Beware the Legalists
2Cor 11:22,23 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.
The fact that these false teachers were Jews makes it likely that they were among the cult of the "circumcision" of which Paul wrote about in Galatians and confronted in Acts 15. These were those who said, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses." Acts 15:5 In Galatians 2:4 Paul says, "This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves." These were those who were trying to enslave the Corinthians to a legalistic gospel in which salvation is earned through rituals and obedience to regulations. (A false gospel which has been propagated by some denominations for thousands of years)
In confronting these false teachers here is one way God demonstrated his wisdom in sending a most unlikely man as an apostle to the Gentiles - namely a man of a highly Jewish background. To the Philippians he writes, "Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh-- though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." Php 3:2-9