Galatians 6:15

See note on ch. Galatians 5:6. There the all-important thing is -faith working by love"; here -a new creature"; in 1 Corinthians 7:19, -the keeping of God's commandments". All these are essential the being circumcised or not is in itself a matter of indifference. Why? Because the latter is an outward rite. It may be nothing more. But faith, regeneration, obedience these are spiritual and they are everything.

The words -in Christ Jesus" are omitted in R.V., and for -availeth" we have -is". The change, for which there is ample authority, does not affect the sense.

a new creature The word so rendered here and in 2 Corinthians 5:17 originally had the abstract sense of -creation", -the act of creating" and from that, the concrete, -that which is created", including the individual, and so = -creature". It is to be observed that the same wordis used of the calling into being of the material universe which is here (and elsewhere) used of the change which is produced in the individual soul by the operation of the Holy Ghost, when a man is brought out of a state of nature into a state of grace. Compare Mark 10:6; Mark 13:19; Romans 1:20: and especially Revelation 4:11 with Ephesians 2:10; Ephesians 4:24.