THEOLOGY: Through Christ All Men Are Circumcised
The Son of God embodies the Abrahamic covenant for all
God told Abraham that the covenant of circumcision would be everlasting, and Christ is the fulfillment thereof.
That covenant comprised a promise of blessing from God and a commitment to obedience from Abraham, which included the circumcision of every male of eight days or older. The terms of the covenant also stated that it would persist for eternity.
“God said to Abraham, ‘As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. … So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.’”
Genesis 17:9-11, 13b-14 ESV
These words of the Lord served to confirm and modify what He had said previously, that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” through Abraham. Whereas God formerly revealed the purpose of His promise, He now revealed to Abraham the process of keeping it.
Because of God’s warning, all the males of Abraham’s offspring were circumcised through the days of Joseph and Mary, who in turn took their firstborn, Jesus, to Jerusalem to be circumcised according to the Law of the covenant, and Jesus later chose as apostles of his ministry 12 men of Israel who were themselves circumcised according to the Law.
For the entirety of Jesus’s life of flesh and blood, God’s blessing to the nations was through His covenant with Abraham, but Jesus, as both the Son of God and the offspring of Abraham, established upon his death a new covenant of blessing to the nations. Jesus describes this new covenant, saying,
“God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
And of the keeping of this new covenant Jesus says, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Just as God’s covenant with Abraham was instituted with blood, so too was this new one with Christ and his disciples. However, Christ confirmed the new covenant with his own blood a] to redeem all who sinned by taking their punishment upon himself and b] to ensure that it could never be broken or altered, since Christ had the authority to take his life up again and thereby make an end of death.
But, if man can keep the new covenant by placing their faith in the sacrifice of the sinless Son of God as the payment for their sins, how then is God’s covenant of circumcision with Abraham an everlasting one?
Early Christians tried to answer that question by adding the requirement of circumcision onto the promise of the cross. Luke, a companion of the Apostle Paul, reports, “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.’”
Paul had much to say on that subject in his letters to Christians in different regions,
“For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.”
And again,
“Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”
Paul affirms that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is wholly sufficient to redeem mankind from our sin and reunite us with God, and to add any further requirements for salvation is to reject Christ.
The tension between the old and new covenants is nothing more than an illusion when one considers that those who follow Christ have died with him, and it is now Christ who lives in them, transferring his righteousness to them. Paul tells all Christians, “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Those who partake of the new covenant have no sin in the eyes of God—Jesus crucified it with himself on the cross—and God has appointed them to comprise Christ’s very body, perfect and without blemish, circumcised according to the old covenant. Paul affirms, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.”
Because Christ defeated death and lives eternally at the right hand of the Father, and because Christ has bestowed his own life and body upon those who believe in him, he guarantees that the blessing of God to all families of the earth through the circumcision of Abraham’s offspring will indeed stand as an eternal covenant.
In this manner, God grafted other nations into the nation of Israel, Abraham’s offspring, that not only would He bless all families through Abraham, but that He would join all families to the family of Abraham. Paul says it thus,
“If some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.”
That is to say, the new covenant in Christ’s blood resulted in the exclusion of some Jews and the addition of some Gentiles, and that does not mean that one group is superior to the other but that both groups, which comprise the whole plant, are equally subject to God’s will, which is the root.
Through Christ, then, his disciples in the new covenant can count Abraham as their father just as the Jews do, since we are no longer our own but temples for Christ to inhabit. Therefore, let us live in the power of Christ and follow his instructions,
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
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