

One of the mistakes I often see people make when they are discussing the covenants and the sacraments is to identify circumcision with Moses instead of tracing it back to Abraham as a sign and seal of the Covenant of Grace. Some seem to think that circumcision was purely an ethnic sign for the Jews, somehow being part of the Mosaic covenant (which they see as a Covenant of Works). This was something I myself believed for a while. However, closely reading Paul's arguments in Galatians really helped me understand the continuity of the Covenant of Grace between the Old and New Testaments and helped me accept the Paedobaptist position. However, I'm somewhat confused by the verse above. Why does Paul seem to be associating circumcision with the Law and Mt. Sinai?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

David,

This is where, if you've been following the thread http://www.puritanboard.com/showthread.php?t=18535 then certain posts help one to understand the way in which a Pharisee would have mishandled the Law. Instead of seing the Law as a guide to Christ, they saw the Law as a means to Justification.

One really needs to pay close attention to Paul when he is using terms like circumcision because he uses them as labels to different ideas. Sometimes he refers to circumcision in a spiritual sense as those who are truly in Christ, other times he refers to it as a purely ethnic identifier, and sometimes, like in this passage, he uses it to refer to the idea of a defective view of the Law that sees justification=Torah keeping.

I recommend you read Galatians from beginning to end. Paul lays out a very clear and compelling argument. He devestates the false Gospel of the Judaizers with several arguments and analogies.

What is clear, from the context of the use of the term circumcision in that passage is that Paul is not identifying circumcision with Abraham here. He is not even identifiying circumcision with Moses here. He is expressing the idea that "If you get circumcised for the reasons that the Judaizers want you to get circumcised..." then you are obligated to keep the whole law.

You see neither Abraham nor Moses would have ever approved of the Judaizing view of circumcision and of their view that obedience to the Law and belief in the Messiah saved. "You Gentiles aren't fully obeying God yet because you believe in Christ but you need to become circumcised in the flesh and obey the Law of Moses and then you will be acceptable." Paul hated this with all his might and condemns the notion in the strongest terms wondering, with great sorrow, how these Gentile brothers had been bewitched to ever forget that they already had everything in Christ.

Paul, in fact, had no problem at all with the physical act of circumcision. He circumcized Timothy to remove any kind of resistance that might be encountered for the Gospel's sake in his ministry to the Jews but, I'm convinced that if a Judaizer had insisted that Timothy be circumcized so he could become a full believer then Paul would have fought against that with everything in his being.

 

[MW]

Rich rightly identifies Paul's argument as an ad hominem. Thomas Boston's paraphrase on 5:1-3 helps to understand the sense.

Ver. 1. From the whole of that I have said, I exhort you to stand fast in the liberty purchased to us by Christ, as stout soldiers keeping their ground where the captain has set them; and let no man wreath that servile yoke of the legal covenant about your necks again. And to press you to this, ver. 2, behold (in opposition to all that the seducers among you say for it), I Paul, an apostle of Christ, say, that if the Gentiles shall be circumcised, looking on that rite as necessary to your justification, ye shall have no benefit by Christ. Ver. 3. For I, as Christ’s messenger, do further testify to every man who is circumcised, laying any stress on it for his justification, that, by his very receiving of circumcision under that notion, he is obliged perfectly to obey the whole law, under pain of the curse; which is inevitable to him, in regard no man is able so to obey it. He is, I say, thereby obliged to give such obedience; in regard, whatever evangelical use circumcision had to believers, yet it is to him the sacrament of the legal covenant, binding him to the observance of the same covenant, according to the tenor of it, which promises life to perfect obedience, and otherwise denouceth the curse.

 

[Davidius]

Thanks for both of your replies; I think I understand what Paul is doing now. So circumcision could be viewed, contextually in this passage, as "X 'work' that someone must do to be saved" and that if someone is going to follow the thinking of the Judaizers that this one thing must be done, then he must keep the entire Law since that person is willfully submitting themselves to the CoW and remaining under its sphere of influence by saying that they have to do something to be saved, which could be any work, but in this case is specifically circumcision?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I would say that it's more like: "Belief in Christ + X work" is how a man is justified before God (they don't leave out Christ, they just place something else on the ground with him).

In this case, X work is circumcision for the purpose of keeping the requirements of the Law. Thus, X is not just circumcision but also seasons, foods, the whole deal.

 

[Davidius]

I would say that it's more like: "Belief in Christ + X work" is how a man is justified before God (they don't leave out Christ, they just place something else on the ground with him).

In this case, X work is circumcision for the purpose of keeping the requirements of the Law. Thus, X is not just circumcision but also seasons, foods, the whole deal.

Ok I think I may see what the root of my question is, then. When Paul uses the word "law" does he mean that which was given at Mt. Sinai or anything that man has ever been commanded to do? Can it mean either depending on context?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I think he does mean the Law at Sinai because the Law's blessings and curses bound the people to do everything that the Law required them to do. The Judaizers are theological dorks. Perhaps they were absent from Cathecism class when it was explained to them that the Law could not be kept.
[KJV]Galatians 3:9-12[/KJV]

9So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

10For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

11But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.

12And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.

Part of the tension is that the Gentiles want to be like the Jews. How cool to be a part of an "old time religion". While my ancestors were busy sacrificing to idols, here's this rich culture that claims Abraham, David, the prophets, and the Messiah. "Oh you want to be one of us? You want to have communion with us? Then be circumcised and do the law like we do."

I'm speculating on how some of the conversations might have gone. The point is that these Judaizers, that supposedly claimed Christ as their righteousness, had this completely defective view of the law as something they could please God with and, mixed with their "faith" in Christ, would form the grounds of their acceptance before God. Paul is pleading with the Galatians that they already have union with Christ by their faith and to take on circumcision and the law is not a step forward to being a true child of Abraham but a complete stepping away from it.

[KJV]Galatians 4:21-26[/KJV]

21Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

22For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.

23But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.

24Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

25For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

26But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

You Galatians, who trust in Christ, are of Jerusalem and of the freewoman - you are Isaac. Those Judaizers, trying to allure you with the idea that you're becoming a true child of Abraham, are Ishmael. A stunning reversal of status given the nature of the temptation.