In our Galatians Sunday school class we’ve been talking a lot about the feelings that 1^st century Jewish Christians had toward Gentile believers.  While having no problem with Gentiles viewing Jesus as their Savior, many believing Jews in New Testament times felt that Gentiles needed to become “Jewish” before being considered fully right with God.  This meant that Gentiles needed to adopt the practices of the Mosaic Law, i.e. circumcision, dietary rules, cleanliness laws, Sabbath regulations, etc. 

 

Now not every Jewish believer felt this way, but certainly there was enough agreement on the above issues to create some real controversy for the early Church.  Paul wrote his letter to the churches in Galatia to confront those who were telling Christian Gentiles that they also needed to become Jews.  A few years later, a church-wide council had to be held in Jerusalem to decide the matter officially once and for all.  As we see in Acts 15, the New Testament church agreed with Paul in not requiring Gentiles to adopt the ceremonial and cultural elements of the Mosaic Law. 

 

One thing we’ve been talking about in our Galatians class is why so many 1^st century Christian Jews felt this way.  Why were the ceremonial and cultural elements of the Mosaic covenant so important to them?  To answer that question we have to remember that the Mosaic covenant had defined Israel as a nation for almost a thousand years.  Now, of course, God never meant that definition to be permanent, but a thousand years is a long time.  To tell a Jew in the 1^st century that a person can be a true member of the people of God without submitting to circumcision would like telling a natural born American citizen that someone from Iran could become a naturalized citizen of our country without having to learn our history, learn English, or take an oath swearing to uphold the constitution.  Think of how much it would bother us for someone to be considered American without adopting and affirming everything that defines what it means to be American in the first place.  And our country has only been around for 232 years.  Imagine if we’d been around for a millennium! 

 

To put an even finer point on it, the emotions that many early Christian Jews were experiencing toward the idea of Gentile-salvation-with-out-circumcision were probably very similar to the emotions many of us have in regards to the issue of illegal immigration.  Many of us have no problem with the idea of people immigrating to our country.  We just want them to come in the proper way, to assume the same responsibilities and to follow the same rules that we follow as Americans.  It’s often said, “I have no problem with folks coming in to our land through the gate, I just have problem with them to trying to climb over the wall.”  A first century Jew could have said a very similar thing about Gentiles becoming full members of the people of God.  The message of the New Testament, however, is that because of Christ’s fulfilling and doing away with the ceremonial and cultural aspects of the Mosaic covenant, the gate is wide open to all who believe; and there is certainly no more wall left to scale.   Praise the Lord…and pass the bacon!