Verses 12-13
The Jews would not persecute the false teachers as much as they would the apostles since the false teachers required their converts to undergo circumcision. Also they desired to please men, and they wanted to boast, inappropriately, about their converts in Galatia.
"Whereas Paul was concerned about the Spirit’s inward work in his converts, so that Christ should be ’formed’ in them (cf. Galatians 4:19), the Judaizers’ concern was for an external mark, a mark produced in the ’flesh’ of those whom they could win over to their side." [Note: Bruce, p. 268.]
"The cross of Christ" (Galatians 6:12) stands here for the whole doctrine of justification by faith alone that Paul had been defending in this epistle. [Note: Fung, p. 305.]
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