It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4 You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Paul's words here are very strong, and it is some measure of his anxiety for the Galatians that he should speak so plainly and bluntly to them. The point in 2 about circumcision is not, of course, that anyone who has been circumcised (i.e. a Jew) cannot be profited by Christ, but rather someone who has trusted in Christ and later committed himself to the Jewish rite. This was the problem vexing the Galatian Church (see Acts 15:1) and explains Paul's words in 4 - 'ye are fallen from grace'. Thus the emphasis in 5, 6, on 'righteousness by faith' and 'faith which worketh by love'. This is the real heart, and the true nature, of the Christian religion, and it is clear from what he says here that it is of a totally different order of existence from the realm of the law and its rites. It is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision nor any other observance, but a new order, a new creation (cf 6:15) wrought by the Spirit of God (5) by Whom we are begotten unto a lively hope, as Peter also puts it in his epistle (1 Peter 1:3). The inter-relation of faith, hope and love in Paul's teaching here is interesting and suggestive, safeguarding his gospel from any charge that it was undermining moral values - none has stressed more fervently than he that we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works (Ephesians 2:10), works that are the expression of a living and loving faith in Him. It is this fundamental distinction between the idea of working for salvation and that of works that follow and flow from salvation that lies at the heart of Paul's teaching. Everything, literally everything, depends on a right understanding of it.