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"Do You Not Hear the Law?": Paul and the Gentile Problem · Reformed Thinking

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For centuries, scholars have accused the Apostle Paul of
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playing dirty with the Bible. Critics claim he took the
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ancient story of Abraham, flipped it entirely upside down
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and essentially lied to his followers to win a theological
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turf. War.
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Yeah, that is a huge accusation, but welcome to reform thinking.
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We are taking a custom tailored look at the source material you
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provided, analyzing it from top to bottom.
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This is the part of the show we call the Deep Dive.
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Right. And today, for you, the learner
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tuning in, we are looking at a highly specific academic text
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that tries to solve this massive historical Riddle.
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We are drawing from the book Paul and the Gentile Problem by
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Matthew Tyson, focusing specifically on the chapter
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titled Do You Not Hear the Law? And it is a controversial
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chapter because it tackles a very uncomfortable accusation
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against one of the most famous figures in history.
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Modern biblical scholars, folks like Richard B Hayes, they look
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at Paul's letter to the Galatians and they suggest Paul
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is doing what Hayes calls hermeneutical Jiu jitsu.
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Which is really just a polite academic way of saying Paul is
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cheating, right? I mean the issue centers on
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Galatians chapter 4. Paul uses the Genesis story of
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Abraham, Sarah and Hagar to argue against gentiles getting
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circumcised. He tells these non Jewish
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converts they should absolutely not undergo the procedure.
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Yeah, but if you open up the Book of Genesis, specifically
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chapter 17, and read it on its face, it seems to mandate
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circumcision for literally every male in Abraham's household.
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No exceptions. Slaves, foreigners, everyone.
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So the scholars asked this huge question.
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Was Paul just a duplicitous reader?
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Was he backed into a corner, desperate to win an argument?
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So he just twisted the scriptures until they said what
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he wanted. That is the charge for sure.
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Our mission today is to figure out if Paul was making things up
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out of desperation, or if he was actually a brilliant exegete.
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You know, someone pulling the true intended meaning out of the
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text, interpreting it faithfully.
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We need to find out if the hidden logic of his argument
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actually holds up. OK, let's unpack this, because
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before we can judge Paul's reading of the Bible, we have to
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understand the fight he was picking.
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What is happening on the ground in Galatia?
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Well, we have to establish the historical context or nothing
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Paul says will make sense to you.
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Paul is writing to Gentiles in the region of Galatia.
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These are people who are not born Jewish.
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They are converts to this new movement centered on Jesus.
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Right. But Paul is not the only voice
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in their ear. There are rival missionaries
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actively persuading these Galatians.
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These rivals are preaching a different message, telling these
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Gentile believers that faith in Christ is good as a starting
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point, but to enter the covenant to become full members of God's
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family, they need to undergo circumcision and adopt Jewish
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law. Exact way, I mean that is spot
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on. But to grasp that, we have to
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understand the stakes. Hold on a second though, I need
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to push back on this premise. We are talking about ancient
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surgery. In a world without anesthesia,
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without modern sterilization, without antibiotics.
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That sounds like an absolute nightmare.
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Why on earth would adult men voluntarily undergo such a
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painful, risky procedure? It feels completely
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counterintuitive. Yeah, I get that you are looking
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at it through a modern medical lens.
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To understand their motivation, you have to look at their
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psychological and spiritual reality.
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These Galatians were formerly pagans.
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They lived in a world they believed was populated by
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malevolent cosmic entities, what Paul refers to as the elements
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of the cosmos. Oh wow, so it's a terrifying
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worldview. Totally.
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Being a Gentile in the ancient world meant you were vulnerable.
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You were out in the open, subject to the whims of fate,
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capricious gods and dark spiritual forces.
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You had no cosmic roof over your head.
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So they were living in a constant state of anxiety, like
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if the crops failed or a child got sick, it wasn't just bad
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luck, it was a demon or a local deity cursing you.
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Precisely. Now contrast that terrifying
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existence with becoming part of the Jewish people.
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Joining the covenant offered a massive level of cosmic
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security. It was an ancient version of a
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life hack. By bearing this physical mark,
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they believed they were shedding their vulnerable Gentile status.
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They were gaining full access to the covenantal promises and
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absolute protection from those chaotic spirits.
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So the rival missionaries were pitching this procedure not as a
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punishment, but as a mechanism for wholeness.
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Right. And I want to make sure we
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understand the pitch. The missionaries are opening up
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Genesis 17, and they were pointing to Abraham.
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Abraham wasn't born Jewish. She was a Gentile from ER.
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And God comes to him and says, walk before me and be blameless.
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Yes, and the Hebrew word there in Genesis 17 is Tamim.
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When that word was translated into Greek, the language the
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Galatians actually spoke, it became Telios, meaning whole or
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complete, or Mtos, meaning without blame.
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Yeah, so the missionaries were saying, look at Abraham.
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He was just like you, a Gentile. Then he got circumcised and he
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became whole. He became complete.
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Do you want to be complete? Do you want to be blameless?
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Let me try an analogy here. Think of it like an exclusive
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club offering AVIP membership upgrade.
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The Galatians have the basic entry pass, but they want the
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platinum card. The initiation fee, which is
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literal surgery, is incredibly steep, maybe even dangerous.
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Absolutely dangerous. Right, but the lifelong benefits
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of belonging to an ancient, divinely protected lineage seem
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completely worth the cost to them.
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You get the sign in your flesh and boom, you are an heir of
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Abraham. You get the cosmic security
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detail. The demons cannot touch you
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anymore because you belong to the creator of the universe.
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That VIP membership analogy captures the psychological
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appeal perfectly. And to back this up, we can look
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at texts from that era. There was an ancient Jewish text
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called the Book of Jubilees. It supports this specific
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concept of cosmic protection. OK, I have heard of that.
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What does Jubilee say about it? Well, Jubilee suggests that God
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placed angels and spirits to rule over all the other nations
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of the earth, and those spirits often lead the nation's astray.
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But God alone rules directly over Israel, so circumcision was
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viewed as the physical boundary line.
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It moved a person from the domain of chaotic lower level
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spirits into the direct, protected care of God himself.
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So the missionaries are preaching a very optimistic,
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universalistic message. They are saying anyone can join
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this protected family. Just do what Abraham did.
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Yeah, that is their whole argument.
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But this brings up a massive question for our source text.
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If the missionaries have such a solid, literal reading of
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Genesis 17 to back up their VIP upgrade.
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I mean, the text literally says Abraham circumcised every male
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in his household, including the slaves and the foreigners.
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How does Paul fight? That that is the big problem.
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Right. How does he argue against adult
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circumcision without just throwing the book of Genesis out
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the window? He looks like he is trapped by
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his own scriptures. He would be trapped if you were
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only reading the headlines. But Paul asks the Galatians to
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read the fine print of the contract.
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He goes back to Genesis 17, and he points out something the
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missionaries are conveniently ignoring.
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Genesis 17 does not offer a blank check for adult converts.
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There is a cat. A huge one.
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It contains a highly specific temporal stipulation When God
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establishes the covenant of circumcision in Genesis 17
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verses 12 to 14, the text demands that covenantal
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circumcision must occur on the 8th day after birth.
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The 8th day, not the 7th, not the 9th, and certainly not the
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35th year of life. The timing is non negotiable in
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the Greek Septuagint, which is the translation Paul and his
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readers used, the text is explicit.
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An infant not circumcised on the 8th day is cut off from the
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people. The priestly writer of Genesis
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17 provides very few details about the mechanics of the
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surgery. We do not get a medical manual.
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But the writer hammers home the timing repeatedly. 8th day. 8th
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day. That specific time stamp is the
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stipulation that makes the ACT covenantal.
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Yeah, and that actually explains a lot, but it leaves a glaring
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anomaly in the Genesis text. What about Ishmael?
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Ishmael was Abraham's son and he was circumcised, but he was not
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8 days old. He was circumcised at the age of
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13. And you mentioned the slaves and
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foreigners in Abraham's house earlier.
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They were all circumcised as adults on that very same day.
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So did they get the? No, they did not, and that is
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the devastating point Paul is making.
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None of the adults circumcised that day inherited the covenant.
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God explicitly tells Abraham that the covenant will be
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established with Isaac, who was not even born yet, not with
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Ishmael. Having the surgery does not
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automatically make you the heir. Right.
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The missionaries are telling the Galatians to get circumcised to
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become heirs. But the story of Ishmael proves
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that not all circumcisions grant covenant status.
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So wait, let me piece this together.
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Paul is looking at the Galatians, these adult men
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contemplating the surgery, and he is saying, who are you trying
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to copy? What's fascinating here is the
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brilliant, inescapable logic Paul employs.
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He holds up a mirror to the Galatians.
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He asked them to think critically about the ritual
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they're about to undergo. If a Galatian adult gets
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circumcised today, whose circumcision are they mimicking?
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Oh wow, they cannot possibly mimic Isaac.
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Isaac was an infant circumcised. Exactly on the 8th day.
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An adult Galatian is mimicking Ishmael, who is circumcised at
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thirteen years old. Yeah.
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So we're trying to buy the VIP upgrade.
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They are actually buying the wrong package by replicating the
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wrong procedure, a delayed adult circumcision.
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The Galatians are not writing themselves into the covenant.
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They are actively writing themselves out of it.
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They are branding themselves as outsiders.
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They become modern day Ishmaels, men who bear the physical mark
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but do not possess the inheritance.
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Their chosen method of inclusion guarantees their exclusion.
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The missionaries use Genesis 17 to say look at Abraham, he was
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an adult, do what he did. Paul counters with the rest of
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the chapter. Look at Ishmael.
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He was an adult. Do not do what he did.
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Now you could argue that Paul is just a lone voice in the
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wilderness here, inventing a really clever technicality to
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win an argument. Does anyone else in the ancient
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world read the Bible this way? That is a great question.
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To prove Paul is not just making this up in a vacuum, I think we
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need to look at how other Jewish thinkers of the era handled the
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exact same text. You mentioned the Book of
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Jubilees earlier. Can we dig into that?
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Yes, the Book of Jubilees is vital here.
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It is a text written a couple of centuries before Paul, during
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the Second Temple period. It retells the stories of
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Genesis, but it expands on them to address the concerns of its
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own day. And what does it say about the
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8th day? The author of Jubilees
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fundamentally agrees with Paul's exclusionary reading of Genesis
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17. The author stresses that there
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is no skipping or altering the 8th day rule.
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The text explicitly says there is no circumcising of days nor
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omitting any day of the 8 days because it is an eternal
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ordinance. They took the timeline
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incredibly seriously. It was not a suggestion, it was
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the mechanism itself. The author of Jubilees uses this
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rigid 8th day rule to explicitly exclude Ishmael and Esau from
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the covenant. Jubilees firmly links genealogy,
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which is being born to Jewish parents, with the Laura, which
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means getting circumcised precisely at 8 days.
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For the author of Jubilees, God categorically distinguishes
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between Jacob's descendants and all other nations.
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Being born to a Jewish parent and having the right performed
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on the 8th day is the only valid entry point, right?
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Let me make sure I'm tracking this.
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You are saying Paul, a 1st century Christian apostle and
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the author of Jubilees, a Jewish writer from centuries earlier. 2
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entirely different thinkers operating in different contexts
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arrived at the identical conclusion.
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They both decided that adult Gentile circumcision is totally
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useless. They absolutely did.
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They shared a baseline understanding of covenant
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boundaries. The rival missionaries in
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Galatia viewed Jewish identity as permeable.
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They believed anyone could join via the physical surgery.
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It was an open door policy. But Paul and the author of
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Jubilees viewed the covenant as impermeable to adult outsiders
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via that specific ritual. They recognize that the text of
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Genesis 17 was designed to show that mimicking the ritual does
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not change your baseline identity.
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Because Ishmael underwent the surgery, but his status remained
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unchanged, he was still the son of the slave woman.
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The adult slaves in Abraham's household underwent the surgery,
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but their status remained unchanged.
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They remained slaves. They did not become heirs.
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Circumcision, when performed outside that tight 8 day window,
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had 0 covenantal value for bringing an outsider into the
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family. The boundary was fixed.
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Paul is leaning on a very established, rigorous technical
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reading of the Hebrew Scriptures.
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OK, I follow the logic on the 8th day rule.
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It makes sense and it clears Paul of the charge that he is
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ignoring the text. But there's a wrinkle here.
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Paul does not just stick to the literal text of Genesis.
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We hit Galatians chapter 4 and Paul explicitly writes that he
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is reading the story of Hagar and Sarah allegorically.
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Modern critics jump all over this.
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When I hear allegory, I think of someone making up a fairy tale
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to fit their narrative. Doesn't resorting to allegory
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prove the literal text doesn't support his argument?
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That assumption is common, but it relies entirely on a modern
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English class definition of the word allegory.
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Today, when we hear allegory, we think it means the reader
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invents A fanciful meaning and forces it onto the text.
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We think of it as creative license that ignores the
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original author's intent. So how did an ancient Greek or
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an ancient Jew define allegory? We can look at Greco, Roman
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grammarians from antiquity, figures like Trifon and
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Heraclitus, or we could look at the Jewish philosopher Philo,
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who lived around the same time as Paul.
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They demonstrated that ancient readers believed the text itself
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spoke allegorically. The ancient understanding was
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that the original author embedded A secondary meaning
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into the text. Moses, acting under divine
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inspiration, designed the historical narrative of Abraham,
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Sarah and Hagar to speak directly to future generations.
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So the allegory is a feature of the text itself, not a magic
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trick performed by the reader. God designed history to echo.
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Here's where it gets really interesting, because the editors
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of Genesis likely shaped the Hagar and Ishmael narrative to
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speak to that specific crisis. Matthew Theisen's book points
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out that the later editors of the Book of Genesis likely
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operated on this exact same principle.
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Yes, during the Persian period, long after the events of
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Genesis, Jewish leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah face a massive
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crisis. Jewish men were marrying foreign
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women and the leaders were demanding they cast out those
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foreign wives and their mix offspring to preserve the
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community's identity. The story of Abraham casting out
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the Egyptian slave woman and her son was brought to the forefront
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to validate the policies of Ezra and Nehemiah's day.
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The narrative spoke about the distant past, but it mapped
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perfectly onto their present reality.
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Paul is acting in total continuity with those ancient
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literary practices. He believes the text was
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designed by God to map perfectly on to the crisis happening right
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then in Galatia. He's looking at the events of
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Genesis 16 through 21 and seeing 2 distinct paths, 2 mothers, 2
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missions and two births. Let's break down those two
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paths. In Galatians 4, Paul sets up a
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stark contrast. On one side, you have Hagar, the
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slave woman. Paul says she represents the
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missionary's gospel. On the other side, you have
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Sarah, the free woman representing Paul's gospel.
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Why does Hagar represent the missionaries?
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We have to look at the narrative of the two births.
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Hagar's conception of Ishmael in Genesis 16 represents human
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scheming. Remember the setup?
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God had promised Abraham an air. But years pass and Sarah's womb
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remains barren. Abraham and Sarah are old.
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Nothing is happening. So they decide to force God's
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promise through natural, fleshly means.
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Sarah says, take my slave, sleep with her, and we will build a
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family through her. Yeah, Wait a minute.
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Sarah taking Hagar, giving her to Abraham, and Abraham
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listening to her. That sounds incredibly familiar,
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like the Garden of Eden. You caught that?
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Yes, if you look at the Greek Septuagint, the language is
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practically identical to the fall of humanity in Genesis 3.
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In the Garden of Eden, Eve takes the fruit, gives it to her
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husband, and Adam listens to the voice of his wife.
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The author of Genesis is deliberately using the same
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verbs. So the author is signaling that
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Abraham and Sarah's attempt to manufacture an heir through
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Hagar is not just a minor lapse in judgment.
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It is a catastrophic failure of faith.
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It mirrors the original thin it is human effort trying to seize
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control of something only God has the right to give.
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It is the flesh trying to do the work of the Spirit.
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Contrast that frantic human effort with Isaac's birth a few
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chapters later. Isaac's birth involves 0 human
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scheming. Sarah's womb is completely dead.
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Abraham's body is described as being as good as dead.
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There is no natural biological pathway for them to produce a
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child. Isaac's birth is a miracle
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brought forth from a dead womb. It is essentially creation out
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of nothing. The Jewish philosopher Philo
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wrote about this. He suggested that Isaac's
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conception was entirely through divine Providence, completely
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bypassing natural generation. Isaac born purely according to
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the Spirit, according to the promise of God, not according to
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the flesh. He is a walking, breathing
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miracle. OK, I see how this connects to
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the Galatians. Think about the rival
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missionaries. Paul is saying they are acting
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just like Sarah in Genesis 16. The missionaries are looking at
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these Gentile converts and they are trying to manually
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manufacture heirs for Abraham through a physical, fleshly
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procedure. Exactly.
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I mean, that is spot on. They are trying to help God out
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with a scalpel. They think they can take a
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Gentile, perform a surgery, and produce a legitimate heir to the
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covenant. They're relying on human effort,
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on their own scheming to bring about the fulfillment of God's
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promise. That is the core of Paul's
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critique. Paul aligns his own mission with
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Isaac's birth. Paul is watching God
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miraculously create children of Abraham out of the Gentiles, out
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of nothing, without any human surgery required.
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The Galatians, who were spiritually dead in their
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paganism, have been brought to life by the Spirit.
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It is a divine miracle. The missionaries want to drag
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these miraculous children back into the realm of human
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scheming. They want to turn Isaacs into
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Ishmaels, which sets up one of the most misunderstood verses in
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the entire letter. Yes, Galatians 5, verse 3.
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We reach Galatians 5, verse 3, where Paul issues this famous
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warning. He says I testify again to every
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man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated
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to obey the whole law. And that verse causes so much
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confusion. Right, because the traditional
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view, the one you hear in almost every commentary says Paul,
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means all 600 plus Jewish laws. It portrays the law as an
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impossible, crushing burden. The ideas that Paul is warning
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the Galatians. If you take this one step,
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you're signing up for an impossible checklist, and since
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you cannot keep it perfectly, you are doomed.
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That traditional view dismantles itself upon close inspection of
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ancient Judaism. The Jewish law was never
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designed to be a standard of flawless perfection with no
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recourse for failure. That is a caricature.
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The law contained built in systems of atonement,
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sacrifices, and repentance. A Jewish person who failed to
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keep a commandment was not instantly doomed.
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They utilize the sacrificial system provided by the grace of
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the law itself. Furthermore, Paul himself
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claimed in his letter to the Philippians that regarding
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righteousness under the law, he was blameless.
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He did not view the law as an impossible burden during his
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life as a Pharisee, he thought he kept it pretty well.
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So reading Galatians 5 verse 3 as a threat about 600 impossible
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rules makes very little historical sense.
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It does not fit Paul's own biography.
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This is where Thyssen provides 2 alternative linguistic readings
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for what Paul means by the whole law.
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First, the whole law might mean the entire law of circumcision.
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Let us examine that, OK? Break that down for me.
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The law of circumcision is not just about the physical cutting
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of the flesh. It is a complex set of
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stipulations primarily focused on timing.
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By getting circumcised as an adult, you instantly fail the
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whole law of circumcision because you missed the 8th day
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requirement. You break the law in the very
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act of trying to keep it. You step up to the plate and you
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strike out before you even swing.
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There is a brilliant anecdote from the T SEPTA, an ancient
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rabbinic text, that illustrates how strictly the Jewish
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community held to this specific timing.
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The story involves a woman in the region of Cappadocia.
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She gave birth to a son, circumcised him on the eighth
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day. And the baby tragically died.
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Oh, that is awful. It is later she gave birth to a
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second son, circumcised him on the 8th day and he also died.
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She gave birth to a third son. Because of the previous
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tragedies, she brought the child to a rabbi for guidance.
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A completely understandable reaction.
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She is terrified. The rabbi noticed the baby was
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green, lacking proper blood flow, and told her to wait to
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circumcise him until his color improved until he was healthy
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enough to survive the blood loss.
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But the take away from the story is the mother's initial action.
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The fact that she circumcised the first two babies on the 8th
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day, even knowing it might be life threatening, shows the
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absolute severity of the 8th day requirement.
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You could not just pick a random day that was convenient.
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The entire law of circumcision hinged on that specific temporal
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window. So Paul is telling the Galatian
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adult, if you undergo this surgery now, you fair the law of
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circumcision instantly. You cannot obey the whole law of
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circumcision because you are 30 years late.
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But there is a second alternative reading Thiessen
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offers for the Whole Law, and this one feels like a massive
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mic drop. The Whole Law might refer to the
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entire narrative of Genesis 16 through 21.
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Remember earlier in chapter 4 Paul calls the Genesis narrative
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of the law when he says, tell me, you who desire to be under
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the law, do you not hear the law?
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He uses the word law to refer to the Torah, the books of Moses,
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specifically the story of Abraham.
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So if a Galatian adult gets circumcised, they are stepping
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into the shoes of Ishmael in that narrative.
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But wait, we know how that story ends.
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What happens at the end of the narrative in Genesis 21?
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The narrative ends with a feast. Isaac is weaned and Sarah
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observes Ishmael. She does not like what she sees.
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She commands Abraham to cast out the slave woman and her son, for
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the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the
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free woman. And God explicitly tells Abraham
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to listen to Sarah's voice in this matter.
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Eviction is the mandatory conclusion of the story for
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Ishmael. So if a Galatian gets
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circumcised, they become a modern day Ishmael, and the very
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law they are trying to obey demands their own eviction from
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the household. They're signing their own
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deportation papers. They think they are earning an
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inheritance, but they are actually triggering the claws
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that cast them out of the family.
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The irony is staggering. It is a devastating theological
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argument. Paul is showing them that their
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chosen method of inclusion is actually the scriptural
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mechanism for exclusion. They are actively orchestrating
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their own removal from the promises.
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Of God. Which brings us to another
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highly debated verse, Galatians 6 verse 13, where Paul writes
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that those who circumcise themselves do not keep the law.
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Modern interpreters often assume this is just a generic statement
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about all Jewish people failing to keep the rules perfectly.
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They think Paul is saying nobody is perfect.
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But that ignores the specific grammar of the text, right?
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I know we do not want to get bogged down in Greek grammar,
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but slow this down for me. We are looking at a specific
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phrase, the Greek present participle compared to nominoy.
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Let's strip away the academic jargon.
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Yeah, please translate that into plain English.
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The grammatical construction indicates middle voice,
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reflexive action. That means it describes someone
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doing an action to themselves or for themselves.
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These are not Jewish infants having the right performed on
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them by their parents. Paul is speaking directly to the
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Galatians situation, referencing adult men actively taking it
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upon themselves to submit to the knife.
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It is an active, present pursuit.
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Yes. This is not a blanket statement
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that Jews cannot follow rules. It is a targeted statement about
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adult gentiles actively seeking surgery the very moment the
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scalpel touches an adult gentile.
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They were breaking the law they are trying to keep because the
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law demands the subject be 8 days old.
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The action itself is the transgression.
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It is not that they get circumcised and then failed to
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keep the Sabbath a week later. The surgery itself is the
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violation of the law. If we connect this to the bigger
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picture, we see that Paul's anger mirrors Sarah's anger.
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In Genesis 21, the text says Sarah sees Ishmael play.
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And what does that mean? Right, because playing sounds
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pretty innocent. In ancient Jewish
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interpretations like the to SEPTA sota, this playing is
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understood as Ishmael pretending to be the heir.
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He is claiming he will inherit a double portion as the first
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born. He's play acting at being Isaac.
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Sarah demands he be cast out for this presumption.
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She won't tolerate a fake air threatening the true miraculous
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air. Paul is furious at these Gentile
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believers because they are doing the exact same thing.
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They are play acting as Jews. They are undergoing A ritual
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that does not belong to them, pretending to be native born
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heirs, and in doing so they are mocking the miraculous spirit
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driven birth that God actually granted them.
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They are trading the reality of a divine miracle for the costume
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of human effort. It is an affront to the grace
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they have received. But this raises a massive
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logical loophole, one that any sharp listener is probably
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screaming at their audio player right now.
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I can guess what it is. If adults circumcision makes you
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an Ishmael, what about Abraham? He was 99 years old when he was
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circumcised. Doesn't that prove adult
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circumcision has value? Doesn't Abraham's example
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destroy Paul's entire argument? It is the most obvious counter
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argument. The rival missionaries surely
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used it. They likely said Abraham was 99.
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We are just following the patriarch.
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Paul anticipates this objection. To find his answer, we have to
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pivot slightly to his letter to the Romans.
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Specifically Romans chapter 4 where he tackles this exact
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timeline. Paul points out a crucial
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sequence of events. Abraham was declared righteous
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by God in Genesis 15 years before he was ever circumcised
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in Genesis 17. The text explicitly says Abraham
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believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
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He was a completely uncircumcised Gentile.
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When God made that declaration, the covenant was secured by
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faith prior to any physical action.
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This chronological fact makes Abraham the father of believing
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uncircumcised Gentiles. Paul isolates the moment of
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justification and proves it had nothing to do with surgery.
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It was based entirely on God's sovereign promise and Abraham's
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trust in that promise. OK that secures the Gentiles but
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that still leave a massive question.
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Why did God command the surgery later then?
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Right. If he was already righteous, why
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did God demand the cutting of the flesh at age 99?
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If the physical act wasn't necessary for his standing
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before God, why introduce it at all?
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God commanded it so Abraham could also be the father of
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circumcised Jews. The late circumcision turns
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Abraham into a split paradigm. He operates as the father to two
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distinct groups. Early Christian thinker origin
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beautifully summarized this concept.
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He wrote that through faith, Abraham is the father of the
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uncircumcised. Through the flesh he is the
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father of the circumcised. God gave Abraham the sign of
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circumcision later so that his physical descendants, the Jewish
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people, would have a distinct abiding marker of their
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historical identity. So Paul maintains A strict
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distinction. Circumcision retains its massive
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continuing value for Jewish identity.
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Paul is not anti Jewish. He isn't saying the law is bad
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or that God made a mistake in Genesis 17.
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He simply believes that for a gentile to steal that identity
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is a category error. Applying A kosher slaughtering
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ritual to a pig does not yield kosher meat, it just yields a
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dead pig. Applying circumcision to a
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gentile does not yield a Jew, it just yields a bleeding gentile.
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The boundaries remain distinct. That is the crucial synthesis.
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God calls Gentiles to be children of Abraham through
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faith, mirroring the miracle of Isaac's birth, without needing
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to cross the boundary line into Jewish ethnic identity.
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Paul is defending the integrity of both groups.
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He is defending the distinctiveness of the Jewish
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people who carry the mark of the covenant in their flesh, and he
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is defending the miraculous inclusion of the Gentiles who
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are grafted in solely by the action of the Spirit.
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The missionaries were trying to erase the distinction, forcing
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Gentiles to assimilate. Paul recognizes that true unity
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does not require the obliteration of historical
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covenantal distinctions. We have covered a massive amount
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of ground today. We really have.
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Let's summarize this deep dive. We started with Paul being
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accused of twisting scripture, of performing hermeneutical jiu
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jitsu to force his own views onto the text.
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But after looking at the mechanics of his argument, we
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end by seeing Paul as a master exegete.
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He was not ignoring the text, he was reading it closer than
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anyone else. He recognized that Genesis 17's
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8th day clause, Ishmael's exclusion despite his surgery,
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and the miraculous nature of Isaac's birth all harmonized to
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prove one point. And that point is that Gentiles
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are saved by a divine miracle, not by mimicking A ritual meant
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for biological descendants. His logic is tight.
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He takes the very text his opponents are using and
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demonstrates that their own proof text condemns their
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mission. He shows that taking human
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action to secure divine promises always leads to the birth of an
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Ishmael, a child of slavery. So what does this all mean in
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the end? It means we must read historical
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texts in their actual historical context.
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Paul's in attacking Judaism as some outdated religion.
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He was settling an internal, highly specific debate about how
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gentiles fit into a Jewish worldview.
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He was protecting Gentiles from a heavy burden that was never
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meant for them while upholding the validity of the covenant God
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made with Israel. It challenges us to look beyond
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surface level readings. When we see a conflict in these
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ancient texts, it is often a signal that we are missing the
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cultural and literary context. Paul's use of allegory wasn't an
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escape hatch. It was an established, rigorous
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method of pulling the intended meaning out of the text, seeing
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how God's patterns in history repeat themselves.
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I want to leave you with a final thought to ponder based on the
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source text, something that brings this ancient debate right
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into our modern laps. Consider the concept of
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Ishmael's boast. That is a great angle to close
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on. In the ancient Aramaic Targum
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Theo Jonathan, there's a fascinating expansion of the
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Genesis narrative. It depicts an argument between
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Ishmael and Isaac over who is the true heir.
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Ishmael argues with Isaac, claiming he's superior because
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he willingly chose the pain of circumcision at age 13.
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He argues that he consciously submitted to the knife, he made
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a sacrifice, he bled for God, whereas Isaac was just a
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clueless 8 day old baby who made no choice and felt no conscious
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devotion. Ishmael appeals to his his own
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human merit, his own pain, his own sacrifice as the reason he
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should inherit. Isaac had nothing to boast about
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except the fact that he was the child of a miracle.
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He contributed nothing to his own status.
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Ask yourself this how often do modern systems of thought rely
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on Ishmael's boast? The desire to earn our status
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through our own painful efforts, our own discipline, our own
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measurable sacrifices, rather than simply receiving a promise
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we did absolutely nothing to earn.
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That tension is always with us. We want to contribute to our own
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rescue. We want the credit of the 13
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year old Ishmael, not the complete helplessness of the
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eight day old Isaac. We are constantly tempted to
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trust the flesh, to grab the scalpel ourselves, to
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manufacture our own security, but the text calls us to trust
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the miracle instead. Thank you for joining us on this
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deep dive into the Galatian crisis.
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We are leaving you with plenty to Mull over.
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Until next time, keep reading, keep questioning, and keep
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thinking.