Galatians 5:2-12 - Homilies By R. Finlayson

Circumcision.

I. PAUL SOLEMNLY PUTS BEFORE THE GALATIANS THE TRUE STATE OF THE CASE . "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that, if ye receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing." Commencing with an arresting word, he introduces his own name with all the solemnity of oath-taking, witness-bearing. "Behold, I Paul say unto you." What the weight of his testimony is directed against, is their submitting to circumcision. This was what the Judaizing teachers were aiming at, and, seeing that they were making false representations, he declares to the Galatians, as if their destinies were at stake, the real state of the case. For them, Gentiles, and at the instigation of the Judaizers, to submit to circumcision would be excluding themselves from all advantage by Christ. It was either circumcision or Christ with them. There was no middle ground for them to take up. There was no submitting to circumcision and clinging to Christ at the same time. If they submitted to circumcision, they must make up their minds to forego all that they had hoped for from Christ.

1 . How he makes it out that circumcision excluded them from Christ.

2 . The case of Christians stated.

II. CERTAIN BEARINGS OF THE CASE ON THE GALATIANS .

1 . They were hindered in a good career. "Ye were running well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?"

(a) That it be directed to a right end. This is brought out in connection with their obeying the truth. Their career in heathenism was vitiated by their being involved in error. The true idea of life had not been revealed to them. But when they obeyed the truth they took Christ to be their end and undertook to shape their career according to the rules of Christ. And that is necessary to the commencement of a good career.

(b) That it be commenced early. If the Galatians did not commence in early life, yet they commenced as sore as an opportunity in providence was presented to them, and so far they can be cited as an example of commencing early. It would have been a great advantage to them to have been taught and moulded as Christians in youth. There would not have been their heathen education to unlearn and undo. The laws of association and habit would have been working all along in their favour. And there would have been more time in which to advance to excellence and usefulness.

(c) That it be pursued with enthusiasm. In the Galatians the warm Celtic temperament was warmed under the influences of the cross. It was this especially that called forth the admiration of the apostle. They did run well; among his converts none had displayed greater enthusiasm in the Christian race.

(d) That it be pursued with steadiness. It was with regard to this that there was danger to the Galatians. Would they continue in their ardent attachment to the gospel? Would time cool their ardour, or would it be transferred to some other doctrine? Especially would they continue steadfast in the face of hindrances that made trial of them? It was that which was now being tested.

2 . It was not God who was seeking to persuade them to be circumcised. "This persuasion came not of him that calleth you." Persuasion may mean either the state of being persuaded or the act of persuading. The latter seems more in keeping with the context. The course to which the Judaizers would have persuaded the Galatians would have been, in its consequences, disobedience to the truth. They would not attempt, we may suppose, to get them to set aside the cross. Their policy was rather to get them to add circumcision to the cross. This persuasion came not of him that called them. It was not in accordance, either with the idea that was in the Divine mind in calling them, or with the idea that was in their own minds in choosing the calling, which was in both cases making Christ everything in the road to everlasting happiness. It did not come from above, from the God who saved them and called them to everlasting glory, but it came from beneath—from the enemy of mankind.

3 . He was afraid of the spread of error among them. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." On the one hand, the Judaists, in order to gain their point, would be inclined to minimize its importance. On the other hand, the Galatians might think the Judaistic teaching had made very little way among them. The apostle puts them on their guard by telling them that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. This saying also occurs in i Corinthians Galatians 5:6 . The reference there is to a case of gross immorality in the Corinthian Church. By tolerating such immorality, there would be danger of the whole Corinthian Church being lowered in its moral tone and practice. So by the introduction of a little Judaistic leaven, such as the toleration of the circumcision of a single Gentile convert, there would be danger of the Christian communities of Galatia becoming Judaistic, i.e. communities upon which the blessing of God would not rest, from which the Spirit of God would depart. And so a little leaven of carelessness in the household, in companionship, leavens the whole lump.

4 . He had confidence in them that they would remain unchanged. "I have confidence to you-ward in the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded." He had confidence that they would not change from a Christian to a Judaistic way of thinking. His confidence was not founded on reports received regarding them. For these, as we have seen, threw him into a state of perplexity. But he had confidence to them-ward in the Lord. He had confidence in the use of appointed means. He had confidence in the rower of prayer. He had prayed to God on their behalf, that they might be none otherwise minded. He had confidence in bringing proper representations before their minds, as he had endeavoured to do. He had confidence especially in the great Head of the Church making use of the means in the interests of the Galatian Churches and of the whole Church.

5 . The troubler would bear his judgment. "But he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be." One is separated here, not as ringleader, but for the sake of individualization. He is represented as a troubler. He acts over the part of Satan who, seeing the happiness of Eden, envied our first parents its possession. So he, spying the peace and prosperity of the Galatian communities, cannot let them alone; he must introduce his Judaistic leaven. But this troubler, whosoever he be (thus searched out and held up before them), shall bear his judgment. God, indeed, makes use of him in making trial of them. And they shall be judged for the manner in which they have dealt with his representations—testing them or not testing them. But let him know that he shall have the sentence, and the burdensome sentence, of a troubler passed and carried out upon him.

6 . It was evident that he was no preacher of circumcision. "But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? then hath the stumbling-block of the cross been done away." We are not under any danger of attaching a materialistic meaning to the cross. Whilst the wood to which were nailed Christ's hands and feet has now long ago mouldered away, and has no existence unless in the imagination of the superstitious, the spiritual associations of it remain. It is the greatest tact that was ever accomplished on earth or ever brought to the knowledge of earth's inhabitants, and which will not decay in time or in eternity—that the adorable Son of God, coming down to our human condition, once became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. It is this which is set forth in Scripture as the Divine and only instrument of salvation. It was this which Paul made the great burden of his preaching. Whatever remedies or methods were proposed or advocated by others, "We," says he, who was himself a wonderful trophy of the cross—"we preach Christ crucified." But it was said in Galatia for a purpose that he preached circumcision, i.e. in addition to the cross. He could easily have given an explanation of the circumstance on which this charge was founded, viz. his having circumcised Timothy; but taking the representation as it was—that he was actually a preacher of circumcision—he puts a question and draws a conclusion.

(a) The cross is an offence because it does not merely please the imagination. Men are fond of ritualism in religion. Now, the cross is singularly simple and unadorned. In this respect it stands markedly in contrast with what preceded it. This is not pleasing to many. They would put ornaments upon the cross to take away its offensive simplicity. But that is a wrong tendency. The most beautiful rites and gorgeous shows, instead of drawing to the cross, as the meaning sometimes is, are more likely to usurp its place. The worshipper, instead of having his heart reached, is likely to have only his imagination pleased. Let the cross be left to its own simple power, though the imagination should be offended. It can do without ornaments on it in our day as well as it did in Paul's day.

(b) The cross is an offence because it is humbling to pride of reason. It was to the Greeks foolishness, and so it is apt to be to intellectual people still—to the Greeks of the present day, to literary men, to the reading portion of the community. That is at least what all such have to surmount. The cross seems foolishness to them. They would like a difficult problem on which to exercise their intellects. Now, in one sense, the cross is above reason, inasmuch as reason could never have found it out. But in another sense it is below human reason; it is a revelation, a doctrine all found out for man, and a doctrine which is level to the meanest understanding. The result of the philosophic craving was, at a very early period of the Church, the rise of Gnosticism. It was very much a blending of the Greek philosophy with Christianity. It was the religion of mind, those embracing it professing to have a deeper insight into Christian facts than the common people, who took them in their obvious sense. And since the disappearance of Gnosticism, there has been, again and again, and is at present in some quarters, an effort to consider the literary and reading class so as to give the cross a philosophic cast, with the view of attracting them. Now, there are some ways of speaking to intellectual people better than others, and nothing is to be hoped for from irrational or dry discourse, yet, if the cross is turned into a philosophy, it may attract some, but it is not likely to benefit them. Let the cross be presented as level to the lowest intellect; let it be presented as a simple, divinely revealed fact, speaking to the heart more than to the intellect; let there be no fear to offend pride of intellect, which must be humbled before the soul can be saved.

(c) The cross is an offence because it is humbling to self-righteousness. It is a strange infatuation of the natural heart that, with no righteousness to lay claim to, it is yet so natural to it to flatter itself with having a righteousness. The cross, going upon the supposition that we have no righteousness of our own, and that all the praise of our salvation is due to God, is an offence. In the Roman Catholic system there is a place given to works alongside of the merits of Christ, which is very pleasing to the feeling of self-righteousness. We are all apt to construct a theory of salvation in which there is a place left for self. Now, the cross must never be presented to please self-righteous people; that would be a fatal compromise. Let the cross be proclaimed as the impossibility of our own righteousness, as the grace of God in a righteousness freely provided for us. That is a doctrine which must offend, but it is the only doctrine that can satisfy the conscience.

(d) The cross is an offence because of its large demands. It demands that we forsake cherished sins. And that cuts into natural liking, that is painful like a crucifying, and therefore an offence. But the cross must be presented as giving no quarter to sin, as the most tremendous proof that sin is not to be permitted, as showing how sin is utterly abhorred and condemned of God. And to be acknowledging the cross, while tolerating sin in ourselves, is crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting him to an open shame. It demands self-sacrifice. The cross-life is characteristically a life of self-sacrifice. Christ was sacrificing all along, and when he came to the cross he sacrificed his all—sacrificed his life in the most awful circumstances. And those who would take up the cross must be prepared to follow Christ in his course of self-denial. And there, again, is where the offence of the cross arises. Its requirements are too high. But as the cross of Christ can never be blotted out, so its requirements can never be lowered. It is the standard up to which our life must be brought if we are to attain to our perfection. There is one blessed way in which the offence of the cross ceases, and that is, when we have been humbled by it as sinners, and have been led to own its power. Then we admire it for the light it throws on the Divine perfections, and for the power there is in it over human hearts. And we say, "Far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ."

7 . He wishes the Galatians deliverance from the unsettling teachers. "I would that they which unsettle you would even cut themselves off." In the case of the offender against morality in the Corinthian Church, the apostle issued a decree that he should be cut off by the Church. That could not be done in this case, because these teachers were not under the jurisdiction of the Galatian Churches. They came to teach them as they were free to do; and all that the Galatians could do was to refuse them a hearing. That this was the apostle's mind may be gathered from the wish he expresses that they would cut themselves off. As they could not be cut off by the Church, let them cut themselves off. As they were only unsettling the Galatian order, let them leave Galatian soil. But he does no more than wish. It was certainly by itself desirable; but it might be the purpose of God that these unsettling teachers should be left there to make trial of the Galatians, and, it might be, thereby to purify and to strengthen them.—R.F.