Philippians 3:3-6

For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh— even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

There was an enormous conflict in the early Christian community that nearly tore it asunder.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that there was an enormous conflict among the early “Christian communities,” as there was no single expression of Christianity at the time, but rather several communities, and they did not see eye to eye on everything.

The largest of these communities was the church at Jerusalem, where Jesus’ bother James seems to have been a key leader and where several of the disciples made their home. And then there were Paul’s churches, planted throughout the Gentile territories spread beyond Palestine.

A key difference between these varied expressions of the Christian faith was their relationship to Judaism. This was a relatively simple matter at the home base of Jerusalem, as the disciples and Jesus’ other early followers were all Jewish. They received Jesus as the Jewish messiah and, quite frankly, may not have thought of themselves as a distinct religion at all but rather as those Jews who recognized God’s messiah in the itinerate teacher from Nazareth who was crucified at Passover but raised again by God on the third day.

In Paul’s communities, though, things stood otherwise: from early on Paul felt that he was given a special commission to proclaim Jesus’ lordship to Gentiles, those who were not by birth or conversion Jewish. And so while Paul was familiar with the Jerusalem church, he went his own way, preaching the good news of God’s reconciling and redemptive activity to any and all who would listen.

As more and more Gentiles were brought into the Christian faith, Jesus’ original followers assume that these new believers would become Jewish. After all, Jesus was Jewish; all his disciples and early followers were Jewish; even Paul who as sharing the gospel with Gentiles was Jewish. How, they may have wondered, can one worship the Jewish messiah without first becoming Jewish? For this reason, they insisted that male Gentile believers be circumcised just like all other Jewish men.

Paul, however, saw matters quite differently. Yes, Jesus was the Jewish messiah. But when God so absolutely confounded Paul’s expectations about who and what the Jewish messiah would be, Paul came to believe that God was drawing both Jews and Gentiles into an entirely new relationship, or covenant. While the old covenant was grounded in the law God revealed to God’s people and was symbolized by the circumcision prescribed by that law, the new covenant was based simply on faith that God was redeeming the world through the death and resurrection of God’s Son. Law – not as a moral guide but as the constituting ground of one’s relationship with God – was replaced by faith, and circumcision was replaced by Baptism with the Holy Spirit.

Simply because circumcision was the mark of the old covenant, Paul felt it was unnecessary. It was not so much that he thought there was anything inherently wrong with it per se – as it was the law-prescribed mark of the covenant God made with the people at Sinai. Paul was, we should not forget circumcised himself. Moreover, some of his colleagues – particularly those who would be ministering in Jewish territories – were also circumcised after they came to Christian faith. But Paul could see no reason to expect Gentiles to bear the mark of the covenant of the law into which they had not been invited and through which God had not established a relationship with them.

For Paul, then, Jews could be circumcised and Gentiles could go uncircumcised – it just didn’t matter. When the Jerusalem church insisted on circumcision for all believers, however, Paul became furious because he believed their insistence on the mark — and therefore terms — of the old covenant betrayed a lack of trust in, or full embrace of, the new covenant whereby God’s grace was extended through faith in Christ.

And this he simply could not tolerate. While we could be neutral to circumcision in general, once it became a requirement he would not permit it all. He therefore calls circumcision a “mutilating of the flesh” and those who insist upon it “dogs” and “evil workers” because through their actions they are inviting new believers to place their confidence not in God’s promise of redemption in Christ and received by the Spirit but instead in the covenant established by the law and symbolized by circumcision. All of this Paul refers to as “confidence in the flesh.”

If any were to have confidence in the flesh – that is, through the old covenant – Paul stresses, it would be him. Paul’s lineage and pedigree were impeccable, his training was impressive, and his resume inspiring. Indeed, so zealous was he for his Jewish faith that he persecuted early Christian believers. Yet once God revealed a new means by which he and all people were to be drawn into relationship with God through Christ, there was simply no turning back.

Prayer: Dear God, you have drawn near to us in Christ, taking on our lot and our life, and paying no heed to who we are, or from where we have come, or what we may have done. Rather, you have called us your beloved children. Thank you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.