Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. – Galatians 5:2

Today's Scripture Reading (February 28, 2021): Galatians 5

There is a new currency that has quietly swept through the world. Unlike some cryptocurrencies, almost everyone has already been involved with this new monetary system, probably because it operates alongside our national economic practices. Some are quite good at using it, even becoming a little richer because they have recognized its potential. Others let the currency slip through their fingers, wasted, not even identifying its value. I have to admit that I actually belong more to the latter than the former, not a fact of which I am proud. The currency? Points. They are offered almost everywhere, which might be why some of us miss the importance of the points currency. But make no mistake, points are an essential currency in our contemporary world.

But, what if you had the opportunity to buy something on points. It is not just a discount, but the whole price of something that you really want, and all that it is going to cost you is some of the points you have worked hard to earn. But as you pick up the item, to you, it just doesn't feel right. As you walk out of the store, the article just doesn't feel like it really belongs to you. And so, you walk back into the store and give the cashier the cash that you would have had to part with if it wasn't for your points, on top of the points you just spent on the item.

Paying cash for something that you bought on points makes no sense. And that is precisely Paul's point, except that it is even worse. The second time you bought it, at the moment that you passed over the money, you actually disabled the item you were trying to buy. The item you just bought no longer works as it was designed to function.   

The Galatian church had bought into the heresy that to be a Christian, you had to accept the demands of the Jewish law, including circumcision. The Galatian men were being circumcised, not because they wanted to be circumcised for some personal or health reasons, but because they wanted to accept the Gospel of Christ. The problem was that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the demands of the law operate in different spheres. Circumcision was a placeholder for a reliance on all of the law or the rules that we think are necessary to be good Christians. J. B. Lightfoot makes the argument that "Circumcision is the seal of the law. He who willingly and deliberately undergoes circumcision, enters upon a compact to fulfill the law. To fulfill it therefore he is bound, and he cannot plead the grace of Christ; for he has entered on another mode of justification" (J. B Lightfoot.) Paul stresses that if we accept the law or try to prove ourselves according to the currency of the law, then we have made the sacrifice of Christ of no value. Jesus's sacrifice is worthless to us as a result of our desire to keep the rules. And Martin Luther, reflecting on this passage, remarked that "tongue cannot express, nor heart conceive what a terrible thing it is to make Christ worthless" (Martin Luther).

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Galatians 6