Gal 6:12 "only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ"?

[iskander]

One thing that has confused me (or one of the many things!) is Gal 6:12. I've given it and the following passages below (NKJV):

Gal 6:12 As many as desire to make a good showing in the flesh, these would compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.
13 For not even those who are circumcised keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.
14 But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.

I take the "they" in 6:12 to be Jewish Christians rather than Jews generally, and so the people doing the persecution here are the Jewish leaders. So is this passage saying that the Jewish Christians (presumably James' group) wanted Gentile Christians to be circumcised, because if the Gentile Christians were circumcised, then the Jewish Christians wouldn't be persecuted?

But if that is so, why does Paul write "that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ"?

To put it another way, Paul seems to be saying: Jewish Christians will not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ if the Gentile Christians are circumcised. "For the cross of Christ" seems to me to be "the message of Christ dying on the cross." If that is correct, then as long as Christians were circumcised and presumably followed other Jewish laws, the Jewish leaders had no problems with Christians, even though they were preaching a Risen Jesus Christ.

Is that a fair reading on what is going on there? Any thoughts?

Circumcision in the first century was ( remains) very, very important for some .
Genesis
17:13 [All slaves,] both houseborn and purchased with your money must be circumcised. This shall be My covenant in your flesh, an eternal covenant.
Himol yimol yelid beytcha umiknat kaspecha vehayetah vriti bivesarchem liverit olam
http://bible.ort.org/books/torahd5.asp? ... &portion=3

Paul seem to be saying the agitators demand circumcision as the necessary condition for membership of the eternal covenant . The followers of Jesus will not suffer if they are circumcised because God ( and his mortal servants) will keep his side of the covenant. The uncircumcised cannot become Israel and will remain unprotected ( or even punished) by God ( and his mortal servants).

Paul says that it is not necessary to cut the flesh because they are already circumcised in the heart , --Deut 10: 16.You shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart, therefore, and be no more stiffnecked.

The death of Jesus was all that humanity needed to be admitted to the presence of God

the mark of covenant upon them
Said R Levi, ‘In the age to come Abraham will sit at the gate of Gehenna [hell], and he will not permit a circumcised Israelite to go down there. Then what will he do for those who sinned too much? He will remove the foreskin from infants who died before they were circumcised and will place it over [Israelite sinners] and then lower them into Gehenna.[1]
Abraham as the Great (Un)Circumciser

A Surprising Midrashic Portrait of Abraham

Malka Z. Simkovich


http://thetorah.com/abraham-circumcision/