WHY WE GET PAUL WRONG – Part 
2: The Question of Circumcision
The word “mystery” is a favourite of Paul’s. He uses it twenty times. Here is an example: “the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed…” (Romans 16.25)
A natural interpretation is that it refers to the incarnation, to the new and life-changing idea which Saul (Paul) preached at Damascus: that “Jesus ..is the Son of God/ Messiah (or Christ).” (Acts 9.20,22). I do not think this is the answer. There would have been no disagreement over this in the churches to whom Paul wrote. Where there was disagreement was what you had to do to be part of the new community of the Messia
“Then certain individual came down from Judaea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 15.1)
They had a point. In Genesis 17.14, part of the most authoritative part of the Bible for Jews and Jewish Christians alike, reads: “Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
And yet the reality was that Gentiles as well as Jews were turning to Jesus as their Lord, and receiving the Holy Spirit. The Christians in Galatia were Gentiles who had turned to Christ, but were now being persuaded that to be proper followers of Jesus they had to be circumcised so as to enter fully into the covenant community. Paul wrote an explosive letter to them:
”I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel…The only thing I want to learn from you is this… Does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by doing the works of the Law, or by believing what you heard? … For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love… As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and cut (it) off!“ (Galatians 1.6; 3.2,5; 5.6,12)
Circumcision knife, Europe,1775-1785
Science Museum, London. ©Creative Commons
Note: The word in the last sentence is the same as when Peter cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant in Gethsemane. The text does not specify what part of the male genitalia or how much of it Paul wished they would cut off. All we can say is that St Paul could have used some sessions on anger management
Paul was intemperate, but he had a sound argument, namely that Gentiles should not have to become Jews first before they could be proper members of the new Jesus community.
That was the position that the Jerusalem church took as well. In a big meeting they held to thrash out the matter, they decided that “we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God…” (Acts 15.19)
They came to this decision through two arguments. 1. Simon Peter said, “God… testified to them (Gentile believers) by giving them the Holy Spirit , just as he did to us…” i.e. the Holy Spirit trumps Scripture.
2. The prophets foresaw this new move of God. James, the Lord’s brother quotes Amos 9.11, (the Greek translation) but a better quote would have been the four verses Paul uses in Romans 15.9-12, e.g. “Rejoice O Gentiles, with his people,” (Deuteronomy 32.34) and “in him shall the Gentiles hope.” (Isaiah 11.10) In other words, the Gentiles are clearly part of God’s worshipping people.
So what was this new “mystery” Paul talked about? Ephesians 3.6 spells it out: “The Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promises of Christ.”
This is Paul’s primary message in so many passages, including the first four chapters of Romans: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (1.16)
“For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart—it is spiritual and not literal.” (2.28,2
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3.3) does not mean, “we are all miserable sinners”. Rather it means “both Jews and Gentiles are equally in need of grace.” “Abraham … is the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised.” (4.11-12) Christian praying, 3rd century A,D., Rome
The “mystery” is summed up in Ephesians 2.17-18: “(Christ) came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off (i.e. Gentiles) and peace to those who were near; (i.e. Jews) for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.”
This extraordinary breaking of the barrier between Jew and Gentile among Christian communities was a reality for the first hundred years of the Church’s life. Up to Bar Kosiba’s revolt in 132-135 C.E. the bishops of Jerusalem were always “of the circumcision”. One of Paul’s key missions was to collect a substantial sum of money from the Gentile churches to support the Jewish church in Jerusalem. That link was broken in 135 C.E. because the emperor Hadrian removed all Jews from Jerusalem and made it a purely pagan city, renamed Aelia Capitolina. From then on the Jewish element of Christianity was gradually absorbed into the Gentile church, and the balance which Paul sought to promote disappeared.
Bur circumcision was not the only issue this mixed bunch of Christians had to struggle with. Another vital one was, what can we eat and drink? I will tackle this in a couple of weeks.