Who were the Judaizers

(Appendix “A” from Essay #7)

KINDLE VERSION

Throughout the essays of this work there has been a constant reference to a group of Christians known as the Judaizers. While that term never appears in the biblical text, it has been adopted by Bible students to describe early Christians who sought to maintain the “Jewishness” of the church.[1]

Primarily, this work has characterized their influence by their desire to bind the act of circumcision on every Christian. Paul uses the word “circumcision” 61 times in his writings.[2] Thirty-nine of those references are found in the letters of Galatians and Romans. His summary of the impact of one’s succumbing to this Judaistic influence is expressed in Galatians 5:1-2:

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

For Paul, there was no room for compromise or tolerance. The choice was between his gospel received by revelation from Jesus or a false gospel that made Christ’s of no benefit and removed the child of God from the fellowship of God:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:6-9)

His attention on this doctrine was no passing commentary. Defeating its influence was central to his missions among the Gentiles (Galatians 2:7) and his refutation of it permeates the letters of Galatians and Romans.

Yet, in order to understand the importance of freeing the church from the doctrine of circumcision, one must appreciate the overall desire of the Judaizers. They were not focused on just the ritual of circumcision. That physical act was only a gateway they intended to use to bring the whole church under the bondage and corruption that had existed in Judaism. In the verses quoted above (Galatians 5:1-2), Paul expresses this insight by affirming that the doctrine of circumcision constituted a “yoke of slavery.” If the Judazier simply wanted people to be circumcised, once the act was completed, the work of the Judaizer was completed. For the newly circumcised saint, there would be no lingering yoke to be worn. What Paul understood is that once a saint was compelled to be circumcised, the work of the Judaizer in that saint’s life had just begun. For the Judaizer, circumcision was not just about circumcision. Through it they sought to bring the whole church under the regulations of their understanding of the Law of Moses.

It cannot be fully understood just how insidious the work of the Judaizer was until one appreciates from whence he came. The “father in spirit” to the Judaizer did not originate inside of Christianity. It did not even originate from Judaism as a whole. The Judaizer had a particular sect of Judaism in his spiritual ancestry. Acts 15:1 contains the first references in the Bible to the Judaizer’s demands that Gentiles be circumcised: “But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’” Acts 15:5 provides this commentary on the origins of that doctrine: “But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.’” The Bible then attributes the rise of Judaistic teaching in the church to converted Pharisees. To submit to circumcision placed an early Christian directly under the influence of the spiritual children of the Pharisees who had so strongly opposed Jesus in his earthly ministry.

Those converted Pharisees may have been forced to acknowledge the fact that Jesus was the Messiah, but that acknowledgment did not change the way in which they approached the law of God in their lives. When one compares the words of Jesus about the Pharisees to Paul’s words about the Judaizers in the early church, the similarity becomes unmistakable.

A Desire for Prominence

Both parties wanted to be in positions of power. Jesus denounced the Pharisees for this desire: “Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces” (Luke 11:43). And again in Matthew 23:5-7:

They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. (Matthew 23:5-7)

Paul encountered the same mentality in his opposition to the Judaizers. Their work sought to diminish Paul and exalt themselves to the position of the apostles:

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. I have been a fool! You forced me to it, for I ought to have been commended by you. For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. (2 Corinthians 12:10-12)

He found the same self-aggrandizing attitude present in Galatia. Concerning the motivations of those seeking to bind circumcision on the saints, he said, “It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ” (Galatians 6:12). Their desire was to compel as many as they could to follow them so as to enlarge their party, rise to prominence, and avoid the persecution that Paul was experiencing.

The same self-serving spirit characterized the Pharisees and their seed, the Judaizers.

Focus on the External

Both parties also had a fixation on the keeping of physical ordinances as signs of great spirituality. This theme appears repeatedly in Jesus’ discussion with the Pharisees. The list of the Pharisees’ areas of focus on the externality of religion is long:

1. They refused to be in the company of sinners and tax collectors (Matthew 9:11).
2. They had strict requirements concerning fasting (Matthew 9:14).
3. They had created regulations about the Sabbath (Matthew 12:2).
4. They required ceremonial hand-washing before eating (Matthew 15:1-2).
5. Their clothing was used as an emblem of their spirituality (Matthew 23:5).
6. Precise tithing was a matter of pride for them (Matthew 23:23).
7. They required that every plate and cup be ceremonially clean before eating from it (Matthew 23:25).
8. They built and maintained monuments to the prophets (Matthew 23:29).
9. They had a great love for money and equated wealth with righteousness (Luke 16:13-14).

Paul’s own summary of this party of which he was a part was that it was the strictest sect among the Jews (Acts 26:5).

That mentality remained powerful in the early church. In warning the Galatians about returning to the ordinances of Judaism and being entangled in them again, Paul wrote:

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! (Galatians 4:9-10)

His concern for them is that they were beginning to fall back into the observance of special days and seasons. The influence pulling them into that burdensome way of life was the teaching of the Jewish religion among them (Galatians 4:21). Paul refers to this pull back into the regulations of Judaism, as turning back to the worthless “elementary principles of the world.” He draws the same connection in his epistle to the Colossians:

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations. (Colossians 2:20)

In Christ, the early saints had left behind the rudiments of the world they knew before. They were supposed to leave behind those elementary kinds of teaching. The author of Hebrews makes the argument in this manner: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,” (Hebrews 5:12).

There existed a teaching among the early church which sought to pull humanity back into the clutches of an external religion based on a precise following of these elementary, basic principles of the Law of Moses. So to the Colossians, Paul expressed his confusion with their actions by asking “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world . . . do you submit to regulations?” Special attention should be paid to the regulations that were being enforced upon the Colossians:

Therefore let no one 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)

He continued:

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—”Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.  (Colossians 2:20-23)

The regulations being forced upon the Colossian church were about what food and drink could be eaten, about the keeping of Sabbaths and festivals, and on-going requirements about what could be handled, tasted, and touched.

Many commentators have turned to Greek and pagan religions in seeking an answer as to the source of these teachings. While it is certain that asceticism had its presence in the world of that time, these items are wholly consistent with a Pharisaical approach to the ordinances of the Old Testament law. The similarity between Paul’s warnings in Galatians and Colossians with the gospel accounts’ descriptions of the teachings of the Pharisees is too strong to be overlooked.

Further, in Paul’s mind the danger facing these saints is a danger that is “again” in its nature. They had been freed from this elemental teaching. These elements of the world were the shadow of the substance to come in Christ (Colossians 2:17). The teaching of these elements that existed in the churches to whom Paul wrote expressed itself in a desire to submit to the Law of Moses (Galatians 4:21-31).

While Greek religions undoubtedly had an impact on early Christian thinking, the organized system of teaching that was afflicting the church was Jewish in its origins.[3] Consistently, Paul frames the work of the Judaizers as the path of bondage and slavery in the church. Consider that thought expressed in 2 Corinthians 11. In that context Paul states that he and his message freed the Corinthians and did not place a burden upon the church, yet the church was in danger of rejecting it. In contrast the “super-apostles” of the Judaizers did burden the Corinthians and the Corinthians accepted and praised them for it:

Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God’s gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. . . in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles . . .  Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast. For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. (2 Corinthians 11:7-20)

The doctrine of the Pharisees and its emphasis on submitting to the external ordinances to define salvation did not die at the cross. It was alive and thriving in the early church through the work of the Judaizers.

A Desire to Enslave and Control

Ultimately, the goal of both the Pharisees and the Judaizers was the same. Both sought to use God’s law as a vehicle to enslave men. The passage just referenced in 2 Corinthians states that the work of the Judaizers was to makes slaves, take advantage, and devour the Corinthians. Peter exposed the same desire of the Judaizers’ doctrine at the Jerusalem council: “Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” (Acts 15:10). As noted already , Paul knew the doctrine of the Judaizers was an attempt to bring the church under a “yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1-2). Jesus made this statement about the Pharisees: “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger” (Matthew 23:4). Both parties wanted control of the lives of God’s people.

Perhaps even more telling is that both parties used exclusion as the method to manipulate people into wanting to be a part of their party.  The Pharisees are said to have taken up position in “the seat of Moses” (Matthew 23:2). They controlled access to the synagogues and used their control to coerce people through fear of expulsion to follow their whims (John 9:16-22). So full was their control of the people that Jesus accused them of having closed the kingdom of God among the people: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in” (Matthew 23:13).

The Judaizers were not far behind in their control of the churches they infiltrated. In Galatians 4:17 Paul laid the same charge upon them as Jesus did on the Pharisees: “They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” (Galatians 4:17).

Both groups used humiliation, shame, and guilt to exclude people from their group for the purpose of appearing as the ones who held the secret of salvation. They promised freedom, but in reality only had corruption and bondage to offer in return (2 Peter 2:19).

Hypocrisy

Not surprisingly, the Pharisees and their spiritual offspring in the church both failed to live up to the requirements they placed upon others. Jesus straightly charged that the “leaven of Pharisees” was “hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1). No less than eight times in Matthew 23, Jesus denounces them as hypocrites. In that context Jesus states this of their actions:

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. (Matthew 23:2-4)

Paul makes the same accusation against the Judaizers:

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.  (Galatians 6:12-13)

Neither the path of the Pharisee nor the path of the Judaizer could be followed. No man was ever going to be able to bear the burden their understanding of keeping God’s law would place upon him. Peter’s words to the Jerusalem council were true. The way of the Pharisee should have been left to die in Judaism: “Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” (Acts 15:10). Unfortunately, it was not.

Conclusion

While this divergence from the work of the Holy Spirit into a discussion of the Judaizers may appear to be unnecessary, it is not. The Judaizers were not just emphasizing a single point of Judaistic doctrine (circumcision). They were representatives of a much broader mindset. It was a mindset founded in the external, and ultimately if not eradicated, it would lead to the failure of God’s people and their enslavement in the same bondage that corrupted the Law of Moses taught by the Pharisees. If the Judaizers were allowed to overrun the church, the church of Christ as He intended it to be would have been obscured as badly as was the glory of the nation of Israel so often throughout its history.

Understanding who the Judaizers were and their connection back to the Pharisees (Acts 15:5) is going to provide great insight into Paul’s use of the word “spirit” in Galatians, Romans, and the rest of his epistles.

[1] The concept of forcing others to “live like Jews” is found in Galatians 2:14. The Greek has the word “ioudaizo” to express this concept.

[2] This count is taken from the ESV and includes all forms of the word including “uncircumcision.”

[3] The argument of this section is not that the elements of the world in Paul’s writings are exclusively Jewish. Galatians 4:8-9 states that the Galatians served those elements in a time when they did not know God. The point is that there exists in man a desire to gauge his life against a rudimentary or elementary way of thinking. He wants measureable standards by which he can determine the success/failure of his actions. . That mindset existed among the Gentiles and it existed among the Jews. The suggestion being made here is that it was among the Pharisees that this elementary way of thinking existed most prominently. As those Pharisees came into the church, they brought that mindset with them and became the Judaizers who so afflicted the ministry of Paul. It then became the case that Gentiles were being brought into the church and under the influence of the Pharisaical mindset. It is likely that many of the Greeks were already influenced by the asceticism of their world-view and so they found the Pharisaical approach to God’s law both familiar and comforting. That dynamic would explain why so many Greeks would be willing be “enslaved” by Jewish teachings and why many according to Paul were desirous of being under the law. So while the “elemental” approach was not exclusively Jewish, in the first-century church the advocates of that approach were herding people to the ordinances of Judaism. It is in reference to that influence in the church that Paul applies the phraseology in question.