Last week, we heard Paul saying, so strongly and clearly, “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace” (Galatians 5:4). (See again all of Galatians 5:1-6, too.) If we think that our salvation depends upon our keeping the laws of God well enough, then we are “obligated to keep the whole law,” and that is a command impossible for us to do (Galatians 5:3). Only Jesus could and did do what we cannot do, in our place, for our salvation. We have ...
Last week, we heard Paul saying, so strongly and clearly, “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace” (Galatians 5:4). (See again all of Galatians 5:1-6, too.) If we think that our salvation depends upon our keeping the laws of God well enough, then we are “obligated to keep the whole law,” and that is a command impossible for us to do (Galatians 5:3). Only Jesus could and did do what we cannot do, in our place, for our salvation. We have faith and trust in Him alone and His saving work.
Paul continued to emphasize these same ideas in Galatians 5:7. He pictured the Christian life as a kind of race. The Galatians had been “running well” in trusting Jesus. “Who,” literally, “cut in on you” and thus “hindered” you from following “the truth” in Jesus? Paul asked. He reminded the Galatians that these ideas about circumcision and other laws did not come from the Lord, Who had called them now to faith in Christ Jesus, through the Word of God, the Good News brought by Paul and others (Galatians 5:8).
In fact, Paul said, the ideas about the law were like “a little leaven that leavens the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9). “Leaven” is the yeast, the ingredient that makes bread rise, when one is baking. In the Old Testament, God was about to rescue His people from slavery in Egypt, and told them not to put yeast in their bread because they would not have time to wait around for their bread to rise, but would need to leave Egypt very quickly. Every year after, then, God’s people would celebrate “Passover” and eat only unleavened bread at that time. (See Exodus 12-13, and especially Exodus 12:39 and 13:6-9.)
In the New Testament, the Passover remembrance was no longer required, but replaced by Jesus with the miracle of Christ’s “Real Presence” in the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion) where unleavened bread is still used by many churches, following what Jesus did and taught. (See, for example, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.)
Also in the New Testament, the mention of “leaven” almost always refers to something bad or evil, that can have a evil influence. See, for example, Matthew 16:11-12, where Jesus warned, “Beware of the leaven of the of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” and His disciples realized that He was talking about the false “teachings” of these religious leaders. See also Paul’s quotation of the same passage in a different context, but with the same warning about “the leaven of malice and evil” instead of “sincerity and truth,” in 1 Corinthians 5:6-8.
In Galatians 5:9, Paul was warning about the evil influence of the false teachings about all the legal requirements the Galatians still needed to fulfill. These requirements were pulling them away from Jesus Himself and His grace for them. Paul expressed “confidence in the Lord,” though, in Galatians 5:10, that the Galatians would finally listen to his “view” and not that of the most prominent false teacher.
Apparently, from what Paul added in Galatians 5:11, the false teachers were also claiming that Paul was deceiving the Galatians and actually still preached about the need for circumcision and following the old Jewish laws, at least at times. Paul denied that by asking the simple question: If I actually agree with these false teachers, why am I still being persecuted by them and by other Jewish leaders. Why are they so opposed to me? What really offended them, he said, was my preaching “of the cross” - the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, as the promised Savior, the Messiah, to pay for all sins.
The Greek word for “offense” is the word from which we get the English word, “scandal.” It meant a “snare” or “trap” (Psalm 69:22) or something over which one could stumble and fall - a “stumbling block.” See 1 Corinthians 1:23, where Paul wrote, “We preach Christ crucified, a “stumbling block” to Jews (who, instead of being built on Jesus and trusting Him, are offended by Him and stumble over Him and reject Him as the Savior).
Read also Romans 9:31-10:4, where Paul quotes the Old Testament, describing the Promised Savior, Jesus, as “a Stone of stumbling and a Rock of offense.” Jesus is “Righteousness for everyone who believes” in Him; but too many people, including many Jews, rejected Him and tried to pursue laws and rules “that would lead to righteousness” and wanted to “establish their own” righteousness by their own goodness and obedience to laws. “Christ,” however, “is the end of the law” as a means of salvation, because no one can keep the law well enough all the time.
In Galatians 5:12, Paul spoke very strongly against those who were “unsettling” the Galatians by pulling them away from trust in Christ Jesus and His saving work on the cross and pushing them toward their own efforts to save themselves by being circumcised and trying to follow many other rules - a plan that would never work.
In fact, Paul said, probably with sarcasm, that he almost wished that those insisting on circumcising people, would emasculate, castrate, themselves in the process. He likely used such strong language because there was a pagan cult that originated in Galatia, where people who worshipped the false goddess Cybele would emasculate themselves. Ordinary Galatians would know of this cult and how senseless and useless such “mutilation of the flesh” really was. (See Philippians 3:2-3.)
Likewise, circumcision was worthless and useless, along with following other such rules, as a means to reach salvation. Trusting Christ and His cross and His mighty resurrection for them - that was enough.
We will stop here for today. Next week, we will hear about the proper place for trying to do good in our lives. If we have time, we will talk about how many churches and groups still today are pushing a salvation by works similar to what Paul was fighting against. Keep reading and studying the Word and hearing above all about “Christ crucified” for you and me.
