"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play…it is war minus the shooting."
Paul’s ‘Cutting’ Remarks about a Race
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Paul’s ‘Cutting’ Remarks about a Race: Galatians 5:1-12,Carl E. DeVries in
Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation; Studies in Honor of Merrill C. Tenney, Presented by His Former Students, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing , 1975
The object of this paper is to investigate the meaning of a word [cut], employed by Paul in Gal 5:7 and to point out a possible clever play on words on the part of the Apostle in Gal 5:1-12.
The article is a quite technical exegesis as the following example paragraphs show.
“Though a person is not saved by keeping and observing precepts, life, like a race, is patterned after certain rules, which cannot be broken except at the cost of disqualification and the loss of an award. Sometimes the rules of an athletic contest are stringently interpreted, and even an Olympic medallist may be deprived of his award. At other times the breaking of a rule is not noticed or the rule is not enforced. Such is not the case in the Christian life, for the Lord knows everything and will mete out judgment that is fair and not susceptible to question or cavil”.
“The Galatians had been “cut in” on by those who in a religious-physical sense demanded that all male converts to Christianity should also be “cut around,” circumcised, in conformity with Judaic practice. In contending with the Judaizers Paul concludes his argument with a ‘cutting’ remark. In vs. 12 he thunders, ‘I wish that all of those who upset you would mutilate themselves.’”
“In this context, however, where Paul speaks much of circumcision, it is more likely that by his use of ‘cut off’ (5:12), he is expressing a wish that the trouble-makers not stop with a mere cutting away of their prepuce, or foreskin, but that they would carry the operation further and cut off the whole of their male organ!”
Note: A person so mutilated would be cut off from Jewish community.
“The ‘cutting in’ of the foot race, the ‘cutting around’ of circumcision, and the ‘cutting off’ of mutilation (with a possible allusion to a practice in honor of a false deity) are combined by Paul in this vivid and telling argumentation against false doctrine in the’ Galatian churches. Set for the defense of the gospel, Paul sought to strongly impress his followers with the necessity for maintaining purity of doctrine and holiness of living”.