Gal 6:15   Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.

     

We have, in the last few days, been referring to our lives as new creations a number of times. Sadly, even today, many people are not even aware that we are new creations and do not know the things we have been speaking about. Instead, for them, the Christian life is simply carrying out a number of rituals, and in that respect little has changed over two thousand years.

 

Paul's biggest problem that he was having to deal with in respect of the Galatians, is that they had fallen back to a life built on ritual and not on faith. Circumcision was a part of the Jewish life ever since Abraham, and it was a sign of being a Jewish male. It was a ritual to be performed eight days after birth, or when a foreigner converted to Judaism. For the Jewish Christians in Galatia they only felt secure when they had reinstated this particular ritual.

 

No, says Paul, it has nothing to do with whether you have been circumcised or not. The Christian life is not about keeping rituals or performing outward religious acts. It is all about being a new creation, who has been born again as a result of responding to the finished work of Christ on the Cross, and being given a new empowered life by the coming of the Holy Spirit. That's what counts! So going to church, praying daily, reading the Bible etc. are all good but they are extras, not the things that determine whether you are a Christian. It's whether you are born again – a new creation!