Enemies of the Cross of Christ

18For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.

Paul describes these false teachers who he mentioned in verse 2. He mentions four things about them.

1. They live as enemies of the Cross of Christ.
These Jewish teachers cannot comprehend the truth that their Messiah was crucified and thereby cursed by the Mosaic Law. The cross is their great stumbling block. Therefore they deny the very Work that Christ came to do. And by denying his atoning work and blaspheming his messianic signs they continue the rejection of Christ. They are enemies of the Cross of Christ.

2. Their destiny is destruction
The ultimate destination of these religious men is the destruction of the Lake of fire. How sad. No wonder Paul weeps. He says they devote themselves to religion, They try to keep the 313 commandments of the Mitzah, They have great missionary zeal, but they are found to be like Paul before his conversion an enemy of Christ. Stephen said of these men, ‘You do always resist the Holy Spirit’. There doom is certain if they continue. Yet Paul is an example of how God, resists the proud and brings judgment (blindness) in order to save them.

3. Their god is their stomach
These men are men of the flesh. They are absorbed with the thinks of the flesh and seek in like to gratify the fleshly appetites. They are gross.

4. Their glory is in their shame.
The very thing that they glory in is the very thing they should be ashamed of. What did they glory in? A number of things. Circumcision for one. This glorious symbol of the Mosaic Law has become symbolic of a return to Judaism and therefore apostasy. They also glory in their law keeping yet it is the very thing that should bring to them conviction of sin and poverty of spirit. They glory in Sabbath observance without realising that Christ is now the Sabbath of his people and that by keeping this ‘queen of commandments’ they deny Him. They very things that they glory in are the things they should be ashamed of.

Steve