God sent Paul to announce the Good News to Gentiles (Acts 9:15; Galatians 1:16). Unbelieving Jews always opposed Paul’s message. (Who likes to hear that their careful construction is “rubbish”?) But the worst attack came from within. Some Jewish Christians began to teach Gentiles, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). Believers who were still Pharisees led this group (Acts 15:5). Because they made so much of circumcision, they became known as “the Circumcision Party” (Galatians 2:12; Titus 1:10; Ephesians 2:11).
Christ did not command fleshly circumcision. It was never part of His saving Gospel. Indeed, these Jewish Christians were blatantly returning to the law of Moses. They were making its legal work a condition for salvation. They were rebuilding the kind of “rubbish” Paul had left behind! Not only that, they were also taking with them the non-Jews, who had never been under Moses’ law. If humans could save themselves by keeping such laws, then there was no need for Christ to die (Galatians 2:21).