Musing 74

Getting back to Galatians, Galatians 2 wraps up Paul’s testimony with 2 vignettes. First is his recounting of a trip to Jerusalem, where part of his itinerary is to confirm that the gospel he’d been preaching was indeed the true gospel, and walked away only being encouraged to remember the poor (which Paul was already eager to do!).

But in this vignette is Paul’s first encounter with the Judaizers, and the first recognition of error - Paul pushes back on Gentiles who follow Jesus being circumcised. And this pushback brings a lot of questions with it, some of which Paul goes on to explain, but some it doesn’t. To call out a few oddities, note how in 7-9, Paul calls out Peter as Peter in verses 6 and 8, but as Cephas in verse 9. Historically, I’ve always heard it that Peter/Cephas was the same persson here, but these first references make Peter and Cephas feel like different people (which also may have larger implications if true).

Another oddity is Paul’s relationship to the other apostles, which gives some interesting possibilities. Paul’s unfamiliarity with the apostles means that he stands in ignorance of who is actually influential and thus doesn’t seem to give them special consideration. Which serves 2 points – first to cast some shade on the Judaizers, because the argument is basically “look, these are the guys I usually hear about, and they say the same thing as me”, which in turn undercuts the Judaizers who may try to claim apostolic authority. Secondly, it gives apostolic validation to Paul’s rejection of circumcision.

One thing we don’t always appreciate, even as Christiasn is that circumcision was, to use modern parlance, the gateway sign to showing that you followed the God of the OT. It’s why there was a whole category of Gentile believers of the old covenant who were not circumcised counted separately (ie God-fearers). And so we miss how significant the apostolic denial of “Titus need to get circumcised” really is. In part because of fatigue, I struggle to think of a good modern parallel, but perhaps a modern analogy that communicates the same idea would be to claim to be Presbyterian but reject the Westminster Confession or 3 Forms of Unity as accurate assessments of Scripture’s teaching.

In our day, people who want to avoid the apostolic condemnation would say “well, we don’t require circumcision, it’s just a good idea so that you can obtain the fullness of God’s blessings that He promises those who follow the Law”. What this misses is that the apostolic rejection is a rejection of this mindset as well. For both Jews and Christians, the Law was not something that was “you, can do commands 1, 2, and 4, but don’t worry about 3”. We also see it in James when we’re told that violating the law at one point means violating the whole law.

And so, even setting aside the fact the NT portrays Christ as being sufficient for all blessings, the idea that Torah observance brings the fullness of God’s blessing for NT believers runs into a problem - you need to do all of it. To say “well, you don’t need to do this part of the law to receive God’s blessing” runs into the accusation that historic Christians face from Hebrew Roots/Torah observant cults- they diminish the Law despite attempting to uphold it as good.

Of course, the clapback is “well, we only abrogate circumcision because the NT does. the other aspects of the Law weren’t, so we still have to follow them”. Which again misses the point - if the gateway into the old covenant is rejected, why should what was seen as lesser be included?

There’s still much to talk about with Paul’s use of the law in Galatians, but we’ll get to it in time.