Disspelling False Understanding of Galatians 5:1-6 and Romans 14:5-6

Galatians 5:1-6

"1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. 4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love."

Many Christians use verse 1 as a reason why we no longer should observe the Sabbath or God ordained Holy Days. However, that depends how you view the Sabbath and God’s Holy Days. Christians, for the most part, come together on Sunday, not out of a commandment, but out of reverence for the Lord. Those of us who truly have the Holy Spirit, we want to be there, and we are told in Hebrews not to neglect assembling together.  

But if we desire to meet together with like-minded believers on Sunday, why not meet on the day God created for us to spend time with Him? Let’s face it, the Sabbath was an integral part of creation week; if the Sabbath is the day God created to assemble His children, why would we follow the edicts of man, or more directly, the edicts of the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church that was heavily influenced by the Roman Emperors, particularly, Emperor Constantine.  

It was Constantine who legalized Christianity after he reunited a divided Roman Empire. He then instructed Christian leaders to hold the First Council of Nicaea. One of Constantine’s orders that he wanted ironed out with this council was a consensus of the Passover/Easter debate, better known as the Quartodeciman Controversy, as well as the divinity of Christ.

The consensus was in favor of the observance of Sunday or Resurrection Day over the observance of the Passover. The Quartodeciman Controversy was a disagreement between the eastern churches led by Polycarp, and the western Roman churches led by Bishop Anicetus. Polycarp who preached following the customs of the Apostles, was adamant about observing the Passover, while Anicetus and the Roman Church observed Sunday, Resurrection Day, which eventually became known as Easter. For more on the pagan rituals of Easter, click here.

In reality what he was doing was ordering the new legalized Christian religion to conform with the pagan Roman practices of Sunday worship, which most, if not all of the Roman churches were doing already anyway. And it’s this day where we get the name for the first day of the week, “Dies Solis,” or translated as, “Day of the Sun.” It was the day the pagan’s worshiped the sun god. The rabbit hole for the pagan worship of this day goes very deep.

But getting back to the example of Paul’s reference in Galatians 5:1. I sincerely agree with Paul. Although he is not necessarily speaking of the Sabbath itself, it certainly is implied. And we should not observe the Sabbath based on the stringent Pharisaical law, we should observe the Sabbath out of reverence to God because of what the Sabbath meant to God from the creation and that He made the day Holy and especially for us. Even Jesus confirmed this when He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

There is nowhere in scripture where God changed the day to Sunday; only a misinterpretation of what Paul meant when he said, “do not be entangled again with a yoke in bondage.” He never does mention the Sabbath; what he was speaking of was the law. But people who have been conditioned by the worldly view or man’s corrupted version of Christianity are the ones who infuse the Sabbath observance into Paul’s statement. 

Those who do, seem to forget what Acts 17:1-2 says about Paul, “1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures.” Yes, it was Paul’s custom to be in the synagogue on the Sabbath.

But he goes on to say, in Galatians 5, that if a man is circumcised, he has no part in Christ. Well, I’m circumcised, as well as many other Christian men, does that mean we are all lost and have no hope? No, not at all. I don’t know of any man who circumcised themselves because of the biblical law.  We were circumcised because the medical industry decided it was better for sanitary reasons; and because the medical industry said that, everyone just went along with it.

Paul is talking about using circumcision as a sign of being God’s chosen. Yes, that was a sign under the Old Covenant, but under the New Covenant, it is a physical aspect of the law that is no longer necessary. When accepting Jesus as your Savior, you are being circumcised in your heart.

Although Jeremiah was still under the Old Covenant, God spoke through Him as a prophet and gave us an indication that one day a physical circumcision will not be necessary, but a spiritual circumcision of the heart would become necessary. We read in Jeremiah 4:4, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts.”

Paul confirms this in Romans 2:28-29, “28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.” The “letter” Paul is referring to is the “letter” of the law.

Even though there may have been a more sinister reason. Maybe Satan assumed what Paul said was the case, and it was his way of having all babies circumcised thinking they would be lost to God forever. But that clearly isn’t the case. God does not impute the penalty of the law, when the law is not known (Romans 5:13). Besides, it will only become law again if you perform circumcision as a sign of belonging to God. If you do, you will be responsible for upholding a law the is virtually impossible for a man to uphold. 

I believe Paul’s statement in Ephesians 2:11-13, sums it up, “11 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— 12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Paul goes on to say in verses 14-15, “14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, 15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, 16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. 17 And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. 18 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”

To me, verse 15 says it all. It wasn’t the commandments that were abolished, but the ordinances contained within the commandments. Circumcision was an ordinance, it wasn’t a commandment. The Sabbath, on the other-hand, was and still is the Fourth Commandment and has not been abolished!

Most of Christianity has gone along with man’s version of what they believe Christianity is supposed to observe. We don’t observe the Sabbath or any of God’s Holy Days, but we observe days like Christmas, that clearly was not Christ’s birthday, but was a very pagan holiday season dedicated to pagan gods that Christians just accepted. We will say things like, “It may have been pagan before, but we Christianized it and made it ours.” Really? Did we Christianize it or did Christianity become paganized? Let’s read what God says about this in Deuteronomy 12:2-3:

“2 You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place. 4 You shall not worship the Lord your God with such things.”

God makes it clear here that He wants nothing to do with anything that is pagan. And that hasn’t changed with the advent of the New Covenant under Christ. Rather than taking it and making it our own, maybe we should listen to what God is telling us and focus on what God wants us to observe.

This includes Sunday worship. There is nothing wrong with worshiping on Sunday, unless of course, we are denying God’s true Sabbath and taking it upon ourselves to make Sunday God’s day; the same day that the Sun God (Dies Solis) is worshiped.

The same goes for Easter. The early church was very divided by the observance of Easter and Passover. Once again the Roman Church, which eventually became the Roman Catholic Church, with the backing of the Roman government, indoctrinated Christians to believe that Resurrection Day was the day Christians should worship, when the Passover was clearly the picture of Christ as the Sacrificial Lamb.  

Resurrection Day certainly is a day to commemorate and even celebrate, but what man did to that day is combined it with an ancient goddess who was a Roman fertility goddess and whose name was the basis for calling Resurrection Day, Easter. You can also incorporate the sun god in the Easter observance, because the pagan worship revolves around the Spring Solstice and the fertility goddess. 

Also, all the traditions of Easter, the Easter bunny, Easter eggs, all stem from pagan rituals and traditions regarding both the sun and the fertility goddess. Yet, it was the Passover that God said was Holy, and the day Christ died on the cross for you and I, and said just before He died, “It is finished!”

In Leviticus 23:9-14 we have the Hebrew Holy Day of The Feast of First Fruits. This day falls three days after the Passover, and clearly was a foreshadow to the Hebrew people of the resurrection of Messiah, Jesus Christ. So again, the day is a day to celebrate, but not in the way that it is celebrated today with all the pagan symbolism I mentioned above. And all the while neglecting the observance of Passover.  

And interestingly, The Feast of First Fruits, although it is listed as a Holy Day in Leviticus 23:9, God does not command us to gathering together in a holy convocation on that day. The Passover is a day God instructs us to come together in a holy convocation. That alone should tell us which day God views as the more important day. Passover is the day He had to turn His back on His Son while the Christ took all of our sins and afflictions upon Himself while nailed to a wooden cross.  

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul writes, "Therefore do not let anyone pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ" (Colossians 2:16-17).  

This passage suggests that Paul views Jewish customs, including Sabbath-keeping, as a shadow of the things to come and that the substance belongs to Christ, thus indicating that those things do not bring about salvation. And that is true, they don’t.

Romans 14:5-6

In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes, "One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God" (Romans 14:5-6).  

This is probably the most used passage when someone defends the tradition of Sunday worship. But rarely, if ever, do they start in verse 1 which reads, “Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things.” This statement by Paul needs to be included to get the full context to what Paul is saying.

I’ve highlighted the first part because it explains what Paul means when it comes to foods to eat and days to observe. Remember, many converted Christians, particularly in Rome, were coming from pagan religions with pagan traditions. It is human nature to subconsciously hold on to those traditions and not want to let go, particularly when friends and loved ones still hold to those traditions.

What Paul is basically saying here by calling them “weak in faith,” is that we should let the Holy Spirit lead them to the truth. Again, it is human nature when someone is being force fed something they are not accustomed to, and they  reject it. When Paul went to Athens and found a statute to an unknown god. Rather than offend those who worshiped those god’s, including the unknown god, and tell them those god’s are false god’s, Paul said I am here to tell you about this unknown God!

It’s the same with those who refrain from certain foods because of traditions. Paul is saying not to push them to a point where they walk away offended. It’s better to allow them some space to acclimate to their new faith and let the Holy Spirit work with them to show them the way. 

We can see this in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 where Paul says, “1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; 3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

I came from a Catholic background, and when God began working on me and showing me truth, I found it difficult to give up things that were tradition in a family in which I was the only one being called to this truth. I persevered, but it wasn’t a smooth transition.  

When you begin to run against the devil and not with him, as we do when we just go along with the world, you begin to bump into him, and some of those bumps hurt and cause division with family and friends. I am thankful that God gave me the strength to persevere. Although there were times I did hesitate and held on to some of those traditions so not to hurt family.

If I were forced to acclimate immediately or not be accepted, I doubt very much I’d be here today. It took time but I grew in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:8). I’ve been told in the past that once receiving the Holy Spirit, we have all knowledge and the power of Christ at our disposal. This is either a lie from the devil or Peter didn’t know what he was talking about when he said, “...but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

In conclusion, we must be real careful when we are quoting scripture to make a doctrinal point. We need to examine the context around it, and even other scripture that may lend context to it. By not doing our due diligence in properly understanding a scriptural reference, we can be doing the work of the devil and not even realize it.