25 Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. 26 If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? 27 The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
28 A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person's praise is not from other people, but from God.
Dig Deeper
I grew up being a Green Bay Packer fan (that’s a team in the National Football League for those who live in some country that inexplicably doesn’t follow American football). My parents were Packer fans and everyone around us was Packer fans. I was a Packer fan before I remember ever really choosing to be one. I just was one from my earliest memories. Every Sunday people all over the state would put on their Packer jerseys or their green and yellow sweatshirts and gather round the television for the Packer game. Then one year, I was eleven years old and something horrible happened. The NFL players and the NFL management couldn’t come to an agreement on their collective bargaining contract and it was announced that the players would be locked out by the management. Then came a strange announcement. Rather than there being no football during the lockout, the team owners had decided to get players from wherever they could find them, anyone who wasn’t already playing in the NFL, and reconstitute their teams during the duration of the lockout. For over a month the Packers took the field each week with a team that wore the uniforms and played as the Packers but they were not the Green Bay Packers. The outward appearance was recognizable, but no one embraced that team. No one lived and died with the wins and losses of the team. They had the appearance but they simple weren’t the Packers. And, in fact, the uniforms that they wore each Sunday did not convince anyone that they were the real Packers, they served as a reminder and marker that they weren’t the Packers. Rather than demonstrating that they were Packers, the uniforms showed and reminded everyone that they weren’t.
To understand this analogy we have to think of circumcision as a bit of uniform of sorts. It was the visible marker of the people of God. It was a sign and a reminder that they were in covenant with Yahweh. In that respect, circumcision was important but by itself it wasn’t the main thing. It was simply a uniform. The real team is the real team whether they have the uniform on or not. In fact, during that lockout, the news stations would interview the real Packer players who were no longer in their uniform but everyone still knew that they were the real Packers, not the guys on the field wearing the green and gold. Circumcision, the uniform, is important, but only if you’re really on the team. Otherwise it’s nothing more than a replica that you can buy at some sports shop. Circumcision without faith and genuine obedience actually means nothing. In fact it becomes a neon sign pointing out your counterfeit status.
Paul’s argument here, as he continues to show that God has no favorites and neither Jew nor Gentile stand in a better position before God than the other in their equal need for the gospel, is not that circumcision was of no value. Circumcision was extremely valuable as the badge that demonstrated to the world who the people of God were. But that badge, that uniform, was of no value if they didn’t behave as the people of God. Circumcision was not a magic amulet that, once given, provided a status on the Jew that rendered their behavior, their obedience to the law, and their commitment to the covenant, irrelevant.
We need to keep in mind that at least some Jewish Christians, and quite possibly a majority of Jewish Christians, believed that Gentile Christians needed to observe the Mosaic law in order to be considered among the people of God. It’s not that circumcision was a meaningless exercise if one did not follow the law and could have been discontinued all along. If one did not follow the law, then circumcision does not become meaningless, it takes on the reverse meaning of its intent. Circumcision was like a uniform rather than the cause for being on the team. The important thing all along, which Paul will turn his attention to shortly, is faith in the covenant God that led to circumcision, not circumcision itself. Some modern folks might, at this point, argue that this proves that circumcision was not necessary to being part of the people of God, but this is a position that Paul will not allow. Circumcision was absolutely necessary but not the cause of being among the people of God. It was part of the uniform. Faith in the covenant God was necessary to be part of the covenant but refusal of circumcision during the Old Covenant would surely have demonstrated a lack of that faith. To continue with a football analogy; a helmet does make you part of the team but you cannot play if you refuse to wear it.
What the Jewish Christians needed to understand was that this situation has changed entirely. Those who are not circumcised, says Paul (apparently alluding to Gentile Christians) do keep the requirements of the law even though they are not wearing the uniform of circumcision. Those who obey the law in Christ, something Paul in his characteristic fashion only alludes to here but will flesh out more fully as the letter progresses, are part of the true people of God. Circumcision without obedience is nothing. And, here is the kicker, no one apart from Christ can obey the law or fulfill the covenant.
From the moment of the Fall (Gen. 3), all of mankind had a heart disease (Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9) which rendered all humans incapable of fulfilling God’s covenant and his law. God offered the temporary solution of the Old Covenant to deal with this problem, but had always promised to bless the entire world and solve this heart issue at it’s core. Israel’s hearts had turned away from God (Deut. 30:17-18) like the rest of mankind. But now God has offered a new solution, the solution that he promised through the prophet Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. . . . you will be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezek. 36:26-28; see also Jer. 31:33; 32:39-40; Ezek. 11:19). The time had come. These promises, Paul makes clear, have been fulfilled. God has done just as he promised and created his New Covenant and his new people. And he has done all of this, as Paul will fully explain in chapter 8, through the work and leading of the Holy Spirit. God’s own Spirit has accomplished what mankind could never do on its own.
But says Paul, the status of the people of God and with it the name “Israel” and the uniform of circumcision belong to those who have been given this new heart that God had promised. It comes down to the difference between being the people of God outwardly and being the people of God inwardly. The inward kind is the type that God had always promised and wanted and that time had come. The true Jew, says Paul, is the one who has had their heart circumcised. This inward operation that God has performed is the true uniform of God’s people and gives them the right to be called the circumcision (Phi. 3:3).
None of this is brand new to Paul. Jeremiah had hinted at all of this when he wrote “’The days are coming’, declares the LORD, ‘when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh—Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.’” God was pointing all along to the fact that he was looking for people who wore the uniform of being the people of God in their hearts, the seat of their will, rather than on their flesh. Their were many things that the Jews and Gentiles did not have in common because of God’s law and his covenant but despite all of that, the one thing that they did share in common was their need for God to write his law, his will, his covenant on their hearts. They were different in many ways but they were exactly equal when it came to their need for the gospel.
Paul caps this section off with a poignant play on words. He says that those who have been circumcised in their heart by the Spirit are different from those who rely on the written code. These people, says Paul, will receive praise only from other people but not God. The word “Judah” from which “Jew” comes means “praise.” Paul’s point is that the real Jews, those who are circumcised on the heart, whether Jew or Gentile, are the ones who receive their praise as a gift from God.
Devotional Thought
From who do you receive your praise? Do you seek to love and obey God through the crucified life of Christ or do you often find yourself seeking the approval and recognition of human beings? Why is it so important to learn to seek praise from God alone?
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