MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verse 1–3.
The False and the True in Religion.
I. The false in religion evident in the character of its advocates.—“Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision” (ver 2.). “Dogs” was an epithet expressive of great contempt, and indicative of impurity and profanity. It was a term applied to the Judaizers, or, as Chrysostom calls them, “base and contemptible Jews, greedy of filthy lucre and fond of power, who, desiring to draw away numbers of believers, preached at the same time both Christianity and Judaism, corrupting the Gospel.” They were “evil workers” causing much spiritual mischief. They were of “the concision”—mere cutters or slashers of the flesh. “The same men are described in each clause as impure and profane, as working spiritual mischief, and as taken up with a puerile faith in flesh-cutting. In this first clause you have their character, in the second their conduct, and in the third their destructive creed. Men who insisted on circumcision as essential to salvation made the rite ridiculous—Judaized ere they Christianised. To circumcise a Gentile was not only to subject him to a rite which God never intended for him, but it was to invest him with a false character. Circumcision to him was a forgery, and he carried a lie in his person. Not a Jew, and yet marked as one, having the token without the lineage, a seal of descent and not a drop of Abraham’s blood in his veins. To hinge salvation, especially in the case of a Gentile, on circumcision was such a spurious proselytism, such a total misappreciation of the Jewish covenant, such a miserable subversion of the liberty of the Gospel, such a perverse and superstitious reliance on a manual rite, that its advocates might well be caricatured and branded as the concision” (Eadie). The false in religion stands exposed and condemned by the character and methods of its propagators.
II. The true in religion has definite characteristics.—1. In the spirituality of its worship. “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit” (ver. 3). There is a great difference between the derisive use of the term “concision” and the use of the circumcision in this verse. There is a Christian circumcision, which is a “putting off the body of the sins of the flesh”; and this is not a manual but a spiritual act. All that the old circumcision typified the Christian enjoys. “The spiritual offspring of Abraham have nobler gifts by far than his natural seed—blessing not wrapped up in civil franchise, or dependent upon time, or restricted to territory.” The Christian has learnt that true religion consists, not in forms and ceremonies and temporal privileges, but in a right state of heart towards God, in a loftier worship, and a more intense spiritual life.
2. In making Christ the basis of confident exultation.—“Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord . . . rejoice in Christ Jesus” (vers. 1, 3). Christ, and Christ only, is the Christian’s plea, and the joyous theme of his unending song: Christ, the Divine, all-glorious Son of God. Theodosius, in the fourth century, at one time so far favoured the Arians as to let them open their place of worship and labour to undermine the Divinity of Christ. Soon after this he made his son Arcadius, a youth of sixteen, an equal partner with him in his throne; and the noblemen and bishops were invited to come on an appointed day to congratulate him. Among the number was Amphilocus, a famous old bishop who had bitterly suffered in the Arian persecution. He made a very handsome address to the emperor, and was about to take his leave, when Theodosius exclaimed: “What, do you take no notice of my son? Do you not know that I have made him partner with me in the empire?” Upon this the good old bishop went up to young Arcadius, and, putting his hand upon his head, said, “The Lord bless thee, my son.” The emperor, roused into rage by this apparent neglect, exclaimed: “What, is this all the respect you pay to a prince that I have made of equal dignity with myself?” Upon this the bishop, with the grandeur of an angel and the zeal of an apostle, looking the emperor full in the face, indignantly said: “Sire, do you so highly resent my apparent neglect of your son because I do not give him equal honours with yourself? And what must the eternal God think of you who have given leave to have His co-equal and co-eternal Son degraded in His proper Divinity in every part of your empire?”
3. In distrusting the supposed virtue of outward rites.—“And have no confidence in the flesh” (ver. 3). No confidence in the supposed good conferred by externals. Birth and lineage, family, tribe, and nationality on the one hand, and the moral character determined by them on the other, Paul reckons together as excellencies and gifts of the same kind, and holds them in slight esteem compared with what he has in Christ. The morality of men belongs to the province of the natural life; it depends on birth, family, position, culture, time, and circumstances, and gives reason, as does every favour, for humble thankfulness, but not for proud boasting. Such, as contrasted with the concision, is the circumcision; the children of believing Abraham and blessed with him; serving God by His Spirit in a higher and more elastic worship; glorying in Him who has won such privileges and blessings for them, and having no trust in any externals or formalities on which the Judaizer laid such stress as securing salvation or as bringing it within an available reach (Lange, Eadie).
III. Against the false in religion it is necessary to faithfully warn.—“Beware . . . beware . . . beware!” (ver. 2) Like three peals of a trumpet giving a certain blast do the three clauses sound, and the repetition reveals the intense anxiety and earnestness of the alarmed apostle. It is the duty of the minister to warn his people of whatever endangers their spiritual life and eternal welfare. News came to a certain town, once and again, that the enemy was approaching; but he did not then approach. Hereupon in anger the inhabitants enacted a law that no man on pain of death should bring again such rumours as the news of an enemy. Not long after the enemy came indeed, and besieged, assaulted, and sacked the town, of the ruins of which nothing remained but this proverbial epitaph—“Here once stood a town that was destroyed by silence.”
Lessons.—1. Genuine religion is self-evident. 2. Falseness in the garb of religion works serious mischief. 3. True religion demands constant watchfulness.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES.
Ver. 1. Safeguards against Error.—1. To rejoice in Christ—to be constantly and with delight making recourse to Him—is a choice guard against any error contrary to the truths relating to Him. 2. Often repeating and inculcating truths that are most for edification ought neither to be burdensome to a minister nor yet wearied of by the people. 3. Temptations to error are covered over with such pious pretences and lively baits that there is need of many guards and frequent warnings.—Fergusson.