Paul emphasized that faith, not the law, brings salvation, highlighting his frustration with the adherence to the law in early Christian societies, as Christopher Vesi explains. Showing this, Rebecca Simon’s Finding God Every Day it teaches us how to face God in everyday life beyond the rules.
so that what the law requires may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:4
When you read Paul’s letters in the Bible, you see Paul’s personality. These letters were written to real people and communities of the early Christian movement, and Paul sometimes writes bluntly and satirically.
Given the long history of translation and appropriation of Paul’s writings, you must read carefully and know what to look for to see these glimpses of his personal writings. It’s right there in the text though — Paul is a man writing about real, emotional history.
One of Paul’s most aggressive statements is about emotional and personal insults Galatians 5:12-15. Paul is writing to the Galatians, a group of Gentile Christians in what is now central Turkey, and he is deeply saddened because there is a new part of Christian thought that insists on strict adherence to the Law of Moses—a belief system that accepts Christ but demands full commitment to Hebrew law, including circumcision and other legal requirements. Paul is angry.
At the highest emotional level, he says: Ὄφελον καὶ ἀποκόψονται οἱ ἀναστατοῦντες ὑμᾶς (Galatians 5:12). Clean English translations of the most widely read Bibles, “I wish those who bother me get surgery.” But in reality it turns out sadly:“I wish that those who refuse to be circumcised can just go and circumcise themselves.”
I don’t bring up this passage to highlight dirty jokes in the Bible, but let me ask: Why was Paul so angry that he started this insult? And what does that reveal about his beliefs and his faith in Christ?
It is important to note that Paul is not at all against circumcision, and that is not what he is angry about here. His anger is directed at the great issue that the new Christian communities focus on law and structure instead of having faith that Christ has saved us, and we live under the new covenant.
Understanding this context makes some of Paul’s speeches particularly poetic Romans 8:3-5vibrant and purposeful.
For God has done what the law, weakened in the flesh, could not do: by sending his Son in the form of sinful flesh, and having to face sin, he cast away sin in the flesh, so that what the law requires of us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit, may be fulfilled.
For Paul, the rebellion of Adam and Eve enslaved mankind to sin and death. Although God gave the Law—His Word in the Old Testament—it was impossible for people to fulfill it completely. Even Moses, the great lawgiver, was barred from entering the Promised Land by one act of disobedience (Numbers 20:12), showing that no one could reach God’s perfect standard.
God then offered the sacrifice of his Son, Christ, whose miraculous birth, death, and resurrection accomplished the impossible. The Word became flesh, and with this final sacrifice, humanity was not saved easily by laws, but by the grace of God and the new Adam, Christ.
To me, this has always reflected a deep and complex misunderstanding about the meaning of life. Where does salvation lie? In divine law – or in faith that surpasses all reason? This is the urgent need of Paul’s letter to the Galatians and for us today. Do we believe that God made His Son to save us? Do we believe that impossible miracles have happened on Earth?