Is of value (5623) (opheleo from ophéllo = heap up or from ophelos = increase, profit) means to provide assistance, with emphasis upon the resulting benefit. To help, to be of benefit, to be of use, to be an advantage, to be advantageous. Passive sense - to have benefit from, to profit. To be useful or profitable. It is used usually with the sense of gain, profit in both a material and non-material sense.
Louw-Nida - To provide assistance, with emphasis upon the resulting benefit (Jn 6:63). To be successful in accomplishing some goal, with the implication that such might be useful.
Vine - in the Active Voice signifies to help, to succor, to be of service; in the Passive to receive help, to derive profit or advantage
Opheleo is used in the sense of “bringing or gaining spiritual benefit” in Jn 6:63; 1Co. 13: 3; 14:6; Gal. 5: 2; Heb. 4: 2; 13:9. Opheleo occurs in the question “What does it profit a person ...?” in Mt 16:26; Mk 8:36; Lk 9:25.
Note that Paul is not saying that circumcision will save a person, for by works no man can be justified before God.
Mounce - Opheleo denotes the basic idea of benefiting through a particular condition or situation, hence, “to gain, profit, value.”
Opheleo - 15x in 15v - accomplishing(1), benefit(1), benefited(1), doing...good(1), help(2), helped(1), profit(4), profited(1), profits(2), value(1).
Matthew 15:5 "But you say, 'Whoever says to his father or mother, "Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God,"
Matthew 16:26 "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
Matthew 27:24 ¶ When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this Man's blood; see to that yourselves."
Mark 5:26 and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse--
Mark 7:11 but you say, 'If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),'
Mark 8:36 "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?
Luke 9:25 "For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?
John 6:63 "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
John 12:19 So the Pharisees said to one another, "You see that you are not doing any good; look, the world has gone after Him."
Romans 2:25 ¶ For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
Comment: Since no one can continually practice the Law or practice it perfectly, circumcision in and of itself is of no spiritual value.
1 Corinthians 13:3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
1 Corinthians 14:6 ¶ But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you unless I speak to you either by way of revelation or of knowledge or of prophecy or of teaching?
Galatians 5:2 ¶ Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.
Comment: Christ is of no spiritual advantage to the one who received circumcision as their perceived means of attaining the righteousness God demands.
Hebrews 4:2 For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.
Comment: the unbelieving generation of Israelites who failed to enter the land of Canaan because of their unbelief had no spiritual gain.
Hebrews 13:9 Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.
Opheleo - 28x in 26v in the non-apocryphal Septuagint - Ps 89:22; Pr 10:2; 25:13; Isa 30:5ff; 44:9; 47:12; 57:12; Jer 2:11; 7:4, 8; 12:13; 15:10; 23:32; Hab 2:18;
Practice (4238) (prasso) means to perform repeatedly or habitually and stresses the process leading to the accomplishment. The present tense emphasizes this is one's continual activity or habitual practice. Vaughan says, it is almost like a compound word, “if thou be a law doer”.
Paul recognizes that a Jew may protest, and say that his salvation is based on the fact that he is a descendant of Abraham. Paul rightly says that this is irrelevant regarding justification. Circumcision was a sign (Ge 17:11) of God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants, and therefore another token, besides the Law, of the special privileges which were granted to the Jew and in which they gloried and sadly which they misinterpreted to be the means of obtaining righteousness. As illustrated by the Rabbinical quotations below in the next section, the Jews believed that circumcision guaranteed their salvation. They might be punished in the world to come, but they believed that they could never be lost. Paul counters this "spiritual red herring" and proceeds to point out that circumcision is irrelevant regarding justification. In so doing he again is preparing them to see clearly their desperate need for the Gospel which is the power of God for their salvation, for in the Gospel is revealed the righteousness that God demands and that He provides to the one who repents and believes. Are you trusting in anything that you can do to merit righteousness, right standing before God? And dear believer, now that you are saved, are you still from time to time trusting in anything other than the imputed righteousness you have been granted? In other words you have been saved by faith in the Gospel, but are you daily living in the power of the Gospel by faith or are you falling back into works righteousness.
Cole - God instituted the practice of circumcision (the removal of the male foreskin) as a sign of His covenant with Abraham, over 500 years before He gave Moses the Law (see Genesis 17). It symbolized moral purity and separation from the world unto God. Under the Law of Moses, it became a sign of membership in the covenant community. So as a God-ordained ritual, circumcision was of value to the Jews as a reminder of their covenant relationship to God and of the need to be morally set apart to God. When Paul says that circumcision is of value, he is speaking to the Jews as Jews. When he addresses those who are in Christ, he says (Gal. 5:6), “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.” Circumcision was a Jewish sign of the covenant that ended when Jesus instituted the new covenant. Except for hygienic reasons, it holds no value for believers in Christ.
Jerry Bridges emphasizes the importance in the believer's life of "A Daily Appropriation of the Gospel" writing...
The second essential (of finishing your life well) is a daily appropriation of the Gospel. I have put personal communion with God first to highlight its priority because that’s the absolute basic essential. But in actual practice I put my daily appropriation of the Gospel first. That is, I begin my time with God by reviewing and appropriating to myself the Gospel. Since the Gospel is only for sinners, I come to Christ as a still practicing sinner. In fact, I usually use the words of that tax collector in the temple when he cried out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). God has been merciful, and I’m quick to acknowledge his mercy in my life, but I say to him that I come in the attitude of that tax collector. “I need your mercy. I am still a practicing sinner. Even my very best deeds are sinful in your sight, and I am an object of your mercy and your grace.”
It’s important that we come, first of all, by appropriating the Gospel because it’s through Christ that we have access to God the Father. Paul says in Ephesians 2:18, “For through Him we both [Jew and Gentile] have access in one Spirit to the Father.” We cannot come directly to God. We must always come through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But God not only allows us to come; He invites us to come. The writer of Hebrews says, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:19–22). And so as we appropriate the Gospel it gives us the confidence to come into the very presence of God to have communion with Him (cf Ro 5:1-2). So we need to learn to live by the Gospel every day of our lives.
In the early years of my Christian life and even in my early ministry I regarded the Gospel as a message for the unbeliever. Now that I was a Christian I personally no longer needed the gospel except as a message to share with unbelievers. But I learned the hard way many years ago that I need the Gospel every day of my life. At the time I was serving overseas, and I was single and lonely. Additionally I was struggling with some interpersonal relationship issues. Every Monday night I led a Bible study at an American Air Force base about an hour’s drive from where I lived. And every Monday night as I drove home, Satan would attack me with accusations of my sin. Out of desperation I began to resort to the Gospel. To use an expression I learned years later, I began to “preach the Gospel to myself.” And I subsequently learned that I continued to need the Gospel every day of my life. That is why I list this practice as one of the four essential elements.
Consider Paul’s words in Galatians 2:20. The apostle writes, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” The context of this verse is the subject of justification. In Gal 2:15–17 Paul speaks of our being justified four times. He says we’re not justified by works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, and he keeps repeating that thought. And then in Gal 2:21 he says, “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” Clearly in this entire passage, Gal 2:15–21, he is talking about the subject of justification. He is going to get to sanctification later, but that’s not in this context. The reason I make a point of that is because I want to call your attention particularly to the last sentence of Gal 2:20. “And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Remember, in the context Paul is speaking about justification, not sanctification.
Now this raises an apparent problem or question. That is, we know that justification is a point-in-time past event. At the time you trusted Christ you were at that precise moment declared righteous by God. You were justified. That’s why Paul in Romans 5:1 can speak of justification in the past tense when he says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And yet here in this passage he speaks of it in the present tense. “The life that I now live in the flesh,” today. The life that I live today, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” So if justification is a point-in-time event that happened in our past, why does Paul speak of it in the present tense? The life that I now live today I live by faith in the Son of God.
The answer to that question is one of the most important truths we can learn about the Gospel. For the apostle Paul, justification was not only a past event; it was also a present reality. This is where so many Christians miss it. They can look back to the day that they trusted Christ. And if you press them on that they will say, “Yes, I was justified at that time.” But today they seek to live their lives as if it depends upon them. In their mind they have reverted to a performance relationship with God. And so the thinking is, if I had my quiet time and if I haven’t had any lustful thoughts and these kind of things, then I expect God to bless me today. We want to pay our own way. We want to earn God’s blessings. The apostle Paul didn’t do that. Paul looked outside himself and saw himself clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He saw himself declared righteous. We say to a person who trusts Christ, “You have been justified. You’ve been declared righteous. Your sins have been forgiven. You stand before God today clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.” And then we can point to eternity and say, “When you go to be with the Lord forever, you will still stand clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.” Even though we will have left our sinful nature behind, even though we will be righteous people made perfect, as the writer of Hebrews says (Heb. 12:23), we will for all eternity stand in the righteousness of Christ. That never changes.
But what about from the time of our conversion until the time we go to be with the Lord? For most Christians it’s a performance relationship. That is why we need a daily appropriation of the gospel, because it is our nature to drift toward a performance relationship. Going back to those days of crossing the Pacific Ocean and getting those navigational positions twice a day, if we did not get those we would drift slowly off course. And if you do not daily appropriate the gospel, you will drift toward a performance relationship with God. And when you do that, you lead yourself in one of two directions. If you have a very superficial view of sin in your life—that is, if you think of sin in terms of the big gross sins that society outside of us commits—then you will tend toward religious pride because you’re not doing those things. But if you are conscientious and if you’re seeing some of these “respectable” sins, such as gossip and pride, jealousy and envy and a critical spirit and these kind of things, if you’re seeing those in your life and you do not live by the gospel, that can lead you to despair. And so oftentimes people in this second category just kind of slack off because they can’t handle the tension. They can’t handle the difference between what they know they should be and what they honestly see themselves to be. And what resolves that tension is the gospel, which reminds us that our sins are forgiven and that we are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. At the same time, that which keeps us from spiritual pride is the gospel, because again the gospel is only for sinners. But we are all sinners, still practicing sinners, even though we’ve been delivered from the guilt and the dominion of sin. Yes, that’s true. And we are now called saints, separated ones. But we still sin in thought, word, deed, and most of all in motive because we often do the right thing for a wrong reason or for a mixed reason. We want to please God, but we want to look good in the process. And so we come to the Lord and we say,
“Lord, I come still a practicing sinner, but I look to Jesus Christ and his shed blood and his perfect obedience, his righteous life that has been credited to me. And I see myself standing before you clothed in his righteousness.”
That will get you out of bed in the morning. That will get you excited about the Christian life, when you see yourself daily clothed in his righteousness. And that will keep you from loving the world. You can’t love the gospel and love the world at the same time. So a daily appropriation of the gospel will keep you from getting off course.
About a hundred years ago a great theologian by the name of B. B. Warfield, who was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote these words: “There is nothing in us or done by us at any stage of our earthly development because of which we are acceptable to God.” Warfield is saying there is nothing that we do in ourselves that makes us acceptable to God. He continues: “We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all.” Then he continues, and this is important: “This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievement in Christian behavior may be. ”What he is saying is that it doesn’t matter how sanctified we become. It doesn’t matter how much we grow in the Christian life. He says it is always on Christ’s blood and righteousness alone that we can rest.
One of the sins I struggle with frequently is the sin of anxiety; not anxiety in general, but anxiety over delayed luggage on airplane trips. I have had so many bad experiences with my luggage not arriving with me on the same flight that I no longer assume my bag will arrive with me. Every time I go to the baggage claim area I have to pray against the sin of anxiety.
A few years ago, after two back-to-back really bad experiences, I said to my wife, “I have to confess I’m just an anxious person.” The next morning in my time with God I was reading in Matthew 8. Part of that chapter is the account of Jesus and the disciples caught in a great storm on the Sea of Galilee. In verse 24 the text says that a great storm arose, “so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he [that is, Jesus] was asleep.” I was arrested by the statement that Jesus was asleep in the midst of this raging storm while the disciples were terrified.
As I pondered that scene the thought came to me, Jesus was asleep in the boat for me. By that I mean that all that Jesus did in both his sinless life and sin-bearing death, he did as our representative and substitute. His perfect obedience as well as his death was all on our behalf. In contrast to my sin of anxiety over missing luggage, Jesus was never anxious. In far more desperate circumstances than mine, he fully trusted his Heavenly Father. And I get the credit for it. By his death he paid for the sin and guilt of my anxiety. And by his perfect trust he clothed me with his righteousness.
So I left my time with God that morning not feeling guilty because of my persistent struggle with anxiety but feeling encouraged because I knew my sin was forgiven and instead I had been credited with perfect obedience (in this case, the perfect trust) of Jesus. So I went out into my day not only encouraged but determined that by his grace I would fight against my anxiety.
That’s what it means to live by the Gospel. That’s why we need to appropriate the gospel every day of our lives, because God only accepts us for Christ’s sake. God sees us clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and he wants us to see ourselves clothed in the righteousness of Christ, so that we will come to him on that basis and seek to relate to him through the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ and not through our own works. All of us in our sinful nature are prone to slide toward a works-based relationship with God. And even though I have been preaching this kind of message for many years, I can tell you honestly it is so easy to revert in that direction because of our sinful human nature. It is our sinful nature that thinks we must somehow earn God’s favor by our own hard work or our own faithfulness. Now we want to be faithful, we want to work hard, but not in order to earn God’s approval, but because we have God’s approval. And so a daily appropriation of the gospel is essential to enduring to the end. (Consider reading this entire book with sections by highly respected Christian leaders - Stand- A Call for the Endurance of the Saints- Justin Taylor, John Piper, Jerry Bridges, Jerry Bridges, Randy Alcorn, Helen Roseveare, John MacArthu)
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Torrey's Topic
Circumcision
Instituted by God -Genesis 17:9,10
Described -Genesis 17:11; Exodus 4:25
Enforced by the law -Leviticus 12:3; John 7:22
CALLED THE
Covenant of circumcision -Acts 7:8
Circumcision in the flesh -Ephesians 2:11
Concision -Philippians 3:2
A painful and bloody rite -Exodus 4:26; Joshua 5:8
Promises to Abraham previous to -Romans 4:9,13
A seal of the covenant -Genesis 17:11; Romans 4:11
Introductory Jewish ordinances -Galatians 5:3
Outward sign of -Romans 2:28
Inward grace -Romans 2:29
Necessary to enjoying the privileges of the Jewish State -Ex 12:48; Ezek 44:7
WAS PERFORMED
On males home-born and bought -Genesis 17:12,13
On the eighth day -Genesis 17:12; Leviticus 12:3
Even on the sabbath day -John 7:22,23
With knives of flint -Exodus 4:25; Joshua 5:3
By the heads of families -Genesis 17:23; Exodus 4:25
By persons in authority -Joshua 5:3
In the presence of the family, &c -Luke 1:58-61
Accompanied with naming the child -Genesis 21:3,4; Luke 1:59; 2:21
First performed on Abraham and his family -Genesis 17:24-27
Not performed in the wilderness -Joshua 5:5
Performed by Joshua at Gilgal -Joshua 5:2,7
Punishment for neglecting -Genesis 17:14; Exodus 4:24,26
Without faith, vain -Romans 3:30; Galatians 5:6
Without obedience, vain -Romans 2:25; 1 Corinthians 7:19
THE JEWS
Denominated by -Acts 10:45; Galatians 2:9
Held it unlawful to intermarry with those not of the -Genesis 34:14; Judges 14:3
Held no intercourse with those not of the -Acts 10:28; 11:3; Galatians 2:12
Despised as unclean those not of the -1Sa 14:6; 17:26; 15.26-Matt.15.27" class="scriptRef">Mt 15:26,27; Ep 2:11,15
Sometimes performed on slain enemies -1Samuel 18:25-27; 2Samuel 3:14
Abolished by the gospel -Ephesians 2:11,15; Colossians 3:11
Performed on Timothy as a matter or expediency because of the Jews -Acts 16:3
Necessity of, denied by Paul -Galatians 2:3-5
Necessity of, asserted by false teachers -Acts 15:24; Galatians 6:12; Titus 1:10
Trusting to, a denial of Christ Galatians 3:3,4; 5:3,4
Paul denounced for opposing -Acts 21:21
Saints the true spiritual -Philippians 3:3; Colossians 2:11
ILLUSTRATIVE OF
Readiness to hear and obey -Jeremiah 6:10
Purity of heart -Deuteronomy 10:16; 30:6
Purity of speech -Exodus 6:12
BUT IF YOU ARE A TRANSGRESSOR OF THE LAW YOUR CIRCUMCISION HAS BECOME UNCIRCUMCISION: ean de parabates nomou es (2SPAS) e peritome sou akrobustia gegonen (3SRAI) e peritome sou akrobustia gegonen (3SRAI): (Ro 2:23; Jer 9:25,26; Acts 7:51)
The NLT paraphrase gives a good sense of what Paul is saying -
But if you don't obey God's law, you are no better off than an uncircumcised Gentile
Fitzmyer - Paul’s bold declaration, equating a good pagan with a circumcised Jew, would have been an abomination to Pharisaic ears.
You are - The verb is in the present tense signifying that if you as a Jew "are habitually a transgressor" or "if that is the habitual course of your life" than you are in the same condition as an uncircumcised Gentile.
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Greek Word Studies ( - )
Read freely Greek Word Studies from the Austin Precept text commentary of the Bible in text and pdf format. Precept Austin is an online free dynamic bible commentary similar to wikipedia with updated content and many links to excellent biblical resources around the world. You can browse the entire collection of Commentaries by Verse on the Precept Austin website.We have been "bought with a price" to be "ambassadors for Christ" and our "salvation is nearer to us than when we believed" so let us "cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" "so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming." (1Cor 6:20, 2Cor 5:20, Ro 13:11, 2Cor 7:1, 1Jn 2:28)