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"For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law",
and this gives point to his argument in Gal. 5: 3:
"I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law."
Paul, by the use of the word `again', seems to suggest that he had told the Galatians
this important fact before. What he had said to them during his visits we do not know,
except that one address is recorded in Acts 13:; we are sure however that there would
be harmony between his several discourses, and he who so pointedly said:
"By Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be
justified by the law of Moses" (Acts 13: 39),
would not leave his hearers without definitely instructing them regarding this law and its
terms. We need not go outside the epistle, however, to discover that Paul had already
testified concerning circumcision and the obligation to do the whole law. Gal. 2: should
be re-read with this in view. Again, in Gal. 3: 10-12, while circumcision is not actually
mentioned, it is implied in the title "As many as are of the works of the law", for such
come under the obligation to `continue in all things' with the dreadful alternative of the
`curse' before them. So when Paul `testified again' in Gal. 5: 3 he was but saying the
same thing. The Apostle emphasizes the `whole law', even as he had said `all things
which are written in the book of the law to do them'.
While it is convenient for students to subdivide the law into several parts, and speak of
the moral law, the ceremonial law, etc., we must remember that for the purposes of
justification, the law is one. We are either saved by reason of our perfect law-keeping, or
we are saved by grace alone. James equally with Paul saw the oneness of the law, saying
"Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all"
(James 2: 10). "The linsey-woolsey garment" of the Puritan hymn is intolerable; a
mixture of the righteousness of God through faith, with the attempts of fallen man to
present a righteousness is impossible.
"Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law;
ye are fallen from grace" (Gal. 5: 4).
Translators have been considerably exercised over the best way of rendering into
English the original word translated in the A.V. `to become of none effect', especially as
it is in what is known as a `pregnant structure' the verb being followed by apo `away
from' and implying the mental addition of some such verb as eschoristhete `separated'.
The R.V. reads: "severed from Christ" with a marginal alternative, "Gk. brought to
nought". Young's Literal Translation is "Ye were freed from Christ". Rotherham reads
"Ye have been set aside from Christ". Weymouth has: "Christ has become nothing to
any of you"; while J.N.D. very freely renders the passage "ye are deprived of all profit
from Christ as separated (from Him)", and to this he appends a lengthy footnote, saying
katergethete is "a very hard word to translate. The active means to render anything
useless and unprofitable, or miss an opportunity. Here it is passive and with apo".