‘Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision Christ will be of no benefit to you. Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole Law. You are estranged from Christ, you who would be justified by the Law. You are fallen away from grace.'
Paul now comes down to specifics. Here they are as Gentiles being faced up with the question as to whether they must be circumcised in order to find salvation. This refers, of course, to receiving circumcision as a necessary part of salvation with a view to submission to the Law. Timothy was circumcised because as a half-Jew it was considered prudent for his work among Jews and no vital issue was involved (Acts 16:3). In his case he saw the keeping of Jewish traditions as a privilege. He did not find them a burden. He had been brought up with them. But for Titus it was different. Titus was deliberately and openly not circumcised, because some sought it as a requirement for salvation (Galatians 2:3-4). Some wanted Titus and those like him to become slaves to the Law. And this was the issue that faced the Galatians. Did they want to take the position that obedience to the whole Law was necessary for salvation? or did they want to enjoy the freedom of Abraham?
So Paul warns them of the dangers of circumcision. Firstly for them it will be a first step to, and indicate a commitment to, obeying the whole Law of Moses as expanded by the Rabbis, including both ceremonial and moral requirements. It will be declaring that they want to be judged by the Law. And secondly, resulting from that, it will take away any benefit that is receivable from Christ. Christ will ‘profit them nothing', He will be ‘of no benefit to them', His death will be of no avail. For they will not be looking in faith to Him they will have their eye continually on the Law and on their own efforts.
And the result will be that the Galatians will simply be becoming like the Pharisees, binding themselves and others with burdens grievous to be borne, committing themselves to a continual ritual, seeking impossibly to purify themselves and put themselves in a position to be faithful to the covenant and deserve eternal life. They will be becoming workhorses of the Law, treading the treadmill of the Law. And instead of loving God with all their hearts, and freely loving their neighbours, they will be tying themselves into a system which makes both God and neighbours a burden.
‘I, Paul.' Emphatic. He above all as an ex-Pharisee, and now as an Apostle, has cause to know the truth about circumcision and the Law.
‘Testify.' A forceful expression emphasising the seriousness with which he speaks.
‘A debtor to do the whole law.' What an impossible position this describes, for to fail on one point will make them guilty of all (James 2:10). Then they will come under its curse with nowhere else to turn.
‘You are estranged from Christ, you who would be reckoned as righteous by the Law.' The word katargeo (in the aorist passive) means to be rendered ineffective, rendered powerless, to be abolished, set aside, to be brought to an end, to be released from association with someone, to be estranged from. By looking to the Law as their saviour they will be once for all estranged from Christ, and and will be rendered ineffective and powerless. They will have nowhere to turn when they fail, for Christ cannot be had on a hit and miss basis. There will be no relationship with Him. They will be strangers to Him, and He to them. For they will have rejected His sacrifice on the cross as their means of being reckoned as righteous and will be looking to the perfection of their own religious involvement and their striving to keep the Law. While others are walking in freedom with Christ, they will be treading the harsh and stony path of the Law.
‘You are fallen away from grace.' The verb ekpipto means to fall from, to fall away from, to drift away from. They will have drifted away from the position of accepting dependence on the grace, the unmerited active favour of God, as revealed through the cross. They will be depending on their own achievements, achievements that can never be sufficient. This is a theological position that is being described. It says nothing one way or another about whether they are, or have ever been, truly saved.
What then is the significance of what is being described here? Paul sees clearly the danger. In the end he is describing an attitude of heart. The eyes of those who seek salvation by the Law and by means of religious ritual will be taken off Christ, and they will thus become estranged to Him and drift away from the idea of the grace of God. They will become taken up with earthly things, with their eyes fixed on earthly ritual, their lives committed to earthly religious obedience. This is true whether it be service to the Law, or blind commitment to a church and its rituals.
So he recognises that the principle must be firmly established. The Gospel has nothing to do with obedience to any laws or submission to any rituals or to any such thing, whether Jewish, or ‘Christian' or anything else. Being reckoned righteous by God results from the grace of God alone, active in those who respond in faith to the Crucified and risen Christ. Salvation results from that alone and from nothing else. Anyone who introduces anything else is therefore in danger of making that replace Christ, and in the worst analysis they will become totally outside any benefit that they can receive through Christ.
The Jerusalem church mixed faith in Christ and ritual, as did many Jews, but the question in view was as to where each looked for his or her salvation. Was it to their ritual or to the crucified Christ? The fact that they had come to Christ at all indicated their dissatisfaction with what their ritual could achieve. Thus their ritual, which had been and still was an habitual part of their lives, a part of their past, did not necessarily cut them off from Christ. For they had become Christians in spite of their ritual. Christ had transcended their ritual. And their ritual simply identified them as Jewish Christians.
But for Gentiles to deliberately look to such ritual, and the laws connected with it, taking it on as a new burden, would be to have their lives possessed by something that would control their minds and lives. They would simply have exchanged heathen ritual for Jewish ritual. Thus Christ would slip back into insignificance. It would basically be to eradicate Christ and make Him unnecessary to them. And it would be to give the wrong impression to other Gentiles. It would be to ‘drift away from the doctrine of grace' to a life of Law-keeping.
Now the question is, could anyone who had truly known Christ by faith behave in such a way? Those who truly know Christ would surely be unable to do so and should the Galatians finally succumb it could only serve to indicate that their faith had not been real.