NOTES for Gal 5:2
In his letter to the church of Galatia, Paul speaks quite decisively about circumcision: whoever is circumcised has no benefit from Christ. At first glance such a statement may seem plainly absurd, since among Christians in those days the circumcised were almost the majority, and Paul himself was among them. Clearly the issue is not the fact of circumcision itself. Judging by the context of the letter, it is not hard to see that the issue is recent pagans who were being circumcised after becoming Christians. And that was quite another matter: for them circumcision became a kind of obligatory religious rite without which one cannot enter the Church or become a Christian.
At least, that is what those who urged newly converted Christians to be circumcised claimed. Paul could not accept this at all. The issue here is not a position or theological opinions, but the apostle's experience. He knew too well that no religion and no efforts undertaken within religious frameworks lead, in the final sense, to anything. Paul, when he was still Shaul, had done everything he could to reach the ideal and become what was then called a living Torah. He strove to follow the Torah completely sincerely and in all fullness, and he suffered complete defeat.
Only the meeting with the Risen One on the Damascus road saved him from spiritual collapse. And now he hears assertions from people sure that relations with Christ are not enough for salvation, that they must necessarily be supplemented by circumcision, otherwise nothing will come of it. And this despite the fact that even in the Torah circumcision is called only a "sign of the covenant." Not the meaning of that union-covenant, and not even some foundational condition, but only a sign.
Of course, rejection of the sign of the covenant concluded with God is no virtue. But to place salvation in the sign? For Paul this was simply absurd. Yet he understood: for some, this is really so. And such a state of affairs means only one thing: people trust their religiosity more than Christ. Here one cannot count on Christ's help and intervention. One can, being a religious person, seek and find Christ.
One can even build a relationship with Him while remaining, though not too much, a religious person. But to find Christ and then go looking for some other religion supposedly indispensable means simply not understanding whom one has met. For a Christian, relationships with Christ are by definition valuable in themselves, necessary and sufficient; they require no additions or "supplements." If a person does not understand this, then he is not yet quite a Christian. Or not a Christian at all.