NT 2: Paul and Circumcision

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?

What would cause such a biting criticism against the Galatians from Paul as we read above?
The issue was circumcision.

Circumcision was a big deal to the Jews in Paul’s time. It set them apart, they felt, as the righteous people of God. When Gentiles had desire to join the Church, the Jews insisted that they must be circumcised so that they might be “gloried in the flesh.”

Paul vehemently opposed the idea that circumcision was the way to being accepted as followers of Christ. He didn’t oppose or support circumcision, but the idea that the act of circumcision would save them was wrong.

Paul taught that it is by faith that we find ourselves worthy to enter the Kingdom of God. To live the Law without faith is to deny the very reality of the Atonement—that it is Christ, not our works, that will save us.

Without realizing that every bit of the law is meant to point to Christ, we deny Christ himself.
Our acts become empty and meaningless.

And yet—we know we are to keep the commandments. How do we reconcile this idea with the fact that the Law ultimately will not save us?

Paul explains, “Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law…But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.”

Then he explains what the role of the law is. “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.”

The entire point of any commandment, any law, is not to justify us—it is to bring us to Christ.
The idea that circumcision was no longer required was so difficult for so many people to understand because they still depended on the Law for their salvation instead of Christ who died for them.

This is the reason for Paul’s passionate rejection of the idea that all must be circumcised; It was leading them to deny Christ, instead of bringing them to Him.