After warning of certain kinds of people in the previous verse, Paul started telling us that whatever we have in Christ is superior to everything else.
He wants you to see the value in the new life in Christ, so that everything else would pale in comparison.
First, he says we are not less than anyone because we do not see circumcision as a way to God’s heart; rather, God has come into our hearts with His spiritual circumcision. Our hearts of stone have been replaced with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26).
We do not align with the worship precepts that use rituals to worship God.
Rather, we have the Holy Spirit’s presence with us and an ongoing connection with God that does not depend on a physical temple. We do not look to any religious structure with human priests; rather, we focus on Jesus and His enduring work on the cross.
And rather than depend on our genealogy as being the basis of our acceptance before God or religious observance in endless regulations, we depend on the righteousness of Christ as a gift.
We hear the phrase It is finished on the cross (John 19:30), and we know it has eternal ramifications. We know that we have died with Christ and have been raised up with Him in newness of life (Romans 6:4-5). That is an irreversible reaction. Just as Jesus Christ cannot die again, in the same way we have come from death to life (John 5:24).
Jesus outlined this when he said that neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem would we worship the Father (John 4:21-24). He was talking about the new relationship He would initiate through his broken body for those who believe, for those he calls true worshippers. He said the worship that registers with God is the worship in spirit and truth.
And Christ is the truth (John 14:6), and He has poured out the Spirit as an ongoing connection between us and God. By His Spirit, God himself connects with us.
Christ did not hang on the cross on His own behalf, but on ours, to inaugurate a new way to God (Hebrews 10:19-20), opening the door to a new relationship with God.
But it is difficult to wean people from the old ways of doing things. And even after preaching the truth to the church in Galatia, he said some people want to bring them back to bondage, away from the glorious liberty of the children of God (Galatians 5:1, Romans 8:21). Paul was doing everything in his power to make Judaism, or whatever it offers, unappealing.
He shows there is a difference in how we should connect with God before and after the death and resurrection of Christ.
Christ also laid down the groundwork for this by saying this to the Pharisee.
You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life. (John 5:39-40)
The point Paul was making is that things changed because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is now raised up to the right hand of the Father.
And whatever was in the Old Testament scriptures as means and ways of connecting with God
is just a picture being painted by God of Christ (Colossians 2:16-17),
so that it can be a means of preaching Christ and His finished works,
moving our faith (which is not true faith since it is about things we can touch or taste in the Old Testament precepts) from what is seen to what is not seen.
facilitated by the Holy Spirit, who does the work of regeneration in us (Titus 3:5-6).
Whatever was physical in the old is now spiritual in the new.
And even in matters of moral code, Paul rarely appeals to the Old Testament. He listed issues relating to sexual immorality, etc. Even though they are reflected in Old Testament writing, he does not just say, “Do it because the Old Testament says so”; he brings forth a new revelation based on new life in Christ.
For example, he frowns against sexual immorality because we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. That reasoning is not available to anyone who is not in Christ, regardless of how much you have read/memorized the Old Testament (1 Corinthians 6:18-20).
And even when it comes to telling the truth one to another, his appeal is to our oneness in Christ, which again has no meaning under the Old Testament (Ephesians 4:25).
The New Testament, the bible says, is founded on better promises, through which we draw near to God (Hebrews 7:19), with complete assurance generated by the Spirit, something we cannot lay claim to in the old.
From Addiction to Freedom by Favour Oyinloye
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The Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® https://netbible.com copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved
