“I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. 11 Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. 12 As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5 v 10-12)
We use hyperbole all the time.
We could eat a horse we are that hungry. Has anyone tried to do that?
Today I have a million things to do. Have we actually counted?
My bags weigh a tonne. Did we weigh them?
I am spinning plates. Do we actually do that?
I could sleep forever. Is that death?
Exaggerated statements.
Gouge out the eye if you are lusting. Remember who said that?
And today, here is my favourite, ‘chop it off’. Look at verse 12 again.
Go on a search engine and read through articles on the word Galli or Cybele. You will see that the Roman goddess Cybele, the mother of all the gods, was well-known at the time of Paul’s generation. Her priests were called ‘galli’ and they devoted themselves to Cybele by castrating themselves and wearing the clothes and jewellery of Roman women. Interestingly the word can also mean Galatians!
So when Paul says he wishes that these false teachers would do more than remove the foreskin everyone is aware of his exaggerated use set in the context of their Roman world.
It was a strong use of vocabulary. It was shocking. But it was very clever.
Paul used shocking words because:-
a) the work and words of the false teachers was shocking;
b) cutting off the reproduction organs means there will not be another generation rising up with this disturbing message that performance leads to acceptance by God.
c) no matter how much we work at trying to get the approval of God, whether we make the cut of the foreskin or we cut more, we can never do enough to earn the love of God because we already are loved;
d) the violation of the body mirrors the violation of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
e) to cut off means they will be cut off from the church (Deuteronomy 23:1) and that’s where they should be.
Maybe Paul wasn’t exaggerating. Maybe he wasn’t using hyperbole. Maybe he was really serious. If so it only reveals exactly how important the cross of Christ and the power of the gospel was to him.
Missions Paul 