In the mercy of God, and through the outpouring of his Spirit at Pentecost and after, many Jews came to accept this wonderful, if difficult, truth: the early church was entirely Jewish. But in Galatians Paul is writing to Christians who are mostly gentiles. His main concern in the letter is that these Christians are being influenced and troubled by the ‘circumcision party’, Jewish Christians who taught that gentiles, in order to become a part of God’s people, needed first to become Jews by submitting to circumcision. Paul sees this as a denial of the gospel of free grace: all that was needed to become a Christian and to receive new life in God’s family was to repent and believe, and, as a public sign of this, to be baptized. He argues that God’s forgiveness is based entirely on Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and is not dependent on our keeping the law or being circumcised. The rumour seems to have been circulating that Paul himself actually preached the need for circumcision when in Jewish circles. He refutes this rumour thus: “If I am preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted (by the Jews) ? For if this were the case, the stumbling-block of the cross would have been removed” (5.11). On the ‘tree’, Jesus was not only suffering under God’s curse on our behalf, so that we would never have to, he was also offering himself as a sinless sacrifice for us: the cross was the consummation of the sacrificial system, the altar on which the last ever sacrifice was offered by the last ever priest, Jesus himself, our great High Priest. The scandal of the cross, for Jewish Christians, was that at the crucifixion the veil in the temple separating man from God had been torn down, so that everyone could now come to God through Jesus, both Jews and gentiles, without the need for animal sacrifice or the sons of Levi to act as priests and intermediaries. Everyone who came to God in this way was a part of God’s chosen people: the Jews no longer had a monopoly on access to God..
Thursday, 5 January 2012
SKANDALON 5 (c) the scandal of the torn curtain
In the mercy of God, and through the outpouring of his Spirit at Pentecost and after, many Jews came to accept this wonderful, if difficult, truth: the early church was entirely Jewish. But in Galatians Paul is writing to Christians who are mostly gentiles. His main concern in the letter is that these Christians are being influenced and troubled by the ‘circumcision party’, Jewish Christians who taught that gentiles, in order to become a part of God’s people, needed first to become Jews by submitting to circumcision. Paul sees this as a denial of the gospel of free grace: all that was needed to become a Christian and to receive new life in God’s family was to repent and believe, and, as a public sign of this, to be baptized. He argues that God’s forgiveness is based entirely on Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and is not dependent on our keeping the law or being circumcised. The rumour seems to have been circulating that Paul himself actually preached the need for circumcision when in Jewish circles. He refutes this rumour thus: “If I am preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted (by the Jews) ? For if this were the case, the stumbling-block of the cross would have been removed” (5.11). On the ‘tree’, Jesus was not only suffering under God’s curse on our behalf, so that we would never have to, he was also offering himself as a sinless sacrifice for us: the cross was the consummation of the sacrificial system, the altar on which the last ever sacrifice was offered by the last ever priest, Jesus himself, our great High Priest. The scandal of the cross, for Jewish Christians, was that at the crucifixion the veil in the temple separating man from God had been torn down, so that everyone could now come to God through Jesus, both Jews and gentiles, without the need for animal sacrifice or the sons of Levi to act as priests and intermediaries. Everyone who came to God in this way was a part of God’s chosen people: the Jews no longer had a monopoly on access to God..
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