Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcisions nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
How we act reflects what we believe. That’s right! You can tell what someone really believes by the way that live their lives. What we say and what we do can tell very different stories, contradictory stories.
We see it in politicians who say one thing about mask mandates and then throw fancy parties where no one wears a mask. They say the are concerned about climate change and they fly around the world in their private jets. Fiscal responsibility is promised during the campaign and then trillions of dollars are spent without thought to how the debt will be paid for by future generations.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians stresses one very important theme throughout its chapters. This theme, that our relationship with God isn’t based on the performance of certain actions, but rather by trusting what Christ has accomplished on the Cross, stood in stark contrast to many religious people of his day.
But some would then say that our actions don’t matter at all, since they don’t merit God’s favor. If our faith in Jesus is what matters, then our actions don’t.
Paul counters this by describing the kind of faith that saves, a faith that results in a change in our actions. These changes in the object of our faith affect the actions that we take. Our actions flow from what we believe.
For the Jews of Paul’s day, male circumcision was the outward sign that someone had chosen to be part of God’s covenant community. Although most of the time it was performed on an infant boy, before that infant could actively choose to follow. It was a parent’s decision to follow that led to the infant’s circumcision.
For Paul, this act by the parent’s didn’t matter. It didn’t connect the son to the LORD anymore than going to a wedding as a guest makes you a married person. Proximity doesn’t ensure relationship. The inner change must precede the actions, not the other way around.
Our faith gets expressed in what we do. I believe in my marriage, so I invest time, energy and resources to maintain that relationship. I can say I am someone’s friend, but if I don’t get together with them in order to build the relationship, then my words are empty.
The Galatian believers had turned away from the simple faith they had come to accept and had turned by to their old ways, thinking they could please God apart from trusting in Him. They had added duties back into their formula for proper Christian belief. They had adopted a “faith plus works” agenda, placing trust in their performance of acts like circumcision to settle their relationship with God.
Are there things we have made necessary to maintain our relationship with the LORD? Do we live out a “faith plus works” life? Or do we live out a “works flowing from faith” life? Does what we do help improve our standing with Him?
The Arnold Journey 