During this election season, we have been looking at a
letter in the Bible called the book of Galatians, where we have seen a man
named Paul provide several reasons why we are to vote no on religion and
instead live gospel centered lives that are driven to respond to what God has
done for us through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection by placing our
confident trust in Jesus and following His message and teachings by faith.
This week, I would like for us to pick up where we left
off last week. And as Paul continues to contrast a gospel centered life with a
religious centered life, we will discover another timeless reason why we are to
vote no on religion. So let’s discover this reason together, beginning in
Galatians 5:2:
Behold I,
Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit
to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is
under obligation to keep the whole Law.
Paul begins this section of his letter to the members of
the churches of Galatia with two statements involving circumcision. As we have
previously discovered in this series, circumcision is a surgical procedure that
involves removing the foreskin from the male genitals with a surgical knife, or
in this case, a knife made of stone.
The reason that circumcision was so significant was that
circumcision was a covenant sign that identified the Jewish people as being
God’s people. Circumcision was a religious act that was required to be
performed under the Law so that you would be able to be identified as being
right with God as part of the Jewish religious system. Circumcision was
something you did for God in order to be in a right relationship with God.
What was happening in the churches of Galatia was that
some members of the churches were being influenced by the false gospel of the
religion of legalism that was being promoted by the Judaizer’s. Now the
Judaizers taught that to become a Christian, one must follow the Mosaic Law’s
standards and become circumcised. The Judaizers were legalists who advocated a
faith plus works basis for salvation. In other words it was faith in God plus what
you did for God by keeping a list of rules for God that resulted in a right
relationship with God. It was the Judaizers who were mesmerizing the members of
the churches of Galatia to abandon a
gospel centered lifestyle for a religious centered lifestyle. And as a result
some members of the churches of Galatia we being circumcised.
Paul responds to this situation by explaining that if you
receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Now this little
phrase, no benefit, conveys the sense of being unable to provide assistance or
aid. Paul’s point here is that if the members of the churches of Galatia chose
to abandon a gospel center lifestyle and instead identify themselves as being a
part of a religious centered lifestyle through circumcision, then Christ would
no longer be able to provide assistance or aid when it came to the problem of
selfishness and rebellion that separated them from God.
Now you might be thinking to yourself “why not? I mean
Dave, why would Jesus be no longer able to provide assistance or aid if someone
chose to embrace a religious centered life of legalism that involved faith in
Christ plus works for God in order to be in a right relationship with God?” If that
question is running through your mind, I want to let you know that it is a
great question to be asking.
Paul provides the answer to that question in verse 3: “And
I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under
obligation to keep the whole Law.” When Paul uses the word obligation here,
this word refers to one who is under obligation in a moral or social sense to
do something. And for the person who received circumcision, the moral
obligation that they were under was to keep the whole Law. When Paul refers to
the Law here, he is referring to the first five books that are recorded for us
in our Bibles today, which the Jewish people referred to as the Law or the
Torah;
The point that Paul is making here is that those who were
circumcised in order to identify themselves as a part of the Jewish religious
system were entering into a covenant relationship with God that required them
to be perfectly obedient to all of God’s commands. You see, God made it clear
to the Jewish people that His standard was perfection and by being circumcised
in order to identify with the Jewish religious system, you were agreeing to
that standard. And the Jewish people, when they entered into that covenant
relationship, agreed that the consequence for failing to perfectly keep God’s
commands was to receive divine condemnation for their disobedience.
God’s standard was clearly communicated from the
beginning and has not changed. To be in a right relationship with a perfect God
requires perfection. So, when the members of the churches of Galatia began to
identify themselves with the religion of legalism that was based on one’s
performance for God instead of trusting in Jesus performance for us, Christ was
of no benefit. Christ could no longer provide assistance or aid because they
were no longer trusting in Christ but in their performance for God.
And here we see Paul reveal for us another timeless
reason why we are to vote no on religion. And that timeless reason is this: We
are to vote no on religion because religion results in destruction. In
Galatians 5:2-15, we are going to see Paul reveal for us four different areas
where a religious centered lifestyle results in destruction.
Tomorrow, we see Paul reveal the first area where relying
on a religion results in destruction…
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