Living by the Spirit

All through this book of Galatians we have been confronted with the term "circumcision."

Last week brought this teaching against circumcision to a hyperbolic point making conclusion that was quite confusing. One man, who met me at the door of the church, had obviously not been exposed to some of the earlier messages in this series. With a panicked look on his face, he said, "Dr. Huffman, I am worried about what you said. I am circumcised. Is there something wrong with that?" With his wife, standing at his side, equally perplexed, I tried to get across the bottom-line point that Paul is making. No, there is nothing wrong with circumcision. Physical circumcision, even to this day, is viewed as something very positive in terms of hygiene, even in the most secular, non-religious world. In the Jewish religion, it is a very important ritual act, to be carried out on all Jewish male children on the eighth day, so that they bear on their body a sign that they are Jewish.

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What Paul is saying is that a Gentile adult male does not have to become a circumcised Jew prior to qualifying for salvation through Jesus Christ. Paul is heartbroken that a little group of false-teaching, Jewish-Christian zealots, who were following him everywhere he went in his missionary journeys, were trying to reverse his message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone. They were trying to reconvert these new Gentile believers to a highly sectarian Jewish/Christian sect. They were demanding that adult Gentile males be circumcised.

After church, I mentioned to a friend the conversation I had just had at the door with this confused man who was fearful that he couldn't be a Christian because he had been circumcised.

Later this week she e-mailed me this little story:

Two little kids are in a hospital, lying on stretchers next to each other, outside the operating room.

The first kid leans over and asks, "What are you in here for?"

The second kid says, "I'm in here to get my tonsils out, and I'm a little nervous."

The first kid says, "You've got nothing to worry about. I had that done when I was four. They put you to sleep, and when you wake up they give you lots of Jell-O and ice cream. It's a breeze."

The second kid then asks, "What are you here for?"

The first kid says, "A circumcision."

And the second kid says, "Whoa, good luck, buddy. I had that done when I was born. Couldn't walk for a year."

In all seriousness, Paul is trying to make clear to both Jew and Gentile that the technical observance of the Law is not what brings right relationship with God. No Gentile has to be circumcised to be saved. In fact, in Romans 2:28-29, he makes clear that even for the Jew, physical circumcision does not guarantee God's salvation. There is a difference between outward religion, all the "do's and the don'ts," and the religion of the heart. He writes, "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God."