II. Wherein the evil of it consisted — 1. It was a recurrence to the law — [So the Apostle interprets it : "As many of you as are justified by the law." This shews, that the Apostle viewed the act as performed in order to their justification before God : and such was really their end in performing it. There were many who insisted upon it as still obligatory upon all : and maintained, that " except men were circumcised, they could not be savede." And it was St. Paul's firm oppo- sition to this tenet that so greatly incensed the Jews against him. If he would have yielded to them in this one particular, they would have laid aside their hostility against him, and have left him at liberty to make as many converts as he could. But " he would not give place, no, not for an hour ; that the truth of the Gospel might be kept inviolate." And to those who wished to represent him as still favouring their sentiments, he appealed: " If I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution ? Then is the offence of the cross ceased h." Viewing, then, this rite as a recurrence to the law for salvation, he declared to every person who submitted to it, that he " be- came a debtor to do the whole law :" for if the law was obligatory in one part, it was in all : and, if they looked for salvation by obedience to any law whatever, whether ceremonial or moral, they must go back to the covenant of works altogether, and stand or fall by that. But this would be to involve themselves in inevitable and eternal ruin ; since " it was written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them :" and, consequently, in going back to the law, they must bring down all its curses upon their souls. This, then, was one reason why it was wrong to practise circumcision in the way they did.]
2. It was a renunciation of the Gospel —
[All who had been baptized into the faith of Christ had professed to accept salvation as the free gift of God for Christ's sake. But, in going back to circumcision, and insisting upon that as necessary to salvation, they did, in fact, declare that they considered the work of Christ as incomplete, and as insuf- ficient for their salvation, without this work of the law super- added to it. All therefore who had imbibed this error were "fallen from the grace" of the Gospel altogether. They thought, indeed, to combine the law with the Gospel ; but this was impossible. Salvation must be wholly of the one or the other : works and grace, as foundations of hope before God, were absolutely contrary to, and inconsistent with, each other :
s Acts xv. 1 . h ver. 1 1 .