Making Impact

“I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5:12, ESV)

Well, it is in the Bible so we need to discuss it.

When I was in the army, we went on a field exercise in Bavaria. One of my jobs as the Battalion Maintenance Officer was to follow the convoy with my maintenance team and repair anything that broke down during a road march. Along the way, we came across one of Alpha Company’s jeeps stalled on the side of the road. I stopped and the jeep’s operator had no clue what was wrong. As we were diagnosing the problem the jeep suddenly started. They took off, but a little further down the road they broke down again. We repeated this scene several times before arriving at the maneuver area.

My Motor Sargent investigated and discovered that the jeep had a clogged gas strainer in the gas tank. He found that someone had washed their paint brush from painting the jeep in its gas tank. The paint clogged up fuel strainer in the tank. The comment that came to mind was this, “Jeeps are not designed to run on paint.” Of course, this statement was an exaggeration to make a point.

Often, we communicate things using hyperbole, which refers to extravagant exaggeration in order to make a serious point. I believe that is why Paul wrote these concluding words regarding the Judaizers teaching regarding circumcision. It was to bring a strong memorable point to the Galatians.

“I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5:12, ESV)

The Greek rendering of this phrase is quite graphic. The verb translated as “emasculate themselves,” is apokopto, literally means to amputate, to mutilate, to cut off (Strong G609).

When I read this statement in the context of biblical times several thoughts come to mind. While we do not know for certain, the Galatians may have considered these same things.

First, many pagan worship practices involved bodily mutilation, that is cutting one’s self as a form of devotion to their god. With this association, we realize that circumcision is not wrong in itself, but that just as the rituals of pagan religion, such as self-mutilation, were empty without any spiritual effectiveness, circumcision did nothing to gain God’s approval.

Similarly, in certain pagan religious practices the priests would practice castration as a form of self-devotion to their god. This is the hyperbole of Paul’s writing here. The NIV amplifies the verse to capture Paul’s intent stating, “I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.” The second thought is that if circumcision made them approved by God, then going further to castration would have gained them even greater approval. Yet this practice would accomplish nothing except to prevent them from being able to reproduce human life.

The third thought is that by going the whole way to castration, one cannot physically reproduce life. Thus, the Judaizers going the whole way represented metaphorically that they would be unable to reproduce their false doctrine in the lives of others.

While we do not understand what principles the Galatians may have understood from this particular statement, we do know this. The Galatians who read this verse would have understood Paul’s heart’s intensity in confronting the Judaizers false teaching. It is likely a picture they would not forget. They would not forget that our justification, our salvation, does not come by works of the flesh. Our approval before God is a work of His grace through faith in Christ alone.