Galatians 5:2 says, “Behold, I Paul say =
to
you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing”. =
Paul
makes one very simple observation here, but one that reveals the standard w=
hich
he applies to all Christian activities, practices, teachings, etc. His first
question was not in the realm of right and wrong but was, “Did Christ
profit you?” Paul was all about spiritual profit. We see Paul use this
same standard in different situations. For example, the Corinthians did not
have a problem with the law, but with sin. Yet what Paul told the Corinthia=
ns
was that a sinful lifestyle was not a profit to them in Christ (1 Cor 6:12)=
. We
can see that in the heart of Paul, he was really for Christ and seeing othe=
rs
be profited by Christ.
The re=
ason Paul
reacts to circumcision was he saw that there was no profit, and, in fact, t=
here
was spiritual loss. To Paul, the act of circumcision was not the issue (v.6=
).
Paul saw through the act of circumcision to the commitment that the Galatia=
ns
had made in their heart of being justified by the law (v.3). This commitmen=
t to
the law caused them not to trust in the work of Christ alone for their
righteousness, but also in their own work. This was a definite loss. As a
result, they were “brought to nought, separated from Christ”
(v.4). It is unlikely that the
Galatians had planned to be separated from Christ or that they wanted to be
brought to nothing. They likely even had the same goal as Paul, to have Chr=
ist
profit them. However, they went about it all wrong. They were persuaded that
they needed to be circumcised and keep the law (v.8).
Throug=
h these
verses we can see the way that we can really be profited by Christ
(spiritually). To profit big spiritually, we first must make an inward
commitment to stand fast in grace. Part of standing fast in grace is to not=
let
our heart become committed to another means of being justified. As soon as =
our
heart commits to anything else other than faith in Christ, we no longer pro=
fit
in Christ. However, as our heart stays committed to living by faith we enter
into a growing and maturing life with God like Abraham, the father of faith=
.