Foreskin, yay or nay?

[Iceman]

I wrote this for my blog last year, and thought I may just thrown it up here, see if it kicks up any interesting discussion. It's probably worth mentioning that it is actually a simpler version of an assignment I had to do last year. So those familiar with modern theology can probably pick where all the footnotes, and names ect belong. Disclaimer made simple, it's not entirely all my own origional work.





During my time among a number of different Christian communities, there is always one topic that creates dissention. One subject that seperates Christian against Christian, and that is the role of the Law in Christian theology. The sheer number of viewpoints on Law are staggering. What I find most interesting though is that Paul is either used to debate a myriad of views, or Paul's opinion is dismissed entirely. Paul's epistles frequently mention Paul's opponenets, and none more so than Galatians. The question remains though, who are Paul's opponenet? And what is it about them that has Paul so defensive?


The story of the Galatian church is one of territory. The church there was founded by the Gentile mission, that is by the Law-Free mission. In the course of the letter however we find that this origional mission has become perverted by Paul's opponents. The Judaisers. What we know of the Judaisers is limited. We of course only have Paul's side of the argument, and we must use that to infer what it is the Judaisers are teaching to the Galatians. What we know is that they have come to Galatia, and said that there are at least certain aspects of the Law that the Christians are expected to follow. These include at least food laws, and circumcision. This raises the issue of why these Judaisers are trying to advocate this position, and why Paul is opposing them so ferociously.


Perhaps one of the best aids to insight into this topic is from 4QMMT, which has striking parallels to Paul's letter to the Galatians. 4QMMT is one of the dead sea scrolls. It is a letter from a community leader, probably from Qumran, to the people at the temple in Jerusalem, that the author of the letter is hoping to influence.

The basic intent of the letter is that the leaders are trying to say that the covenant is being fulfilled within their community, and in order to be seen as righteous at the end of days other Jewish people should be behaving as they behave. That the works of the Law in the present will mark you out now as someone who will be vindicated in the future. This parallels the situation at Galatia where the Judaisers are accusing the community that if they want to be seen as righteous then they need to become part of the Jewish tradition, which of course means following of works of the Law, especially circumcision. This delineation automatically becomes one of segregation. Essentially saying that Gentiles are not allowed to be Christian, unless the convert to Judaism. But Paul takes an issue with these Judaisers encroaching upon his territory. Paul then strikes back saying that what marks someone out now is not "works of the Law" but "Faith in Christ." What that means then is that what marks someone at as God's people is not the Law, but Jesus himself.


The problem facing the Galatians is more than just that the Judaisers are advocating Law obediance, but that they are advocating a gospel that differs from Paul's. The nature of this new gospel is to adopt the practices from the Law that were used within Judaism to mark out the people of God. Galatians 5:1-3 is a snippet from the ongoing and larger struggle of Paul and his opponents. In this short pericope Paul is likening Christ with freedom, and by extension everything else including the Law as slavery. So the addition of the Law upon the Galatians would be an attempt to reconvert the community there away from the message originally preached by Paul , as Betz says:

"To become circumcised" is what the Galatians are presently considering. Of course they have more in mind than merely a physical operation; Circumcision: is the external ritual symbolizing the acceptance of Judaism, even if it takes the form of a Christian Judaism. Paul rejects this step as incompatible with the Galatians' existence as members of the Christian church.​

Paul raises two issues for the Christian that decides to take circumcision upon himself. Firstly that for the Christian that submits to circumcision, Christ has no benefit. Before the Judaisers came to Galatia, Paul had established a community that was considered part of the people of God. That before the Judaisers came spreading their new gospel, Paul had established that the Christian community in Galatia was recognised as 'saved'. Meaning that they were vindicated in Christ. Now though, the Galatians are considering the adoption of the Law on top of the already salvific Law-Free gospel. Paul considers that this adoption would render previous salvation through Christ alone as incomplete, and with the adoption of the law, make it null and void. As Martyn writes:

Far from saying it is "not necessary" for Gentiles to observe the Law (a common reading of Galatians), Paul says that if they do, they abandon the only one who can and will deliver them - note the future tense - from the powers that enslave.​

This is the consistent positon of the Galatians epistle. That Christ is liberation and freedom, and that for the Galatians to add anything onto the origional Gospel that Paul has preached to them, is to submit to slavery. This follows into the second issue that Paul raises, that any attempt to follow the Law, requires that you follow the whole Law. The following of the Law was not a dogmatic way of earning salvation, but as a response to the covenantal promise of God. It was done out of response to the grace of God. But Paul does not allow for a twofold response to God's grace of both the covenant to Abraham and the gospel. He even goes as far as creating a midrash of the original promise to try to sway the Galatians to his side. In Paul's midrash, he reinterperets the origional promise to God's people, to be solely about the promise of Jesus. The effect of this is that the Law, was never a part of the Gospel message, and it must be put back into it's place of being less than Jesus (cf. Gal 3:16-17). Paul is then forcing the Christians of Galatia to choose between allowing a circumcision of the flesh, meaning law observance, or circumcision by the Spirit, meaning to adhere to the origional Law-Free gospel that he preached.


In Romans Paul has kept this circumcision of the Spirit motif, but he reduces the severity of his position. In Romans 2:23-29 Paul is saying that God can be honored if one is able to be obedient to the Law. Paul insists on the idea of circumcision is representative of covenantal nomism. Yet in this passage it is not circumcision that is the distinguishing element of the Law, and the Law stands separate from circumcision. Circumcision is pushed to a stance of almost irrelevance, as Paul begins to reinterpret the meaning of circumcision arguing that circumcision is irrelevant to the righteousness of the Law (cf. 2:25-26). The result of this is that again Paul reiterates that being recognised as God's people through the Law requires you to hold true to the entirety of the Law. Circumcision alone will not mark you out. Thus Paul begins to reinterpret what it means to be part of the people of God.

In Galatians 5:1-3 Paul is insistent that to try and honour God by circumcision is to become enslaved by the Law. Again in Romans 2:23-29 in order to honour God with the Law, the Law must be kept in its entirety. Yet Paul is adamant that the freedom found in Christ supersedes honouring God through the Law, with following the Law a diminishing of the freedom of Christ, and a denial of the heart of the gospel message. Paul establishes that the covenant and the gospel are diametrically opposed. In terms of the Law it is not possible to be simultaneously free and enslaved. Christ's gospel does not run hand in hand with the works of the Law. To Paul then the role of the Mosaic Law must change when the salvific nature of the gospel is considered.

Paul continues to distinguish between circumcision and Spirit by the added focus of circumcision of the heart. The term should remind us of the Mosaic Law, and the circumcision of the heart found in Deuteronomy. Fitzmyer writes:

Thus Paul expresses the climax of his polemical thesis. He pits against the contemporary Jewish religious convictions the principle of the interior motivation of human actions, as he appeals to the OT idea of the circumcision of the heart. Paul reminds the Jew who trusts circumcision that the scriptures themselves emphasize that the important thing is not membership in the chosen people by reason of circumcision, the "sign of the convenant," but rather the purified motivation of all conduct.
​

It is this pure motivation of conduct that Paul has replaced the guidance of Law with. Modern Christianity likes to use the Torah as some form of moral guidance. This use still plays back into the old Pauline argument of slavery to the Law. Most Christians conveniently forget that the Law consists of far more than just the 10 Commandments. There are over 600 commandments found within the Law, and by both modern and ancient standards they do not adhere to rules of morality. They are about the marking of the people of God. Attempts to change what the Law says about itself is first of all not to do justice to Scripture. Secondly, if you begin to use the Law as a code of moral behaviour you run into some very significant problems. As the commandments of the Law are not about morality, it becomes difficult to assertain what parts of the Law need to be kept, and significant parts of the Law need to be ignored. This of course runs contrary to Paul's, and indeed what the Law says, about having to uphold the entirety of the Law. Then once these moral 'badges' have been established, a Christian again becomes bound to them. The very idea that this is how a Christian must behave becomes enslavement to that idea, and you fall into the familiar trap of ostricising people who don't meet your expectations.


To Paul, and to Christianity, freedom from enslavement are at the very heart of Jesus. These attempt to place yourself underneath the Law is a step backwards in the revelation of who and what God is, and what Jesus has accomplished for us. The circumcision of the Spitiy, purity of motivation are the guidance for the Christian. There is no need to try and put ourselves under the yoke of the Torah. Not unless you want to become a Jew anyway.

 

[David777]

Flesh or Spirit, which one will I choose?




4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. NASB, Romans 7

 

[MelodyC]

Well the Apostle Paul had a pretty strong stance on this topic.

GAL 5:7 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? 8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9 "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." 10 I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. 11 Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. 12 As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

Well I guess that really puts the topic in perspective doesn't it?

 

[Iceman]

Well the Apostle Paul had a pretty strong stance on this topic.
Well I guess that really puts the topic in perspective doesn't it?

Yes Paul's position on this is very strong. As Martyn (J. Louis Martyn) says in his commentary, Paul's position on the Law almost reads as an anti-law epistle in Galatians. Especially when he says he wishes the part of the circumcision would emasculate themselves, and only a few verses earlier than that, that if anyone does becomes circumcised, Christ is of no benefit.

But of course it's always important to remember the role and the function of the Law inside the culture the epistle was written in. And that Paul is talking about what it means to be the people of God, and the freedom presented in Christ.

 

[MelodyC]

Yes Paul's position on this is very strong. As Martyn (J. Louis Martyn) says in his commentary, Paul's position on the Law almost reads as an anti-law epistle in Galatians. Especially when he says he wishes the part of the circumcision would emasculate themselves, and only a few verses earlier than that, that if anyone does becomes circumcised, Christ is of no benefit.

But of course it's always important to remember the role and the function of the Law inside the culture the epistle was written in. And that Paul is talking about what it means to be the people of God, and the freedom presented in Christ.

Not sure what you are saying here.

You can't do anything yourself to receive salvation and there is no outward sign required to prove you are Saved. I am not discounting the outward symbolism of repentance through water baptism some people feel they have to have to publically declare they have become Born Again Christians (that is another argument in itself).

I'm not sure why anyone Saved through grace thinks they need to do anything, let alone circumcision. Now being female it really makes me wonder why any male would think they have to be circumcised today?

If you were talking about Water Baptism here. That can be done by both male and female as a gesture to the Lord.

Circumcision seems a bit exclusive to me. You know only men can get it done as per the Old Testament law on this and then boast about it. "I got circumcised for God" kind of thing. That is of course if you weren't already as a baby. I guess there a whole lot of men out there that didn't ahve a choice and now miss out on being able to do it especially for God.

What I'm saying is that it was a legal requirement for Jews and never extended to Gentiles.

AC 21:20 When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: "You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. 21 They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. 22 What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come, 23 so do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow. 24 Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everybody will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law. 25 As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality."

So if you are a Gentile male why do it when it isn't required of you and what is your motive for having it done? Any self-centered motive would disqualify it before the Lord. You know the Lord says I desire mercy not your sacrifices.

HOS 6:6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

That should be Old Testament enough for you.

So God isn't really interested in these outward things we do to try and make some show of our Love or Obedience to Him. God I think would rather that we had the spirit of the Law in us than follow the letter of the Law.

MT 12:1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath."

MT 12:3 He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread--which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, `I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."

You can follow the law like the Pharisees did but they were still dead in their transgressions. You are alive in Christ. What more is required of you? Circumcision?

MIC 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

So you have to make up your own mind. Do what the law says or have the right heart towards God & so desire to do what is good and right and pleasing to the Lord?

Does that mean you need to get circumcised? Does it require some heart change towards God if you choose circumcision?

I have no problem with Christians recommending Water Baptism as it is an outward or public expression of our repentance. I really don't know what you think you are achieving as a Gentile male getting circumcised except to get a status or belong to the "I've been circumcised club"?

None of my comments are meant in anyway to be a 'put down' or sarcastic. They are genuine/sincere observations and questions.

Paul was upset Gentiles were being pressured into circumcision as if it was a requirement for salvation or acceptance from the Jewish Christians. The Blood of Christ is more than sufficient to wash our sins away and provide forgiveness and salvation. We are all Saved through Christ; Jew or Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, male of feamle, slave or free.

 

[Iceman]

You can't do anything yourself to receive salvation and there is no outward sign required to prove you are Saved. I am not discounting the outward symbolism of repentance through water baptism some people feel they have to have to publically declare they have become Born Again Christians (that is another argument in itself).

Well I'm not advocating a Law Abiding theology. So you're preaching to the choir on that one.

Circumcision seems a bit exclusive to me. You know only men can get it done as per the Old Testament law on this and then boast about it. "I got circumcised for God" kind of thing. That is of course if you weren't already as a baby. I guess there a whole lot of men out there that didn't ahve a choice and now miss out on being able to do it especially for God.

Of course it is. But that's just the ancient view of the role of women. Of course circumcision should almost never be read as 'circumcision'. The greater meaning of it, is Law Abiding.

Paul was upset Gentiles were being pressured into circumcision as if it was a requirement for salvation or acceptance from the Jewish Christians. The Blood of Christ is more than sufficient to wash our sins away and provide forgiveness and salvation. We are all Saved through Christ; Jew or Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, male of feamle, slave or free.

Paul was definitly upset, but it goes deeper than just a requirement of salvation, though that is certainly a part of it. Which is what I meant by the role of the Law. The role of the Law wasn't salvation. It was a devotional response to the love of God, and a demonstration of the people of God. So one of the key themes for the Galatians epistle, that is often overlooked, is what do the people of God look like?

The argument over circumcision, is an argument about the worship filled response to God's love, and the slavery presented by abandoning the original Gospel message they received.

 

[stephen]

I have not taken the time to plough through your O.P. brother Iceman.

The title seemed strange to me before, now I approach and I wonder if such debate is relevant to the Christian. As I say I have not read it all. Forgive me. I haste to my question.

I'm a theology student training for ordination. My favourite theologians include Tom Wright, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Karl Barth. Obviously theology is a big part of not only my life, but how I view things. Aside from that though I enjoy cycling, hanging with mates, movies and games. I'm a pretty open guy, feel free to ask me anything.

You are a theology student. Excellent. Blessing to you in Jesus.

I feel compelled to ask you 'have you met Him' the Master? Have you had a Damascus Road experience?

I ask because without such experience and such meeting you will fail.
This is Paramount, Absolutely Vital.

Blessings and my Prayers.

 

[Iceman]

The title seemed strange to me before, now I approach and I wonder if such debate is relevant to the Christian. As I say I have not read it all. Forgive me. I haste to my question.

It's entirely relevant when a huge number of Protestant churches advocate a Law Abiding gospel. It's hugely relevant when a large number of Protestant churches advocate grace-alone theology, without considering the 'work' implications inherent in Paul's circumcision theology (or what Paul says it means to be the people of God.) It's hugely relevant when we bring those standpoints within our own tradition to the ecumenical table (dealing with other traditions) and try to understand each other. It's probably most relevant when you address simple hermeneutics (interpretation of the Bible) eg. When you ask "What does Galatians mean?" and "What did Paul think?"

Foreskin. Yay or Nay is something of a joke. If circumcision is a reflection of what it means to be God's people, then the question of if you should have a foreskin is a pun on that idea.

I feel compelled to ask you 'have you met Him' the Master? Have you had a Damascus Road experience?

I have, and I'm compelled to say that for me there is no seperation between theology and a relationship with God. If I did not have the latter, there would be no former. Theology is how you understand God. Even the question 'have you met Him' is a theological statement of what you understand about God. It is not a part of my church's tradition to seperate the two, so I find it somewhat perplexing when people are able to. You are quite right to say that without Jesus, it is impossible to do Theology.