Summing It Up!
For the past week we have been looking at selected verses of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Today we are concluding this by highlighting Paul’s summation:
11-13 Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you. These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ’s suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. They themselves don’t keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible!
14-16 For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God—his chosen people. Galatians 6:11-16 (MSG)
Paul made it emphatically clear that the real reason that the "law-keepers" sought to coerce the Galatians into circumcision was not because they were so concerned about the law, as they were in bringing them to their side of the discussion. Citing that these same people not only did not keep all the law themselves, but that they actually were selective in what rules they did keep.
Paul emphasized the major point in this issue, that is the Cross of Jesus Christ.When all is said and done there is nothing we can do, or fail to do that will give us entry into the Kingdom of God – nothing except to accept the finished work at Calvary. At Calvary, God did something brand new, He made a totally new man, "born not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible"; born not to die, but to live eternally with Him. And best of all it’s a life of freedom!
Maria