Cutting in, Cutting off, Cut yourself
March 27, 2022
Finally, in Galatians 5:1-15, Paul addresses the issue confronting his readers, circumcision, the cutting off the foreskin of a male Jew. While offensive to our senses, it is understandable that Paul refers to cutting three times in this passage. In verse 7 he speaks of those cut in on his readers with persuasions to be circumcised. In verse 4 Paul said that those who are circumcised as the essential mark of salvation and being God’s people are cut off from Christ. Shockingly, Paul ends this section by wishing that those agitators who were into cutting would cut themselves (verse 12). What are we to make of text and its argument about freedom in Christ versus submitting to a yoke of slavery?
How do you feel about someone who cuts in on you or on others? In these March Madness basketball tournaments, what about someone on your team who is on a clear path to making a basket but someone cuts in on him or her? Perhaps you are driving when two lanes merge into one. What about the driver (or many drivers) who go to the head of the line and cut into your lane? Paul mixes his metaphors from cutters of circumcision to runners on a track – you were running well, who cut in on you? They put you off stride and may cause you to fall down.
Paul turned from a violent zealot for the law to faith in Messiah Jesus crucified and raised. Christ was formed in him and he is called to proclaim this gospel to Gentiles. In chapter three both those Gentile believers and Jewish believers were together sons of God. They had been clothed with Christ when as believers they were baptized into Christ and were clothed with Christ. Together they are the one family of Abraham, the children (seed) promised to Abraham. They were running well when agitators had come to the Galatian churches trying to persuade them to be circumcised in order to be true children of God and escape persecution for the cross of Christ. That path, says Paul, was to go back to slavery. Instead of oneness in Christ there might come violent disruptions and disunity. In a true sense Galatians is all about the unity of the church.
We might be offended by Paul’s rhetoric. How could he speak this way in the same passage where he talks of faith made effective through love? There are some truths that one must take as absolute and not yield for a moment (Gal. 2:4-5). Paul was persuaded that speaking frankly this way would open the way for all believers who now have the Spirit of Christ to continue their run to maturity in Christ (See Gal. 5:16-6:10). May God give us the wisdom and courage to strive for the unity and growth of his church here at Storrs Road and everywhere.
—Tom Yoakum
