Galatians 5:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Again, whoever is circumcised makes the Law master over himself. But one who considers the Law his master, while violating most of it and keeping only the lesser part, again brings himself under a curse. How can a man be saved if he subjects himself to the curse and rejects the freedom from the curse brought by faith? And, if it is permissible to say something improbable, such a man believes neither in Christ nor in the Law. He has placed himself in the middle between the two. He wishes to receive benefit from both, and therefore he will receive nothing from either.

“Behold, I, Paul, say to you, that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.” In the Gospel the Savior says to the disciples, “He who hears you hears Me. He who receives you receives Me” (Lk 10:16). And the Apostle bears witness, saying, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Elsewhere he says, “Or do you seek a proof of Him Who speaks in me, that is, Christ?” (2 Cor 13:3).

By this it is shown quite clearly that what he now says, “Behold, I, Paul, say to you,” means that his words should be received not as Paul’s words, but as the Lord’s. For in the first epistle to the Corinthians he had already indicated this to you: “To those who are married I command, not I, but the Lord” (1 Cor 7:10). Immediately afterward he added, “But to the rest I command, I” (1 Cor 7:12). So that the obligation of his word might not appear slight, he says, “I think that I also have the Spirit of God.” Therefore, when both the Spirit and Christ speak in him, the one who speaks after the example of the prophets will not be despised: “Thus says the Lord Almighty.”

But what is said, “Behold, I, Paul, say to you: if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing,” will seem even greater if this word is connected with the beginning. There he says, “Paul, an Apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ,” and so forth. Thus the hearers are moved not so much by the greatness of the one sent as by the authority of Him Who sent him.

But someone may say, “This passage is contradicted by what is written to the Romans: ‘Circumcision indeed profits if you keep the Law’ (Rom 2:25), and below, ‘What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God’ (Rom 3:1-2). If Christ profits those who have been circumcised nothing, how does circumcision bring profit to people who keep the Law?”

This difficulty is resolved by the following answer. It is enough to say that the epistle addressed to the Romans was intended for those who had believed in Christ from Jews and Gentiles. This compelled the Apostle Paul not to offend either people. Since each people has its own advantage, he would neither subject the Gentiles to circumcision nor incline the Jews to retain the foreskin.

But when addressing the Galatians in his epistle, the Apostle uses another proof. For they were not among the circumcised, but among Gentiles who had believed. Circumcision could not profit them when, after the grace of the Gospel, they returned again to the beginnings of the Law.

In the Acts of the Apostles it is narrated that certain of the circumcised rose up, asserting that believers from the Gentiles must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses. Then the elders in Jerusalem, and likewise the Apostles, gathered together and determined in writing that they should not be burdened with the yoke of the Law. They were to keep nothing more than to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, and from fornication, or, as it is written in some copies, from what is strangled.

So that no doubt might remain that circumcision brings no profit, and that only for the sake of believers from the Jews he softened his judgment about circumcision in the epistle to the Romans, he showed the truth as he approached the end little by little. He showed that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any power, saying, “Circumcision is nothing, and foreskin is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God” (1 Cor 7:19).

Circumcision is so nothing that it does not help even the house of Israel, which boasted in circumcision. The prophet also shows this: “All the nations are uncircumcised in the flesh, and the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart” (Ezek 44:9). Likewise the uncircumcised Melchizedek blessed the circumcised Abraham (Gen 14:19).

For the words, “If you are circumcised,” have such a meaning that he seems to say, “If you are circumcised in the flesh.” Elsewhere he calls this not circumcision, circumcisio, but mutilation, concisio, saying, “Beware of the mutilation, concisio; for we who serve God in spirit are the circumcision, sumus circumcisio, and glory in Christ, and do not trust in the flesh” (Phil 3:2-3).

He does not trust in the flesh who expects every profit for himself from Christ. He does not sow in the flesh, so as to know corruption from the flesh, but sows in the spirit, from which eternal life comes. The Apostle’s words, “If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing,” must be examined more subtly. They mean not only that, if they are circumcised, circumcision itself does not profit them. Even if, apart from circumcision, they seem to have other virtues, nevertheless they will perish altogether when they are circumcised after faith in Christ.

What then? Did circumcision not help Timothy? Very much in every way. For he was circumcised not so much in order to receive any advantage from circumcision itself, as in order to gain others (1 Cor 9:19-23). He became a Jew to the Jews, in order by his own circumcision to lead the Jews to faith in Christ. But in reality it helps nothing when it is thought to bring some profit by itself.

One who does not believe receives no benefit from the grace in which he does not believe. Again, whoever is circumcised makes the Law master over himself. One who considers the Law master over himself, though he violates most of it, again brings himself under a curse. By rejecting the freedom from the curse brought by faith, how can he be saved? The commandments of the Law are closely bound together. The Law requires much even for one commandment. Thus, if you were circumcised, but not on the eighth day, or on the eighth day but without sacrifice, or not in the proper place, all your labors have perished. Therefore he says: he is obliged to do the whole Law, that is, not part of the Law, but the whole Law. If the Law no longer rules, then even a part of it is unnecessary. But if one who runs to the Law does not find salvation in it, and meanwhile falls away from grace, what remains for him except inevitable punishment?

"If you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing." That is, the fact that you are called believers in Christ, Christians, will be of no use to you. He softens the sentence. He says only: you will not receive what you hope to receive. But in substance this is the same as saying, you are lost. For salvation is received from Christ. If Christ does not profit those who are circumcised, this means He will not grant them salvation. Consequently, they will remain in the same destruction in which all who are outside Christ the Savior abide. The false teachers had certainly explained to the Galatians as they had earlier explained to the Antiochians: you will not be saved unless you are circumcised (see Acts 15:1). Directly against this the Apostle sets his apostolic decree. I, as an Apostle, in the name of the Lord Who gave me authority and power to proclaim His truth, say that if you are circumcised, you are lost. He singles out circumcision because it is the beginning. After it all the rest will necessarily follow, as the next verse, the third, explains. It was placed precisely for that purpose. He mentions circumcision sooner in order to warn them against it. The Galatians had already accepted something from Judaism, but they had not yet been circumcised. If only they admitted circumcision, they would inevitably become entangled in everything else and become full Jews. Seeing that such a disaster lay before them, though they had not yet fallen into it, the Apostle quickly cries out to them, as it were: do not be circumcised, do not be circumcised, or you will perish. If you are circumcised, Christ will not profit you at all. Those who cleave to Christ as the one Savior are saved without doubt. You did well to flee to Him. But if you are circumcised, there will no longer be any benefit for you from Christ. Circumcision will destroy the good received in Christ, and already received by you. Everything you hoped to receive in Christ, and indeed received, will vanish at once as soon as you are circumcised. There is no fellowship here: either Christ and salvation, or circumcision and the ancient destruction in which you once were. They explained: believe also in Christ, but the main thing is to be circumcised. The Apostle says: no, circumcision has no place where Christ is. The saving power of Christ does not enter those who rely on circumcision. Circumcision once served as the seal of God's election, but now it has become the cause of rejection. Physicians too have remedies that at one time, in illness, bring health, but at another time, when someone is healthy, disrupt it. The same has happened with circumcision. Before the Lord's coming to earth it was good. After this condescension it became harmful. It is not such in itself, but because of the hopes joined to it. When people rely on circumcision, believing that as soon as they are circumcised they have entered the number of the saved, they do the same as one who leans on a broken reed. It breaks under the slightest pressure and wounds the hand of the one leaning on it. If circumcision is still needed together with Christ, then, according to their conviction, Christ is not the complete and only Savior. This poverty of conviction comes from poverty of faith. Faith that has grown poor empties the soul of all the graces sent into it through faith in Christ the Lord. "Christ does not profit those who are circumcised, if they place the hope of salvation in circumcision" (blessed Augustine). "The one circumcised in this spirit dishonors the grace of Christ, believing that he is saved by the Law. But whoever does not believe fully in Christ cannot receive salvation from Him" (Oecumenius). "For such a man rejects grace and flees to the Law as to a benefactor. He does not believe in Christ at all, as though Christ had not benefited him at all. But the unbeliever receives nothing from Him in Whom he does not believe" (blessed Theophylact). "See," cries Chrysostom, "what danger threatens. Therefore he rightly anathematized even Angels themselves (see Gal. 1:8). How then does Christ profit them nothing? He did not set out to prove this, but simply said it, because the dignity of his person is more convincing than any other proof. For this reason he first said, 'Behold, I Paul say to you.' Such speech belongs to one confident in the affection of those to whom he speaks. But we, as far as we can, will offer something by way of explanation why Christ profits the circumcised man nothing. The one circumcised is circumcised as though fearing the Law. But the one who fears the Law does not believe in the power of grace. And the one who does not believe receives no benefit from the grace in which he does not believe. Again, whoever is circumcised makes the Law master over himself. But whoever regards the Law as master over himself, while violating the greater part of it and observing only the lesser, again subjects himself to the curse. When he is subject to the curse and rejects freedom from the curse brought by faith, how can he be saved? One may even say, though it is fearful, that such a man believes neither in Christ nor in the Law. He has come to stand midway between the two. Wishing to gain benefit both here and there, he receives nothing from either." In this second verse the Apostle's chief thought is expressed clearly enough. The next two verses, the third and fourth, only express more fully what is said here. The third verse shows how broad the consequences of circumcision are. The fourth states in greater detail how the circumcised man is deprived of Christ's saving power.