Gal 5:7-12 | TNotes | STEP | 5:7 The life of faith is like running a race (cp. 1 Cor 9:24-27 ; Phil 3:13-14 ; 2 Tim 4:7-8 ). The law became a hindrance to the Galatians in this race rather than a help (cp. Luke 11:52 ).

5:7 ^a The life of faith is like running a race (cp. 1 Cor 9:24-27 ^b; Phil 3:13-14 ^c; 2 Tim 4:7-8 ^d). The law became a hindrance to the Galatians in this race rather than a help (cp. Luke 11:52 ^e).
5:8 ^f The Galatians thought that their commitment to the law would please God, but God wasn’t calling them to this slavery. God called them to freedom.
5:9 ^g This verse was apparently a well-known adage (literally A little yeast makes the whole loaf rise; cp. Matt 13:33 ^h; 16:6 ⁱ, 11-12 ^j; 1 Cor 5:6-7 ^k). A little reliance on the law for acceptance by God soon results in forgetting that Christ saves by his work alone.
5:10 ^l that person, whoever he is: Perhaps Paul did not know who the false teachers were, or perhaps he meant that their credentials were unimportant (cp. 2:6 ^m).

• confusing you: The false teaching distorted the Good News, so Paul wrote to clear up their thinking.
5:11 ⁿ if I were still preaching: This statement probably refers to Paul’s preaching as an ardent zealot of Judaism before his conversion to Christ (1:13-14 ^o; Acts 7:58–8:3 ^p). As a Christian, Paul had never preached that Gentiles must be circumcised.

• why am I still being persecuted? If Paul had been preaching a law-based religion, the zealous Jews would not have been persecuting him wherever he went. They found the rejection of the necessity of their laws to be scandalous (cp. Rom 9:33 ^q; 1 Cor 1:23 ^r).
5:12 ^s mutilate themselves (literally cut themselves off; cp. Phil 3:2 ^t): Paul uses biting sarcasm and wordplay with multiple levels of meaning: (1) Paul might be alluding to pagan priests in the province of Galatia who castrated themselves in devotion to pagan gods. An insistence on circumcision for Christians is essentially no different. It involved cutting the flesh to become acceptable to God by physical deeds rather than by faith in Christ. (2) Depending on circumcision mutilated the false teachers’ standing before God, so they might as well mutilate themselves physically. (3) In the old covenant, emasculated men were not allowed to enter the congregation (Deut 23:1 ^u); similarly, those who rely on circumcision have no place in the new covenant community. Paul probably wished that the Judaizers would cut themselves off by removing themselves from the community.