And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant. He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
Genesis 17:9-14, NKJV
As we continue our series on the life and mission of Jesus, and as we work to understand Jesus’ statement that He came to “fulfill” the Law, we will now move to the second major statute (חקה - chuqqah) that we came across in Abraham’s story. While this is the second statute we will study (of three), it could be argued that it is the preeminent one. And for good reason – this statute was given Abraham directly by the Lord, and it represented Abraham’s sole requirement of the covenant. This is the statute of circumcision.
For many, circumcision is a very strange concept. First, it represents a practice that to some seems a little barbaric. Cutting any part of the body for religious purposes seems to be out of character for a modern religion. The fact that the part of the body that is cut off is one that is considered personal and discreet easily enters into a controversial present-day mindset as well. This in mind, let’s take a look at the history and the religious symbolism behind this interesting statute.
History tells us (through ancient Egyptian tomb art) that circumcision significantly predates Abraham’s life. It was apparently a rite of passage into manhood, and was likely practiced roughly at the age of 13, as a son entered puberty. This being true, circumcision was probably not a foreign concept to Abraham. But the idea of circumcising an infant would have been very different, indeed. And yet, that is what the Lord decreed:
This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant.
This passage is the first mention of circumcision in the Scripture. Does it strike you as strange that this would be God’s one requirement of the covenant – that Abraham’s male children would be circumcised, during a time of their life when they have no choice in the matter? The decision is not made by them; they have no capability of making a decision! Their involvement in the action is strictly obligatory, and is mandated by the father! What, then could this statute mean? Why would it play such a pivotal role in the Abrahamic covenant?
Thankfully, the Scriptures answer this question for us. Let us take a look at some of the key passages related to the rite of circumcision. We will start with an obscure passage in Exodus that seems very strange and potentially doctrinally controversial:
And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn.”‘”
And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses’ feet, and said, “Surely you are a husband of blood to me!” So He let him go. Then she said, “You are a husband of blood!” — because of the circumcision.
The book of the Exodus 4:21-26, NKJV
Wow. What a difficult passage! First, the Lord God says that he will personally harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let the people go. There’s a lot of interesting doctrine here as it relates to free will. Next, we see the Lord seeking to kill Moses. This is one verse that I have never personally come to grips with. There are so many challenges wrapped up in this tiny sentence! Did the Lord truly try to kill Moses? After having given Moses His direction regarding Pharaoh and the Egyptian people? How did Zipporah know that circumcision would appease the Lord? Why did God not simply tell Moses that he needed to circumcise his son? Why did Moses, an Israelite, not obey this important statute already? There are so many questions here! However; one thing is quite clear – the circumcision of Moses’ son was of utmost importance to God! It was important enough to threaten the life of the one chosen to lead God’s very people out of bondage in Egypt! Circumcision is an exceedingly important statute. Why would this be? Is it simply the removal of a piece of unnecessary flesh from the body? Let’s go back to the early days of the Law and of the nation of Israel to explore these questions.
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it. The Lord delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.
Deuteronomy 10:12-18, NKJV
Do you see the connection? In this passage, we begin to see the foundational and symbolic aspect of this statute. It is not necessarily the flesh of the physical foreskin that God is as concerned about as it is the flesh of the heart. God requires a heart of kindness in His people. In fact, Moses continues, with the following:
“Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.”
Deuteronomy 10:19-22, NKJV
Why does God require His people to maintain a heart of charity and kindness toward others? Because that is His heart as well. He reminds us that we (and specifically His people, Israel) have been strangers ourselves, so we need to remember the difficulties associated with living among people different from us – people that may not have our best interests at heart. And in remembering, we must treat others with the kindness that we ourselves desire. Let’s examine a few more passages that will continue to expand on this idea of a circumcised heart.
“Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
Deuteronomy 30:1-6, NKJV
“Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,
And take away the foreskins of your hearts,
You men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
Lest My fury come forth like fire,
And burn so that no one can quench it,
Because of the evil of your doings.”Jeremiah 4:4, NKJV
For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.
Paul’s letter to the Romans, 2:25-29, NKJV
Is outward circumcision, then, still important to the Jew and to the believer in Christ? I challenge you to study and reason this out for yourself. Beside the above passages (especially the last one), there are several passages in the New Testament that speak directly to this question. But the more important question is this: “If the key is to become circumcised in the heart, how does one do that?” In fact, there is a related question that lies underneath this one: “If physical circumcision was mandated to take place at 8 days, why so young, and what is the spiritual heart correlation to this?” Let’s take a look at a specific passage from one of Paul’s letters that can shed some light on these questions.
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
Paul’s letter to the Colossians, 2:8-15, NKJV
Did you see it? This is a difficult passage; but the underlying message is critically important: circumcision of the heart comes not from us, but from God. This circumcision, made without hands, comes alongside our relationship with Christ, and through faith in God’s work. But it is God that does the work, producing the circumcision. We are simply not capable to accomplish it on our own. We were once dead in our trespasses, but have now been made alive with Christ in His resurrection. Our heart’s circumcision is the sign of that transformation! But did you catch the answer to our second and related question? It is actually inherent in the first…
Physical circumcision was mandated for boys eight days of age. At this age, the infant is completely helpless. He can neither act, nor even will to act upon a mandated covenantal requirement. The Father must make the decision to take the action on the flesh of the child. It is thus with spiritual circumcision as well. It is only our heavenly Father that can cut away the “body of the sins of the flesh” from our heart. And it happens as soon as we are drawn into a saving relationship with Christ. Hallelujah! Praise be to God for the work of His hands!
And now, we must ask – did Jesus fulfill the circumcision? If He came to fulfill the entirety of the Law, what about this particular statute? We will answer this question from both the physical and the spiritual perspective. Physically, we are given the answer by Dr. Luke in his gospel:
And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.
The Gospel of Luke 2:21, NKJV
There is no question that Jesus fulfilled the act of circumcision, as a requirement of the old covenant. This, then leaves us with the spiritual question; did Jesus fulfill the circumcision of the heart? To answer this, we need to return to the meaning of the heart’s circumcision: a cutting away of the “body of the sins of the flesh” from our heart. But in order for something to be cut away, it must be there in the first place. In Jesus’ case, there was no sin. He had no “body of the sins of the flesh”.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
2 Corinthians 5:20-21 NKJV
And it is precisely this fact (that Jesus was sinless) that allows us to have our heart circumcised through Him:
But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
Hebrews 9:6-15, NKJV
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
Paul’s letter to the Colossians, 2:8-15, NKJV
It is, then, Jesus’ spotless death and resurrection that enables our own circumcision of the heart! Not only did Jesus fulfill the statute of circumcision, He also enabled us to meet this holy requirement!
Before leaving this important topic, let’s touch on one more interesting question: why did God mandate circumcision at exactly eight days? What is so important about that number?
In Scripture, the number eight is very important. It represents a new beginning. The eighth day starts a new week. Jesus was resurrected on the eighth day after being selected as our sacrificial lamb. A new beginning. What could be more true of a heart that has undergone a cutting away of the sinful flesh? We have indeed been given a new beginning in Christ through His circumcision! What a wonderful picture of redemption. Selah!
In our next session, we will further expand on the ultimate sacrifice given for our sins. Until then, may God richly bless your study of His Word!
YouJi