5:2–3 The importance of Paul’s warning in these two verses is clear from the expression “Look” followed by an emphatic reference to Paul himself (cf. 2 Cor. 10:1) and the repetition of the warning in a second, explanatory sentence (cf. Gal. 1:9). A Gentile’s acceptance of circumcision was a sign of full conversion to Judaism and of a willingness to submit to the Jewish law as a way of life (e.g., Josephus, Jewish Wars 2.454; Antiquities 20.36–48).

From Paul’s perspective, such a step would signal a lack of confidence in the effectiveness of Christ’s death to redeem the believer from the law’s curse and a vote of confidence in one’s own ability to keep the law and receive life by that means. Paul has already argued at length, however, that the law requires total obedience from those who want to receive life by keeping it (3:10, 12). This is something not only that no human being can do (2:16; 3:11) but also that God did not intend when he gave the law (2:21; 3:21). God gave the law to reveal the depth of human sinfulness and to prepare for the fulfillment of his promises to Abraham through the faith of both Jews and Gentiles in the gospel (3:22).

5:4 In Romans 7:2, 6, Paul uses the Greek construction here translated “you are severed from” (katērgēthēte apo) to speak of believers’ freedom from or release from the law. The expression communicates that the object of the preposition has no impact, for good or ill, on the subject of the verb. Here, then, Paul uses the phrase to underline what he has just said about the person who adopts the Mosaic law in Galatians 5:2–3: that person has opted for the law over Christ, and this is the same as rejecting Christ altogether.

Paul explains why this is true in the verse’s final clause, “You have fallen away from grace.” God has graciously given Christ and his death as the fully adequate means of dealing with sin and of including human beings of all types within his people (1:4; 3:13–14; 4:5). To accept this gift but to insist on conversion to Judaism in addition to it is to examine God’s gift and judge it inadequate to the task God claimed it would accomplish. It is to give God’s gift of Christ’s atoning death a lukewarm reception and thus express distrust in God.

5:5 In verse 4 Paul had described the Galatians’ interest in adding observance of the Mosaic law to Christ’s death as a mark of “you who would be justified [dikaiousthe] by the law.” He now uses the cognate noun of this verb, “righteousness” (dikaiosynē), to describe the correct posture of the believer before God. Believers are waiting for God’s verdict that they are free from punishment on the final day of judgment.74 Although they are waiting hopefully for this verdict, its realization is not in question, as the Spirit’s presence among them testifies (cf. 3:2–5, 14; 4:6, 29).

Paul often speaks of the justification of believers in the past tense (e.g., 3:6; Rom. 5:1; 1 Cor. 6:11) because it is something that happens when they first believe the good news that God’s gift of Christ’s atoning death has rescued them from the punishment they deserve and has reconciled them to God (Gal. 3:6; 5:1). Perhaps he envisions justification in the future here as a reminder that although the salvation of believers from God’s future wrath is certain, it will be fully realized only on the final day. It is important, therefore, to continue to trust in God’s gift of Christ’s redeeming work until that day.

5:6 Perhaps in view of the possibility that some Galatians have already been circumcised, Paul wants to make clear that the physical surgery itself is not the issue. Placing one’s confidence in not being circumcised would be just as problematic as placing one’s confidence in circumcision. In Romans Paul corrects a group of Gentiles who have become arrogant because they are not circumcised (Rom. 11:18, 20). Being right with God is a matter of “faith” in God’s gracious provision of Christ’s atoning death as the means of giving reconciliation and life to his people. It is not a matter of any human qualification, such as circumcision or lack of circumcision. The genuineness of justifying faith is evident in the way it works itself out in loving others, and such love, Paul will later say, is the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22; cf. “through the Spirit” in v. 5).

5:7 In a way that is consistent with his focus in verses 1–6 on the Galatians’ perseverance in their commitment to the gospel, Paul uses an athletic metaphor to describe their initially good progress, now “hindered,” toward the finish line of the final day. The term “hindered” translates a Greek term consisting of two smaller words that might be translated “cut” (Gk. koptō) and “in” (en). The picture that develops is of a race in which someone “cuts in” on someone else and interrupts his pace.75

The faith that justifies is much more than intellectual assent to a body of doctrines. This is clear from the phrase “obeying the truth.” Justifying faith is the reorientation of one’s whole life toward the gracious God of the gospel (cf. 2:20; Rom. 1:5; 10:16; 15:18; 16:26).

5:8 The term “persuasion” (Gk. peismonē) is closely related to the term “obeying” (peithesthai) that Paul has just used at the end of verse 7. There is, then, an implied contrast between a life devoted to the truth of the gospel and the life being considered by the Galatians, that of devotion to the Mosaic law. The designation of God as “him who calls you” echoes Paul’s expression of astonishment at the beginning of the letter that the Galatians were “so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ” (1:6; cf. 1:15). The “different gospel” that has slowed the Galatians’ progress toward justification on the final day is a message that plays down trust in the grace of God, which is so central to the gospel, and elevates human deeds and ethnicity as important for making sure of a favorable verdict on the final day.

5:9 The meaning of this commonplace analogy (cf. 1 Cor. 5:6; Plutarch, Roman and Greek Questions 109) is self-evident, but whether the “little leaven” is the false teachers or their false teaching is less clear.76 If the false teaching is in mind, the “little leaven” may represent any attempt to diminish faith in the effectiveness of God’s grace by adopting elements of the Mosaic law, such as circumcision.

5:10 Despite the alarm Paul expresses elsewhere in the letter, he trusts God to bring the Galatians back to the gospel and punish the “one who is troubling” them with the judgment that person deserves. Paul often expresses confidence that his churches, or individuals within them, will eventually come around to the right point of view (1 Cor. 1:8; Phil. 1:6; 3:15; Philem. 21). The reference to a single troubler contrasts with the use of the plural elsewhere to refer to the false teachers (Gal. 1:7; 4:17; 6:12–13), but Paul probably simply uses the singular generically to refer to anyone who teaches that Gentile Christians must observe the Mosaic law.

5:11 The false teachers were probably accusing Paul of changing his proclamation of the gospel to please his audience. Perhaps they misrepresented Paul’s practice of culturally adapting his behavior to avoid offending people in order to claim that Paul changed the content of what he preached (cf. 1 Cor. 9:19–23; 10:32–33). Paul’s reference to his alleged “still” proclaiming circumcision acknowledges that he once touted its importance. This is probably a reference to Paul’s pre-Christian zeal for the law, including the law of circumcision (Phil. 3:4b–6; cf. Josephus, Antiquities 20.43–45).

Why would preaching circumcision remove the scandal of the cross and ease persecution? Judaism was a familiar and ancient religion in the cultures around which Paul moved, and the cross was a horrendous, shameful death redolent of criminal behavior and reserved for the lowest social classes.77 To the extent that people calling themselves Christians preached circumcision and played down the cross, they could make their message more familiar and less objectionable both to Gentiles and to Jews (cf. 1 Cor. 1:23).

5:12 The verb translated “would emasculate themselves” (Gk. apokoptō) often refers to amputation, and the Septuagint could use it alone, as Paul uses it here, to translate the more literal Hebrew phrase “one . . . whose male organ is cut off” (Deut. 23:1). Paul’s language at first seems crude and abusive, but the cultural and literary context should ameliorate this impression. Two considerations are especially important.

First, the most basic meaning of the verb is simply “cut off” (2 Sam. 10:4 LXX; Plutarch, Nicias 26.3), and Paul is playing on his use of the similar word “cut in” (Gk. enkoptō, ESV “hindered”) in Galatians 5:7.78 The primary meaning of the sentence, then, may well be that he wishes those who have “cut in” on the Galatian Christians and hindered their progress in the faith would “cut themselves off” from contact with the Galatians. The race metaphor rather than the circumcision-mutilation reference may be primarily in Paul’s mind.

Second, in light of the predominant use of the term in the Septuagint to refer to amputation, and especially in light of its use in Deuteronomy 23:1, it is difficult to think that Paul does not also have in mind circumcision, now conceived as mutilation (cf. Phil. 3:2). Paul is writing, however, into a cultural context in which especially zealous male devotees of the goddess Cybele would cut off their genitals in a widely publicized annual display of devotion that the Roman emperor Claudius himself sponsored.79 In such a cultural context, Paul’s reference to genital mutilation was not as offensive as it would be in modern cultural contexts, where such rituals are widely (and correctly) perceived as horrific.

Viewed from this angle, Paul’s meaning is that the false teachers’ insistence on circumcision is equivalent to the senseless mutilation of pagan religious practices (cf. Gal. 4:9–10). Like them, it is a fruitless human effort to control divine power.

5:13–14 Paul’s “for” introduces an explanation of why the Galatian Christians should not adopt circumcision (cf. v. 12) and the Mosaic law generally (vv. 2–3). The God who “called” them to belong to his people did so “in the grace of Christ” (1:6) as an unwarranted gift and with no further requirements attached. They are, therefore, free from any claim that they must become Jews by adopting the Mosaic law.

This does not mean, however, that they are free to do whatever they please. They are still “in the flesh” (2:20), and “the flesh,” untamed by God’s Spirit, will push them to disobey God (cf. 2:16; 3:3; 4:23, 29; 5:16). Rather, their freedom from the law leads them, paradoxically, to become slaves of one another in the bond of love (cf. v. 6). This loving result of their graciously given membership in the people of God actually fulfills the core requirement of the Mosaic law, expressed in Leviticus 19:18 (cf. Mark 12:31; Rom. 13:9; James 2:8).

5:15 In contrast (“But”) to loving service stands the viciously competitive behavior so common in the Greco-Roman world.80 As the translations “bite” and “devour” hint, Paul is comparing this behavior to the behavior of animals (e.g., Demosthenes 25.40).81 Behind this comparison probably lies one of the results of the false teaching in Galatia. Disagreements and division have arisen, just as they did in Jerusalem over Titus (2:3–5) and in Antioch over Jewish table fellowship with Gentiles (2:11–14).