The Savior's words addressed to the Pharisees and teachers of the Torah, who in those days were usually called "scribes," may seem too harsh, just as they seemed to some of His listeners. But the question was too serious, and...
The Savior's words addressed to the Pharisees and teachers of the Torah, who in those days were usually called "scribes," may seem too harsh, just as they seemed to some of His listeners. But the question was too serious, and things had to be called by their proper names. The accusations are serious: in essence, Jesus reproaches both the religious leadership of the Synagogue of that time (the Pharisees) and the outstanding teachers of the Torah for not observing themselves what they call others to observe. A strange accusation, it would seem: after all, in the Gospels it is precisely the Pharisees and teachers of the Torah who are shown as zealots for the Torah; they are the ones who constantly reproach Jesus for violating one or another of its prescriptions. But Jesus clearly identifies the problem: external religiosity devoid of spiritual content. This very religiosity became the main problem of synagogue spiritual life in the Gospel era. Many Pharisees adhered to such religiosity, and many teachers of the Torah taught it to the people.
There was, of course, an alternative, but only a few represented it. The New Testament books have preserved the names of some of them for us: Nicodemus, Gamaliel... But they did not determine the general atmosphere of synagogue life at that time. And so it turned out that calls to spiritual life were accompanied by instruction in a life that was not so much spiritual as religious. People were taught not how to acquire inner wholeness and inner light (the very "clear eye" of which Jesus speaks), but how to observe ritual prescriptions. Of course, these prescriptions also did not appear for no reason, and behind them stands a certain spiritual experience that gave rise to them; but by that time the experience had already been forgotten, while the prescriptions remained.
And now the people are offered a life of religiosity alone, without spiritual content; prescriptions without communion with God. Meanwhile, the teachers themselves feel like masters of the Torah: after all, they are the ones who comment on it and interpret it; people come to them for advice; it is their authority in the eyes of ordinary people that is unquestioned.
Not all of them, of course, were like this, but there were enough of them for a vast number of people to become locked inside a circle of formal religiosity with no possibility of leaving it. And every free word from God, any breath of God's Spirit in this environment, is perceived as something unnecessary and even dangerous: it undermines the monopoly of teachers and interpreters over the Torah, and therefore over spiritual life. It is no accident that Jesus tells those who build monuments to the ancient prophets that they are no better than their fathers, who killed those same prophets. They have no need of living spiritual life, just as their fathers had no need of it. And that means they have no need of the Kingdom either.
5
5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty - From the ceremonial law.Wherewith Christ hath made us - And all believers, free; and be not entangled again with the yoke of legal bondage.
5:2 If ye be circumcised - And seek to be justified thereby.Christ - The Christian institution. Will profit you nothing - For you hereby disclaim Christ, and all the blessings which are through faith in him.
5:3 I testify to every man - Every gentile. That is circumcised - He thereby makes himself a debtor - Obliges.
5:4 Therefore Christ is become of no effect to you - Who seek to be justified by the law. Ye are fallen from grace - Ye renounce the new covenant. Ye disclaim the benefit of this gracious dispensation.
5:5 For we - Who believe in Christ, Who are under the gospel dispensation. Through the Spirit - Without any of those carnal ordinances.Wait for - in sure confidence of attaining. The hope of righteousness - The righteousness we hope for, and full reward of it. This righteousnesswe receive of God through faith; and by faith we shall obtain the reward.
5:6 For in Christ Jesus - According to the institution which he hath established, according to the tenor of the Christian covenant.Neither circumcision - With the most punctual observance of the law.Nor uncircumcision - With the most exact heathen morality.Availeth anything - Toward present justification or eternal salvation.But faith - Alone; even that faith which worketh by love - All inward and outward holiness.