Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
If circumcision is accepted as a requirement for belonging to Christ and being saved, Christ becomes of no benefit to that person, for salvation is not dependent on observing the ceremonial law. Gentile Christians were not required to be circumcised, since belonging to Abraham's family depended on faith expressed in the heart and a righteous life, not on bodily descent or the ceremonial law. Circumcision and uncircumcision are in themselves nothing, and that law must not be imposed on Gentiles as a condition of faith, since Christ's saving work embraces the whole world including them.
Treating the ceremonial law as essential to salvation makes faith in Christ secondary and turns away from the gospel, for circumcision cannot be made a condition of salvation. Taking up circumcision as part of the obsolete ceremonies of Judaism in place of the gospel rejects Christ as the true foundation of faith.
The law is a yoke of bondage, and keeping it causes a person to fall from grace so that Christ is of no benefit, leaving no law binding and no Sabbath to keep.
If circumcision is accepted as a requirement for belonging to Christ and being saved, Christ becomes of no benefit to that person, for salvation is not dependent on observing the ceremonial law. Gentile Christians were not required to be circumcised, since belonging to Abraham's family depended on faith expressed in the heart and a righteous life, not on bodily descent or the ceremonial law. Circumcision and uncircumcision are in themselves nothing, and that law must not be imposed on Gentiles as a condition of faith, since Christ's saving work embraces the whole world including them.
Treating the ceremonial law as essential to salvation makes faith in Christ secondary and turns away from the gospel, for circumcision cannot be made a condition of salvation. Taking up circumcision as part of the obsolete ceremonies of Judaism in place of the gospel rejects Christ as the true foundation of faith.
The law is a yoke of bondage, and keeping it causes a person to fall from grace so that Christ is of no benefit, leaving no law binding and no Sabbath to keep.