Galatians 5:2-6 The Only Thing That Counts

Galatians 5:2-6 (NRSV)

​²Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. ³Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. ⁴You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. ⁶For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.

Observation:
Paul uses really strong and strident language in his letter to the church in Galatia. They have been influenced by a group of Jewish Christians who insist that circumcision (and following every other religious law) is essential to salvation. It's easy to dismiss this viewpoint now, but let's remember that Jesus and all his original apostles (including Paul himself, for much of his life) followed these religious laws and saw them as essential to their own identity. But when people start suggesting that following these laws is a way to "earn" a right relationship with God, Paul has to draw a line in the sand. He says twice: "If you let yourself be circumcised, you are missing the whole point of what Jesus did for you. You're on your own." The only thing that counts is faith. If you're not counting on that, you're not counting on Jesus. 

Application:
There's a word in theology for a disagreement that doesn't affect matters of salvation: adiaphora. 

Sometimes the concept of adiaphora is misused. People take the word to mean "stuff that's not important." That's not what it means at all. There are vitally important issues we talk about each day--matters of life and death--that don't affect our salvation. Just because it's "adiaphora" doesn't mean it's trivial. 

But the reason I'm thinking about this today is sometimes people will take a matter of adiaphora--like the "circumcision faction" did--and place it in the center, as the defining factor of whether or not you are saved and have a right relationship with God. According to the Reformers, when someone does that, you have an obligation to call it out and resist it with all our might. 

If a Christian is publicly placing any person, thing, idea, ideology, set of rules, identity or anything else above faith in Christ, even if I agree with them that that thing is important, I am bound as a minister of the Gospel to resist them. If faith in Christ doesn't count, then nothing does. 

Needless to say, in our increasingly troubled and divided world, we are exposed to a LOT of ideas that flirt with this kind of idolatry. More and more of our identity seems wrapped up in our stance on important issues of the day. And again, there are a TON of life-or-death issues that Christians SHOULD have opinions about and be taking action on. These days, putting such a high value on faith in Christ is an invitation to be misunderstood. If you place it at the center, you will have to reject other things. To some, that will seem to some like you're being disloyal, unpatriotic, or picking fights. To others it will seem as though you are out of touch, lacking in compassion, and don't care enough about issues that they care about. Discipleship isn't supposed to be easy. But it is grounding, in a deep way that our world desperately needs. 

Prayer:
Jesus, ground me in faith. Be my anchor in a world of turmoil. In your name I pray. Amen.