Galatians 5:2. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised (suffer yourselves to be circumcised), Christ will profit you nothing. Your course is pot only foolish, but dangerous, yea ruinous. A circumcised man may become a Christian, but a Christian who deliberately undergoes circumcision, becomes a Jew (a ‘proselyte of righteousness') and virtually trusts to the law for salvation, and not to Christ ‘Behold' rouses attention. ‘I, Paul' interposes the apostolic authority, in opposition to the Judaizing teachers who taught that circumcision was necessary to make them full Christians and to insure salvation. ‘If ye be circumcised,' or ‘submit to circumcision,' as a term of salvation; some had probably done so already. ‘Christ will profit you nothing;' the future marks the certain result of this Judaizing course. Luther: ‘If St. Paul can venture to pass so terrible a judgment against the law and circumcision which God himself has given, what kind of judgment would he utter upon the chaff and the dross of men's ordinances? Wherefore this text is such a thunder-clap, that by right the whole papal realm should be astounded and terrified.'

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Old Testament