Opus 2025-251: Membership Dues

In the book of Galatians Paul takes a stand against the new believers being circumcised.  He goes so far as to say that if they get circumcised, it will come between them and their faith in Christ.  It seems to us that he’s over reacting.  Today in America I think I saw the statistics that 70% of the men were circumcised.  It’s not an addition to the faith or an act of belief, it’s simply a medical procedure.

Automatic rejection by God because of circumcision was ridiculous.  Paul was circumcised.  Every Jewish member of the early church was circumcised.  It was a part of their culture.  It was what marked them as part of the nation of Israel.  It was like membership dues or an initiation ceremony.  It’s something you did.  The eight day old baby was not making a statement of faith.  His parents were initiating him into the covenant.

The Judaizers are attempting to make Jews out of the Gentile Christians.  They probably believed in Jesus themselves.  They saw that they had been circumcised and the Jesus has been circumcised and felt like what was good enough for Jesus was good enough for these Galatian Christians since they were looking back to the old covenant, instead of trusting in the new one.

We have to make that decision in our own lives.  When we come to Jesus, we enter into a new life, we are made new creatures.  Jesus called it being born again.  There may be some rituals from our past which are totally harmless and which we continue without thought.  You may have pancakes on Sunday mornings.  There are others that make statements about who we were, and who we no longer are.

Without getting caught up in the law, or in your own personal works as atonement, we need to consciously adjust our behavior to the glory of God.  It won’t change Him.  It won’t save us.  But it will help us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

homo unius libri