Tragedy of Legalism

Galatians 5 verses 2, 3, and 4 is where we're at today. Anyone know our subject today? The tragedy of Nicholas? Well, no. Yes, it is. That's the general, but we'll get to it. You'll see. Sorry? Liberty. Liberty, ooh. Way off, way off. We get to that at the end too, that's just so cool. But let me start in context with what we've, uh, Eccles been doing and, uh, Miles. Miles. These verses, Galatians 4, 21 through 30, it ends at 30, so I'll read it from there. Tell me, beginning in 21, tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one of the bondwomen and one of the freewomen. but the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh and the son by the free woman was according to promise or through the promise. This is allegorically speaking for these women are two covenants, one proceeding from Mount Sinai, bearing children who are to be slaves. And I underlined that phrase because that ties into our lesson pretty well today. She is Hagar. Now this Hagar, is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children, but the Jerusalem from above is free. She is our mother, for it is written, Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear, break forth and shout, you who are not in labor, for more numerous are the children of the desolate than the one who has a husband.

And you brethren, like Isaac, and this is important, 28 through 31 is important for our lesson for today, the two, three, and four verses of chapter five. And you, brethren, and twenty-eight, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now Oslo. But what does the scripture say?

Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be in error with the son of the free woman. Very important for today's lesson there. 31. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, which is Hagar, but of the free woman, which is Sarah. It was for freedom that Christ set us free, therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. That's 5.1 and that's in context with 21 through 30. So we go on to today's verses, chapter 5, verse 2.

Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to keep the whole law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law. You have fallen from grace.

So, there it is. So, verse 2, we'll go right into. So, he begins by saying, behold I, Paul. And if that's not obvious, he really states this strongly. He says, see here, he makes a strong attestation to the facts. And it's really a legal tone, isn't it? It's like saying, I solemnly swear, or I hereby testify, I affirm to you, and he even states his name. Like, raise your right hand and swear, right? Like in the court of law. So, other versions have it, mark my words, listen, take note, for that behold.

If you receive circumcision, that's a third class conditional statement. with an if. And it's probable future condition. That's third class. So it's a likelihood. It's likely to happen, but it may not happen. So they hadn't gotten this circumcision yet, but they were thinking about it. They might have been going to some classes or something. Circumcision classes? Yeah. Like getting prepared to do it. Yeah. Learn all about it.

WeStaff has, if you persist in being circumcised. So they had submitted to the feasts and the seasons, they were following that, but They hadn't yet done the circumcision thing. They put that off because, well, you'll tell us why it's... Don't get Wolfer to comment. It wouldn't be fun for a grown man.

And those who were encouraging them to get circumcised, they could take a victory lap if they got circumcised. they would receive acclamation for these new Gentile converts to Judaism. And we learn that in Galatians 6, 12, and 13, those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. for those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh.

Now, do you see a topic of today's lesson come out here? Circumcision. And so you're going to be experts on circumcision. So are we only talking about Gentiles here? And not Jews? Well, the Jews, I think, would have been circumcised. Yeah, they're already circumcised. Yeah, from infancy. So if they come to Christ, there's nothing, right? So this is a circumcision that they're... This is a ritual that they're trying to get... So I would say it's Gentiles that he's trying to... They're trying to get these Gentiles on board with... And the Jews are fine, they've been circumcised. So it's fine to do that if you're a Jew, but these are... But you can apply it to the Jews as far as whether circumcision has anything to do with being saved.

Yeah, right. And there's a difference between the ritual and the spiritual circumcision, which we'll get to later. I was going to add on to what Bob said, because I think the Jewish community today, just think of it today, they're probably They're stiffer today because most Jews just take the holidays. I mean, I'm generalizing that. But the Orthodox Jews are probably circumcised. But the Jewish community back then may not have all been circumcised.

Oh, really? I think it would be. I think all the Jews were circumcised back then. Even if they grew up to Yeah, I would say so, but that's a good discussion, isn't it? So, circumcision is our topic, well, the topic for today, so I was just going to send everyone to WebMD and close it off and go finish off the cookies. But we'll look at it. So circumcision was widely practiced in the ancient world.

I didn't know this in the Egyptian and Canaanite cultures as well. That was done at the beginning of puberty for them. But for the Jews, it's done at infancy, and it signified an oath. So it's an oath, circumcision, in the Jewish for Jews to serve as the holy people whom God called them to be as his special nation, special servants, and set them apart from pagan populations.

I have one other question. Yeah. Are we ignoring the women here in this passage? I was circumcised. I didn't think of that. Yes. Because I think circumcision Right, right. So we're ignoring them for the ritual. For the ritual part. And we're including them in the spiritual, yeah. Because the husband would have gotten circumcised and his wife, you know, is part of that.

I don't think there were too many... women at the time who were outspoken and did their own thing. That was not part of the culture. It was all about the men. You wouldn't have seen women who were, you know, Well, that's just like the United States a hundred years ago.

Only men could vote because it was a family unit, and the man was in charge of the family unit. And by the way, when I moved here, I couldn't have a credit card in my name. Or a bank account in my name. If I had a husband, I could only, it could only be in Disney.

You're showing your age. No, but, no, I'm just saying, that's how recent, that's how recent, though, things have changed. And that was in the 70s. I experienced that as well. Yeah. Are those the good old days or are they? Yes. Yeah. I mean, really, it's true. So if that was, if that's going on here in the 70s, think about how it was going on there.

So it was a visible physical sign of the covenant that God had with Israel, with the Jews. And then it was used metaphorically or allegorically. Any male not circumcised was said to be cut off from his people in the Old Testament. So when the Jews came out of Egypt, they were slaves. So in the wilderness, the kids born during the wilderness journey were not circumcised, because they just let it go, that generation. So the generation, the slaves were circumcised, because they just did it because they were Jews. But then their kids were not circumcised. in the wilderness until Joshua commanded it to be done at the bank of Jordan, the river they were crossing. They got circumcised, so they re-upped their oath or their pledge to God at the bank of the Jordan before they entered the promised land.

I think I'm going to run off and become a Gentile. Yeah, run out and started a new, founded a new land with uncircumcised males, yeah. And it became a badge of honor. So it started out that God ordained it as an oath to Abraham, but then it became a badge of honor indicating spiritual, national superiority for the Jews. You know, they sort of, used it as a, and this is what they're doing here in Galatians, using it as a bludgeon or something to hit the Gentiles over. So, and uncircumcision, that term became pejorative for the Gentiles, so they were uncircumcised, that's a bad word, and it became politically, emotionally, spiritually sort of charged in the early New Testament world, which we are today here studying.

Oh, and then, So I have the, I couldn't find, but this, that, that thing is exactly what the definition of circumcision is right there. That's all you need to know. It's peritemno, and that's the verb, so it's receiving circumcision, peritemno. And if you look at the illustration, that's exactly what it does, and it's to cut around. Even though it means, temno means sharper, so it's around sharper, but somehow they, what they figure the word sharper is to carefully cut and not to, So again, I'll send you to webmd.org.

I had a question, did the Old Testament Jews have this idea of circumcision as being a spiritual thing, or having an allegorical meaning? I mean, Paul addresses that Romans too, doesn't he, when he would have them be circumcised in their home, right? kind of spiritual aspect to it? Yeah, that was my question to myself. Did the Old Testament, or did they just think of it as a ritual that they had to do, and it made them a Jew?

Well, I found that yes, they should have known They should have known it because in Leviticus 26, God says in verse 40, if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of the forefathers in their unfaithfulness, which they have committed against me, and also in their acting with hostility against me, I was also acting with hostility against them to bring them into the land of their enemies. or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled, and then it goes on. But a phrase like that, they should have known, oh, it means I can have a circumcision of the heart. They should have known that. But of course, it's like God tells them something, but it just goes over their head. We learn that in in Mark, right, with the disciples. They have no idea. Circumcision back then wasn't just for the Jew. There were a lot of cultures that did circumcision.

And they did it for that culture to set themselves apart from other cultures. Yeah, they did it different times. But I think this, sometimes God takes something like that and makes it Whatever he does, he makes it special for the people of Abraham. So, I don't know how they differentiated the different... Maybe because this had so much meaning, like you see here in Leviticus 26, and maybe in other cultures it didn't have that kind of meaning. Well, you said too that it was different times of life.

Yeah. The culture was on earth and the animals were later, so... Yeah, and I ask all women out there to do it at infancy. That's the best time. Right. So the male doesn't know what's up. What is it? Right, right. We cried about everything back then. Just throw it into the pot.

So I'm going to look at true circumcision. I had this, what is true circumcision? And what is, I said, what is good circumcision? And what is bad circumcision? But I said, well, that's not really technical terms, good and bad. But there is true and false, isn't there, in the Bible. But I'm going to keep the good and bad in there, because it's kind of helpful.

So, good circumcision, or true circumcision, is true circumcision, from Philippians 3.3, by faith in Christ alone. and with no confidence in the flesh. Bad circumcision is called false circumcision.

And those are, they're dogs and evil workers, Paul calls them in Philippians 3.2. So that's a term for the the negative circumcision.

Good circumcision is made without hands, in Colossians 2.11. The flesh, or the old man, is removed in the circumcision of the Holy Spirit. False circumcision is uncircumcision, the term.

So that's your old man is not removed, your flesh is not removed, in Colossians 2.13. And that is a negative state of being or standing and state if you're uncircumcised of that old man.

Good circumcision or true circumcision is in him, Colossians 2.11. A lot of this is in Colossians. Dead represents false circumcision.

Those uncircumcised in their heart are dead in their transgressions, Colossians 2.13. The flesh of the old man is removed. We looked at that in true circumcision. False circumcision is compelled circumcision, and we've talked about that. So not for your sake, but for others' sake. And that will come to the next chapter of Galatians, when they're compelling them to be circumcised.

True circumcision is the circumcision of Christ, it's called, Colossians 2.11. Bad circumcision would be, Paul calls it the mutilated ones, or he hopes that they would mutilate themselves. Notice the other Greek word, apokopto, instead of peritone, apokopto, and that means to amputate, basically. And then it gets really bad there, right?

So, good circumcision is being buried and raised with Christ, Colossians 2.12.

Good circumcision or true circumcision is circumcision of the heart performed by the Spirit, Romans 2.29. and a false circumcision would be an outward Jew having no baptism of the Holy Spirit in Christ, no heart circumcision.

Romans 2.29 mentions that.

So that an inward Jew is true circumcision, Romans 2.29.

Paul sets those two different view, terms up in Romans 2.29, an inward Jew and an outward Jew.

But, physically, he says in Galatians 6.15 that it's meaningless. It does not matter. What matters is a new creation. So, there's what he thinks of the actual ritual. So, he's just setting up that the spiritual circumcision is the thing, not the ritual.

So, back to verse 2. Very short verse, by the way. He says, if you do this, if you receive circumcision, that's a third class conditional probable future situation, it has this consequence. Consequence number one, and I got this from Merriman. These consequences. The first is, Christ will be of no benefit to you. No profit, no advantage.

And it leads to a question that someone brought up, well if justification comes from the law, or even sanctification, and it comes through these rituals like circumcision, why did Christ have to die? Why did he have to do that if you can get it through religiousness? And circumcision is one of those badges of religiosity. Christ does not advantage you in justification, but further, it doesn't advantage you in the Christian life or growth, and that's sanctification.

Here's a quote from Merriman, a believer turning to the law for production or growth is like a banker turning to a beggar for financial support. That's what he says. Yeah, so I thought that was very, very pithy way to say that. So in verse three, notice he says, he again, he repeats his testification or his affirmation, I, Paul, do again solemnly swear, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision. Same verse, basically, but he puts a new consequence in verse three.

Consequence number two is, it puts the believer under the full force and obligation of the law of Moses. You see that in the last part of the verse. If you receive circumcision, you are under the obligation to keep the whole law. And so if you identify yourself under the law or any part of it, you're responsible for the whole universality of that legal system. A debtor to all its demands, Kelly says. And that includes the moral and ceremonial part. You know, there's a thing in Christianity today that we do the moral code of the law, but the ceremonial is, but you can't do that. They go together. They can't be separated. And I thought of this example.

If you get a loan for $400,000 from a bank, can you say, I'm not responsible for the last $100,000. I'm only responsible for the first 75% of that $400,000. So will the bank forgive the remaining balance of the loan? No. And will, on your credit report, will they say, hey, this person paid $300,000 perfectly, they get an 800 credit score, right? Or 750, whatever it is. Or any kind of loan. So, or will they report, if you just blow off the last $100,000, and that goes into default, will they say, well, they did great on this and will they just write off the 100,000? No, right? It's the whole thing. So just like the law. So I think that's a pretty good comparison to what we're talking about here.

So God is the author of the circumcision for the Jewish economy. and not for these Gentiles. But in giving Christ, and this is Kelly, in giving Christ, he stopped that economy. Circumcision had served its office. To bring it back would be kind of resurrecting this obscure ritual, and that dishonors Christ's work.

So is the, someone asked this, I think it was Stoney, is, or it could be, maybe it's Kelly, is a Christian a debtor to Christ for the cross, the work on the cross? Are we under obligation for what Christ did on the cross? What do you think? How many say yes, raise your hand. Are we under grace? Right. Yeah, so, no. The cross was pure grace. So, we don't... It sounds counterintuitive to us, but we're under no obligation to Him for His savings. Actually, that's kind of what many believers, you know, not well taught. I have to pay God back. I'm one who has to pay God back. And that's what I'm getting at. So how hard can I work? Yeah, work him, work him, work him, pay him back. You can't ever pay him back. It's impossible.

Yeah, and he did it freely. And he freely gave. And grace is... is giving a gift with no expectation of return. You don't owe me anything. So no, the believer is not under obligation like the law puts you under obligation. And that goes back to chapter 4. Hagar was a bondwoman under obligation. We are not under Hagar or Ishmael. We're under Isaac.

So on to verse four, you have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by the law. You have fallen from grace. Consequence number three then is, if you receive circumcision, you sever yourself from Christ, or the King James Version has it, Christ becomes no effect to you, that NIV has, you will alienate yourself from Christ as a consequence from going through with this circumcision. And you could say, you could say, I have to follow the Sabbath, right? There's a lot of, in Christianity, I notice a lot of podcasters Maybe Charlie Kirk was setting aside Saturday because for himself it's Sabbath. But that's one of those things in the law of Moses.

And if you think of the cross and think of all Christ did, all the work. So I just started writing. And I just threw everything I could think of extemporaneously of what the operation of the cross did. It saves us from sins. It provides forgiveness of sins on a continual basis. It identifies us in his death, burial, and resurrection. It separates us from the body of death.

It transfers kingdoms. You go from the kingdom of darkness to Christ's kingdom. Transfer of kingdoms. It raises you to newness of life. It transfers races. You were an Adam. You are now in the race of Christ due to the cross work. You become a new creation. through the cross work, you are ascended into heaven with Christ. He seats you in the heavenlies with Christ, and he gives you his eternal life. And I even forgot circumcision. You are heart circumcised.

I didn't have that in, but look at all those things that the operation of the cross does. It's like a military operation, which accomplishes all these things. that most don't know about, you know, unless you get into the study of Paul. So, if you consider it to be of no effect, or you alienate yourself from Christ, isn't that just absurd, right? What could be more just not make sense when you look at what Christ's cross work did for you without any law. So the word to be severed from Christ is katergeo, severed, estranged from Christ, alienated from Christ. And it's a familiar word in a familiar verse. Does anyone know what katergeo comes from? Very familiar to Holly Hills. It's Romans 6, 6.

Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, that we would be no longer slaves to sin. So that done away with, that's caturdeo. And it means to be taken offline, rendered inoperative, put out of business. We always, we always, and our relationship to the old man is put out of business, rendered inoperative.

So you really see the absurdity when you say you subject Christ, the benefit of Christ. Is Christ rendered inoperative? Is Christ unemployed? Rendered useless? loosed from power, you can't say that because it's the cross of Christ is such a magnificent thing, right? So this is what Paul is, this is his line of questioning to the Galatians is this absurdity and you can kind of see it in his language of what they were doing here.

So verse four, continuing in verse four, consequence number four, you fall from grace. If you're a Calvinist, you really fall from grace. You fall out of grace down through an open manhole into the pit of darkness forever. That's what they would say is falling from grace and conditional salvation. But fortunately, we take the non-Calvinist view.

So to fall from grace there is to be more knocked off a platform, a grace-faith platform, down to a lower platform of living on a law works unbelief platform. So I remember a chart, maybe my dad did it, so you're up here, You get knocked down to here, and there's a step. So you just get knocked down, and you, through confession, you can get back into a grace faith standing. So, and the Holy Spirit, God will let you do that, and when you're knocked off the grace platform, you're just operating like any unsaved person on the basis of of your flesh, of your old man, and things will go that way. So he allows that to happen. So you're not off of grace standing, down to a conditional self-standing, and it's to fall from an engaged power in the life of the Holy Spirit down to the power of the old man, into his power, from spiritual to natural, is what I kind of came up with, and I think that's, if anyone... Yeah, that's kind of good, what he says, lose hold of grace. Yeah, right. Oh yeah, there it is. Yeah, you lose hold. You lose hold of your grace standing. Yeah.

I don't know whether your dad said this or not, but this whole issue of how we relate I mean, the old man's been crucified, right? That's doctrinally sound interpretation. So, is the old man still operational, or is it the sin nature that's operational? I mean, I've heard this really discussed to some extent. I like old man because it really stands for everything that's been crucified. And that's the Greek. The old man's been crucified. So positionally, we're new creations in Christ Jesus, right? We're seated at the right hand. But we still have sin nature. It's kind of reckoning ourselves indeed dead unto sin, right?

Not that the old man should be operational. Christ sees, the Lord sees him as crucified. Is this just theoretical or is this really important? Well, it's... Let's see. Oh, I had it and then I lost it. He's not annihilated, right? So if we just think about it as separated from the old.

So he's still there. Didn't your dad show him as being behind bars? And he's yelling out all the time behind bars. He's not really in control, but he's still yelling out. And the proof that he's still there, the old man, the flesh, is because we're not saved from him yet. That comes right when you die, when you're raptured. We're no longer under the power. Right. And that's the better way to think about it. And Merriman said it's a transfer of power. So what power are you under? So he's still there.

And I take it, Bob, to the sin nature being equal to the old man. Yeah, well, the picture I've seen, you have the old man is a bigger wrapper, it includes more things, and the sin nature's within the old man. But, you know, people go back and forth. Oh, that gets, yeah, that gets... Well, your dad's picture with the head, the old man, and the sin nature was inside.

And where he was in that head. Is he in your soul? I know, I know. That's tough. Yeah, it's tough. That's the kind of metaphysics of it, I guess. You know, 611 is to consider yourself dead indeed in the sin, not the old man. Well, isn't that the sin, though? Yeah, okay. Sorry. So yeah, remember what Miles said to us the other week.

He said grace is a merit of favor, but grace is also a gift, no strings attached. The life in Christ is a gift effectuated by the Holy Spirit. Kelly says this, Christ is a complete savior, but he's also an exclusive one. Isn't that a cool thing? He's also an exclusive one. Adding to his work destroys his salvation for the one seeking to be justified, or even, I'd say, sanctified by any other means. It's one or the other. It can't be both.

We get to this, I'm going to circle back to verse 1, 5-1. So it's for freedom that Christ set us free, therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery. And it all kind of wraps into that. In freedom, you can look at that verse as, in freedom, Christ set us free, or for freedom, we were set free by Christ. It was for our advantage. We have complete liberty in Christ. And this is Stoney here, and this circles back to chapter four and Hagar and all those, and that discussion.

He says in Galatians 21 through 30, chapter four, they were trying to be perfected in the flesh, they were not in liberty. The apostle tells them that Abraham, when Isaac was weaned, made a feast. All in the house were doing honor to Isaac, all except one, a youth of 14. And he mocked, that was Ishmael. Sarah says, he must be cast out, and that's in the context of chapter four there.

The first great thing in getting rid of the religious man is that Christ must be acknowledged as having a right to everything I have, from the nursery to the office, or from infancy to being a full-grown man. No man has liberty till he has parted with one man, Adam, and is in another, Christ, till he comes to recognize that Christ liveth in me. Then he is able to say, I am crucified with Christ. So that wraps it up into the previous discussion of Hagar and Ishmael and things like that. So he says there are two things. The first is that you acknowledge Christ, the true Isaac, in his place. The second is that you do not tolerate Ishmael. We cast it all off, the law, its requirements, its demands, the old man, the burden of its yoke. And Stoney says that, and I'm still trying to understand this, he says that circumcision is stronger than crucifixion. At Gilgal, where the Jews were camped at the bank of the Jordan, every trace of the old thing is gone. The whole thing is swept away.

It is a positive relief that I am clear from all here through the death of Christ. And so just to close, I made this thing. So it just shows again the illustration of circumcised. We're circumcised in a heart without hands by the Holy Spirit. And we cast off the body of flesh. We cast out Ishmael there. We just looked at that. And down below there I have the reproach of Egypt for the Jews in the wilderness. They were slaves in Egypt and they cast that out when they got circumcised at the wilderness wandering.

Removed at the nine o'clock position there is the deeds of the body, Romans 8.13. And so that we just cut it away and it's all cast out, cast off, or excised.

So yeah, that's the life. And then I just threw in everything I could think of about who we are in Christ. That's good. There's Schaeffer's 33 Things and a bunch of other things. So we're casting out all that stuff, leaving what's good in the middle, who we are. So we'll close here. That's good. really quickly and then we'll have questions.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the cross of Christ, all that it did and all that it accomplished at Calvary. We pray for anyone listening, perhaps later on the internet, that if they have not believed on Christ for their salvation, they have not gone to Him for their sin, that they would take on Christ in belief and that he died for their sins and he was buried and raised again for their benefit and that's salvation and we thank you in his name. Amen.