Gal. 3:6-11; Acts 16:1-3, The Offence of the Cross

And finally, the last thing that happens when we seek to grow by law-keeping:

7.    5:11: the offense of the cross has ceased.  The offence or stumbling block of the cross exists in that the cross is against man’s pride and ambition, for man does not like to think that he needs salvation or that he cannot work for it (Vos, Everyman’s Bible Commentary).  Paul was regularly criticized for his “gospel of the grace of God.”  Why not say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come’? – as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say.  Their condemnation is just (Rom. 3:8).  When you tell someone they cannot earn justification before God by doing their best, the assumption is that what you do doesn’t matter at all: “You can just do what you want because, after all, it’s all of God’s grace.”  That, of course, is not true.  The point is that the ONLY way you can live the Christian life is by the principle of grace and by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

a.     Verse 11 indicates that someone was telling the Galatian believers that even Paul believed in the necessity of circumcision.  Why would they think that?  You may remember that when Timothy joined the team (Ac. 16:1-3), Paul had Timothy circumcised.  But the reason was not because Paul thought it necessary to the Christian life.  He did this because of love for people.  He did not want any unnecessary stumbling blocks to keep Jews from coming to Christ.  This principle is in 1 Cor. 9:20: To those that are under the law I become like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so as to win those under the law.  Paul said in Gal. 3:6: In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything (cf. Gal. 6:15).  In a trip to Jerusalem, he had pointed out that not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised (Gal. 2:3).

b.    Now what we just said is that Paul wanted no unnecessary stumbling blocks.  What this passage says is that the gospel of the grace of God (the message of the cross) involves a necessary stumbling block.  In 1 Cor. 1:23 Paul said: We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.  Greeks resist the gospel because it makes no sense; to them coming to God always requires work.  Jews stumble at the thought of the Messiah dying, even though they know the OT predicted a suffering Savior.  During our times in Israel we learned that both Jews and Muslims resisted this.  However, there is no good news without the cross.  Therefore, it is an offence that cannot be removed.  In many churches today we see, it seems, the attempt to remove this stumbling block by making the gospel more pleasant.  Some deny propitiation, the idea that Jesus took the wrath of His Father, in our place, on the cross.  But without propitiation there is no good news!  We need to be like Paul and actually boast in the cross (Gal. 6:14).