Galatians 5:2,4 (NKJV)

‘Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing… You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.’

Circumcision was the sign of the law. Circumcision was the sign that you are now accepted into the Covenant of Israel. Circumcision was a requirement for acceptance before God, as you couldn’t even be considered for this acceptance, if you did not first become a Jew and come under the law of Israel. But this was exactly what Christ came to redeem us from, from the legalism that does not bring its followers into spiritual deliverance or light. Paul’s argument was simple: for the multitudes who had been circumcised, were they any better spiritually?

Paul’s argument had been: if you really want to be justified, it is not by bringing yourself in subjection to some religious forms. But if after you have experienced the justification by faith in Christ, you thereafter choose to return to the bondage of laws, then you have actually fallen. You have reduced yourself. You have fallen away from grace…down to the basement of laws. And in this fall, sadly, you have cut yourself away from Christ, because the usefulness of Christ is made useless when you prefer the law to His work on the cross. We must therefore remain committed to remaining in the justification that comes by faith alone, lest we run the risk of cutting ourselves away from the profit that we had gained from believing in Christ.

‘Father, I can’t afford to take that risk; the risk of losing all that I have gained in Christ. I will not let my heart be seduced or compelled to comply to the dictates of religionists; because I know that obeying religion never helped me in the past, and neither can it help me now. I will not slide away from faith into empty religions of human design. I will remain in the grace of God earned for me through the work of Christ on the cross. That’s where I will ever remain, no matter what anybody else teaches. Amen.’